Unapologetic

January, 2020 Worship Series

Unapologetic: Making Sense of Our Faith

Read the Sermon

Romans 7:14-21

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I’m made of flesh and blood, and I’m sold as a slave to sin. I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. But if I’m doing the thing that I don’t want to do, I’m agreeing that the Law is right. But now I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it’s sin that lives in me. I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. But if I do the very thing that I don’t want to do, then I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it. So I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me.

– – – – – – – – – –

It is great to be with you all this morning. Frankly, it’s great to be out of bed. Some of you know I came down with the flu at the start of the year. I’m thankful for the flu shot I got in the fall, because it kept my fight with the flu to two weeks instead of three.

I’ve talked about this a little bit before, but it’s a helpful reminder to know that germ theory is more modern than the Bible. We can see hints and guesses that point towards germ theory, but Moses didn’t know anything about vaccines.

Trust me, this is headed somewhere.

In the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, there are multiple passages about what should be done if someone is sick – the solution, more often than not, was to isolate people to the edge of the camp. It’s written in Leviticus, “Anyone with an infection of skin disease must wear torn clothes, dishevel their hair, cover their upper lip, and shout out, “Unclean! Unclean!” They will be unclean as long as they are infected. They are unclean. They must live alone outside the camp.”

So let’s put this in context – this tribe has been liberated from slavery in Egypt and now they are living as a nomadic people in the desert. They don’t know why diseases spread, but they can tell that they are passed from one person to the next. As soon as one person is sick, they are called unclean and are forced to live outside of the camp, away from everyone else, so the disease doesn’t spread.

Which is not all that different than how schools or workplaces function today, is it not?

I was diagnosed with the flu on Tuesday, December 31st, so you all know how exciting New Year’s Eve was for me. By last Sunday, I wasn’t feeling that bad, which is the blessing of better living through chemistry. Medications were helping, a lot, and while I was still dealing with some fatigue, I wasn’t feeling sick.

But I’m willing to bet that most of you were glad I stayed at home last week and isolated myself as unclean. I could have preached and served communion, I just would have shared a few germs with you all while I did.

Our understanding of how the world works has changed over the centuries, and yet our lived reality hasn’t changed all that much.

That’s one of the things that truly fascinates me about the Bible and our lives because while the context has changed and we might see things differently, in many ways, we feel things the same way today as the Israelites did 4000 years ago.

In the United States, 77% of us identify ourselves as religious, around 50% of us claim church membership, and 26% of us regularly go to church. But in surveys, 42% of people in the United States claim to go to church on a regular basis.

16% of the people in the United States lie about being regular church attenders because they believe it will make them look virtuous and respectable.

The opposite is true in England where around 6% of the population regularly attends church and people are more likely to deny going to church then talk up their attendance habits.

There is a passive cultural Christianity that is engrained in England and the United States. Aspects of our culture are deeply Christian, and yet, my guess is that many people only know about modern Christianity through what they learn in news stories of scandals, and if all you knew of Christianity was child abuse, cover-ups, misogyny, and homophobia, you’d probably stay away too.

I doubt that I am the only one here that has apologized for a faith that I don’t believe in.

The United Methodist Church made a splash in the news last week. In a series of backroom meetings, an unelected group of 16 people, all 55 and older, representing some but clearly not all of the diversity of our denomination, met to discuss a plan for our denomination divorce.

Our denomination has always been a big tent. We have tried to live into the hope of John Wesley when he said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?” It was Wesley that coined the phrase, “agree to disagree” and in many ways, our denomination has been the only denomination to represent vast theological diversity. Our church has been left, right, and center. This has been a blessing, but it’s brought us some pain as well.

We have been able to love alike, but only to a point. As James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

Publicly, the breaking point of our denomination is sexuality and the welcome, inclusion, and support of LGBTQIA folx in the church. In all honesty, the reality is that LGBTQIA folx are being scapegoated, yet again, in a fight that, for the most part, isn’t about them. I don’t want to go too far into the weeds, but the truth is the Wesleyan Covenant Association, the most conservative (or as they prefer to talk about themselves, the most traditional) branch of our church has been looking for a way to leave with money, power, and privilege for quite some time. By their own admission they’ve been trying to do something like this for more than 20 years.

Even though they hold a slim majority in the votes that shape our denominational policies and procedures, and could ensure with that slim majority that nothing changes, they have seized this moment and are going to leave with a golden parachute. If the plan that was made public last week is passed at the upcoming General Conference, the congregations that make up the WCA will walk away with all their assets as well as 25 million dollars. The catch being that once they are gone, they are gone and can never come back for more funding.

There are a handful of passages in the Bible about sexual relations between people of the same gender. I have a few friends that are WCA pastors, and for them, those verses are straight from God’s mouth. For them, if those verses on sexuality aren’t true and don’t represent the will of God, then they can’t trust that any other verse represents the will of God either. I find that really odd because there are over 200 passages in the Bible that support slavery, but those passages get to be understood in their historical and cultural context and somehow don’t carry the same weight.

The feelings that you all have at this moment probably range from – interested and wanting to learn more about what could happen at General Conference, to wondering why this is a debate at all because Jesus made it clear what matters most, to thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch.

