Mark 1:1-4 - "Original Value" (1-11-09)

John the Baptist said, “I’m not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals.” His Wayne’s World like confession reminds us today of our value before God. Then we hear the voice of God that only Jesus hears speak the words, “You are my beloved, in you I am well pleased”. These words of affirmation remind us of the great value that God has for what Christ is doing to restore the value to humanity. By his life, death and resurrection, Jesus will restore the original blessing and value we hear about in the book of Genesis.

So today I want to talk about “Original Value”. We’ve heard a lot about the home values going down below market value. I discovered the original title from my parent’s only home they ever owned this past week. We had been living on Clybourn Avenue on the near northwest side of Chicago near Palmer. We had rented there and had lived a few years in Cabrini Green before that time, one of five white folks in the building. When we moved in 1968 when I was 1.5 years old, my older siblings said it seemed like we were moving to the suburbs. The original value of the home was $18,000 in 1968.

In the Genesis creation story, we hear that the original value of everything that was created was good. God spoke words that brought life to all of creation and it was “good”. Then in the creation of humanity, God spoke life and it was “very good.” Great value and worth were a part of the original blessing and plan of creation. There is recognition of who we are and whose we are as created by God.

Yet the value and worth of humanity begins to crumble based not solely on the value instilled by God but upon our own desire to make meaning and purpose out of our lives separated from God. The devaluing of the relationship with God caused the market to drop in our relationship with God and we put our investments in our own abilities.

The human struggle to reclaim that original value began. In the 1980’s pop-psychology developed this self-talk process. I remember reading that I was to look in the mirror and say something positive twenty times everyday. By the third day, I said “whatever”. This self talk was best expressed by Stewart Smalley who would look into the mirror and say to himself: I’m good enough; I’m smart enough and gosh people like me. Al Franken wanted people to know that they counted and he still wants people to count and recount again and again in Minnesota. In this self talk culture, there has obviously been a need for positive and life giving self talk due to the human reality of brokenness. I found comfort in the African American preaching style described by Henri Mitchell.[1] He talked about how the recording over your inner tapes that reside in the gut or soul of the person can only be healed by the power of the preached word. One needs to hear again that their identity is rooted in being a child of God.

In 1992, I was struggling with those inner tapes and my value. I had been adjusting to living in the middle class world instead of the lower class experience in our culture. One rainy day returning back to my apartment in Philadelphia, I found in the gutter an orange teddy bear. I thought about knocking on a few doors but put it in the car and drove home. After throwing it into the washing machine, he cleaned up pretty good. Well it was sitting on my basement office shelf this week and it started to preach to me. Orange you glad you found me and remembered what value you had after God threw you into the water and cleaned you up for a new purpose.

Today we remember as we look back on our lives that whatever great things we have done in our lives, we have yet to overcome the world’s struggles and we place too much emphasis on us and very little upon God. All we have to do is hold up the mirror.

Also, anytime we think too little of ourselves we can recall that we have been washed in the waters of baptism and we are called to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to others.

We gather to remember whose we are and who we are today! We hear the John the Baptist encouraging people to come and be cleansed by the washing in the Jordan. And the people came to see this un-kept man who was eating locust and honey, surviving on the bare minimum. We hear the words of John, “I am unworthy to untie his sandals” and we too know that we are not good enough yet Jesus calls us again today for the purpose to restore value and worth to our lives, this community and to the world that we might live into the light and love of God that brings freedom.

Then we see the Holy Spirit descend upon us like a dove as the heavens open up. The voice speaks, “You are my Son and daughter, because of Jesus, I am well pleased.” Jesus has restored the original value and blessing of the goodness of creation. Jesus restores the order of creation and reclaiming the original value. Jesus then begins his public ministry of preaching to Gospel, the good news; he is a herald (angel) to all. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

We turn around and see that our value is in Christ. We are children of God. I was baptized! I AM BAPTIZED.[2] Not just a past event! We hear the good news: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.” We had thirty preachers here on Wednesday evening. They were sitting in a circle and they were proclaiming to one another these words: “Name, you are a child of God, never forget! The original value has been restored in Christ so that we might have life and love. Never forget!

---

[1] Henri Mitchell. Celebration and Experience in Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon, 1990.

[2] www.laughingpastor.blogspot.com

John 1:1-18 - "Word Search" (1-4-09)

On Christmas day, we retold and acted out the birth story from Luke’s Gospel with our kids. Lest we think Jesus just showed up, we hear from the Gospel of John that “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The eternal broke into the temporal on Christmas day and we celebrate that good word.

