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Magnificat*

December 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Christmas2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The First Carols of Christmas – Magnificat*
Sycamore Creek Church
December 14/15, 2014
Tom Arthur

Merry Christmas friends!

Have you ever sat in the back of a police car?  Anyone want to claim that one?  I will.  I’ve only sat in the back of a police car once.  It happened one night when I was in high school.  Some friends and I decided to try to impress some girls one night by taking them to what we called “The End of the World.”  “The End of the World” was a local quarry of some sort.  There was a kink in the fence that we would sneak through and hang out near the “edge” of the world.  As we finished up and were walking back to the car, we saw lights flashing and found police officers at our cars.  We were questioned about what we were doing and when they found that we were not drunk or high, they let us go home on our own.  I found out later that the company that owned the quarry was considering pressing criminal trespassing charges, but through my dad’s intervention, they dropped the charges.  We deserved the charges.  We had done the crime, but we were all shown some mercy that night.

Today we’re talking about mercy.  Mercy is not giving or getting something bad that you deserved.  This is in contrast to grace which we talked about last week.  Grace is giving or getting something good that was unearned.  A classic moment of grace is found in the movie, Les Miserables.  Jean Valjean, a paroled convict, steals silverware from a bishop who offers him hospitality. When he is caught, the bishop shows him an amazing mercy.

 

 

So when was a time you received mercy?  I asked my friends on Facebook about this and one friend, Tiffany, told of a time when she ran out of gas.  She called her dad expecting to be berated for her mistake.  Instead, he came and helped her saying, “We’ve all done it.”  The mercy her dad showed her in that moment has informed all of her own parenting since.  Another friend of mine, Marilyn, told the story of working in a high stress cancer clinic, having to do medical procedures and diagnostics she was not completely comfortable with.  She was patiently helped by a more experienced and knowledgeable colleague who never seemed to get upset or impatient with her lack of knowledge.  Another friend, Gretchen, told about a time when she was driving fifteen over and got pulled over.  The cop only gave her a ticket for five over which saved her from getting points on her record.

Of course, the right mix of mercy and justice is not always clear.  The struggle between mercy and justice is evident in places like Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York City where Michael Brown was shot by Darren Wilson, Tamir Rice was shot by Timothy Loehmann, and Eric Garner was put in a chokehold and strangled by Daniel Pantaleo.  Then there’s protests that have followed, most of which have been peaceful but the ones that get media attention turn violent.  There’s a problem we all face: We are quick to demand justice for others and mercy for ourselves.  Portia, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice says, “In the course of justice, none of us should see salvation.”  One thing we can all agree upon is this: The world is broken.

Enter the Christmas Story…

Today we continue in a series called The First Carols of Christmas.  We like to sing Christmas Carols at Christmas but do you know about the first carols?  The book of Luke is one of four books that tell the story of Jesus’ life.  Luke’s telling of the birth of Jesus reads like a musical.  People are talking normally and then all of a sudden, they break into song.  There are four songs in Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth and one scene that was later turned into a song.  Last week we looked at the scene of the archangel Gabriel telling Mary she would be pregnant that was turned into a song, the Ave Maria.  Today we’re looking at the song sung by Mary: The Magnificat.  “Magnificat” means to magnify, expand, or make great.   In the Magnificat, we’re going to learn about God’s mercy.  We’ll learn two things:

  1. God uses his power in merciful ways.
  2. God is merciful by using his strength to humble the powerful and lift the lowly.

Mary is one of the lowly. She is a young girl who is probably twelve or thirteen years old.  In ancient days, girls married and had children much younger than today.  Mary lived in Nazareth, the low income housing of Galilee.  Nazareth had a population of about a hundred.  God chose to come to a girl in Nazareth rather than Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee four miles northwest.  In Nazareth we find the most affordable housing option on the market: caves.  Mary was likely visited by Gabriel in a cave.  Ten days before Mary sings the Magnificat, Gabriel shows up and says, “Hail Mary, full of grace…”  You’re going to become pregnant and have a child.  Mary has not been sexually active so she is a bit befuddled by this declaration.  So Gabriel says God is going to cause her to become pregnant.  Now this is a detail of the story that is so familiar to us that it loses its impact on us.  Thomas Paine, one of the great founding fathers of America was a deist and skeptic of most things religious.  He wrote in his book, The Age of Reason, “Were any girl, that is now with child, to say, and even to swear to it, that she was gotten with child by a ghost, and that an angel told her so, would she be believed?”  No. She’d be locked up in a mental institute.  But back then she more likely would have been stoned by Joseph, her fiance’s family.  Mary is terrified and goes to Elizabeth, her old cousin, who also has had a surprising pregnancy in her old age.  Elizabeth lives a hundred miles away.  It is not unrealistic to think that Mary’s family is attempting to cover up Mary’s unwed pregnancy.  Mary comes to Elizabeth hoping to get some clarity on whether she is crazy or should be put death.  Elizabeth is filled with God’s Spirit and tells Mary that she’s not crazy.  Instead Mary is blessed.  At this point, having Elizabeth’s confirmation, joy finally grips Mary and she breaks out into song—The Magnificat.

Now the Magnificat is not just a touching and beautiful little song.  If you think that, you aren’t paying close attention.  The Magnificat is a very dangerous song.  It’s so dangerous that Kathleen Norris tells us that during the 1980s civil war in Guatemala, the military regime banned the reading of the Magnificat in public.  It is said that elsewhere in Nicaragua peasants carried copies of the Magnificat during similar repressive regimes.  The Chris Tomlin Song, My Soul Magnifies the Lord, a great song built on The Magnificat, cuts most of this dangerous stuff out.  So now that you know the context of The Magnificat, let’s read it:

Luke 1:46-55 NRSV
Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

I think we can learn at least two things from The Magnificat.  First, God uses his power in merciful ways.  Second, God shows mercy by humbling the powerful and lifting up the lowly.  In other words, God shows mercy to those without power, which in comparison with God is all of us.  If we go back to Portia in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, we see the same sentiment:

Earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy season justice
~Portia (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)

Last week I asked this question: are you more grace-full this year than you were last year.  Today I ask you this question: Are you more merciful than you were last year?  I’d like to offer you three tips on nurturing mercy in your life.

1.     Forgive
Forgive those who have hurt you.  Let me give you a very small example from my own life.  Several years ago Sarah and I had a Subaru Legacy wagon that had served us quite well over the years.  It had nearly 200,000 miles on it and was rusting out in several places.  There were literally holes in the body of the car.  One day someone hit our car and put a dent in one of the body panels that was all rusted.  Technically, it was my right to have that panel replaced.  But this would have likely caused his insurance to go up.  The car was already rusted.  It had another dent in the hood from the time I hit a deer.  It wasn’t worth it.  So I just told him to forget about it and we went on our way.  I used my power in that moment to extend mercy rather than exact justice.

I’ve spoken a lot about forgiveness in the past.  Today I want to focus on one very practical indirect step: go watch the movie coming out on Christmas day, Unbroken.  You don’t have to go on Christmas day, but go see it or rent it when it comes out.  Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a WWII POW in Japan who forgives his captors even after horrendous torture.  Louis Zamperini is a real person and the story is based on his life.  Few of you have faced harder situations of forgiveness.  You can learn powerful lessons about nurturing mercy through forgiveness from his story.

Become more merciful by practicing forgiveness in your life.

2.     Advocate for those who have less power.
Second, nurture mercy in life by advocating for those who have less power. Recently I had the opportunity to meet Nate Aquino, a staff attorney at Legal Services of South Central Michigan.  Nate’s job often consists of seeking mercy for others.  Legal Services advocates in civil lawsuits for those who can’t afford to pay for an attorney.  I learned that Nate could make a lot more money working elsewhere, but he likes making a difference and using his life’s privileges to serve those who haven’t had the same privileges.  If Nate was a lawyer during Jesus’ time, it is likely that he would have been an advocate for Mary or her neighbors, because he does a lot of affordable housing legal work.  One example of seeking mercy for the poor is in subsidized housing.  Technically, someone who receives subsidized housing is not allowed to have anyone else live with them, but following this rule is not always as easy as it sounds, and if you are caught with someone else living with you, you will not be allowed to receive help with housing again.  Nate advocates for people in this situation and is motivated by the bigger picture of showing mercy to those who don’t have as many resources in life.  Nate’s work encourages me to be merciful by advocating for the poor.