Those feelings that surround this debate are the same feelings that sum up faith in the United States – some want to know more, most are settled in their beliefs and habits, and a growing number of people would rather think about anything else.

I have some odd hobbies. If you were here on my first Sunday in July, congratulations, you’ve survived six months with me even though my first sermon was about how I spend my free time on true crime and professional wrestling.

Another of my odd hobbies is watching sermons from Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches. Independent Fundamentalists Baptists think that the Southern Baptists Church is filled with compromising liberals. Just so you know how extreme these churches are, they don’t let women wear pants, let alone preach. These churches only read the 1611 King James Bible because they believe that it is the only accurate Bible.

One of the most fascinating things for me with Independent Fundamentalists Baptists is that their preachers rant and rage against church services that focus on entertainment, and they do so by running around the pulpit, yelling, shouting, and sometimes jumping on the pulpit, which is really entertaining to watch

I follow a few twitter accounts that post what some would call the best of the best, and what I consider the worst of the worst of these churches and their sermons. One pastor was going on a rant about how women can’t be bosses because when he worked in a shoe store all his managers were women and they didn’t know what they were doing because they fired him.

This pastor tells an awkward, rambling story, all to get to a point he wants to make about drinking, because his managers would say, “things are so difficult right now I just need a drink”.

He wanted to make a decent point, that we should be able to deal with our stress without alcohol. And that’s a valid point, if we think drinking will cure all of our problems, we have a bigger problem to deal with. At the same time, if I had to work with this guy, I’d probably need a drink too.

In the comments section, which is always such a loving and caring place on the internet, I wrote, “I feel so sorry for this pastor, I don’t know if I should tell him that sermons can have drafts or that sometimes I have a drink while writing my first draft.”

He commented back that I was going to hell and then blocked me from seeing any more of his sermons online.

I wonder if how I see the ridiculousness of that kind of church is how some people see me. If someone has never been to Grace before, is that what they think we’re like?

We could spend a lot of time apologizing for who we aren’t, going out of our way to say we aren’t like that, we don’t believe that, we don’t do that. We could spend most of our time apologizing for what other churches have done, trying to say that we’re Christians but we’re not like those Christians. But I’m tired of apologizing for a church I’m not a part of. I’m tired of trying to explain what I’m not, and I hope, like me, you are ready to embrace who we are.

That’s why for the next few weeks we’re going to talk about what it means to be unapologetic.

Grace United Methodist Church Des Moines, Iowa live stream

Live-stream from Grace Des Moines

Posted by GraceDesMoines on Sunday, January 12, 2020

January 13 – 18, 2020

Click on the day to expand the guide.

Monday

Read – Mark 7:5-13

Notice – “Jewish people could vow and dedicate property to the temple (corban means “consecrated to God”). One could thus render property forbidden for others’ use. Some exploited the loophole that this practice created; one could dedicate for sacred use what instead should be used to care for aged parents.”* Jesus clearly took the fifth commandment seriously, even providing for his mother’s care from the cross (cf. John 19:25-27). Are you aware of “loopholes” that you use to avoide caring for yourself and others?

Pray – Jesus, you know I like “loopholes” that let me do whatever I wish. Deliver me from the urge to look for loopholes that allow me to ignore your command to honor you and everyone else. Amen.

Zondervan, NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible

Tuesday

Read – Psalm 68:3-5

Notice – In ancient times, nearly all legal and financial status came from a connection to a close living male relative. “Orphans and widows” had no such links, so the phrase became a shorthand expression for all powerless or oppressed people. The psalmist extended the thought in verse 6, listing “the lonely” and “prisoners” as others about whom God cared. God, the psalmist wrote, is the uniquely reliable presence with all people, and has particular concern for the hurting and oppressed. “In the tradition of Israel, the victorious divine warrior fights not simply to gain land or power, but to protect the most vulnerable in society.”* Have you ever, in either a brief time of crisis or over a longer time (even a lifetime), needed to turn to God as your primary source of nurture and comfort? Are there ways in which God has provided you the “family” you needed? We Methodists live with the conviction that we are God’s voice, God’s hands and feet, in a hurting world. In what ways can you join in God’s work of caring about orphans, widows, the lonely and prisoners? Do you know anyone who may not be an “orphan” or “widow” in the concrete sense of the term, but whose life you could enrich by extending God’s love and care?

Pray – God, the psalmist said you are “Father of orphans and defender of widows.” Thank you for always caring about me and being my holy parent. Give me eyes to see others who are hurting and use me to bless them with your love and caring. Amen.

*Introductory study note on Psalm 68 in The CEB Women’s Bible

Wednesday

ReadLuke 1:5-25

Notice – We find this effect several times in the Advent story: “When Zechariah saw the angel, he was startled and overcome with fear” (verse 12). That fear made it hard for him to trust the angel’s “good news” (verse 19). Yet the angel’s first words were, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah” (verse 13). “Don’t be afraid” is the most common Bible command from God and God’s messengers. As we enter the new year,  in what part(s) of life do you most need to take in the message, “Do not be afraid”?

