Encourage One Another

Encourage One Another

I’m supposed to be speaking this morning in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11—and I’m not going to neglect that passage—but the Gospel passage for today offers an important opportunity, and I’m going to take it.


Just as last week’s Gospel wasn’t really wasn’t about staying awake—all the virgins fell asleep, after all, and five were still let into the feast—so this week’s Gospel isn’t really about how we should invest our money (or ourselves) while waiting for God’s return.


The parable of the talents is one of our beloved texts; it’s been one of the big ones in Sunday Schools and central to many sermons. The problem is, we have a habit of putting Jesus or God into the parables as one of the characters even when ‘the shoe doesn’t fit,’ and (because we’re human and often think of ourselves first) we tend to put ourselves into them, too. In the parable of the talents, we tend to put Jesus in the role of the master and ourselves as the slaves. How many of us hope to enter the Kingdom hearing, “Well done, good and faithful servant! ... Enter thou into the joy of thy lord?”


Let’s take a look at the qualities of the individuals in this parable:

Matthew 25:14-30 (NRSV)
14-18 “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
19-21 “After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
22-23 “And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
24-25 “Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
26-27 “But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.’
28-30 ‘So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

In the context of the parable, a talent is a unit of money, not an ability; this parable is not about us being the best we can be.


The master is an absentee landlord who doesn’t do any work himself, but lives off the labor of his slaves. The profit he wants his slaves to gain him could, in Jesus’ culture, only come at the expense of more honest people. And he condemns the slave with one talent for refusing to bank it for interest (a practice called “usury,” consistently condemned both in the Hebrew bible and the New Testament).


Does that sound like Jesus to you?


Seen in this light, our customary understanding is a bit more “us” and a bit less “Jesus.” What was Jesus trying to tell his disciples, then, if not “Be like the slave given five talents, or Jesus will cast you into the outer darkness?”


Look at verse 28: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”


The master of the story (who I think we can agree is not Jesus) says, “The rich will get richer, and the poor will lose everything.” With this parable, Jesus suggests to his disciples (and to us) that we shouldn’t be like the master in the parable because the world in which people like that come out on top is passing away. Jesus will bring his work in the world to completion; God’s kingdom will come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and in that kingdom it won’t matter how wealthy you got to be in this world; all that will matter is, “... just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”


Put this parable together with the one before and the one after, and the message is clear: Don’t do what the master in the parable did—don’t live off the labor of others, don’t enrich yourself at others’ expense—and don’t be like any of the slaves, either. This parable isn’t about who we think it’s about—think about how unscrupulous (or lucky) a person would have to be to double an investment in a short time—it’s about the master to whom the wrong things matter. It’s about the passing of the age where what you have matters and the coming of the age where who you are matters. It’s about the coming of the kingdom.


On Facebook the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen various signs that articulate something very like this. To paraphrase: “Things are to be used and people are to be loved. When we get it backwards—when things are loved and people are used—is when we get into trouble.”


If today’s parable is about changing our priorities because the kingdom is coming, then why is our theme today, “Encourage One Another?”


Maybe because it’s difficult to set aside the values and virtues of secular culture and act on the values and virtues of the kingdom to come when the current kingdom—where what matters most are the things what we have and how we look and who we’re friends with—is so pervasive. Maybe because it’s difficult to wait for something when you don’t know how long you’ll have to wait. Even in the first century A.D., people had a hard time maintaining their preparation. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about just that.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 (The Message)
1-4 I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other—“We’ve got it made! Now we can take it easy!”—suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.
5-8 But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under the wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up on faith, love, and the hope of salvation.
9-11 God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.

Like us, the Thessalonians were surrounded by a secular culture focused on what we might call “temporalities”—the tangible ‘stuff’ that help determine things like social status, respectability, and political clout. Like us, they were under constant pressure to conform to that secular culture; to love things and use people, maybe. And like us, they didn’t know how long they had to wait. Many believed that the establishment of the new age—the age of the Kingdom of God—was imminent.


Paul reminded them that whether it was imminent or not, no one could know with certainty when the Kingdom would be established. Clearly, he knew that it was difficult to resist the pressure they were under to conform to what might be called “community standards.” And I think he knew that no one could go it alone. So he made them responsible for one another: “... speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind.”


No one left behind...


We are God’s children. That makes us ohana. “Ohana means ‘family.’ ‘Family’ means no one gets left behind.”


Encourage one another.

Dwell in Christ - Sermon Notes May 22, 2011

Sermon 20110522

Dwell in Christ

Well, here we are.


