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?