Pray – God, sometimes the vast scope of your purposes, so much deeper or bigger than my “ordinary” life, frightens me. Teach me how to hold myself ready to whatever you have in mind. Amen.

Thursday

Read Jeremiah 31:31-34

Notice – Jeremiah connected God “engraving” God’s instructions on our hearts (an echo of the tables of stone on which God engraved the 10 Commandments—cf. Exodus 31:18) with God mercifully forgiving our sins. In what ways do you believe mercy can change the way a person lives? How, if at all, has your awareness of God’s forgiving mercy in Jesus moved you toward living as God wants you to live?

Pray – God, in your mercy please keep engraving your ways on my heart, so clearly and so deeply that nothing I encounter in this life can wash them away. Amen.

Friday

ReadIsaiah 52:13-53:12

Notice – The prophet didn’t name or title the servant, so the four “servant songs” caused a lot of study and comment in the centuries before Jesus’ birth. The servant, it seemed, suffered not for his own wrongs, but to change people who “have turned to other gods, trusted in politics rather than God, and let people with power and resources take advantage of people without power and resources.”* How have faithful servants, ancient and modern, suffered in seeking to turn such people back to God’s ways?

Pray – Jesus, you succeeded through self-giving love, even to suffering for others—and so did your servants through the ages. Reshape any of my flawed notions of “success,” and help me to live as one of your faithful servants. Amen.

John Goldingay, Isaiah for Everyone. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p. 206.

Saturday

ReadJames 3:4-10

Notice – The apostle James found one speech pattern particularly ironic. “With [our tongue] we both bless the Lord and Father and curse human beings made in God’s likeness. Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth,” writes James. Sometimes we find it easy to lay aside the golden rule. Have you ever made friends with a person, then found out you hold some different views, and realized that the derisive labels you’ve used for “those people” may not be true? How can we learn to speak to one another in a way that is honest, just, and loving?

Pray – God, sometimes those who disagree with me bug me so much that I wonder “where they came from.” But they, like me, ultimately came from your creative heart. Help me to move toward seeing them as you see them. Amen.

 

Unapologetic: God and Grace

Read the Sermon

Isaiah 55:8-13

My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my plans than your plans. Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and don’t return there without watering the earth, making it conceive and yield plants and providing seed to the sower and food to the eater, so is my word that comes from my mouth; it does not return to me empty. Instead, it does what I want, and accomplishes what I intend. Yes, you will go out with celebration, and you will be brought back in peace. Even the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you; all the trees of the field will clap their hands. In place of the thorn the cypress will grow; in place of the nettle the myrtle will grow. This will attest to the LORD’s stature, an enduring reminder that won’t be removed.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

This morning we are continuing a series of sermons where we look at what it means to have an unapologetic faith. At Grace, we could spend a lot of time apologizing for what other churches do in the name of faith. The author and priest Brennan Manning wrote, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

Too often Christianity can be its own worst enemy, and I am sorry for that, but I don’t want to have a faith that is always responding and reacting to what others do, I don’t want a faith that is apologizing for them, I want to be able to express what I believe and why it matters.

Last week we looked at how our brains are wired for faith and spirituality. The full emotional scope of our lives, especially our faults and the moments that we feel with guilt, those moments when we are afraid of ourselves because we knew what was right and still chose to do wrong, point to a hope for something better, a longing within us for what could only be called holiness.

In looking at what Paul writes in the letter to the Romans that, “I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate” we saw that we can all admit to this gap within ourselves. We know the ideal, but too often we still don’t reach for it. In recognizing our faults and our failures, we don’t beat ourselves up, we hold ourselves accountable and find a way to be kind to ourselves and one another. It’s in owning our humanity, the fullness of our emotional life, that we can know our limits and connect to the longing for God.

There are times when all we can do is look up, long for someone, anyone, to hear us and help us. We know this search, and this desire for God, we cry out into the darkness and, let’s be honest, sometimes it feels like we reach out and nothing reaches back. The heavens don’t open, and an angel doesn’t come to us and says, “Don’t be afraid”. Instead of finding relief, we only find another moment of loss.

When we are crying out for salvation, when we know we can’t take it on our own anymore, in that dark night of the soul, when the light doesn’t shine in the darkness and we feel utterly alone, we know what Jesus meant on the cross when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The life of faith has just as many moments of doubt than the life of disbelief, if not more, because for us, the absence of God isn’t an idea, it’s a feeling of emptiness and absence.

We will get to what it means to unapologetically follow Jesus Christ next week, but for now, remember that as Christians our belief in the crucifixion is not about accepting a historical event happened and we are not merely invited to contemplate the death of Jesus on the cross, rather, we feel it, we undergo the experience of loss and doubt and forsakenness in our own lives.

It may or may not take three days, but for most of us, there comes a moment of resurrection.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but there have been moments in my own life where I prayed for something, I needed something, and it felt like I got nothing.

And yet, while nothing happened like I wanted, in retrospect, looking back, everything is different. Faith changes our perspective, our story is rewritten. It’s as if we start to notice, not that something started, it’s more that we notice how the movement of God has never stopped, never paused, and never faulted. This divine dance has been going on the whole time, so steady and continuous that we don’t notice it until it is the only thing we can desire.

