At the Crossroads-John

Sermon Matthew 26:36-46 April 2, 2017 5^th Sunday in Lent

At the Crossroads-John

We are at our final week of conversations with people we have met at the crossroads of their life. It has been an interesting journey learning about the different stages people have entered into their decisions to follow Jesus.

Today, we heard the Scripture read from the gospel of Matthew. In these final hours of the life of Jesus he goes once again to pray to his Father in heaven.

It is a most powerful scene.

The tension and the drama of Jesus caught in the struggle of obedience to continue movement toward the cross and his desire to remain on earth demonstrate the real struggle of the power of love.

Jesus shows the depth of his relationship with his disciples as he begs them

           to stay with him,

                     to watch with him,

                                 to remain with him.

Jesus hangs on to his love for them and their love for him.

The scene points to the essential need for relationship especially in dire times.

The Garden of Gethsemane is a place of choice.

It is a place where will and desire are put to the ultimate test.

The Garden is a place where what must be battles with what wants to be.

In the Garden of Eden in Genesis, human will for the ‘want to be’ was great

and it won over

       the will

           to remain with God,

                        to be with God,

                                to watch with God.

The Garden in Eden was the place where relationship and the fullness of life with God was lost.

We recognize sin

             as the willful disobedience of humanity.

Adam and Eve were fully aware and fully in control of their decision to disobey,

            no matter who they tried to blame.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Father brings around the restoration of God’s relationship to the people through the willful obedience of Jesus.

Jesus was fully in control of his decision as he reached the end of his prayers.

Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him as he moves further in the garden to pray. He keeps his closest companions with him. They fall asleep and Jesus wakes them begging them to support him in his efforts to reconcile himself with his fate.

Yet, the hour is late and they still fall asleep.

The human anxiety that Jesus faces because he is fully aware of what is about to happen, contrasts with the sleep of the disciples because they are not yet fully aware of what awaits Jesus. This points again to imperative of relationships of one with another.

It’s really hard to be supportive and present when we still can’t grasp the gravity of a situation.

I know as followers on this side of Easter we judge those disciples for not understanding Jesus and his predictions of his death.

But, I know when I want to deny the truth that is right before me because it brings me too much pain, I am like the disciples and I lack understanding even if the truth is staring me in the face.

We have all had those times.

We do not want to believe a diagnosis;

                                     or a termination notice;

                                                         or a break up, or…

We would rather crawl under the covers,

                                       fall asleep,

                                           turn the other way,

                                                   than witness the struggle before us.

John and his brother James were known as the sons of thunder. They were close to Jesus. These two and Peter are always at Jesus’ side. John is credited with the authorship of the gospel of John, Revelation and the letters that bear his name. John is also praised by the apostle Paul as one of the pillars of the Jerusalem church.

The fourth gospel is written in a way that it draws the reader into the stories as a participant. The prologue identifies the theology of the author. Jesus is more than his death on the cross. For the writer of the fourth gospel the power of God’s love for the world begins with the incarnation.

God’s love and desire for the restoration of creation begins with the birth of Jesus.

The importance of joy and light and life are prominent in this gospel.

In the life of Jesus, the first miracle that takes place is at the wedding of Cana. The abundance of wine demonstrates the abundance of all that God has for God’s people.

In the fourth gospel Jesus proclaims he is sent by the Father more than 100 times. It is essential for John to make clear that Jesus is the one who has completed what is needed for the salvation of the world.

Jesus is the great I AM.

He is the bread of life.

He is the living bread.

He is the light of the world.

He is good shepherd.

He is the resurrection and the life.

He is the way, the truth and the life.

In this fourth gospel, John has sought to clarify that the decisive measure of one’s relationship with God is one’s faith in Jesus. The coming of Jesus into the world is what has given the world access to the light and love of God.

In the fourth gospel, Jesus talks to his disciples about the power of God’s presence with them. He prepares them for the time when he will no longer be with them. He talks to them about the Holy Spirit.

He seeks to prepare them for the comfort of his presence through the presence of the Spirit to come. It is this Spirit that dwells with us at our crossroads of life. Jesus said. “Abide in me, as I abide in you.”

It is his invitation to us to allow the fullness of his presence always.

The Garden of Gethsemane was the place where we witnessed the restoration of God’s relationship with God’s people through the willful obedience of Jesus. Jesus went to the cross, he rose again, he fulfilled the promise of God.

Let us recognize the transforming power of God’s love in us. Let us say yes, to following Jesus. Amen.

Rich Man and Lazarus Parable series 1

Sermon Luke 16: 19-31 September 25, 2016 Parable series

Rich Man and Lazarus

The parables are an important part of knowing Jesus.

One thing that is crucial to our basic understanding of Jesus is that he was born, was taught and grew up in the era of the Second Temple.

He is most like the Pharisees in his theology and his framework of his message about God. And one third of his sayings that we have recorded in the gospels are in the form of parables!

Jesus did not invent the ability to teach through parables.

He used the technique of the rabbis by teaching through parables.