When it said in Genesis that God said let there be light… there was light. Words spoken create an image and life. When I suggest a word to you, like ice cream, the image takes hold and the word takes on a life of its own. Words create life. Words spoken bring life or can cause pain.

The word that broke the silence was UGH. It was January 2^nd and I had just been in the office for about 30 minutes when I realized that I didn’t order the Lutheran Study Bibles at the reduced price before January 30^th. So then I called Augsburg Fortress and said, “Wa,wa,wa” the lady said, “Let me check with my supervisor.” I waited and then the word was spoken, “Yes you can have them at the $25.00 price.” I rejoiced. The words couldn’t express the gratitude I was experiencing.

So as we start a new year, perhaps a new years resolution is to order a Lutheran Study Bible. The next 16 people can still get them at the price of $25.00. Order now and pay March 1^st when they are shipped. We have 34 accounted for and I ordered 50. In this New Year, I encourage you to search out the Word of God. We search out the word of God to discover that the good word for us today is Christ, the living word that came searching for us.

It’s like at Christmas, my daughter received a princess vanity from Tammy’s grandparents. My usual way of building these things that have too many parts is to just have at it. But I was smart enough to go through the instructions.

Today is the 11^th day of Christmas. If you search out the meaning of the words to the familiar twelve days of Christmas, you’ll discover a time when people were persecuted because the word of God was being misused to repress one form of Christian faith and another. Those holy wars between Catholics and Protestants of England recall a time when the words of the song were used to teach the faith. One partridge in a pear tree depicted Jesus Christ (the mother partridge feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless babies). Two Testaments; Three gifts of faith, hope and love; Four gospels; Five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch); and today is the eleventh day of Christmas - Eleven faithful disciples.

Yet all eleven disciples who received the word also rejected it when push comes to shove. When the word became flesh and dwelt among us, those disciples were amazed. The eternal and cosmic word – “the eternal word will not stay outside time and history, but will enter into the time-bound world.”[1] The Word cut across dimensions and lifted them up to hear a good word.

John came to bear witness, using temporal words to point others to Jesus Christ. He was not the light or the word – his words point to the light of the word that gives us the power to become a child of God. No one has ever seen God. “It is God the only son who is close to the father’s heart, who has made him known.” There is a changed relationship between the distant God out there to the God that is here in the midst of the heart of the problems. The Word comes from God and is God and lived and we heard the good news and we are called to hear it again.

Perhaps we do not see the good word in our limited searching of the word. Perhaps we do not hear them in our busyness. But God has spoken and we have this sense that there is something divine; bigger than ourselves, something that binds and holds all things together. Something that pulls and presses upon us in such ultimate and yet so simple a manner that we think… aha…what is that word? This word we have experienced in the faith has been received – the way all twelve received. We rejoice when we hear this word.

Ye we also resist the word, the way the twelve resisted what this word meant when they denied Jesus. Yet they surrender to it even after failure. We resist the word sometimes because it will cause us to radically change our behavior toward one another.

The word is also perverted and distorted for ungodly things that lead to death, war, destruction, brokenness, misused and abused words that are spoken or withheld from one another. When the word is distorted it becomes resisted, we turn the word into law! We turn the Word that is Christ and the mystery of God’s presence among us into a form or a tradition that becomes mandated and codified in our faith.

The struggle is that we often have turned the Word of God into a law. The word holders become more important than what we witness to; that we have no words to face sin, death, war, impeachment, a new year, joblessness; poverty… we have no words but the mysterious word that is eternal that cosmically comes to us in community and brings light to a world of darkness. We want the word to be law so that we can say what you did was right and wrong. Grace be gone, the extraordinary loses meaning and the ordinary is held above the divine and worshipped. Whenever any “holy book” is codified, the easiest thing to do is mandate how we live with one another, leading to using words that demonize and gives us the authority to kill, mame, war and abuse in the name of God.

We resist this word perhaps because it calls for change in us that is too uncomfortable and we cannot bear such confusion. The word doesn’t remove us from the anxiety and struggle but gives us courage[2] to face the silences that search us out; that we might know that the dimension between this life and the eternal one has been bridged with a single word: Jesus. The only way to face the silence and the only word that brings life and light is Jesus Christ.

We are left in the silence, in the emptiness of our souls and the word of God is speaking to us again; the word is search is out in order to break through from eternity into the present; from the eternal to the temporal; from the cosmic to the here; it is always trying to help us perceive, understand and do the will of the one who is the word, Jesus Christ!