Often desire has a bad reputation in the church. We think that we must put away and deny our desires. But think about the nature of desire. There are many things that we desire, wealth, health, fame, popularity, a Tesla if anyone wants to get an early start on birthday shopping for me, but not the truck, that thing looked awful. There are all sorts of things that we desire, but even in the midst of these, we are quick to acknowledge that our loved ones are the most desired. They bring life and light to our lives, and in our hearts, we feel the longing of desire for them.

And yet, when we speak of those that we love as more desirable than everything else, we end up placing them on the same plane as everything else. If we are not careful, we can see those that we love as one more thing that we want. This goes back to what we talked about last week – when our desires are displaced, when we hold the people that we love on the same level as a promotion at work, even though we say we desire them the most, even when we know what to do, we put our work before our relationships.

The desire that we have for those that we love is not more important than everything else, it’s a fundamentally different kind of desire.

Which is why loss is one of the most painful experiences that we have in life. We feel scorched, not only alone, but empty. When we lose those we love more than life itself we lose the very ability to desire. Even though we may long for a vacation to the Bahamas, that desire loses all luster when we have lost our beloved.

You can be sitting right next to someone, and yet, if you feel that they are no longer in love, it feels like you are worlds apart. At the same time, the one that we love could be on the other side of the world, and their longing and desire for us can sustain us even with their absence.

It is not merely that we have desires, we have the desire to be the desire of those we desire.

I know this is all sounding pretty academic, so think about it like this:

Every week a pastor would end their sermon by proclaiming that they go to a nearby town and serve the poor, oppressed, and cast aside, because this is what Christ would do. They would challenge their congregation and ask, “What are you going to do with your life? How will you show compassion with those in need?”

The congregation would applaud the pastor each week, waving and cheering them on as they left the service and hurried away from the church. But what the congregation didn’t know is that, in reality, the pastor really loved to play golf, and every week they would play at least one round.

After a few weeks, the pastor’s deception got on the nerve of an angel. They were furious at the pastor’s lies and wanted to see them punished. The angel reported the situation to God and after a little consideration, God said, “I will pay the pastor a visit next week and teach them a lesson they will never forget.”

The next Sunday the pastor, yet again, lied to their congregation about serving those in need and headed to the golf course, and God was there.

The pastor took their first shot, and to their amazement, the ball flew through the air, straight to the green, and dropped into the hole. At the second tee, the pastor took aim, hit the ball, and the same thing happened, another hole in one. And it happened at the third hole, and the fourth as well.

At the fifth hole, the pastor sliced the ball badly, but then a strong gust of wind straightened up the shot for another hole in one.

The angel was expecting to see this pastor punished and got more and more perplexed with every hole in one. They shouted at God, “I thought you were going to punish this lying pastor but instead you are giving them a perfect round.” God said to the angel, “Who is the pastor ever going to tell about this?”

Ultimately, our pleasure is not our own. Our joy, our desire, is intimately interwoven with those around us. We long to be seen, acknowledge, celebrated, mourned with, cheered on, and lifted up.

Being not only seen, but acknowledged and known, being celebrated, being mourned with, being cheered on and lifted up, what would we call this if not love?

When we come to feel the ground of our being, when we sense the source and the grace that is beneath everything, we are known, wholly and completely, utterly exposed and yet completely safe.

Feeling that connection with the cosmos can be awkward and undignified, that’s sort of the point in Genesis when Adam and Eve realize they are naked and reach for leaves. As much as we long to be completely accepted and embraced, we’re a little worried about exposure too, but, even then, we feel the truth of “Do not be afraid.”

This reality of God is more than an idea. It’s not a thought experiment, it’s the felt experience of our life.

Imagine that you go to work tomorrow and you notice a large group of people gathering around Ashley’s cubical. You walk over to see what’s going on and you learn that Ashley got engaged over the weekend. Everyone is gushing over Ashley, taking a chance to look at their ring, she can’t stop smiling, and you ask, “Tell us about your partner.”

Ashely says, “Their name is Alex, they were born on August 27th, grew up in Arkansas, drives and Jeep, is part of a bowling league and really doesn’t like celery.”

As Ashley continues to tell you facts about Alex, at some point you are going to think to yourself, “This is really odd.”

It’s odd not because Ashely is lying or avoiding the question or distorting the truth, it’s odd because they telling you objective truths and engagements are usually a little more poetic than that.

Or let’s say that your car is making a loud noise every time you get over 45 miles-per-hour. It starts to make a rumbling noise that only slightly makes you imagine the car is going to explode at any moment. You take your car into the shop, the mechanic looks things over and then comes to you and says, “The car is fine but it’s a little cranky, how have you been treating them recently?”

It’s at that moment you regret going to the trendy, new age mechanic in town.

Language is great, but it only takes us so far. Sometimes we need technical language, we need to know that in our car a specific part, with a name and serial number, has an identified problem that can be fixed. At the same time when Ashley and Alex fell in love we want to know what their love feels like, not their feelings about celery.

When I held my nephew for the first time, I was over the moon with excitement.

When I got married, I knew I found my other half.

My feet were firmly on the ground as I held my nephew, and I was never half a person, but you know exactly what I mean.