I came across another moment of mercy when I was reading about the protests in Ferguson.  Several black residents defended a gas station from looters that was owned by a white man.  Of course, the white man was in the minority in that particular context, and his black friends used their power of being in the majority to defend their friend.  While it may not be obvious from the media coverage, the peaceful protests outnumber the ones that turn violent.  These are moments when people of all colors come together to advocate for those who have less power.

If you’re a supervisor, advocate for your employees.  If you’re a husband, use your power to serve your wife rather than abusing her physically, verbally, or emotionally.  If you’re a parent, advocate for children.  If you’re in the majority, advocate for the minority.  If you’re rich, advocate for the poor.

Become more merciful by using whatever power you do have to advocate for those who have less power.

3.     Christmas Gifts
One last way to become more merciful is tied to how you celebrate Christmas.  Every year I challenge you to give away as much as you spend at Christmas.  This may seem a strange tie-in to mercy, but by nurturing a willingness to give up something (a gift a Christmas) to give something (a financial gift to a need), you nurture mercy in your own life.  You are in essence, using the cultural power of Christmas gift giving to make a difference in our world.  This Christmas season we’ll be receiving a special Christmas offering all the way through December, and especially on Christmas Eve, that will go to three things: our medical missions in Nicaragua, local emergency needs such as utilities and rent, and the Imagine No Malaria campaign of the United Methodist Church.  Pauley Perrette from NCIS used her own celebrity power to advocate for Imagine No Malaria:

 

 

This year Sarah and I decided that it was time to change the way we celebrate Christmas going into the future for good.  We wrote a letter to our families letting them know that we wanted them to no longer give us gifts for Christmas, but to give to our church’s Christmas offering whatever they would normally spend on us.  So this week Sarah’s parents gave me my Christmas present, a check to our church for the Christmas offering.  Together we all get the chance to become more merciful by giving Jesus a present on his birthday.

So three ways to nurture mercy in your life:

1. Forgive those who have hurt you.
2. Advocate for those who have less power than you.
3. Give away as much as you spend on yourself at Christmas.

A Community of Mercy
Imagine with me for a moment, a church full of people who were becoming more merciful.  Imagine with me for a moment a church that was a training ground for forgiveness.  Imagine with me a church that advocates for those on the bottom of society.  Imagine with me a church where everyone gave away as much as they spent on themselves at Christmas.  If you can imagine that, then you can imagine a church that blesses the community and region around us with God’s mercy.  While we are not perfect, I believe we are a church that is on the mercy road.  Why not extend an invitation to your friends, family, co-workers this Christmas to join us on that road of mercy?  This Christmas Eve we’ll be one church in two locations over three days celebrating Christmas Eve with four services.  Can’t make it on Christmas Eve because of family events?  Come on the Eve of Christmas Eve.  Can’t make it then?  Come on Monday to Christmas in a Diner.  Bring a friend and you both get a free $10 Christmas dinner.  What three people can you invite to Christmas Eve this year?  Would you spend some time praying about who you can invite and praying that God would open the door for you to invite them?  Imagine with me a church twice our size helping more and more people to be more merciful this year than they were last year.

Here’s a favorite prayer of mine that speaks to God’s power and mercy.  May it be true of us too.

O God,
you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
Grant us the fullness of your grace,
that we, running to obtain your promises,
may become partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

 

*This sermon is adapted from a sermon originally by Adam Hamilton.

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Failing Forward

January 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment

samson

 

 

 

 

Samson – Failing Forward *
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
January 26/27, 2013

Peace friends!

Today we wrap up a series on the life of Samson.  Samson was a judge of Israel, a kind of tribal leader.  He was dedicated from before his birth to save God’s people from the Philistines.  Samson is one of the most frustrating characters in the Bible.  He was given so much from God, but messed up again and again and again.  We’ve learned over the last three weeks that Samson:

  1. Was an incredibly strong man with a destructively weak will;
  2. Was emotion driven, not Spirit-led;
  3. Ruined his life one step at a time.

In the end he had his eyes gouged out, was put in shackles, and was relegated to grinding a mill.  The question we want to wrestle with today is this:

What do you do when you realize you’ve blown it?

What do you do when you’ve done something you can’t undo, when you’ve hurt people you’ve loved, or when you’ve lost all your money?

In this series I’ve been speaking especially to the men in our church.  That’s not to say that women don’t blow it.  But there is something a little bigger that happens when a man blows it.  That’s because women receive value in relationships.  As long as the relationship is intact at the end of the day, all is well.  On the other hand, men tend to like being liked, but it’s not everything.  Men tend to receive value in accomplishments.  At times even relationships are considered “accomplishments.”  Men want respect.  Generally speaking, a man’s greatest fear is failure and his greatest pain is regret.

Men are told to measure up, be successful, live up to your own or others expectations.  And we don’t.  We hold regrets.  You have to tell your faithful wife about your online porn addiction or your office affair.  You are in a career that feels beneath you while your friends are doing better.  You regret not marrying someone, and now you’re alone years later.  Your marriage is pathetic, and you know it and are resigned to it and don’t do anything about it.  You’ve failed inwardly by not living up to a promise made to yourself or God: “I’ll never do it again”…until Thursday.  What regrets do you carry?

Here’s a truth to wrap your mind around: A failure is an event, never a person.  Samson failed over and over and over again, and God still accomplished his purposes through him.  Just because you’re down, doesn’t mean your out.  Let’s look and see what happens when Samson is down.

Judges 16:23-26 NRSV
Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” 

And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, and let him entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars; and Samson said to the attendant who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean against them.” 

Here’s the context.  The Philistines are gathered in a coliseum-like temple that holds between 3000 and 5000 people.  They’re there to worship their god Dagon, the god of the harvest who has a man head and fish body.  They’re recounting how Samson has caused them all kinds of problems remembering the foxes and jawbone incidents.  And now Samson is told to perform for their entertainment.  It doesn’t get any lower than this!  Samson is surely at the bottom of his life as a failure.

Remorse
There are two responses to failure I want to explore today. The natural response to failure is remorse: “I feel bad about what I did.”  Too often men stop here.  Inward they say, “I’m a failure.”  Outward they say, “I’m a victim.  It’s all someone else’s fault.”  There is a better response to failure than remorse.

Repentance
The better response to failure is repentance.  Repentance is one of those really churchy words, isn’t it?  It conjures images of street corner preachers on soap boxes with bull horns.  “Repent you sinners.  You’re going to burn and fry in hell!”  But that’s not necessarily what a biblical idea of repentance is.

There are two words in the Bible that get translated as repentance.  The first is the Greek word “metnoia.”  Metnoia means to change one’s heart and mind.  The second is the Hebrew word “shuv.”  Shuv means to turn.  So repentance can be understood as changing one’s heart and mind in a way that leads to turning ones life in a different direction.  It’s not just an intellectual or emotional thing.  Although it includes both.  It’s not just an action thing.  But it definitely includes action.  It is an inward change that results in an outward change.  It is being convinced that you are going the wrong way and turning around and going the other way.  It means owning your fault.  “It’s my fault.  I blew it.”  Then turning away from that which you did that was wrong and turning toward that which you know to be right.  You ruin your life one step at a time, but when you repent you turn around and point your life back in the right direction.

Repentance doesn’t always mean that everything gets better quick.  There are some things that are hard to undo.  There are even some things you can’t undo.  When Sarah and I had our first boy, Micah, I took lots of pictures during labor.  When I got home but before I caught up on sleep, I uploaded them to iPhoto on my iMac computer.  Now iPhoto has a feature where you can instantly upload pictures you choose to share on Facebook.  I thought I carefully selected some photos to share on Facebook but what I did instead was shared all the photos on Facebook!  I realized my mistake only when I got a notification from Facebook that one of the teenagers in our church had commented on the album saying, “Wow.  Thanks for sharing such intimate moments with us.”  I did  my best to quickly pull the photos off of Facebook, but to those of you who were subjected to my mistake, I apologize.  Actually, I should apologize to my wife!  Very few pictures were actually of me!

Thankfully I could undo that mistake for the most part.  But there are moments in our digital culture when you can’t undo it, like this commercial:

 

While you can’t “unsend,” you can repent.  You can be both motivated to change and actually change your behavior.  You can remember who you were created to be—you were created to honor and glorify God with your life—and you can choose to honor and glorify God with your life.  You can choose not to let what you did keep you from doing what God wants you to do now.  You cannot change the past, but you can change your future with God’s help.

