From a Distance  John 1:29-34; I Cor. 1:1-3
 We were with Natsuko’s family in Japan on vacation several years back and I had a free day.  So I decided to do something I hadn’t done in years: climb, more like hike, up a mountain.   Mass transit took me to it’s midpoint, and above that I climbed railroad ties and then above the treeline it transitioned to well placed rocks, though not too steep.  Even though the crowd thinned the higher up, there were still a few hikers with me.  My calf muscles were aching a bit, but I was good.  This google picture seems too austere.
 The best part of the hike was enjoying the vista. Other peaks as you see here.  The cars streaming into the parking lot looked like ants.  The rice fields to my left.  The city with the train station to my right.  From a distance the sun-kissed world below looked peaceful, of one whole piece.  Is this how God sees the world?  Like Bette Midler’s song:
From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed.
From a distance you look like my friend, even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for.
And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, God is watching. God is watching us from a distance.
So on Christian Unity Sunday and MLKing weekend how do we deal with difference?
 
The gospel passage talks about that intended to bring us together, the Spirit’s baptism.  Yet from the very beginning we notice great differences in the church’s teaching on the Spirit and baptism.  Fr. Joe and our Catholic cousins up on Rt. 22 see the Holy Spirit as being physically present in a baptism guaranteeing it’s effect.  We Reformed folk see the Spirit being spiritually present helping, but not guaranteeing, the parents and church keep their promises.  Our Pentecostal friends between St. Bernards and our church see the Spirit as being supernaturally present, not so ordinarily in the water but in extraordinary expressions of tongues and healing.  Philip Yancey tells us that the church has created 34,000 different denominations and sects the world over. We can’t even agree on baptism!  Much less to chronicle the wars that have been fought over it!
Theological differences.  There are also religious/social differences; particularly between Christians and Muslims in our world right now.  Tonight our churches will gain a greater understanding about Christian-Muslim relations in Darfur through the Dr. Barbara Cooper, an expert on the subject, at St. B’s from 7:30 PM.  Recently Rudy Guliani fired his veteran’s coalition co-chair in New Hampshire for saying things like:
Muslims need to be chased back to their caves…I don’t subscribe to the idea that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims.  They’re all Muslims.
How does God help us to deal with difference?
 We tend to look close (lift glasses).  We magnify the differences.  For the differences that we dislike we assign blame.  Last Sunday we baptized twins.  When I do a baptism I invite all the children to come forward and watch the baby baptized.  One of the twins had an obvious red birthmark right here.  The little boy who sat closest noticed it, stood up and pulled on the pantleg of the father saying, What’s wrong with your baby?
 
 But from God’s distance we notice more similarities than difference.  The epistle lesson addresses Paul’s entire letter to… both their LORD and ours.  And so among Christ-followers we assert that there is more that unites us than divides us!  And even between we Christians and Muslims we can say that we are all Abraham’s children.
Last Sunday we experienced a type of contemporary service and then gathered in this sanctuary to try to discern together God’s will on our worship service format. 
Does God want us to keep two, virtually identical blended services?
Or does our mission call us to have one service with more contemporary music and another with more traditional?
Guess what?  We didn’t agree.  But I was proud of how we spoke honestly and directly to the issues involved, especially given the emotional nature of music preferences.  But I was most proud of how at the very end we all joined hands for prayer.  There a traditional music lover; there a contemporary music lover.  Not two churches but one family in Jesus.  That’s the church at her best.  Able to see more similarity than difference to the point that we pray together.  Now pray for consistory to have wisdom in its decision.

Imagine a church that looks upon difference as God does…from a distance. 
Imagine a church that doesn’t see Protestant and Catholic but Christian.
 Imagine a church that recognizes each other’s baptism.
 Imagine a church that welcomes each other to the LORD’S table.
That’s the church that looks upon differences, like God, from a distance.  Amen.
 