There is a moment in the Bible where Moses builds up enough nerve to ask God what their name is. Moses has been told by God, “I have heard the people’s cries for freedom and you are going to lead my people into freedom.”

Moses says back, essentially, that’s all well and good but if the people ask me who sent me, I should probably know your name.

God says to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM…Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’”

God says to Moses, I AM WHO I AM, almost saying, existence itself, the core of all that is and can be, is me.

This name, “I AM” in Hebrew is made up of the letter YHWH. They are all aspirated consonants, meaning they are all letters that sound like breathing. In Hebrew, the word for Spirit, ruach, is the same as the word for breath.

The name of God is the sound of our breathing.

Take a breath, slowly, and mean it, because breathing is something that we all too often take for granted, almost never wondering how the soft machines that are our bodies pump oxygen in and out in the symbiotic symphony that is life.

In sadness, we breathe with heavy sighs. In joy, it feels like our lungs might burst. In fear, we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly in order to calm down. When we are about to do something difficult, we take a deep breath to find our courage. It’s almost as if breathing is a kind of praying. Or as it’s written in the New Testament, “In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit [itself] pleads our case with unexpressed groans.”

God has a name that we can’t help but speak every moment of our lives.

When God is only a philosophical position, when we have faith in the god of the gaps, a god that only serves to make sense of the things we have yet to make sense of, the god of dues ex machina, “god out of the machine”, when God is a thought and not a lived reality, the absence and the presence isn’t felt because the absence and the presence doesn’t mean that much.

The term ‘deus ex machina’ goes back to plays in ancient Greece where a character would be lowered onto the stage by a hand-cranked machine to show their supernatural status.

Over time, the term got a bad name because it was used by lazy writers to resolve plot issues. One of the best examples of this comes from the TV show Dallas. This was before my time, and for some of you well after, but I’m trying to find a middle ground for pop-culture references here. In season six of Dallas, the actor Patrick Duffy wanted to leave the show, so the writers had his character killed off. But the ratings tanked. Season seven was dull and it became clear that Patrick Duffy’s character was one of the most popular on the show. The writers and producers convinced him to come back, but how were they going to explain the year he was dead?

As season seven ended, we see his widowed wife waking up from a dream, she walks into the bathroom and is shocked to find her husband alive and well, in the shower. Season seven was reduced to a dream.

That dream sequence had no connection to the internal logic of the story or show, it was simply dropped into the show to resolve a problem.

Sometimes that is how we treat God, as a resolution to a problem, but our lived reality, our emotional life experiences God in a different way.

We are compelled and challenged and inspired and hopeful not because of an idea or a thought, but because of the feeling of God moving in our midst, because, with every breath, God is with us and within us.

Whatever we say about God is always limited by the larger reality of that we can’t understand or express. Truth and beauty and meaning and grace always reside within a larger mystery and our knowing comes with a certain level of admitting there is a lot we don’t know.

When we talk about God, we’re talking about the breath that brings us to life, about our awareness of the reverence humming within us, about a nearness, and a farness that we know, that we don’t fully know, that is crystal clear and as more mysterious than ever.

As our reading today says, “My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my plans than your plans. Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and don’t return there without watering the earth, making it conceive and yield plants and providing seed to the sower and food to the eater, so is my word that comes from my mouth; it does not return to me empty. Instead, it does what I want, and accomplishes what I intend. Yes, you will go out with celebration, and you will be brought back in peace.”

Our faith is a conviction that comes with humility. Every now and then I think about ending sermons by saying, “but I could be wrong.”

It is possible for us to hold our faith with open hands, living with a humble conviction, admitting that our knowledge and perspective will always be limited.

Our faith inspires us to believe that you and everyone else is a sacred creation of God with the divine breath flowing through you. There is a holiness with us and within us, and we can’t escape it.

As Christians, much of our faith comes to be expressed through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, which is where we are headed for next week.

So for now, may you come to see that God is here, right now, with us all the time. It is God in which we live and move and breath. God is with us, God is for us, and God’s creative love is guiding us toward grace, justice and joy. When it comes to what we are talking about when we talk about God, we may be only scratching the surface, but we know the feeling of this itch that we have to scratch. There is a holiness and a grace and a purpose and a forgiveness that we long for, and with each breath we find the God that is always with us.

Grace United Methodist Church Des Moines, Iowa live stream

Live-stream from Grace Des Moines

Posted by GraceDesMoines on Sunday, January 19, 2020

January 20 – 25, 2020

Click on the day to expand the guide.

Monday

Read – Exodus 20:2-3, Exodus 3:11-15

Notice – Before listing any of the commandments, God reminded Israel that he alone had freed them from slavery. The commandments were not a way to earn God’s favor: “The giving of law presumes that mutual love and loyalty have been established between Israel and her divine suzerain. The Ten Commandments come to Israel after God redeems her from Egypt.” *God’s personal name, revealed in Exodus 3, played a huge role in Israel’s faith. “The name Yahweh (appearing in texts as only the four consonants, yhwh, the Tetragrammaton) and its short form Yah occur over 6,800 times in the OT—more than any other word….God is revealed as One who cannot be fully comprehended in a word.” ** There is no single clear definition of the meaning of this unique Hebrew word, though it appears linked to “being” or “creation.” *** What do both the meaning(s) and the mystery of God’s name teach you about the God you worship?