Samson realizes that he’s blown it pretty hard, and he prays to God:

Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Judges 16:28 NIV

Samson prays, “God, I only need one more chance.”  Is this prayer of Samson’s about Samson or about God?  It seems to me that it is still about Samson’s revenge.  Sometimes when we’re down and out and feel the remorse of failure, we pray to God out of desperation, but we don’t really want to live a new life.  We want God to make it all right.  We want our lives back.

Here’s the amazing moment of God’s grace.  Even in the mixed motives of Samson’s last prayer and in our own mixed motives, God is gracious and merciful.  Even in our failures, God can still accomplish his purposes.  God’s purpose in Samson’s life was to start to deliver Israel from the Philistines.  The Israelites had begun to so closely assimilate into Philistine culture that they were close to being indistinguishable.  God used Samson’s failures to save God’s people from being absorbed into the broader culture and lost forever.

God strengthened Samson again.  Friends, you have the same Spirit living in you that raised Christ from the dead!  Sure you messed up.  Sure you feel weak.  Sure you feel remorse.  But Jesus was dead.  No pulse.  Down and out.  There’s no coming back from that.  And God raised him from the dead!  So you messed up.  That’s makes your story even better!

Men, it’s time to push some pillars down.  What pillars do you need to push down? How are you going to do it?  You’ve got a pillar of pride in your life: I can handle it.  Push it down.  Say, “I need help. I’m alone. I messed up. I don’t know how to get out.”  Tell someone you need help!  You’ve got a pillar of anger in your life: I’m mad at the world;  I’m mad at myself.  Push it down.  Get a counselor.  Read a book about anger.  Find a mentor who has overcome their anger.  You’ve got a pillar of slacker spirituality in your life: you’re an occasional attender at worship.  Don’t just feel bad about it.  Turn around and get to worship regularly.  You’ve got a pillar of a dead marriage in your life.  So be honest about it and set up a good time to have an honest talk with your wife and recommit to new positive behaviors.  Find a couple you appreciate and have them mentor you.  Go to a marriage retreat.  Pick up a book or audio CD or listen to marriage sermons.  You’ve got a pillar of debt in your life.  Push it down!  Tighten the belt.  Set a budget.   Break greed by giving generously the full tithe or more. What pillar or pillars need to be pushed down in your life?

Now we can’t ignore one crucial fact about the end of Samson’s life.  It was a suicide.  Is that how you push down the pillar?  You just decide that you’re so far gone that this world would be better off without you?  Yes, Samson took his life, and God ended an age of judges ruling Israel.  He was the last.  God then brought in the age of the Kings.  But here’s the hitch.  Suicide is easy.  You give your life one time.  Here’s what’s hard: give your life daily.  They give their lives to God daily.  They give their lives to their wives daily.  They give their lives to their kids daily.  They give their lives to their church daily.  They give their lives to their community daily.  They give their lives to the job daily.  Real men give their lives daily so that God’s purposes might come true in their own lives and the lives of those around them.  Real men push down the pillars that get in the way of God’s purposes daily.  Are you pushing down pillars today?

Here’s the first pillar you need to push down: give up your life.  Give it up to the one who has already given up his life for you.  Give it up to the one who showed his love for us by dying not just for friends but for his enemies.  Give your life up to following Jesus and his way.  How do you do that?   You ask Jesus to be your forgiver and leader.  You give your failures to him and you say, “Jesus, forgive me for the things I have done wrong.”  Then you let him lead you.  You say, “Jesus, I give you my entire life to lead.  Do with me as it pleases you.”  Then you get in the adventure of the rescue mission that Jesus has begun here on this earth, helping others push down the pillars in their lives.  Are you ready?

God may it be true in the lives of the men at Sycamore Creek Church.  May you use the men in our church to push down the pillars daily in their own lives and the lives of others around us.  Push down the pillars that keep us from being fully committed to you.  In the name of Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen!

* This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel

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Baggage Claim – Divorce Baggage, Week I

February 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

baggage claim big

 

 

 

Baggage Claim – Divorce Baggage Week I
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
February 17/18, 2013

Peace friends!

Today we’re in week two of a four week Baggage Claim series.  We’re claiming our baggage, then we’re figuring out what to do with it.  We began with family baggage and today we turn toward divorce baggage.  We’re going to spend two weeks unpacking divorce baggage.  The first week—this message—we’ll claim the baggage.  The second week we’ll figure out what to do with it.

Before we dive in to divorce baggage specifically, let’s just spend a moment asking the question: what is baggage?  “Baggage” can probably mean a lot of things to a lot of people.  When I talk about baggage I mean one of three things and they all have something to do with sin, missing the mark of God’s plan for our lives.  Baggage can be un-confessed guilt from past sin.  Not all guilt is bad.  Guilt that leads to confession is good guilt, and you might even call it good baggage.  You deal with this kind of baggage by claiming it through confession and then doing everything in your power to make right the wrong you did.  The other two kinds of baggage are harder to deal with and best figured out on a case by case basis.

A second kind of baggage is persistent guilt left after confession of sin.  Here we’re talking about the inability to receive God’s forgiveness when we claim our baggage through confession.  A third kind of baggage is painful memories or scars created when someone sins against you.  These are memories you just can’t shake, feelings of worthlessness, or feeling alone, among many other things.

Here’s a truth: we all accumulate baggage.  Every saint has a past, but every sinner has a future.  You can’t change your past, but Christ can change your future.

During this series I want to help you not accumulate the baggage in the first place, but if you already have it, to know what to do with it.  I want you to be able to name clearly what the baggage is, and to have a clear path forward for how to receive God’s grace to dump it and live a new baggage-free life.  And that brings us back full circle to knowing what it is and not accumulating it in the first place.

This is not a series of condemnation and judgment, but it is a series of truth telling.  Truth telling and compassion, mercy, and grace are not mutually exclusive.  Actually there is no true compassion without truth telling.  Jesus models truth and mercy together when he encounters a woman caught in adultery:

Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
John 8:10-11 NRSV

Divorce Baggage: The Problem and the Point
So here’s the problem I want to deal with today: Marriage costs us something.  We think that the feelings of love we have when we get married will see us through our marriage, but marriage turns out to be hard.  Sometimes really hard!  And sometimes we find ourselves in a very long stretch in our marriage with little to no positive feelings and an accumulation of negative feelings.  Psychologists tell us that the healthy ratio of positive to negative feelings in a marriage is five positive for every one negative.  Some of us are experiencing five negatives for every one positive!

So here’s the point of today’s message: Marriage is a covenant.  It’s a covenant that teaches us something about following Jesus even when we don’t feel the positive emotions we once did.  Perhaps we learn the most about following Jesus when we no longer have those positive emotions.  Marriage is a discipleship covenant where we learn to practice love even when we don’t feel love.  That means that divorce deteriorates discipleship and we, and those around us, accumulate baggage (guilt, painful memories, feelings of worthlessness, and more) in the process.  Let’s unpack this idea of marriage as a covenant.

Marriage is a Covenant
Marriage is a covenant.  It is a commitment made before God.  When you said your vows, if you did so in a Christian marriage ceremony, then you made those vows not only to your loved one, but you also made those vows to God.  But the idea of marriage as a covenant goes even deeper than just the commitment you’re making to another individual.

Marriage expresses God’s love and commitment to God’s people.  The covenant to love one another through all the ups and downs is a symbol of God’s love and commitment for the community of God’s people.  This commitment that God makes goes so far as to remain even when God’s “spouse” is unfaithful.  We see this most clearly in the book of Hosea.  Hosea is told by God to marry Gomer, a woman who will be unfaithful to Hosea.  It’s a pretty crazy situation.  Here’s what we read right at the beginning of the book of Hosea:

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD” (Hosea 1:2 NRSV).

But then later on we read this:

And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy (Hosea 2:19 NRSV).

God’s faithfulness to the covenant remains even when our faithfulness waivers.

Marriage also represents Christ’s covenantal love for the church.  In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he uses the example of marriage to explain how much Jesus loves the church:

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ…Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:21, 24-25 NRSV).

Notice the command to submit to one another.  Marriage isn’t about the woman submitting to the man.  Marriage is a covenant of mutual submission.  That first sentence colors everything else Paul says in this passage.  Women already know something about this because it’s in our cultural background, but Paul has to explain it to husbands.  He says that husbands are to submit to the point of following in Jesus; footsteps: giving yourself up entirely for your wife, even to the point of death!  Notice here the connection of loving your wife as Christ loved the church.  Marriage is good in as much as both husband and wife represent and replay Christ’s deep unconditional self-sacrificial love for the church.