Why Keep On Praying?  Unraveling the Mysteries      Luke 18:1-8

Why keep on praying?
One day a father had two agenda items for his sunny afternoon:
rake and parent his toddler–two things which don’t always go together.
So Dad was in the backyard with a rake and the toddler who watching the rake move-ments kept saying, I do!  I do!  I DO!  Then when Dad would pile the leaves in the wheel-barrow the child kept on, I go! I go!  I GO!  So how to have a meaningful afternoon with an eager toddler in a yard full of leaves?  Good thing Dad was off from work that day! 
So here’s what Dad did.  He got the baby rake out of the garage and the child’s red wagon.  Dad said, You help daddy with your rake and wagon!  Yeah, I help.  Me big help!  Actually the little rake was usually moving leaves away from Dad’s pile back into the cleanly swept yard.  Then instead of filling the wheelbarrow Dad filled the little red wagon and set Jr. on top for a ride to the firepit.  Wheee!  Mom took a picture to remem-ber the afternoon’s work/fun because it was great, though it took twice as long to get done.  Why would that be great?  Because a relationship was deepened and a task accomplished.  This is precisely why we keep on praying—because even though we get in God’s way, God wants to deepen our relationship while accomplishing the mission.

What pauses our prayer button?  At beginning and end Jesus seems to repeat the same answer: Jesus told them a parable…and not to lose heart…when the Son of Man comes, will he find on earth?  In short we could say, faith.  The child secure in the father’s love kept after the rake and the ride because he trusts daddy.
Sometimes our theology, particularly reformed theology, gets in the way.  God doesn’t want my help.  God will do what God will do whether I pray or not.  Such hyper Calvinism is like the father who says, No you don’t DO, you go inside with Mom! 
Yancey points out that keepin’ on prayer requires a certain type of faith.  
[Faith is] a form of engagement with God…
Like Yancey, I struggle with mountain moving faith, but I can surely stay engaged.
 The faith that keeps prayer moving may be like the cable that moves the cable cars in San Francisco.  No forward propulsion engine but just a cable underneath the street.  Faith is that which locks on to the cable and keeps on holding to move the cars up San Fran’s hills.  The Spirit’s power is that cable.  Without persistent prayer we fall back.
 
So why persevere in prayer?  Because God wants to accomplish God’s mission with us so that we feel the joy of being a BIG HELP!   In other words, in St. Augustine’s words: a person prays  “that he himself might be constructed, not that God may be instructed.”  You and I need more than anything else to be constructed in this way.
 If we persevere in prayer what happens?  Yancey tells the story of a tourist watch a devoted Jew rocking back and forth at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem.  The tourist asks What do you pray for?  For righteousness, peace in Jerusalem, health… The tourist replies are these prayers effective?  The Jew deadpans, It’s like talking to a wall.
 Yet something does happen.  Take the contemporary style service that we’re experiencing and the forum following this service.  We wouldn’t be at this point without persistent prayer.  In 2004 I was a firm proponent of our current service format.  Then the church set as one of its three priorities for the next 5 years to grow in evangelism.  I took that as a call from God to keep praying about how God might want us to reach out.  As I prayed I begin to think of some requests from NBRC members for a contemporary service.  As I prayed I began to investigate the worship services of growing churches around us.  And I came to the conclusion that some change was necessary.  Is this the right one?  Your prayer will help answer that but my prayer changed my view on things.
 Or let’s take a social issue.  In 1953 the East German communist government crushed a protest for freedom.  In 1989 Christians meeting in the church where Bach played organ began a series of candlelight prayer marches.  Soon 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, then a half million joined these candlelight prayer marches.  One night there were one million marching in Berlin until finally the Berlin wall splintered in pieces like I hold.

 So, why not experiment this week with the persistent prayer that changes things?  Pick an issue and pray it over and over until you change or it changes, Amen.
 
 
 