Pray – Lord God, you made me. You freed me. You are the source and sustainer of all that exists. Help me to worship and serve you, and you alone. Amen.

  1. * Article “Law” in Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit and Tremper Longman III, general editors, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998, p. 491.
  2. ** Article “Name” in Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit and Tremper Longman III, general editors, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery.  Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998, page 584. Modern English translations generally render YHWH as LORD, a style the GPS follows. However, in this series we will use YAHWEH in the commandments to remind ourselves of the original Hebrew name
  3. *** Scholar John Walton lists as suggested meanings “Truly He!”; “My One”; “He Who Is”; “He Who Brings into Being”; “He Who Storms” in NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook (Kindle Locations 20540-20541). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Tuesday

ReadPsalm 62:1-2, 5-8

Notice – Most of us at times “find rest” from everyday stress in a wide range of activities—taking a nap, bingewatching a favorite show, watching our favorite sports team, shopping, listening to chosen music, and the like. What are the more serious issues for which those everyday sources of rest do not work very well if at all? When do you, like the psalmist, find it essential to “find rest in God only”?

Pray – God, my hope comes from you. But there are times when I feel shaken indeed. Keep teaching me and reminding me that you are my strong rock even at those times. Amen.

Wednesday

ReadJeremiah 2:5-13

Notice – William Willimon wrote, “The Bible’s issue is invariably idolatry (‘Who is the god who is there?’) [In Jeremiah 2,] God accuses Israel of idolatry, or forsaking the Creator, who has steadfastly loved Israel. Forsaking that love, that ‘fountain of living water,’ people instead dig their own wells, seeking water that is self-derived.” * How has committing yourself to the living God drawn you away from things that “aren’t really gods at all” that you might have followed?

Pray – Jesus, I thirst for meaning, for purpose, maybe most of all for forgiveness and grace. Thank you for being the one source who can quench my inner thirst. Amen.

  1. * William Willimon, study note on Jeremiah 2:13 in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, p. 1085.
Thursday

Read Matthew 4:8-11

Notice – “All the kingdoms of the world and their glory”—an offer like that would surely capture your attention, wouldn’t it? And the temptation made the price sound almost trivial: just “bow down and worship me.” But Jesus, with crisp decisiveness, dismissed the temptation and the tempter because it called him to violate one of the basic building blocks of his life. Deuteronomy 6:13, he said, made it clear that the ultimate, appropriate object of our worship is always and only the one God. Popularity, prosperity, prestige—all of us at times feel the inner drive to acquire the “kingdoms of the world and all their glory.” Hebrews 4:15 said Jesus “was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin.” Which “kingdoms of the world and their glory” have most tempted you to leave God’s kind of life? How can you, like Jesus, resist that temptation? (One of Jesus’ strategies was Scripture memorization. Try memorizing Matthew 4:10 from today’s reading.)

Pray – Jesus, keep teaching me that ultimately worship is not about dressing up or “going to church.” Worshipping God means making God and God’s kingdom my highest priority. Help me do that every day. Amen.

Friday

ReadMatthew 6:19-24

Notice – Jesus Sermon on the Mount similarly told his hearers that the human heart has room for only one supreme allegiance. Give that loyalty to God, not wealth, Jesus said. It is the better (and the safer) investment. Conduct a simple life audit. Review your calendar and your checkbook. Based on the time, energy and resources reflected there, what “master(s)” do those tools say you are serving? Can you see ways your loyalties are shifting as you choose to invest in heavenly treasure? Are there other changes you could make to give you greater freedom to fully serve God as Lord of your life?

Pray – Jesus, calling you “Lord” isn’t just a nice, polite title. It means you rule my life and my priorities. Give me the courage and devotion to truly mean it when I call you “Lord.” Amen.

Saturday

Read – John 11:17-26

Notice – If you have the time, read the whole story from John 11. Jesus’ friend Lazarus fell ill. However, Jesus did not arrive in Lazarus’ home town of Bethany until four days after his friend’s death. The man’s grieving sister Martha greeted Jesus with an “if only” type of statement. His answer began with the explosive words “I am”. Martha and her sister Mary had “if-only” questions for Jesus—“if only” he had done things differently, they thought, things would be better. Jesus made seven “I am” statements in the gospel of John (we’ll study them more next week). His words to Martha are probably the most cherished of those statements: “I am the resurrection and the life…everyone who believes in me will never die.” Jesus has many ways of bringing good news, hope, and new possibilities into the mess and grief of life. He asks us for trust, as he did Martha and Mary. Often our “if-only” questions, like theirs, reflect our time-limited, earth-bound understanding. We face the question Jesus asked Martha: “Do you believe this?” How easy or hard do you find it to trust that Jesus is working for your good, even when what you wish would happen doesn’t?

Pray – Jesus, sometimes it is hard for me to trust you amid my “if-only” questions. Thank you for offering me an eternal hope when I put my faith in you. Amen.

 

Unapologetic: Yeshua

Read the Sermon

Philippians 2:5-11

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly honored him and gave him a name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the [Creator].