So marriage is probably best understood as an act of discipleship that is grounded not in feelings of love but the practice of love.  It can be hard.  Sometimes, maybe even often, you have to pick up your cross and carry it.  You may have to learn to love your enemy who sometimes shares a bed with you.  You will most certainly have to learn how to forgive.  If you want to learn how to follow Jesus, getting married is one way to learn.

Divorce is Covenant Breaking
So if marriage is a covenant with another person and with God and represents the covenant God has with God’s people and the love that Christ has for Christ’s church, what does it say when we break that covenant?

First, divorce breaks a covenant made with your spouse and with God.  Second, divorce breaks the sign of God’s covenant with God’s people.  Third, divorce breaks the covenant of discipleship that exists between Christ and the church.  Maybe this is why God says, “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16).  What was once a symbol of God’s unconditional love for God’s people becomes an expression of conditional love.

God’s Kingdom
At this point I think it is important to point out something that theologians call the “already and not yet” of God’s kingdom.  When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” we are recognizing that we live in a broken world.  The way that God designed the world has been damaged in so many ways.  We pray that God would heal that world and bring his kingdom and his reign here on earth in the same way that God fully reigns in heaven.  But implicit in that prayer is the idea that this is a process and we are not yet there.  Thus, God’s kingdom here on earth is already present, but it is not yet fully present.

Covenant Breaking
In a fully present kingdom, there would be no need to ever break the covenant of marriage.  But God’s kingdom is not yet fully here, and so the question arises, does the Bible ever think it is OK to break the covenant of marriage?  The answer to that question depends on where you look.

Moses seems to allow divorce for “something objectionable”:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife (Deuteronomy 24:1-2 NRSV).

What is “something objectionable”?  Maybe Jesus can clear this up for us.  Well, it depends on where you look for Jesus to clarify things.  In the book of Mark, Jesus interacts directly with this teaching from Moses, and says that Moses allowed divorce because we had hard hearts.  He erases the loophole for divorce when he says,

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12 NRSV).

In Mark, Jesus doesn’t seem to allow divorce for anything, whether “objectionable” or not.  When you get married you become “one flesh” as Genesis says, and you can’t “un-flesh” yourself.  (On a side note: Jesus raises the woman’s status to equal with a man in this teaching.  In Jesus’ day, adultery was technically a sin against a man, because a woman was a man’s property.  So when you sleep with a woman who is married, you commit adultery against her husband.  But Jesus says that you commit adultery against her.)  So when you seek guidance about divorce from Jesus in the book of Mark you seem to get this answer: divorce is never permissible.

But if you keep reading you will eventually come to Jesus’ teaching about divorce in the book of Matthew. Here Jesus seems to qualify his previous teaching saying,

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity [porneia], and marries another commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9 NRSV).

What is translated as “unchastity” is the Greek word “porneia.”  That probably sounds familiar because it’s where we get our English word “pornography.”  Porneia or unchastity is a pretty broad term.  And perhaps like the Supreme Court, we can’t define it, but we know it when we see it.  There are a lot of sexual infidelities besides just sexual intercourse that would seem to fall under the umbrella of porneia.  Thus, in Matthew Jesus teaches that if your spouse is unfaithful in a variety of sexual ways, it is permissible to break the covenant of marriage.

St. Paul takes this a step further.  He says in his letter to the Corinthians,

“To the rest I say — I and not the Lord — that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13 NRSV).

So Paul says that if you’re married to an unbeliever, and that unbelieving spouse wants to leave, then what can you do?  You let them go.  Perhaps the principle behind Paul’s direction is this: you can’t force discipleship on anyone.  God gives us the freedom to reject God’s love.  Discipleship and covenant keeping is never forced from God onto us.  Could this also apply to someone who considers themselves a believer but says they want to divorce you?  Again, you can’t make anyone follow Jesus.  You can’t make anyone keep a covenant, even if it was a commitment made to God.

An interesting point to notice in Paul’s teaching here is that he says, “I and not the Lord.”  Paul seems to be adding to Jesus’ teaching with some of his own.  Paul is practicing some continued pastoral discernment for his situation and the situation his churches find themselves in.  Maybe Paul is living into the same act of discernment that we see between Jesus’ answer in Mark and Jesus’ answer in Matthew.  As both Jesus and Paul encounter new situations and circumstances, they’re finding that God’s kingdom is already but not yet.

In this spirit, I would like to continue some discernment myself.  I, and not the Lord, want to suggest that sustained violent abuse (both physical and possibly verbal) is porenia.  It is sin against the “one-fleshness” of marriage.  You are not treating your spouse as “one-flesh” with yourself when you violently abuse him or her.  One problem here is that this kind of abuse is often kept secret rather than made known.  What would happen if your spouse hit you the first time or violently cursed you verbally and instead of keeping it a secret, you shared it appropriately with some of the community around you that witnessed the covenant you made together at your wedding?  What if that community then became a community of accountability to help a spouse who has trouble expressing his or her anger in healthy non-violent ways?

Something implied in all these teachings is that even if your spouse is unfaithful in one of these ways, and the Bible allows for divorce in that circumstance, it does not require it.  God’s grace is always interested in reconciliation even if the brokenness of the world makes that near impossible.  Remember, Hosea remained married to an unfaithful spouse to show that God’s love is faithful even when our love is not.

Remarriage?
If divorce is covenant breaking and sex after divorce is adultery, then several questions arise about remarriage.  First, is remarriage de facto adultery?  The Bible is not particularly optimistic about remarriage.  Except for the explicit situations we covered above, the Bible teaches that remarriage is adultery.  Please don’t shoot the messenger.

Second, if I’m remarried after divorce and the divorce wasn’t because of one of those explicit circumstances, should I get divorced from my second marriage?  No!  The Bible always speaks against this kind of ascetic idealism.  There is grace and salvation in the midst of brokenness!  As Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar, says, remarriage could “serve as a sign of God’s love in the world…A second marriage after divorce could serve as a sign of grace and redemption from the sin and brokenness in the past” (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, pg 373).

Third, what should I do now that I am remarried?  Here are several questions to ask yourself:

  1. Did you confess your role of sin in the divorce (if there was sin)?
  2. Did you confess your sin to your ex (if possible)? Or someone else?
  3. Are you doing all you can to live at peace now with your ex?
  4. Are you committed for life to your current covenantal marriage?

Fourth, should I remain single if I have been divorced?  Let me suggest that remarriage is best approached as a process of discernment.  The Bible isn’t very optimistic about remarriage, but it’s not the only one not optimistic about second marriages.  We all are familiar with the statistics about second marriages.  Don’t make this decision alone.  Include your friends and family.  Make sure you’ve got some friends who are providing guidance who aren’t “yes men.”  Make sure you’ve got some people asking you hard questions about your motivation and the timing of any particular commitment to a second marriage.  Run your previous marriage and any thoughts about a second marriage through the four questions above.  Perhaps then, a second marriage can serve as a new covenant that represents how God can and does redeem this broken world.

So today we’ve looked at claiming the baggage of divorce.  We’ve spent our time telling the truth about what marriage is, a covenant, and what divorce is, covenant breaking.  But this series isn’t just about claiming the baggage.  It’s also about knowing what to do with it once you’ve got it.  Doing both of those in one sermon was too much.  So next week we’ll be looking at what to do with the baggage of divorce once you’ve claimed it.  I hope you’ll join us as we seek to take the baggage and give it to God to work something new.  Because in the family of God, there are no carry-ons.

Prayer
God, help us to tell the truth about divorce.  Help us to claim the baggage divorce has created in our families.  And open our hearts to how you can continue to work in and through a broken and wounded world.  Help us to renew the covenants that we have made to others and to you.  Help those covenants be signs and symbols of your love for us.  In the name of Jesus and in the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

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Ancient Hippies – Jonah

November 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Ancient Hippies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Ancient Hippies – Jonah
Sycamore Creek Church
November 18 and 19, 2012
Tom Arthur
Jonah

Note: The basic idea of this sermon came from David “Welshy” Wilson who preached an excellent sermon on Jonah at the Wesley Fellowship at Michigan State University.

Peace friends!

