Saint Brendan Anglican Church
Archive for February, 2008
Christ-Centered Fiction - Worth the read!
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
At the prompting of a Missionary Society of Saint John brother Priest, I went against my mind’s poor image of all Christian fiction and recently completed The Shack. My apprehension was a carry-over from the “Left Behind” series and my presumption that Christian fiction could never be done well.
This new Christian novel was suggested with many warnings - those of the “this is not the typical Christian fiction you are used to” type. Here is what is on the back cover of William P. Young’s novel:
Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness. Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.
Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.
In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!
I too, want you to read this book. Finally, Christian fiction worthy of the title. It challenges your thoughts, it gets you “out of your box” and draws you to your ultimate center - Jesus Christ.
Eugene Peterson said this about The Shack, “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”
Michael W. Smith said, The Shack is the most absorbing work of fiction I’ve read in many years. My wife and I laughed, cried and repented of our own lack of faith along the way. The Shack will leave you craving for the presence of God.”
Theologically this book is challenging; there are times where the author sounds almost universal in regards to religion, but I assure you something in this book will grip your soul and twist it. Something in this book will make you rethink your walk and evaluate your faith. It makes you ask questions, search scripture, and begin to trench the depths of your core beliefs - what I believe a true “Christian novel” should do. Along with facing your fears and the tragedies of this life, you may find yourself reluctantly not wanting to put this book down. This is more than a quick read, a light devotional, this book has the potential to take you to new places in your faith.
Go out and buy a copy today and then share one with a friend.
First Sunday in Lent Sermon (Feb. 10)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
They may surprise us, these forms that temptation takes when Jesus fasts out in the wilderness. The devil does not present a slice of chocolate cake, or offer piles of money, or any illicit activities. The devil is not working from a view of sin like that of our society. He doesn’t concern himself with simply the illicit, ill-gotten gain, or excessive, tasty calories.
What the devil does is to fly below the radar of conventional morality to present a series of temptations that can very effectively cripple all our relationships at their core: relationships with creation, God, and people. These temptations are not concerned with simply loaves made from stones, jumping off a tall structure, and a chance for world domination. They are concerned with what for us seems closer to home, such matters as skill, trust, and power.
Skill, trust, and power. Here all of us have the opportunity to wreck our lives or allow our lives to become what they are meant to be: vehicles of grace.
Consider the first temptation, bread from stones, the one that has to do with skill.
Jesus has been fasting a very long time, and his hunger is severe. The devil, never one to miss a chance to get us, appears and challenges him to prove his identity and satisfy his hunger at the same time. He points to the stones visible everywhere in that desert. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”
Jesus counters this proposal with words from Scripture. “It is written,” he says, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
This confrontation is about more than whether Jesus gets lunch that day. Jesus is asserting that his identity as Son of God––our identity as children of God––does not depend on what we do, or what we have, but who we are, and who we listen to.
Jesus is God’s Son and listens to God. We too are God’s children, and we listen to God, we hearken when God speaks to us.
Yes, we have skill, we have technique, but these must be subordinated to the gracious purposes that God makes known to us. Just because we are capable of doing something does not mean that we should do it. Certain choices, though technically possible, contradict what God hopes for from us; they are not consistent with our identity as God’s children.
A couple of questions for any of us to consider.
• Do I look upon myself or others simply in terms of doing and having, or do I recognize myself and others for who we are: children of God?
• Do I view my skills and opportunities as simply mine to use how I see fit, or do I treat them as entrusted to me for use in accord with God’s intention?
Consider the second temptation, jumping off a tall structure, the one that has to do with trust.
The devil takes Jesus into Jerusalem, to the very top of the temple. He invites Jesus to prove who he is, and to do so in a spectacular way. “If you are the Son of God, then jump down, Jesus,” says the devil. “For remember what it says in the Bible: ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus counters this temptation, laced as it is with scripture quotes, with his own answer from the Bible: “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
The devil knows the words of scripture, but is ignorant of its spirit. Yes, guardian angels are commissioned by God to help us here on earth. But to trust God does not mean the assumption that God will protect me regardless, even if perform some life-threatening stunt as an affront to the law of gravity.
Trusting God does not mean that God will enable our stupid behavior. What it does mean is that we accept the life God offers us with its challenges, its risks, its disappointments. It means living our lives and trusting God to make sense of them.
For Jesus this means that he comes to accept the cup of suffering God offers him in the Garden of Gethsemane, a cup he would readily refuse except that he trusts the One who offers it.
As children of God, it is not sufficient for us simply to trust God. We must trust God in the right way. We cannot expect God to endorse the products of our egotism as though the Holy One were a cosmic enabler.
Not all risks are good ones. Some are ill-advised and destructive. Others are offered to lead us into the future God intends for us, a future marked by blessing.
A couple of questions for any of us to consider.
• Do I trust God only about my own wants and plans, or do I trust even when God invites me to risk in a way that seems strange?
• Is some hardship in my life a cup offered to me by God or a leap I have taken off a tall structure?