What is Prayer?  Keeping Company with God              Psalm 85 During Epiphany season we let God’s light warm our passion through a religious bestseller.  This year in sermon and small group we are studying Prayer by Philip Yancey.  Yancey begins his study of Prayer by asking what is prayer?  There was a young man who suspected an older man of living such a blessed life that the young man believed that here was a saint who must spend a lot of time on his knees.  So he decided to secretly follow him for a full day to see.  The young man peeked in when the older man awoke—no prayer.  He followed him to work darting behind trees—no prayer.  Surely he spends an hour praying at night, the young man thought.  But tip-toeing in the shadows of his house—no prayer.  So finally the young man tiptoed upstairs slid under the bed to time his bedtime prayer.  Must be at least an hour! He thought.  The older man opened the sheets, slid right in, turned off the light, and said,God, thank you for talking with me all day, Amen.Not that a set prayer time isn’t important, but that saint understood Yancey’s definition of prayer as keeping company with God.  You will learn how to keep God’scompany today! Yancey begins his book by looking at prayer from our perspective, and then from God’s perspective, so that we keep good company with each other. Prayer from our perspective begins with the Latin root of the word prayer:  precarius—precarious.  You can see this from our church Prayer Chain.  How many requests are we praise God for the beautiful day… for God’s infinite love?  No, they tend to be for the precarious situations of life: cancer, sickness, death.  As Thomas Merton said:  Prayer is an expression of who we are…  We are living incompleteness.  More Americans will pray than have sex this week; however, many of the prayers are foxhole prayers.  Foxhole prayers only involve God in trouble whereas keeping company allows God into our whole life in a real way.  That last part is important.  As I get acquainted with Mark Swart I find that I most appreciate his honesty.  He dares be so honest as to critique my sermons!  I like that because without honesty what do you have? So in keeping with the Psalms Yancey tells us to pray honestly.  He quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel we cannot make Him visible to us, but we can… p. 43  The psalmist chides God in 85:5: What?! Will you be angry with us forever!  This is very challenging for me because in the church we’re known for polite, positive prayers.  But most of the Bible’s prayers in the psalms are, to paraphrase Deborah Tannen, “ritual bitching;” i.e., lamenting the wrongs of life.  Do we dare be that honest with God? From God’s side, the God of Truth wants a real relationship with us.  When I visit a Shinto shrine you put your money in the offering box before you pray.  Apparently money gets the attention of the gods.  From God’s side prayer isn’t a transaction but a relationship.  And in this relationship God wants the real me.  God can handle that.  Recently I’ve prayed, God, how could someone do that to me! God listened lovingly.  That cooled my anger so that I was open to the Spirit’s whispered prompt, I wonder how they feel?  Till finally I found a fair way to handle it.  The real God engaged the real me.            Honesty to the God of truth is a major way that Yancey helps us keep company with God.  This week be real to God, and let God be real to you.  You’ll connect.          

God’s Advent Song: Good Christian Friends, Rejoice! Psalm 146:5-10 

Last Sunday between the time our Chancel Choir left the sanctuary from their practice for tonight’s concert, and the youth groups came to Christmas carol, shots rang out at a Colorado mega church.  By now you know that 24 year-old Matthew Murray was on a killing spree.  12 hours earlier he had knocked on the door of Youth With a Mission (YWAM) hoping to spend the night there.  When there was no room at the inn, he opened fire killing two young missionaries.  Fleeing that scene he showed up after Advent services at 10,000 member New Life Church with a high-powered rifle.  Entering the foyer he opened fire.  Then he went out to the parking lot and shot two teenage sisters.  About 7000 people were on the church’s campus at the time.  Ashley Gibbs was getting into a car with David Harris when they heard gunshots—“sounded like someone kicking ice from the side of a car,” she said.  David said that Matthew’s eyes looked dead serious.  Ashley and David stayed in the car and prayed.  Thank God that Jeanne, an armed security guard, helped put Matthew and the church out of their misery.  What a terrible tragedy in God’s house!  How could this happen in the bosom of the church?

What’s to prevent this from happening in our parking lot during the Christmas season?

To answer we must understand the killer’s profile, God’s profile and the church’s profile. 

My concept of the profile of a young serial killer is a bullied loner from a broken family. That is somewhat true.  Neighbors describe him as a loner who was very quiet and didn’t talk to anyone.  Matthew was home-schooled.  But his family didn’t seem to be broken.  Father a prominent M.D. in the community, and the family was very religious  Wouldn’t religion provide him comfort in his troubles?  Or were they extreme since one neighbor described them as “very, very religious?”  His pastor/uncle spoke on behalf of the family pleading for forgiveness.  We’re guessing that he was motivated by revenge because shortly after this 2002 picture was taken he was kicked out of YWAM for mental health reasons.  Since then he had been sending YWAM hate mail.  Last Sunday morning he posted this statement, copied from Columbine, on a website for anti-evangelicals: 

God, I can’t wait till I kill you people.  Feel no remorse…no shame.