Hippies are kinda weird.  They’re sometimes offensive.  At their best, they speak truth to power.  That’s the 1970s variety.  The ancient variety is called a prophet.  The prophets were ancient hippies.  The prophets in the Bible were kinda weird.  Sometimes they were offensive.  And they always spoke truth to power.  But sometimes the prophet needed truth spoken to him.  Today we explore an ancient hippie: Jonah.

One of the great things about the book of Jonah is that it is short and compelling and an entertaining read.  It has four chapters.  Pick it up this afternoon or this week and read it all in one sitting.  It’s not long at all.  Today we’ll have the chance to range over the entire book.  So let’s dive right in.

Jonah 1:1-3 NLT
The LORD gave this message to Jonah, son of Amittai:  “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh! Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction in order to get away from the LORD.

Most of us are pretty familiar with this part of the story.  God calls Jonah to go speak truth to power inNinevehand Jonah runs from his mission.  He went in “the opposite direction”!  What mission are you running from?

Sometimes even though I’m a pastor I run from the mission of sharing God’s love with others in explicit ways.  I’m a pastor but I’m timid to bring up spiritual things in conversation with people I don’t know well, or people that I think might not like me if I bring them up.  The other day I was talking with someone I had recently met and she brought up her spiritual story.  I’m such a bozo that I changed the topic!  What was I doing?!

Other times I’m timid to bring up questions of eternal significance with people who haven’t explicitly signaled to me that they want to talk about these kinds of things.  Maybe this is because of my experience “Mall Witnessing” as a teenager.  Do you know this behavior?  You go with your youth group to the mall and you try to lead people to Jesus who are complete strangers.  I was about as successful at mall witnessing as I was at picking up girls at the Mall!  Which is to say zero percent successful.  And all either ever did was make me feel really uncomfortable.

Or maybe I think I’m afraid of coming across like the guy who shot me with theological questions and Bible verses one day before our Monday night worship at Grumpy’s.  He came up to me and within thirty seconds said:

  • Do you believe in being born again?  It’s in the Bible.
  • What about regeneration?  Being made a new creature?  It’s in the Bible.
  • Do you believe in hell?  Do you preach about it?  It’s in the Bible.
  • Do you preach the Bible?
  • Do you believe that the body of Christ can be split?  The Bible says…

I don’t think he really cared about what I thought, he only wanted to quote the Bible at me.  He didn’t even really seem to care that I was working on setting up for a worship service!  I felt like hiding under a table.  Really.  I just wanted him to go away.  And I’m the pastor!

So if you’re a guest here today, I want you to know, that we’re not like this.  We’re curious about God.  Questions are welcome.  You don’t have to have it all figured out to belong here.  You’re free to even disagree with me!

I know I’m not alone when it comes to running from this mission of sharing God’s love with others in spiritual conversation with others.  I asked my friends on Facebook what keeps them from inviting people to church.  Here’s what I heard back from them.  They fear:

  • Forcing a conversation
  • Being pushy and preachy
  • Not wanting to look judgmental
  • Scared that their own faults will make them look hypocritical
  • Guilt by association – The church hurts people
  • Being asked a question they can’t answer
  • Being “out argued”

So sometimes we run from the mission before us, just like Jonah.  We run for a variety of reasons.  Let’s get back to Jonah and see what happens.  The big question in the book of Jonah is: What exactly is the mission in the book of Jonah?

As we keep reading we find that Jonah hops on a boat and goes the opposite direction that God wants him to go.  A big storm picks up and Jonah realizes he’s the reason for it.  He tells the sailors to throw him into the sea to stop the storm…

Jonah 1:15-17 NLT
Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once!  The sailors were awestruck by the LORD’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.  Now the LORD had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.

Growing up you’re told that the story of Jonah is about trusting God to provide in a time of trial, God sent a whale to save Jonah.  But that’s not what the story is about!  The mission ultimately isn’t about the whale.  Although God “appointed” or assigned a mission to the great fish.  The whale follows God’s mission when Jonah wouldn’t!  As we keep reading we find that the whale spits Jonah up on dry ground.

Jonah 3:1-4 NLT
Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time:  “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you.”  This time Jonah obeyed the LORD’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.  On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”

Jonah finally obeys God’s command to go and speak truth to power inNineveh.  His heart isn’t in it, but he goes anyway.  How many times do we go through the motions out of obedience (for fear we’ll get swallowed by a whale!), but our hearts are far from God’s heart?  So what happens when we obey without our heart in it?  Let’s keep reading…

Jonah 3:5 NLT
The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they decided to go without food and wear sackcloth to show their sorrow.

We find that obedience is important.  God will work in spite of our hypocrisy, our going through the motions on the outside, but not caring on the inside.  That’s pretty amazing.  God works in spite of us!  Thank you God.  And when you read the rest of chapter three, you see that even the animals repent.  The king orders everyone to wear sackcloth including the animals!  (I’ve always wondered if the cats submitted to this?).

So this is the mission of Jonah, right?  This is what we’re supposed to get out of this book, right?  Jonah was given a mission to speak truth to power.  At first he disobeyed but then he obeyed. Ninevehrepented and God did not destroy them.  That’s the moral of the story.  Right?  Well, actually no.  The mission of Jonah isn’t ultimately aboutNineveh.  In fact, most of us don’t even know what happens in the fourth and last chapter of Jonah.  So let’s keep reading…

Jonah 4:1-4 NLT
This change of plans upset Jonah, and he became very angry.  So he complained to the LORD about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.  Just kill me now, LORD! I’d rather be dead than alive because nothing I predicted is going to happen.”  The LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?”

Here we find what the real mission is for Jonah.  It’s not about Nineveh.  The mission, the truth that needs to be spoken is more about Jonah himself!  The mission is to change Jonah, for Jonah to care about people he didn’t care about before, people who were literally his enemies. Nineveh was their capital of the Assyrian Empire which sacked Israel and took them off into exile.  Jonah understandably does not like them and only wants God to wipe them off the face of the earth.  But God cares for the Assyrians and wants to make a point to Jonah.  God’s heart is one of compassion and mercy to all, even our enemies.  That’s the truth that needs to be spoken to Jonah.  It’s the true mission of the book of Jonah.  Jonah needs to be saved as much as Nineveh!

The Problem and the Point
Here’s the problem both with Jonah and us: Our hearts don’t beat with God’s heart. We don’t care about the same things God cares about, people far from God.

Here’s the main point of the book of Jonah: The mission is to sync our hearts with God’s heart, to care about the same things that God cares about, which is to share God’s compassion with all.

Lately I’ve gotten a little…OK a LOT…hooked on The Voice.  I haven’t watched it before, but I have kept up with it this year.  Something happens each time someone leaves the competition: there’s often a disconnect between the mentors/judges and those watching the show.  Their hearts aren’t always synced.  The audience likes one person and the judges/mentors like someone else.  The mission of Jonah is to sync all those hearts together, to get them beating in unison.

The end of the book of Jonah is somewhat startling.  A plant grows up to provide Jonah some shade.  But the sun kills the plant.  Jonah is pretty upset that this plant died.  And we continue reading…

Jonah 4:8-11
And as the sun grew hot, God sent a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than this!” he exclaimed.  Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” “Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”  Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. And a plant is only, at best, short lived.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness,not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

That’s the abrupt end of the story.  What happened?  I don’t know.  Jonah’s heart at this point is such that he cares about his own comfort, while God’s heart is such that he cares about whether God’s comfort has come into the heart of all people.  The book of Jonah is written as if the end of the story is now up to you!  Will you obey even if your heart isn’t in it, but go even deeper by seeking a heart change, by seeking to sync your heart with God’s heart?  God’s heart is this: that all people would know the compassion and comfort of God.

So when was the last time you had a conversation about the compassion of God with someone who didn’t know the comfort of God?  When was the last time you invited someone to come to join our church in worship?

This month is our twelfth anniversary as a church.  We are twelve years old.  We’re only a pre-teen.  Pretty soon we’re going to get rebellious!  To celebrate our twelfth birthday, we recently interviewed Barb Flory, the “rebel grandma” who was the founding pastor of Sycamore Creek Church.  We asked her what excited her about SCC these days.  Here’s what she said:

Did you hear that?  Barb is excited that we’re stepping out of our comfort zone to creatively reach new people for Christ.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!