Let us pray:

---

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, page 518ff

[2] Paul Tillich, The New Being, page 119

Luke 2:1-14 - "The Season of Glory and Praise" (12-24-08)

This is the season of glory and praise. We have been hearing songs that direct our attention to the praise and glory of God. There is so much music in the season. The Christmas music will stop on the radio now! But Christmas will go on until January 6^th. There are various Christmas songs that stand out for me. The thing I remember about Christmas is the sound of an album playing Christmas music on the sound system. I remember the sound of the needle on the album. I actually have my mom’s 78’s that play (sing) “I’m Dreaming of a white Christmas” Actually I’m dreaming of a fixed snow blower after mine died last weekend. I also have the 33’s from my mom and the Elvis Christmas album that was my mom’s favorite. I still recall, (sing) “In the ghetto, and his mamma cries…”

All the Christmas songs we’ve heard on the radio since Halloween point to the glory and praise of God. Well most of them do that we sing. The music of Christmas points us back to God. Silent Night speaks of “glories stream from heaven afar.” Joy to the World refers to the “glories of his righteousness.” Angels From the Realms of Glory includes it in the title. Angels We Have Heard on High, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo.” (Sing) Take a deep breath and sing it with me, “Glooooooooooooooria, In Excelsis Deo.” I also have on tape Handles Messiah with the (sing) “Glory to God, glory to God, glory to god in the highest; and peace on earth.” That was an anthem!

A farmer who lived in a small town was in his church choir. That choir one day traveled to a big church to sing. They had a large chorus that sang an anthem. When he got home, he told his wife that he learned the difference between an anthem and a hymn. “We sing hymns here at home. If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn, Amen,’ that would be a hymn. But if I were to say, ‘Martha, Martha, Martha, the cows--the big cows, the little cows, the black cows, the red cows, the green cows, all the cows, all the cows, all the cows-- are in the corn, the corn, the corn, the corn, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,’ -THAT would be an anthem!”[1]

Everyone had been marching to the beat of the tune that Emperor Augustus had established with his declaration. Joseph and Mary were marching to a different tune, a quiet rhythm that God had set in their hearts that the Roman Empire could not hear yet.

Then an angel from God’s choir announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds – simple men. This was no grand anthem or loud proclamation to all but to a few lowly men who were probably the ones who provided lambs for the temple sacrifice. The one unnamed angel tells them about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They were afraid. The angel told them to BE NOT AFRAID FOR I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS!

Then a group of angles came to the shepherds and they praised God. It doesn’t say that they actually sang a song! But the say these familiar words: Glory to God in the highest – and peace to God’s people on earth! = Gloria in Excelsis Deo. The word glory occurs over 400 times in the Old Testament – It denotes God’s awesome splendor and majesty! After each musical composition J. S. Bach would write S. D. G. "Soli Deo Gloria" "To God Alone be the Glory."[2]

First there was just one angel affirming the central role of the birth of this child who will be the savior of the world. Then Cool and the Gang showed up to say AMEN! The angelic multitude has the angels back. The heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the Highest and peace to God’s people on earth!

Then the heavenly Chorus testified to the truth about God that the one angel proclaimed. They are reinforcements for the one angel. Just in case you not going to listen to one angel, here is a bunch. Then the shepherds do a few things. In verse 1 they talked to each other: did you just hear that song on the airwaves? Did you hear what I heard? Then they found the baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph; Mary must have hummed the tune in her heart. Then they reported of the angelic visitors; telling them what they had scene and heard. Finally, they returned to the fields praising and glorifying God, singing a tune that just got stuck in their heads. Their praise of God for the birth of Christ stands out to the shepherds who didn’t have an ipod or boom-box in the quiet hills of Bethlehem.

The glory of God so presents his reality that sin is described as “falling short of the glory of God “(Rom 3:23). We gather to call out to God. We pray for God’s grace and God’s glory and mercy shows up. We sing at Christmas these songs of God’s glory because they point the way to the most important element of the holy-days – the glory of God in Christ! We don’t sing our own praises.

The glory and praise of God reminds us that God is present even when we don’t feel like singing a song. We remember what 2 Corinthians 4:17 states, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." We recall that in Romans 8:17-18, it declares, “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God". We recall that heaven is the place where Jesus is the Lamb of God – who receives glory, honor and might! We wait for the manifestation of the glory of Christ one day, to gather with those who are singing the praises and glory of God all together.

We gather this night with the chorus of faith to affirm the message of the solitary angel. When we can’t sing alone, the chorus of faith is still ringing out to us. All those who have gone on before us join in the chorus of faith that sings during this season and glory and praise!

Let us pray

---

[1] From The Dynamic Classic Preaching Treasury 1991-2001; Paul Blom E-zine: Teresa’s Jokers, http://www.eGroups.com/list/jo-jokers

[2] http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/bul/christm.html