I worry about kids who are taught a vengeful God.  I worry about the kid who sits alone on the bus and to whom no one will sit next in the lunchroom.  I worry about the kid who plays long hours on the computer alone, whose dad never remembers to visit.  Is it just me, or as a society are we breeding a lot of young serial killers lately?  Why?

But Matthew Murray was raised in the faith.  What was the profile of his God?  Somewhere in his religious upbringing he missed the God of the Advent song of Psalm 146.  Did his uncle never preach on the God of the Christmas Carol: Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!  Psalm 146 begins the series of the last five Hallelujah Psalms.  You can hear that theme in verse 5…  And then notice the list of people who can find help in the true understanding of the almighty…

What do you notice about this list of people?…

What does it say about God that the true God and father of Jesus helps these folk?… 

I think that what this says about God is that God is the God of the Christmas story: the almighty who stoops to be born in a barn. The infinite in diapers!  And so Psalm 146 tunes us to sing the praises of our God whose power is made perfect in weakness.  What if Matthew Murray had been taught about God’s power in weakness?

But God cannot just be taught from a pulpit, God must be embodied in human community!   As the Word became flesh, so we see Jesus in others.  What is the church’s profile?  I wonder if Matthew ever felt God’s love in church:

I wonder if anybody invited him on the youth group hayride?

I wonder if a teacher ever coaxed him out of the corner in Church School?

I wonder if a Deacon ever sat down with his parents to urge him into counseling?

As Christmas people we are not a cliquey, closed community, but cradling the Christchild makes us an open community.  We are a people of the open hand—to receive God’s grace to our weakness and to give God’s grace to both weak and strong.

So embodying that we praise God’s power to weakness not just by word this morning, but by deed.  After service we will talk to someone we don’t know before we look for our friends.  At coffee hour no one will be standing alone.  And, if we’re standing alone, we’ll go look for a Matthew.  At church school today we’ll invite the quiet kid to next Sunday night’s youth Xmas party.  Our small groups may decide to include a special needs person.  In the lunchroom tomorrow we will sit by someone who will not better our social status, but who will better our soul’s status.  And God is praised.

And as we grow into this body of Christ, this community of wounded healers, you know what we’ll find?  We’ll find gems, like Charlotte who though she may be hard of hearing, she can really listen.  And then we’ll find that God is not creating any Matthew Murray’s here, but God is creating a safe community where even Matthews are loved. 

God’s Advent Song of National Hope Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Every four years America stands at a crossroads. Leading up to November 4, 2008 we are approaching another fork. For the next 11 months we will watch Hillary and Guliani, Obama and Romney let their elbows fly. And fly they must because America has some tough problems to solve. Think of our national problems:

A troubled economy—the economy having forecasted 13 out of the last 15 elections;Exploding health care costs, Social Security for Boomers and beyond…

Then think of some of the international problems that America faces:

Climbing cost of Iraq War (now @ $500B), nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran & Pakistan—not to mention Pakistan’s instability, and Climate change. I don’t want to be an alarmist here, but where does the US church find hope in `08? The Hebrew people found hope in the song that the High Priest announced:Let us sing Psalm 72!As the trumpets sounded and harps strummed the introduction, the Levite choir gathered on the platform. With the choirmaster’s downbeat the choir began: Give the king your justice, Lord! The new king walked down the aisle in flowing robes for the enthronement ceremony. The worshipers’ chests swelled with hope that God would grant the new king wisdom to deal with their national problems and international enemies. Incense enveloped the congregation flowing heavenward to symbolize this prayer for a new start.

For what did the Hebrew people pray in this song of hope? 3 things:

vv. 1-2… justice for all—especially the underdog,vv. 3…prosperity for all–especially the poor, and,vv. 6-7…peace for all—especially creation.

I believe that this prayer can give hope today! Justice for all, especially the underdog reminds me of what I pray to happen in the Israeli Palestinian negotiations to reduce terrorism and bring peace. I don’t believe that God calls us to support only Israel. Pros-perity for all—especially the poor reminds me of what I pray for our fine state as it looks at the school funding formula. I pray we strike a balance between tax reduction and fun-ding poor districts. Peace for all, especially creation reminds me of what I pray Google can accomplish by their ambitious goal of making renewable energy as cheap as coal.