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I want you to imagine meeting Jesus. I know it may be dangerous to invite you to let your minds wander, but still, immerse yourself in the story of our faith this morning. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked a bit about how we, like everyone else, are wired for spirituality. When we embrace the full scope of our lives, when we enter into the depths of our humanity, when we know the best and the worst of us, we recognize a holy longing within each one of us.

It’s that reverence humming within us that awakens our spirits to the breath of God. The creator of creation, in whom we live and move and find being, God, is more mysterious and unknowable than we can ever imagine, and yet, at the very same time, is so known and felt by us that we feel the truth that is proclaimed time and again in the scriptures, “Don’t be afraid.”

So imagine meeting a man.

For as much as has been written about this man, no one took the time to describe what he looks like. We have a few details, but very little description, so let your imagination fill in the fine points.

We know that he is a Jewish man in first-century Palestine, so he probably has a beard, by modern standards he would definitely be smelly, so as you imagine meeting this man, get the thought of a Swedish man in a shampoo commercial out of your head.

This man likely didn’t have long hair, and it was probably curly. Most Jewish men kept their hair short in the first-century because it helped to fight lice infestations.

In meeting this man, you would likely notice that, by our standards, dental hygiene is lacking. There is a good chance that he may well have bad or missing teeth.

This man’s father was a tekton, what we would call a carpenter and while it’s fair to say he’s a woodworker, calling him a day laborer would be a more apt description of his profession. In his early to mid-thirties, this man has had to work hard since his teens to help provide for the family.

We don’t really know what he looks like, but that doesn’t really matter, because he looks like us. We have faces and bodies, we have teeth and hair, he has a face and body, teeth and hair. He is a human, just like us. But there’s something special about this man.

He doesn’t have a halo, it’s not like he glows in the dark, there is nothing in his outward appearance to suggest that he is amazing because we would have heard about something like that. And yet, there is something about him that is inspiring, that is amazing because when we meet this man we meet the creator of the cosmos. It’s not a spokesperson or a representative, or an ambassador of the divine, it is the divine presence, fully with us, fully human and fully God.

When this man was born, his parents named him Yeshua, we’ve come to know him as Jesus.

This place that Yeshua was born is a province of the Roman Empire, the empire that rules the world as far as everyone in the province knows. Rome has been in charge for a couple of generations at this point, but it’s not like Israel was independent before that. Before this empire, there was another, and before that empire, there was another too.

The odd thing about this little plot of land in Israel is that it’s not all that special. Sure, it’s on trade routes that went east and west as well as north and south, and, of course, for being in the desert there are springs of fresh water to draw from, but it’s not an overly wealthy community, the land grows crops but the topsoil there has nothing on Iowa. From the outside, it seems to be a decent city built upon the hilltop of the desert, but nothing special.

But there is something very unique about this city. It’s unique because this city is filled with worshipers that believe that there is one God of all people, all places, and all things. The one-ness, the singleness of God, commands their religious imaginations. Their God is The God, so their land is The Land, and their city is The City.

This makes the relationship between the city and the empire a little complicated. The Roman Empire has lots of God that fulfill a lot of different roles and responsibilities. The Romans have an open relationship with their gods and while the Israelites are married to the one true God.

Rome wants to exert control, they need to show people who’s boss, but at the same time, they want everyone to pay their taxes and not riot. Rome lets Israel keep their temple, but they build a military barracks right next to it, and the military barracks happens to be just a little taller than the temple. But it’s not like they were compensating for anything.

The imperial authorities, as much as possible, try to rule at an arm’s length. They empower some locals to lead on their behalf, they keep most of the military garrisons out of sight, they invest in infrastructure that still stands to this day, but the locals still hate the empire anyway. For them, the idea of paying taxes, obeying, and slowly mixing their culture in with the blended cultures of the empire simply doesn’t work.

The idea of the One God getting a seat on the bench with all of the Roman gods is unthinkable. Remember, their religious writings, their spiritual leaders, the poets and the prophets of the faith have told them time and again that we are married, in a relationship and covenant with the One true God, so we cannot even flirt with the idea of an open relationship with all the Roman gods, no matter how much we like the idea of a god of wine.

The prophets and leaders of the people warned them about being unfaithful and by now the metaphor has been set in everyone’s mind – to think of worshiping any other god is being promiscuous. The solution to promiscuity, as they see it, is being as pure as possible.

This puritan desire brings about disgust because life wasn’t supposed to be this way. The world was supposed to be dignified, righteous, and governed with law. But not just any laws – Rome has plenty of laws dictated by people, and those laws have their place, but it’s not The Law.

The Law, the One True Law, was given by God to these people and a copy of the law is in every village and town in Israel, where every Saturday people gather to pray and debate and practice their faith, reminding themselves of what they believe and why it matters.

While the law is demanding, it helps them to find a pattern in their lives. When everything else is falling apart, they know what to wear, what to eat, how to dress and how to please God. It lets them know how to make amends, how to find their way into good standing with one another and with God.

With the purity code focused on faithfulness, comparing anything less than absolute observance to adultery, much of the rules and regulations of the law start o feel like recipes for regaining purity. But even the law cannot remove one impurity – the occupation of the empire.