We come now to the third temptation Jesus experiences out in the wilderness, a chance for world domination, the one that has to do with power.
This time the devil takes Jesus to a very high mountain that offers a panoramic view of all the countries of the world. Not only are the territories visible, but so too is their splendor.
No longer does the devil raise questions about the identity of Jesus, nor does he have scripture to misquote. He simply proposes a deal. Is there a note here of impatience? “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Jesus senses that he has gained the upper hand. “Away with you, Satan,’ he says, “For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
For whatever reason, Jesus does not contest Satan’s claim of control over the countries of the world. What he attacks instead is the propriety of treating Satan as ultimate. God alone is worthy of worship.
Just as he does not condemn all technique or all trust when addressing earlier temptations, so here Jesus does not condemn all power. What he insists on is that power, like technique or trust, must be subordinated to the purposes of God. Power sought and obtained for its own sake, power purchased at any price amounts to devil worship. Power must be used instead in obedience to God, in service to the benevolent purposes of God.
Each one of us exercises some power in life. Some of us may appropriately seek a further sphere to exercise power, perhaps through our work or some form of community involvement. By exercising any form of power, we end up serving someone. The choice of whom we serve is a moral and spiritual matter of the greatest consequence.
Two more questions, then, for any of us to consider.
• Where are the places in my life where I exercise power?
• Do I worship the Lord God alone through my use of power or do I worship something else?
Skill, trust, and power. These themes appear in the story of Jesus, not only during his wilderness temptation, but at other times as well.
• Jesus refuses to turn stones into bread at the devil’s suggestion. On several occasions, however, he multiplies bread when many are hungry and people give up their meal in order to help others.
• Jesus refuses to jump off the top of the temple, but he does accept that cup of suffering God offers him, and does so because he trusts God.
• Jesus turns down the devil’s bargain of gaining all the world in exchange for worship of someone less than God. What Jesus does is announce the kingdom of heaven come to earth, and then die and rise so we may enter that kingdom.
Jesus makes it possible for us to decide about skill, trust, and power in a way that acknowledges his triumph. We are free to find our identity through our participation in him as children of God, heirs of the kingdom by grace.
Yes, Jesus refused to turn stones into bread. But he turns bread into himself at every Eucharist. We are here to share that meal as we trust in God and enjoy a taste of his kingdom. May it be so. Amen.
Second Sunday in Lent Sermon (Feb. 17)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Born again! People respond to those words very differently. Some people love them, but others hate them. Herb Caen says,
”The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.”
Born again! There seems to be no middle ground — no one who just shrugs their shoulders and says, “Yeah! That sounds about right.” Everyone has an opinion about “born again.” It’s a hot-button topic.
Born again!
The problem is that when we hear those words, we tend to think of those annoying people who stop us on the street and ask, “Have you been born again?” — implying that there is something wrong with us if we have not been.
But those words, “born again” come from the Bible — from Jesus’ lips, no less!
Jesus said that we must be born again. He should know.
Maybe I should be more exact. Jesus did not say that we have to be born again. The New Testament was written originally in Greek. In Greek, Jesus said, “You must be born anothen. (AN oh then)
Anothen is one of those words that have two meanings. It can mean “again” or it can mean “from above.” I believe that Jesus chose this word for both of its meanings. He means that we must be born a second time — “again” — and this time “from above.” He means that we must have a Heavenly Father, just as we have earthly parents. Nearly all Christians believe that! Baptists believe it! Lutherans believe it! Catholics believe it! Nearly all Christians believe that we must be “born again” — “born from above.” Christians believe that we need the Heavenly Father to remake us — to reshape us — to take our broken parts and make us whole again. Christians might argue about the details — what it means to be born again — how that happens — but the differences aren’t really that great.
It comes down to letting God transform our lives — letting God help us become more God-like. When you stop and think about it, that makes a lot of sense.
When we are born physically, we take a great deal from our fathers and mothers. We get genes from both. We probably look a lot like one or the other. When we talk, we sound a lot like one or the other. Whether we are short or tall has a great deal to do with our parents. Whether we have brown eyes or blue eyes depends on our parents. Even if both of our parents have brown eyes, we might inherit a recessive gene from one of them for blue eyes — but that blue-eyed gene still comes from our brown-eyed parent.
And we learn a lot from our parents. They teach us to walk and talk. They nurture us and help us along the way. They feed us nutritious food so we can grow. They make us go to school so we will have a good foundation in life. They impart certain values to us.
Who we are has a great deal to do with who our parents were.
For many of us, that’s good. Our parents loved us and did a good job of getting us ready for life. For some of us, it wasn’t so good. Some parents don’t do such a good job. But when Jesus says, “You must be born again” or “born from above,” he is saying that we don’t have to be limited by our parents. He is saying that we can have another parent — this time a Heavenly Parent:
- A parent who will guide us
- A parent who will nurture us
- A parent who will love us
- A parent we can trust
- A parent who will help us to grow strong
- A parent who will prepare us to handle the ups and downs of life
- A parent who will help us to succeed in life
- And a parent who will welcome us into a heavenly home when we die.