The parables explain human dependence upon God, they promote ethics and moral conduct. They bring people nearer to relating to one another and they bring a fresh awareness of God.”

David Flusser/Brad H. Young The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation.

The parables of Jesus seem to go a step further than the rabbinic parables by showing that sinners are equal with the righteous in the sight of God.

“The Gospel parables of Jesus are full of everyday ordinariness along with a God-consciousness.”

“They are a shadow of the substance.” …and “the image of God is the substance of the shadow.” Brad H. Young The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation.

One more word about parables and we will move into today’s challenge from Jesus.

Jesus’ parables are a form of Jewish haggadah and haggadah proclaims a powerful message that demands a decision.

In Jewish tradition and the tradition of Jesus, one who seeks to know God studies haggadah or the rabbinic parables; and in so doing will come to know the God who spoke the world into being. Brad H. Young The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation.

So we enter  the parable of Jesus regarding the rich man and Lazarus. And we are here to 1. discover a fresh awareness of God and 2. discover the decision that God demands from us.

This parable brings into question. “Who is our neighbor?”

 

We realize that the rich man lives his life completely oblivious to the presence of Lazarus at his doorstep. Lazarus, who begs for only the crumbs that fall from his table is ignored by the rich man.

Apathy rules.

Blindness prevails.

Lazarus on the other hand is fully aware of the rich man and lives in hope that he will be seen, that he will receive, even crumbs.

Both men died and were carried away.

Lazarus ended up with Abraham being comforted and the rich man ended up on the other side of the chasm in torment.

In death their roles are reversed; the comfortable is now afflicted and the afflicted has become comforted. In Matthew 25, Jesus mentions those who would choose to know him are fully aware of him in the face of others, “I am the one standing at your door knocking, the hungry, the thirsty, if you have given unto them, you have given unto me.”

Perhaps, then the sin of the rich man, was not his life of comfort, perhaps it had nothing at all to do with his wealth, perhaps the SIN of the rich man was his blindness. John Chrysostom. Perhaps, the rich man is in the place of torment because of his inability to ‘see’ his neighbor.  

Do we find our identity with either of these men?

I’m not sure too many of us have found ourselves sitting on the side of the road begging for food.

Perhaps, however, we have found ourselves in a position where it feels like everyone is stepping over us without noticing that we exist.

Have you ever sat in a room full of people and watched them talk to each other and talk around you?

Have you ever been in a place where you felt as though no one knew you or cared about you or recognized the circumstances that you were or are facing?

Perhaps, that is the Lazarus we can identify with, the Lazarus who is invisible to the world.

~~~

We can say we have become compassion weary due to the media and our modern way of transmitting news and incidents. But, I do not believe the media is to blame.

I believe compassion weariness is as old as humanity.  

If any of you go to another country where there is a great divide in the socioeconomic status, you will notice people begging on the streets. You will be approached by children tugging at your garments all seeking a coin or recognition that they exist and that they are in need. It can be a heartbreaking experience the first time it happens.

And then after that we are told by our guides to ignore, to not look those who beg in the eye, to keep walking as if they are not there.

These places don’t need media hype to know the suffering around them exists right up to their doorsteps just as it did in the times of Jesus.

The pain of all God’s people in need, our neighbors,

is that we ignore,

we do not look in the eye,

and we keep walking as if they do not exist.

And worse we do not give them a name.

We might not have people begging at the gates of our homes but we have people who are marginalized and in need all around us. We like the rich man might be blind to who we need to see. We like Lazarus might be suffering in obscurity and need for someone to notice us.

The challenge of this parable comes in the conversation of the rich man with Abraham.

His plight is that he wants to have a ‘do over’ on his life.

He wants to go back and fix how he treated the poor.

But Abraham in great sorrow doesn’t offer a ‘do over’.

And that is why perhaps this story is so hard to hear.

Wait a minute!

We are constantly told that we have a God of second chances,

we have a God filled with forgiveness and grace and love for all.

And that is where this story drops the boom and does not offer another way.

Even when the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them, in the parable Abraham tells the rich man (who curiously is not given a name), that his brothers have all they need to know how to live-even if someone comes back from the dead they will not listen.

Jesus, of course, is eluding to his own resurrection and how, even then, there will continue to be people who cannot and will not hear.

Hearing this parable it is meant to jolt us out of complacency.

It is meant to ruffle our feathers and perhaps even make us a bit angry at Jesus.

It is meant to stir us and cause us to act.

Hearing this parable is the opportunity for a ‘do over’ now.

It is our chance to clean the lenses of our vision and to begin to notice and show compassion.

Who, in this time of the 21^st century, is our neighbor and how will we really see him or her?

Jesus is calling us all to service and drawing us closer to community.

As we examine and hear this parable today, what is our fresh awareness of God? What decision is God calling us to make? We are all Lazarus and we are all the rich man. Let us listen to Jesus and begin afresh today in his service. Amen.

Resources: Feasting on the Word, Brad H. Young The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation, John Chrysostom.