Was Israel’s prayer answered in such a way as to give hope? Yes and no. If you understand Psalm 72 to be written for Solomon’s coronation, like many scholars, then since Solomon’s reign was very prosperous: Yes. Yet, his construction projects, like the temple, put such a heavy tax burden on the people that the nation eventually split; so No.

Do prayers for justice, prosperity and peace have a hope of being answered today? Yes and no. Yes, I think that an increased emphasis on prayer from the church for the US will increase God’s reign of justice, peace and prosperity. As valuable as debating our friends over the most hopeful candidate might be, prayer to God is even more valuable. But let’s be realistic that no amount of prayer will help even the best candidate solve all of our problems this side of heaven. Our next leader may choose to ignore the SS mess.

How does prayer for justice, peace and prosperity give us hope if not completely answered? Though it won’t be 100% answered by these folk, it will be fully answered by Jesus when he returns. And that above all makes Psalm 72 an advent song of hope.

GOD’S ADVENT SONG: Joy to the World the Church is Here!Rarely is this said about organized religion today, but I Love the Church!  And, I Love This church!! With Bill Hybels I agree that the church is the hope of the world! 

Now I know that this isn’t an opinion shared by as many today.  What with televangelists raking in millions, not to feed the poor but to feed their luxury.  What with clergy scandals—both Protestant and Catholic.  And what with religious extremism fanning the flames of war, religion has a lot for which to repent.  So as a member of the clergy let me admit:  there is nothing worse than bad religion.  But hear also: there is nothing better than good religion.  If you agree that there is much more good religion than makes the news let’s investigate this morning:  what’s right with the church.The Psalmist sets the theme for chapter 122 in the verse 1.  Read it gladly with me…  Now some scholars believe that this happy song was sung by the pilgrims return-ing home from one of the three great feasts in Jerusalem.  During an eight-day festival like Passover the pilgrims would experience the grandeur of the city, the blessings of temple worship, great food and fun like Thanksgiving. A healthy break to the daily grind. In the same way participation in church has great healing benefits.  Take a look at this chart from the Director of the Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion and Health, Dr. Harold Koenig.
    

Wow!  To sum up the healthy effects of church: weekly worship attendance has the same health benefit as to quit smoking!!  (Now don’t attend church to smoke more…!)

What’s right with the church?  Not only does God bless your health through church, God blesses the community through you.  Church people are consistently among the most likely to volunteer in their communities.  Historically we know that many insti-tutions that we take for granted got their start through the church: hospitals, social service agencies, universities, etc.  The church is God’s means to heal people and communities.But the most important thing that’s right with the church is that it’s the house of God.  In the Old Testament the house of the Lord was the temple. In the gospels the temple was Jesus of whom we’ll read at Christmas, the word became flesh and [literally] tabernacled among us.  For God most closely lived among us in Jesus.  In the epistles the temple is the church about which the apostle Paul said you are the temple of the Holy Spirit!   Jesus lives with us and in us!  God shines out our soul’s windows.

Let me tell you how that works.  Norma Fausak is one of our members who is frequently in and out of the hospital, most often to get her heart in rhythm.  Last week before the procedure to scope out around her heart, whatever that’s called, Norma was talking with her doctors.  As each came to her bedside one by one she would say: Are you here to join my team?  Your team?  Yes, my team.  But you have to do one thing to be on my team.  What’s that? one by one they’d ask.  You have to be willing to ask the Great Physician to guide your hands.  One by one they’d smile… and join her team.  Shining out the cracked window of her soul was Christ’s light because she is the temple of God. That’s what’s right with the church, and why I love it and why I believe it is the hope of the world!  Will you love it with me?  Will you join my team?!  Amen.