Take a look around… if Harold Camping was right, we are the ones who didn’t “make the cut.”
I’m not bringing this up to take a shot at Millennialists—each of us must come to our own terms with a world of God’s creation that sometimes seems downright wicked, and the concept of Rapture and Apocalypse are… appealing—but because today’s Scriptures talk about many rooms (or “mansions”).

John 14:1-4 (RSV)
¹ “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.
² In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way where I am going.”

When Jesus speaks of his Father’s house (which has many rooms, and where Jesus goes to prepare a place for us), we can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that it refers to Heaven. We customarily think of God as ‘dwelling’ in Heaven and hope to spend Eternity in God’s presence, so we think of Heaven as our destination. But let’s take a moment to think this through…


Does God really have a dwelling place, or are we putting an all-too-human face on Divinity? God (as we Christians typically understand Him) is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent: all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present. God is present in all places at once; He’s not (as some of my irreverent, non-believing friends describe him) a “sky-daddy.” He is immanent—present in and through each of us and all of creation.


There’s another way to understand what Jesus means when He talks about His Father’s house and the place He prepares for us. John has used “location” imagery symbolically to indicate “relationship,” in this case “the mutual indwelling of God and Jesus” immanently in and through us. Jesus is welcoming the disciples and the church into the deep communal relationship He enjoys with the Father; a relationship with room for all our diversity, and a relationship that both empowers us and places expectations upon us.


In many translations of this scripture—the Inspired Version, the King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version, among others—the phrasing attributed to Jesus lends itself to this understanding; Jesus doesn’t say, “I will come again and take you there,” but instead says, “I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

John 14:5-10 (RSV)

⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”
⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.”

⁹ ;Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

When Thomas and Philip don’t get what Jesus is saying, he makes it even clearer. Jesus is in the Father and the Father in Him. Therefore to be taken unto Jesus is to be taken unto the Father. We don’t have to go to heaven, either in the Rapture or after death, before we can dwell with God; God is with us wherever we are and if Jesus has taken us to Himself, then maybe the wag on NPR’s show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me had it right when he said, “Either we missed the cut or this is heaven.” 

In movies, people in love sometimes tell their beloveds something like “Heaven is when I’m with you.” Well, maybe for we who hope to follow God, heaven is when we’re with Him. And because God is immanent—omnipresent—we are always with him.

Psalm 139: 7-12 (RSV) 

⁷ Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, ¹⁰ even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,” ¹² even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee.

This is among my favorite passages from the Psalms. It assures me that I am not alone; that God is with me. It comforts me to know that I am never separated from God’s presence, and today it affirms for me that I don’t need or want a Rapture to take me into God’s presence; I am already in it. I already dwell in the place Jesus has prepared for me, as do we all. This is it!


But if that is so, what are the implications? What is expected of we who have been taken to Jesus? If it’s a relationship that both empowers us and puts responsibilities upon us, what are those responsibilities?

John 14:11-14 (RSV) 

¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. ¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. ¹³ Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; ¹⁴ if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

This one’s tricky. If we treat this section of our text trivially, we’re going to find ourselves thinking that Jesus’ name is a magic word, like “Abracadabra.” But I think we’re all clever enough to know that it isn’t enough to say “Jesus” when we seek to do great works; I think we all “get” that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name needs to be something that Jesus would do, for the same motives that drove Him. We can’t say, “Don’t write me a ticket, in Jesus’ name,” and expect that to work out.


When Jesus takes us to Himself, having prepared a place for us in Himself, He empowers us to do what he did. We are Kingdom-builders, and we can do that right where we are. And if we ever wonder what God cares about, all we have to do is look at what (and who) Jesus cared about in His life and ministry. Jesus touched the unclean, the pariah, the sinner; He asked forgiveness even for those who persecuted, tormented, and ultimately killed Him. Jesus loved the unclean, the pariah, the sinner; He loved even those who persecuted, tormented, and ultimately killed Him.


Go we and do likewise.


When Osama bin Laden was killed a couple of weeks ago, much of the Western world rejoiced, including many Christians. It was perhaps understandable—we are only human, after all, and the atrocities he dictated cut us deep—but was it Christ-like?


Well, maybe that’s too hard a question, so instead I’ll ask some others (no promise they’re any easier): “What do you think Jesus would do?” “What would have been the Kingdom-building option?” “What is our responsibility as residents of the house of the Lord (which is all creation)?”


If the Rapture ever comes, it will catch us unaware; “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” I hope that if the Rapture ever comes, it will also catch us about the business of building the Kingdom while dwelling with God and the Son, wherever we are… for there is God also.