Let me tell you a secret. It isn’t just children who need good parents — it’s all of us. All of us need good parents. Even if you are old when your parents die, you will still grieve their passing. You will still miss them. You will still feel their loss. All of us need good parents — even those of us well along in years.
Jesus is telling us that, just as we need earthly parents, we need God. We need a Heavenly Father/Mother.
That is an exciting idea. It says that we aren’t limited by the genes that we got from our earthly parents, because God can make something new of us. It tells us that we don’t have to settle for the person that we are, because God can make us better. The early church had a wonderful way of expressing its faith in the rebirth that people experience when they become Christians.
As I understand it, in the early church (3rd-10th centuries) people weren’t baptized in the church sanctuary. They were baptized in a separate baptismal building which was dimly lighted. Men and women were baptized separately, and they were baptized naked in a pool of water. Then they were dressed in white clothing, anointed with perfumed oil, and taken into a brightly candle-lighted sanctuary where they took Holy Communion. They would never have seen Holy Communion before — because they would always have been dismissed at the mid-point in the service.
These actions dramatized their “new birth” — their “taking off” the old life and “putting on” the new. I read a story that illustrates well what God wants to do with us — with our lives.
Lindsay Clegg was a businessman who owned a London warehouse that had stood empty for quite some time. He wanted to sell it, but the building looked terrible. Vandals had broken windows and scattered trash. But Clegg found a prospective buyer who showed an interest in spite of the building’s appearance. He tried to reassure the buyer that he would replace the broken windows and clean up the trash and make any other necessary repairs. But the buyer cut him short. He said, “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.”
That’s what God says to us. “I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t care who you are now, because I’m going to make you into a new person.
Many people feel like they have nothing to offer God. They can’t imagine that God would want anything to do with them. They look at their lives and see only the broken windows and trash. They think that they must somehow lift themselves by their bootstraps so that they will be worthy of God, but that seems impossible. They think of themselves as poor specimens — unworthy — unlovely.
But the Good News is that God just loves finding a person like that– a humble person — someone who recognizes her neediness. A person who knows that he is lost is open to being found.
God says, “I don’t really care who you are now. You don’t have to be responsible for the repairs. I intend to make you into a new person. All I need is your heart.”
That’s Good News!
• It’s Good News to those who feel that they have done something terribly wrong — unforgivably wrong.
• It’s Good News to those who constantly struggle to do the right thing, but constantly fail.
• It’s Good News to those who can’t imagine that God would want anything to do with them.
• It’s Good News, because it offers the reassurance that God can make the best out of the worst.
• It’s Good News, because it reassures us that no one is hopeless.
But it’s also Good News for those of us who call ourselves Christians — for those of us who were baptized and go to church every week — for those of us who are accustomed to the ritual of Holy Communion.
It is Good News to those of us who have supposedly been reborn, but who still struggle to do the right thing.
It’s Good News to those of us who have supposedly been reborn, but who wonder if God is really doing anything in our lives.
Let me remind you that a newborn baby is pretty helpless. Newborn babies can’t program a computer or play quarterback. Newborn babies can’t even feed themselves or change their own diapers. Newborn babies are adorable, but they will spend a lifetime growing and changing.
A mother who happened also to be a physician once commented on her struggles with her teenage children. She said, “Their brains don’t quit growing until they are 25 years old. It’s no wonder that they have such a time making it through their teenage years.”
And so it is with those of us who have been born again — and all of us who have given our lives to Christ have been born again. When we were baptized, it didn’t seem like baptism did much for us. We weren’t taller. We weren’t stronger. We weren’t smarter. We weren’t prettier.
But something did happen. We invited God to make a new person of us, and God began that work. We became “infants in Christ.” That’s what the Apostle Paul called the Christians at Corinth — infants in Christ. The church at Corinth was a troubled church, and the Christians at Corinth were troubled people. Paul wrote a letter to guide them onto a better pathway. In his letter, he called them “people of the flesh — infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1).
”People of the flesh” — that was just another way of saying “sinners.”
Those Christians in Corinth were sinners. But they were also “infants in Christ” — people who had been born into a new life. They weren’t yet the people that God wanted them to be — and they weren’t yet the people whom they would become — but they had been reborn. They had asked God to make them into new people, and God had started that work. God would be working on them for the rest of their lives.
If you haven’t become a Christian yet, the word that Christ has for you is that God can do great things with your life if you will let him.
If you are a Christian, the word that Christ has for you is that God is at work in your life, chipping away the sharp edges, restoring you to the image of God (see Genesis 1:27).
You aren’t yet the person that God wants you to be.
You aren’t yet the person whom you will become.
But God has started the work, and he will complete it. So next time someone asks, “Have you been born again?” don’t get angry. Say, “Yes, I have, thanks!” And then just keep walking.