That’s Random! Or, The Names of God: Sovereign Lord
Acts 4:23-31

That’s random! is a comment that I often hear among youth these days. It’s a fun, harmless comment that seems to translate into old peoples’ language as something like:

Now taken to it’s adult, logical extreme that’s random could lead us to believe that the heavenly throne is empty. 150 years ago Frederich Nietzche popularized the God is dead philosophy. By this he meant, not that God is laid out in a coffin, but that the idea of God can no longer order life and morality. Nietzche took life to be, well, random. Without a divine center life becomes meaningless. Nihilism, Neitzche called it. However, his own philosophy drove him mad so he spent much of the last 11 years of his life in the German version of Carrier Clinic, never recovering from a mental breakdown.

CHANGE. Trin, Trin, denkt daroom wat je doet! My grandmother heard Trin’s mother yell from across the road as Trin was about to enter Grandpa’s church. What did Trin need to think about before entering, not a bar but, the sanctuary? She needed to consider whether God would not toss a lightening bolt her way because she was entering an English service to sing hymns—rather than the inspired psalms that they sang in the afternoon Dutch service. Dutch psalms sounded like funeral dirges, Gram said. 75 years ago Grandpa weathered the last major worship music change from psalms to hymns.
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THE NAMES OF GOD: The Holy One of Israel
Ps. 71:22, 78:41, 89:18

As baby names have shifted over the years so have Gods names. In `52 my oldest brother was named, Jack Allen. Brother Jack named his son Matthew Peter. Pete, as he prefers to be called, just named his son, Grayson Noah. (I wasnt consulted.)

In those same 55 years we have gone from calling God holy to calling God love. Every Sunday 50 years ago we sang todays closing hymn: Holy, holy, holyto keep us morally pure. Today we tend to think that Gods love is so complete our beliefs or actions dont matter. So we tolerate everything, and judge nothing. All we need is love!

We see this in the areas of salvation, sex and violence. In salvation weve gone from worrying whether recent fire victims will get into heaven before a holy God to expecting a loving God to, per one Surveyor, send everyone to heaven except those who reject him. In sex weve gone from good boys/girls dont before a holy God to a casual love is sex before a loving God. In violence weve gone from a reluctance to enter World War II before a holy God to threatening Iran with World War III before a tolerant God.

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“The Box”
Luke 12:13-21

My Dad had just gotten out of jail.
He blew on the dice before he rolled them for good luck saying, St. James Place, baby, St. James Place. He let them go and landed right on it. Hey, hey! he exclaimed. For that was all that he needed to own the entire purple and orange sections of the board. Immediately he handed me just under $3K for houses and hotels on all six. As the banker I heaved a deep sigh, checked his money count, and he plopped a red hotel on St Charles, States Ave, Virginia Ave, St. James Place, Tennessee and New York Aves. I was doomed.

Ten year-old Todd was on the powder blue Connecticut Ave. If I rolled a 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, or 10, I was done. I would have to sell both of my hotels on Mediterranean and Baltic Aves. to pay my rent. My only hope was to land on Chance to get a card and somehow land in jail (which would only postpone my agony) or miraculously get to skip my race car over his line of six hotels to land on his Boardwalk where there was only one house at the moment for a rent of $200. I too, blew on the dice and landed on Chance! I picked up my card…and groaned. I was sent to the orange St. James Place—which cost me everything. Dad was, again, Master of the Board—I, his not so humble servant.
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“One More Thing,” or “The Whole Thing?”
Romans 12:1-8

It’s not very often that one sermon changes a whole life, but this one did. Today we are imagining that it is the 50th anniversary of this sermon. On September 30, 1957, right here, though the sanctuary looked different, a newlywed couple John and Joan sat in the back. But even from the distance of space and time, both have remembered the sermon, and one’s life was changed. As the Rev. Bob Henniges preached a sermon on this text John and Joan leaned forward in their pews. Pastor Henninges declared:

The motivation for service is the mercies of God. God has so loved the world that he created it, and sent his only son to redeem it. God’s mercies are infinite! John nodded. So before our blessing count tops 1000 we offer our lives as a thank you note.

The memory of service is the Old Testament sacrifices. Rev. Henninges went on to describe in vivid detail how the ancient Hebrew priests would arrange the bull, or goat, or ram on the altar, ignite it as a sacrifice to become a pleasing aroma to God. Bob read a new translation of Romans 12:1, read it with me… Joan’s eyebrow raised at the thought.

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