Now here’s the deal as I’ve begun to experience it.  When you start something new like our Monday night Church in a Diner at Grumpy’s Diner, it’s super easy to invite people to it.  It’s also super important.  Because it’s obvious that if you don’t invite people, it won’t live to see another day.  Something I’ve noticed about our Sunday morning venue is that twelve years into it, we’ve become a little more concerned about our own comfort and a little less concerned about whether we’re sharing the comfort of God with others.  We can kinda coast on Sunday mornings.  But if we coast too long, we’ll end up slowing down and dying.

So I’d like to give you some practical tips this morning on how to invite people to experience the compassion and comfort of God by joining us for worship some Sunday or Monday.  I asked several different people how they invite people.  Here’s the responses I got:

Amberlee

Amberlee focuses on the feel of the venue.  It’s relaxed and casual.  The teaching is practical.

Mark

I love how Mark makes it seem so simple, like sharing about your favorite restaurant.

Gretchen

Gretchen has an idea that I’ve used myself.  When someone asks you how you’re doing, don’t just say, “Fine.”  Tell them you’re excited about something going on at your church.

Bill

Bill is the owner of Grumpy’s, and he’s always inviting people to join us.  He can’t attend a church on Sunday morning so this has become his church.  He simply shares with people what he gets out of it.

It doesn’t quite work the same way for me that it works for all of you.  A conversation with me always brings up church because people ask me what I do.  Then when I tell them I am a pastor, they ask about the church and location.  But I could stop there.  On my good days, I take the conversation at least one step further by asking, “Do you have a church family?”  I find that question is a non-judgmental way to ask about church.  If you ask if they attend church, then it kinda puts them on the defensive if they don’t.  But if you ask if they have a church family, then you’re asking about their community.  I had a conversation like this the other night with a dad I met at the pajama reading time at the Holt Library.  We both had sons in their pajamas “listening” to the librarian read bedtime stories.  He asked what I did, and we got into the conversation.  I asked him if he had a church family and he said he didn’t because he thought that religion causes a lot of damage around the world.  I told him I couldn’t agree more.  He told me that he still didn’t have his religious views figured out and I told him we were a community that is curious, you can bring your questions with you.  I said, “I’m a pastor, and I’ve still got questions!”  The conversation didn’t go much further than that, but I did invite him to our daddy kid night out.  I look forward to seeing him again at another pajama story time and continuing the conversation.

Now I wasn’t always comfortable in that conversation.  In fact, when he brought up the whole religion-does-a-lot-of-damage thing, I was working really hard not to get defensive.  But what I knew deep down was that God loves this guy.  And he’s got some kind of pain in his life that needs God’s comfort.  I don’t know what it is, but maybe someday I’ll get to know him better and will learn what that is.  But the mission in that moment was for my heart to sync with God’s heart for this other young dad whether I was comfortable with it or not.

Friends, look for God in the midst of your discomfort.  What is your discomfort telling you about what God cares about, where God’s heart is at?  It may be the exact opposite of where your heart is at.

Imagine this: we could double in size next week if everyone invited one person!  We could reach out to twice the number of people and share with them the love and comfort of God if each one of us brought a friend, family, neighbor, or co-worker with us next week.

It’s the Christmas season.  That’s the perfect season to invite people.  If someone is going to be open to coming to church, this is the time when they’re open.  We’re shooting a commercial today to help till the ground for you ahead of time, so that when you invite them, they’ll have already heard about us.  Our Christmas series is simply called Carols.  Each week we’re going to look at a Christmas Carol in a new way.  They’re songs you’ve heard over and over, but you’ll walk away each week hearing it in a whole new way.  Who can you invite to this series?  Take a moment and write down three names.

Here’s how I’ve seen invitation happen lately: Bill invited Carl and he came.  I invited Molly and she brought ten people with her!  Daniel invited Julie and Julie invited her whole family: 4 “kids” and 3 or 4 grand kids! Josh walked by and saw the Grumpy’s sign and invited his roommate, Tom.  His roommate invited a friend.  That guy invited a friend too!  Each of these people’s heart was synced with God’s heart to share the comfort and compassion of God with others.  Is your heart in the mission?

Prayer
Here are two prayers from a prayer guide I’ve been using lately:

Lord, you have such compassion on all you have made.  Thank you for loving this fallen world so much that you gave your only son to redeem it.  Help those who are lost to realize that you don’t want anyone to perish, but instead desire for everyone to come to repentance (Psalm 145:9, John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9).

Lord, help me be more sensitive to those who are lost and outside the family of God.  Give me your heart of compassion for them because they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36).

Amen!

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Those Critical People

July 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Those People
Those Critical People*
Sycamore Creek Church
July 29, 2012
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Know any critical people?  Are they sitting beside you?  Don’t answer that last question!  Today we’re beginning a new series called “Those People.”  You know.  Those people.  The ones that you would rather do without.  The ones that drive you crazy.  The neighbor.  The co-worker.  The boss.  The student.  The family member.  Yeah.  Those people.

Over the next four weeks we’ll look at those manipulative people, those needy people, those hypocritical people, and today, those critical people.

Here’s the truth about criticism: all of us will be criticized.  Some of the big names in the Bible were criticized.  Moses was criticized by his brother and sister for marrying a foreign woman (Numbers).  If you read between the lines, you’ll see that St. Paul was probably criticized for not being a good speaker.  He certainly wasn’t succinct.  One time he preached until midnight and a guy named Eutychus fell asleep in a window and fell down three stories and died (Acts 20).  Paul went down with others to investigate and found out he wasn’t dead.  So what did they do?  Paul kept on preaching until sunrise!  Then there’s Jesus.  Among other things, he was criticized for eating with the wrong kind of people and working on the Sabbath.

I’ve experienced some criticism myself in life.  A husband and wife in a previous church didn’t ever think I did anything right, including my hair.  At the time I was wearing it shoulder length and Sarah was wearing her hair really short.  This woman said to me in a nasty sharp voice, “Don’t you know that the husband is supposed to have shorter hair than his wife?”  It was a slam on both of us!  I wonder what she would think about my hairdo for CRASH, our men’s retreat each summer?  One summer I wore a Mohawk.  The next summer I shaved it all off.  Who knows what I’ll do this summer!

I’m not alone when it comes to criticism.  I asked my friends on Facebook about when they are unjustly criticized.  I got a huge response!  One teenage friend is a nanny and is often seen in public with young children.  She will get nasty critical looks from people who think she’s too young to be a mom.  She’s not, but even if she was are the judgmental critical looks necessary?  Then there were a whole host of young parents who feel like their every parenting move is criticized by people around them, especially if they go against the grain of what’s “normal.”  One teacher friend of mine feels like teachers are often criticized, especially in today’s climate, by people who don’t know a lot about what really happens in a classroom.  Another friend who is a relatively new Christian feels like her non-Christian friends criticize her for her new interest in the spiritual life.  Then another friend talked about the critic she looks at every day in the mirror.  Yikes!  There’s a lot of criticism to go around.

Now let’s be sure to make a distinction here about criticism.  There’s unjust criticism and there’s just criticism.  Proverbs, the book of wise sayings, has this to say about criticism: If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise (15:31 NLT).

I used to work at a really nice Italian restaurant in Petoskey.  The owner described himself as “not fun, but fair.”  It was a true description.  One day he spent about fifteen minutes showing me exactly how he wanted me to mix the pizza cheese.  We had this big super huge grinder and he had a particular ratio of muenster to mozzarella he wanted grinded together in a particular way.  It really did make great pizza cheese.  I don’t remember the details but after he left, I decided there was a better way to do it, and I did.  He walked by shortly thereafter and saw that I had abandoned the way that he had spent fifteen minutes showing me.  He reamed me out.  My ego was hurt, but slowly I realized, he took the time to show me and he is paying me so I should do it exactly as he wants.  It was a just criticism even though it took me a while to realize it.

Do you know that if you ask for criticism you’ll be more likely willing and open to hear it?  I do a lot of asking for criticism these days.  We put twenty sermon and worship feedback forms in random bulletins.   I’ve connected with a sermon coach lately.  I also have a leadership coach.  We do a 360 evaluation of me every year.  I found out last year that one of my weakest traits was building extensive friendships in the community.  I’m basically an introvert.  But I learned from that criticism and over the last year I’ve gone to several social events and community events that you’ve invited me to (By the way…invite me to your kids’ games, recitals, and so on.  It always helps me to “go on the arm” of someone.)  I’ll also give you another tip about me and criticism.  If you can at all wait, don’t criticize me on Sunday morning, my mind and energy are elsewhere.  It’s the worst time.  Save it for another day of the week.  I’ll be more open to hearing what you have to say.