Called by Your Name -- Sermon Notes May 15, 2011

Sermon 2011515

Called by Your Name

Psalm 23 (KJV) 

1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I remember family trips growing up in the Antelope Valley; when we were traveling through the desert on our way to the 15 Freeway, we’d sometimes see flocks of sheep grazing around a camping trailer.

To a suburban kid, the life of a shepherd looked like lonely but peaceful. I remember thinking that the worst thing about being a shepherd must be boredom; what did he or she do all day? I didn’t really know what it meant to be a shepherd; I lived in a suburban neighborhood and the closest I ever got to a sheep was Easter dinner.

Growing up, that’s the image that came to mind when I heard Psalm 23 or our theme scripture for today; a guy sitting outside a camping trailer—maybe reading a book or taking a nap—for hours and days on end, surrounded by his flock. Boring, maybe, but also easy work.

A shepherd’s life, of course, was far more complicated and far more trying than I imagined, and it turns out that at least some of the time, a shepherd isn’t a shepherd at all.

You see, in the Old Testament “shepherd” imagery typically indicated political leadership. A shepherd was a king. A good king—like a good shepherd—provided his subjects (the sheep) with food and drink, righteous leadership, security and comfort. In Psalm 23, King David describes the best King of all, God.

What does that mean in the context of today’s Gospel lesson?

John 10:1-10 (The Message) 

He Calls His Sheep by Name 

1-5 “Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he’s up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate. The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. They won’t follow a stranger’s voice but will scatter because they aren’t used to the sound of it.” 

6-10 Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good— sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

Shepherds didn’t have the easy life I imagined when I was a kid. They faced all the same dangers and difficulties as their sheep did. They were just as vulnerable as their charges: to weather, to human and animal predators, to the dangers of the landscape where their sheep grazed. They slept with their flocks at night when they slept at all; if predators were in the vicinity they didn’t sleep at night. They slept in the opening of the sheepfold, keeping the sheep in and the human and animal predators out. And despite their wealth of livestock, because they left their families alone and unprotected they were considered poor marriage prospects. Being a shepherd was hard.

That was the traditional model of a good king (or other political leader): one who knows his flock intimately, who leads them to good forage and safe haven, who stands in the gap to protect his sheep from those who would harm them.

And that’s the kind of life Jesus lives with and for us. Jesus journeys with the most vulnerable, and takes upon himself their vulnerability. Jesus knows what it’s like to be out in the cold. When he calls people to leave their homes and families—to become shepherds themselves—he knows what he’s asking; he’s done it himself. In fact, it’s this life that Jesus calls the abundant life (John 10:10 [KJV] “I am come that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”).

The Pharisees Jesus was talking to (see John 9) knew full well both the hardships that shepherds endured and the political implications of claiming to be a shepherd. Jesus continued:

John 10:11-20 (The Message) 

11-13 “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He’s only in it for the money. The sheep don’t matter to him. 

14-18 “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.” 

19-20 This kind of talk caused another split in the Jewish ranks. A lot of them were saying, “He’s crazy, a maniac—out of his head completely.”

Many of the Pharisees called Jesus crazy. And people will call you crazy if you truly follow where Jesus leads. But to quote Wilbur Turnblad (who I played on-stage for the last time last night), “You can’t worry about people calling you names. You know how many times I’ve been called crazy? But I say, ‘Yeah, crazy. Crazy like a loon!’”

Those who truly follow Jesus—His example, as opposed to what pundits and pastors say—will be called crazy. Jesus doesn’t play by the same rules our politicians, pundits, and profiteers do. He isn’t serving Himself, but rather the sheep of His pasture. It isn’t the kind of “practical” logic our world elevates; it’s God’s logic. It’s not “the greatest good for the greatest number” (and let the rest go hang); it’s the greatest good for each and every individual. None of us are social security numbers in God’s logic. Each of us is precious in our own right, and not just as part of a larger whole.

Jesus calls us by name. We are the sheep of his pasture. He knows us, and puts us before Himself. We matter to him. He kept the promise He made, to sacrifice Himself for us if necessary. It is our part as His sheep to know His voice and follow His lead, even if he leads us into “the valley of the shadow of death.”

It might be hard to follow Jesus, but He is Lord; all other candidates fall short. Bosses, politicians, parents, possessions, ego, causes; none of them stand in the gap for us the way Jesus does.

It might be hard to trust Jesus, but when we do we are freed: freed from the need to judge and divide, freed from anxiety about the future, freed from fear, freed to love all the other sheep of every fold.

Jesus calls you by name. He calls you to the abundant life; a life without assurances of worldly security but also a life in which we are freed from our own prejudices and pettiness.

Jesus calls you by name. Will you follow?