So let’s turn to unjust criticism.  I’d like to offer you three prayers this morning to help you with unjust criticism.  Here’s the first one:

  1. God, help me to know when to respond to criticism

Knowing when to respond is key.  And we’re talking here about responding, not reacting.  Don’t go putting some counter criticism up on Facebook or Tweeting about your anger.  Don’t do what I saw some dad do on YouTube.  His daughter had made some critical comments about him on Facebook.  She apparently had a history of doing so.  He had warned her not to do this again.  She did.  So he took her laptop out in the back forty and shot it about twenty times.  He video taped the whole thing and posted that video tape online so all her friends could see it.  He apparently didn’t learn the basic ethical premise: two wrongs don’t make a right.  He also didn’t learn that responding is different that reacting. 

Sometimes responding with a simple explanation can diffuse unjust criticism.  Gideon, one of the heroes of the Bible, runs into a situation like this.  We read in Judges:

Now the Ephraimites asked Gideon, “Why have you treated us like this? Why didn’t you call us when you went to fight Midian?” And they criticized him sharply…But he answered them…At this, their resentment against him subsided (Judges 8:1&3 NIV). 

One time I was counseling a couple.  They would come in and see me together.  Then throughout the week I would occasionally get calls from one of them asking what to do.  I would offer some thoughts and hang up.  Shortly after this I would get called from the other one who was now angry at what I had said.  They would repeat my words back to me in a slightly different fashion with a very different meaning than I had intended.  This happened both ways!  It usually took only a brief explanation that I didn’t mean for my words to be taken the way that they had to solve the issue.  I also learned that I had to speak to both of them at the same time or my words would inevitably be misrepresented!  In these instances a simple response diffused the criticism.  But this isn’t always the case, is it?  Here’s a second prayer: 

      2.  God, help me to know when to dismiss invalid criticism

Remember that there are two different kinds of criticism: just and unjust; legit and illegit.  You don’t want to dismiss just and legit criticism.  So discerning between the two is vital.  If twelve of fifteen people tell you the same thing: it’s probably constructive criticism you should listen to.  If you find yourself facing the same criticism at home and work, then it’s probably 2 Legit to Quit.  But if you only hear it from one or two people who are hypercritical of you, then you’re going to just have to learn to dismiss it with God’s help.

Dismissing criticism is rarely easy.   We focus on the one bad thing people said and ignore the twenty good things.  But Jesus gives us some direction on how to dismiss unjust criticism:  Jesus did not retaliate when he was insulted. When he suffered, he did not threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly (1 Peter 2:23 NLT). 

When I search my own heart after finding it hard to dismiss criticism, when I ask myself, Why do I take it so personally?, I find an ugly answer:  I elevate the opinions of people above those of God.  You can’t please everyone, but you can please God.  Be freed today from the prison of criticism.  Becoming obsessed with what people think is the quickest way to forget what God thinks!

If you want to make a difference in this world, you will be criticized.  Each of us is on a mission from God.  Don’t let criticism pull you off that mission.  I’d rather be doing something world-changing that people are picking apart than doing nothing significant.

God, help me to dismiss unjust criticism and stay on your mission. Here’s a third prayer for dealing with unjust criticism:

      3.   God, help me overcome my own critical nature.

We’re all one of “those people.”  We read in Proverbs, Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18 NRSV).  Anyone ever have some rash words?

In my own life I’ve found myself wrestling with overcoming significant judgmentalism and a kind of super ugly self-righteousness.   If you’re a guest here this morning, I’d like to apologize to you.  As a representative of the church, I’m one of the many of us who are recovering judgmental critics.  I’m one of the many in the church who are recovering self-righteous jerks.  Unfortunately, this community of spiritual friends who are seeking to follow Jesus and learn to love God and our neighbor more perfectly has too often become judgmental, self-righteous, and just plain critical of everyone else.  Please forgive us.  By God’s grace and mercy and your love, we’re learning to do life together differently.

One way this plays out for me is that when I visit another church I don’t end up worshiping, I end up being a worship critic.  I give them a grade on everything.  The music was a C.  The hospitality a D.  The message was a B-.  The building a C+.  The pastor’s shoes an F.  God, save me from my own criticism!

Then there’s your own church.  When pastors get together there can sometimes end up being a kind of pity party.  You think you’ve got it bad, let me tell you about Sally and Joe!  I was at a conference one time when the speaker asked us to introduce ourselves and describe our churches as if they were a child going to school.  What would we say to the teacher?  It deflated all the criticism.  What if we all described our workplace in that kind of a way?

Johnny Workplace is a little nervous today.  His dad hasn’t been around much and his mom is really overprotective.  She wants him to succeed but sometimes she gets in the way.  Then there’s the food allergy he’s got.  It’s kinda unique to him.  Not many people have it, but you just can’t feed him anything.  I love this kid, and I hope you’ll take really good care of him.

When I am critical, it shows the weakness, sin, insecurity, and pride in my own heart.  I’m right and everybody else is wrong.  I’m the superior human being, and I’d like to tell you how to be more like me.  Criticism never changes the world.  Criticism won’t fix your marriage.  Criticism won’t raise your children.  Criticism won’t make your workplace more productive and it certainly won’t make it more fun to work at.

If you have an overly critical nature, we’re going to take it to God and ask for forgiveness and healing.  I’d like to pray for you, and invite you to pray along with me silently.

God, you love me unconditionally.  I haven’t done anything to earn it.  You loved me so much that you sent your son, Jesus, to show me that love, a love that went so far as to die for me.  Help me to embrace that kind of love you have for me and to share it with others.  Help me to stop being critical of others and instead to be a highway for your love to travel into the lives of those around me.  And when criticism is turned against me, help me to remember that you love me, and in the end, what you think about me is all that really counts.  Amen.

 

Questions for Small Groups

Each week we provide discussion questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss the message for the week.  Want to find a small group to join?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com.

  1. When was a time you received just criticism?
  2. When was a time you responded to unjust criticism and the criticism subsided?
  3. When was a time you had a difficult time dismissing unjust criticism?
  4. Where do you find yourself currently being overcritical of those around you?
  5. How can we pray for each other in the midst of just or unjust criticism?

*This sermon is an adaptation of a sermon originally by Craig Groeschel.

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The Elements of Worship: God’s Mercy and Our Thankfulness and Forgiveness

December 15, 2010 by

The Elements of Worship

The Elements of Worship:
God’s Mercy and Our Thankfulness and Forgiveness
Sycamore Creek Church
December 12, 2010
Tom Arthur
Isaiah 6:1-8

Peace, Friends!

We embark on this third week of a series about worship where we’re looking at four elements of God’s character and our response.  I’m just now jumping into the series because some elements in my own life changed these past two weeks.  My wife and I gave birth to our first child, a boy, named Micah John!  I’ve been spending a lot of time contemplating the mystery of each person as described in Psalm 139 which says:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,

Wonderful are your works;

That I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you ,

When I was being made in secret,

Intricately woven in the depth of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

All the days that were formed for me,

When none of them as yet existed.

Sarah and I are deeply grateful for how well this church community has taken care of us.  I hope that we take care of one another just as well as you take care of Sarah and me.  I am especially thankful for Mark Aupperlee who stepped in to preach two weeks in a row so that I could spend time at home just beginning to get used to being a dad.  Thank you, Mark.

While Sarah and I have been waiting for this baby to come, we are in a season of the church calendar when we too wait the coming of another baby, Jesus.  We’re in the season of Advent and “advent” is Latin for coming.  We’re preparing our hearts to worship this baby Jesus who is God in the flesh, our Lord, king, and savior.  This is a great time to be exploring more deeply what it means to worship.

There’s another good reason for us to be studying worship.  You asked for it.  A year ago we had a congregation-wide consultation day and out of that came a process of dialogue groups, and one of those dialogue groups focused on the area of worship, and that dialogue group said one thing we must do is some teaching on worship.  So here we are: The Elements of Worship.

We’ve been looking at different definitions of worship over the past two weeks.  On the first week we asked you to submit some definitions.  I’ve posted all those on my blog.  I’d like to share a sample of them with you this morning.  You said that worship is…

  • Loving God
  • Any act that celebrates God’s presence
  • Living out your faith
  • In Hebrew it means, “To bend the knee.”  For me I see it as me choosing to agree with God & submit to His will…
  • An expression of our gratitude and devotion to our God incorporating all elements of our life
  • Putting your heart in alignment with God – with mind, heart, and actions
  • Celebrating God for who God is and what God has done
  • Boring.

I love that last one, just because of the honesty of it.  Isn’t it good to be part of a community that strives to be honest with one another?  We don’t always get it right, but at least we’re willing to say we’re bored when we are!

So we’ve been working with a definition throughout this series that was my own attempt at summing up a lot of other definitions.  I like to say that worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter God and respond with everything we’ve got!

There are three key parts of this definition.  First, worship is first and foremost about God, not you or what you get out of worship.  Second, worship happens most fully in community.  As Mark, our resident scientist-preacher, said last week, scientists work best together in a lab rather than by themselves.  Same thing is true of worship.  And I’m not just talking about the present community.  I’m talking about the universal “catholic” community of all the Christians present on Earth and all the Christians who have come before us and even all the company of heaven who join in with our worship.  Have you ever thought of that?  Actually, it’s more like us joining in with the company of heaven!  Lastly, worship is also about our response.  When we come into contact with the character of God there are some natural and even supernatural responses that we have.  When we encounter God’s glory, we praise.  When we encounter God’s holiness, we confess.  And today when we encounter God’s mercy, we give thanks.  This response doesn’t just hang around on Sunday morning.  It continues on throughout the week.

So today we look at God’s mercy.  Thank God for God’s mercy.  After a week like last week with God’s holiness, we’d all be toast if that’s where the story ended!

Along the way in this series we’ve used the periodic table of elements to help us understand each of these elements of God’s character.  Glory equals carbon which can be seen in the beauty of a diamond.  Holiness equals hydrogen because it is simple, pure, and dangerous.  Mercy equals copper.

One book about the elements says of copper:

“Copper is wonderful stuff.  Just wonderful.  Many other elements have some kind of a gotcha about them: maybe they are great in every way except that they’re poisonous, or they would be perfect except they explode when they touch water [or cesium which explodes when it touches skin!].  Copper has no gotcha—it’s just nice stuff all around.”

I love that description of copper.  You could insert “God’s mercy” in the place of copper and it would be pretty accurate.  Copper has some wonderful properties too.  It’s very conductive.  It gets energy from one place to another.  It is valuable right now.  A friend of mine moved into an apartment and found that none of the electricity worked.  All the copper wiring had been ripped out and stolen!  Copper is also known for being one of the most flexible metals and easy to work with.  Let’s explore copper a little bit more.

To bring you up to speed on copper, we’re going to turn to Professor Martyn Poliakoff of the University of Nottingham who with the help of some others has made a whole series of videos on the periodic table of elements.

So know that you know about copper, let’s turn to the other side of the equation.  Copper = God’s mercy.  We’ve been using Isaiah 6:1-8 each week to explore the Elements of Worship.  Let’s look for God’s mercy in this story of Isaiah’s encounter with God.

Isaiah 6:1-8 (NLT)

1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. 3 In a great chorus they sang,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty!

The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

4 The glorious singing shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke. 5 Then I said, “My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of a sinful race. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” 8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?” And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

When we look closely at this story of Isaiah’s encounter with God we learn several things about God’s mercy.  First, mercy is all God’s work.  Consider again how copper is conductive.  It does all the work of moving energy from one place to another.  You take any electric appliance and it’s worthless until you plug it into an outlet.  The copper in the wires does all the heavy work.

We see in this story that Isaiah is acted upon by God, or God’s messenger.  In verse six and seven we read, “Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it…”  Isaiah for the most part just stands there in the face of God’s holiness and considers himself doomed.  That’s the danger of God’s holiness, but the wonder of God’s mercy is that God works in us despite our sin and brokenness.

We see this dynamic all over scripture but especially in Psalm 51 which begins, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.”  It’s God who does the blotting.  We can’t get rid of the sin ourselves.  God’s mercy is conducive to our forgiveness.

There is a cost to forgiving.  When we forgive, something in us must die; something must be let go.  Our sin and the sins of others makes in us a kind of hardness that God’s mercy must soften.  God knows what this is like.  Paul says, “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said” (1 Corinthians 15:3, NLT).  God’s mercy and forgiveness ultimately cost more than we could ever pay, and Jesus willingly paid that cost out of love.  Paul puts it another way saying that [Jesus] “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8, NRSV).  God’s mercy is all God’s work, and this work of mercy, like all works of mercy, comes at a price to God.  It is free to us.  It cost God something big.  Mercy is all God’s work.

Mercy also means transformation.  Consider again copper.  Copper is hard enough to build with but soft enough to really be usable.  Sarah and I own a house in Petoskey and we were having a leak in the shower.  We decided to put in a new shower and we asked our neighbor, Dane, who is a contractor to do the work for us.  When he was looking at the work to be done, we went in the basement and examined the plumbing.  It was all galvanized steel pipes.  If you’ve ever tried to work with steel pipes you know how much of a hassle it can be.  Dane figured he could fairly easily attach some new copper pipes to the ends of the steel pipes.  After he was all done, we went up to our house to find that he had taken out all the galvanized steel and replaced all our plumbing with new copper pipes.  The basement was transformed from plumbing that is a pain to work with to plumbing that is easy and flexible to work with.  We were amazed with the transformation and expect any future work to be much easier.

God’s mercy equals our transformation.  We see this in the story of Isaiah’s encounter with God in verse seven.  We read, “He touched my lips with it and said, ‘See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.’”  Isaiah is transformed by the forgiveness of his sins.  He is made pure and holy.  In the danger of God’s holiness, Isaiah was expecting destruction but what he ended up with was forgiveness.  Mercy equals transformation.

We can see this kind of transformation and the experience it brings in Psalm 32.

Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.  (Psalm 32:2-5, NLT)

Now that’s a wonderful transformation!  What we’re talking about here is reconciliation.  Being made right in relationship when the relationship was broken.  Something not right was made right.

I have a somewhat famous cousin who is a farmer in Virginia.  His name is Joel Salitin.  He was featured in the book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, and also made a showing in the moving Food Inc.  His farm is called Polyface farm because he raises many different kinds of animals.  His method is to use all the byproducts of each animal to help the other animals so that in the end, his farm produces no waste.  Sarah and I went to visit him when we lived in North Carolina.  While he was giving us a tour of the farm, we came to a barn that had pigs in it.  He got all giddy and jumped over the fence and reached down into the manure and lifted up two big handfuls and said, “Smell this stuff!  Touch it!”  We were a little reluctant at first, but then we realized leaving him with manure in his hands was kind of like leaving someone hanging in a high-five.  So we smelled it and touched it.  Amazing thing!  It was warm and it smelled sweet!  He went on to explain how he was using the pigs to compost or transform the cow manure into useful fertilizer.

That’s what God’s mercy does.  It transforms something stinking into something beautiful.  God’s mercy transforms our sin and brokenness into forgiveness and reconciliation and holiness.  God’s mercy equals transformation.

In worship we encounter God’s mercy.  If God’s mercy is all God’s work and leads to transformation, what is our response to God’s mercy?  I suggest that we have two natural responses to God’s mercy.  The first is that we give thanks.  We thank God for all the ways that God has forgiven us and been patient with us and transformed us.  We do that in song.  We do it in prayer.  We do it by turning and opening our hearts to God.  When we encounter God’s mercy we respond with thankfulness.

There’s a second response I think we have when we encounter God’s mercy.  We show mercy and forgive others.  You see, when we encounter the danger of God’s holiness and realize we have fallen short of God’s glory, we are humbled.  And when we encounter God’s mercy and are transformed by the work of God in our lives, we are thankful.  That humility and thankfulness produces in us a kind of response to those around us that recognizes that because we have been shown mercy and forgiveness, we too ought to show mercy and forgive others.  Yes, it will cost us something, just as mercy cost God something.  Yes it means softening a hard spot in our hearts and being open to being hurt again, but God knows the same experience through Jesus’ death on the cross.  God does not expect a response from us that God has not already paved the way forward himself.  We respond to God’s mercy by being merciful and forgiving others.

When we gather to worship as a community we encounter God’s mercy.  Like copper that conducts energy from one place to another, God’s mercy is all God’s work.  Like copper being flexible enough to be transformed, God’s mercy transforms us.  We respond by being thankful and showing mercy to others by forgiving them.  In worship we encounter God’s glory, holiness, and mercy and we respond with everything we’ve got: praise, confession, and thankfulness.

Thank you, God!

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