Roman Eagles appear in synagogues and the temple. The money of the empire declares that not only is Caesar Lord, but Lord of Lords and a god amongst gods. It becomes impossible to buy something as simple and innocent as bread without committing blasphemy. With as much that has been lost and surrendered to the Roman Empire, the Jewish people begin to wonder if they are being punished, if their favor has been forfeited for some reason.

What they want the empire will not simply give them – independence. They want the kingdom their law demands, they want a land that is their own like they used to have, long ago before the empires came and went. The longing for freedom is their focus, but it cannot be achieved. The empire is too strong. That doesn’t stop people from trying to prove a point, it doesn’t stop anyone from fighting back, but everyone knows the price that will be paid.

It is into this world that Yeshua comes, with a love that abounds around him, telling everyone, don’t be afraid and don’t be careful.

Certainly, Yeshua isn’t careful. On one Saturday, a day that was holy and set apart, a day where you were to do no work, no restoration, only rest, Yeshua and his friends walk into town, picnicking in the streets as they stroll along. The religious authorities challenge Yeshua and his friends, wondering if they know how many laws they are breaking. But Yeshua challenges them back, with a mouth full, arguing that rules were made for the people and people were not made for rules.

Word of this response begins to spread and people start to wonder about this new person inspiring outrage and awe. Some wonder if he is another prophet and teacher. Others wonder if he’s a gorilla fighter seeking recruits.

When the crowds gather he sits them down and teaches, calling them blessed. He tells them that the One True God is with them when they are helpless, when they are afraid, when they are worried and lost, God is there and they are loved. Yeshua tells the crowd that their behavior matters, but it doesn’t change how God sees or cares for them. He goes on to tell that they can live as if nothing could take away their riches or add to their poverty, to live in such a way where they can never run out of what they share. He says don’t cling to this life so tight that you lose track of today, don’t plot or scheme or worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will come while today is all we really have.

He goes on to challenge the people, to speak in an almost unimaginable way about turning the other cheek, refusing to retaliate, choosing to be the person that ends and never adds to the violence of this world. Yeshua challenges the laws and virtues that have shaped the peoples’ lives. He tells them that God doesn’t want our virtue if it’s only mindless observance, Yeshua says God desires mercy and reckless generosity.

It’s not that Yeshua is saying everything goes and we don’t have to worry about the consequences. He never says do whatever you want to do because nothing matters in the end. Yeshua teaches about good and evil. He knows the tendency in us to make a mess of things, the self-deceiving that overshadows us.

Yeshua loves the law, so much so that whenever he’s asked about it, he usually ups the ante points us to a profound ideal of perfection. We shouldn’t kill, and we also shouldn’t be angry at one another. It’s one thing to commit adultery, and at the same time, we should know what desire does to us, how it can be as much of a betrayal.

There are times when Yeshua seems like a downer. Someone dared to call him “good teacher” and he responded by saying that no one is good but God alone. The virtue and the value, the love that he speaks to is almost unachievable, but it’s still the goal. Not just a goal though, a lived reality, where if we have a problem with bits of ourselves, we should chop them off and throw them in the fire. If your hands cause you to sin, get rid of them. If your eyes cause you to sin, gouge them out.

To which, someone in the crowd, inevitably said, “You can’t be serious, if this is how God wants us to live we will never be able to achieve it.” But Yeshua says back, “With God all things are possible.”

Yeshua is annoying like that.

The implication of his perfectionism is that we are all guilty, together. No one is perfect, no one is good, we are all a mess. No one gets to congratulate themselves on how good they are just like no one can be shunned and cast aside.

And that’s the interesting part of how much Yeshua talks about our unclean lives. He has nothing to say about same-sex relationships, contraception, marriage equality or how far is too far on the first date. He takes a first-century feminist stance on divorce arguing that it unfairly cuts women off from community and economic support, but other than that, there is not much he denounces. In his life, there is almost no one, other than a select few of religious hypocrites, that he seems to be disgusted by. Shockingly, for Yeshua, it seems as if what we do in bed isn’t all that important to him, as long as our lives continue to be centered in mercy, justice, and grace.

While he has very little to say about sex he has a lot to say about self-righteousness. Some of the religious experts of the day come to him and he compares them to graves that look nice and neat on the outside but are full of death and maggots within. The point is not only that we should avoid hypocrisy, he seems to be saying that being sure of our own righteousness and virtue is close to being dead on the inside. It’s as if he is saying we have to accept the bad news about ourselves before we can live into the best news about ourselves. If we are filled with a false sense of confidence and virtue, when we know we are right so they have to be wrong, what kind of evil can be done in our names?

One day, Yeshua comes to town and sees a public execution begin to unfold. A woman has been ‘caught in adultery’ but amazingly, it seems, she was caught in adultery alone because she is the only one on trial in the crowd.

All the ‘good’ people have gathered to stone her to death, rocks in hand, ready to throw the first stone. Yeshua intervenes, asking the people to explain what this woman has done, and they tell him. You can almost imagine the delight they have in their rage at her. Once they finish, he says, if you’ve ever made a mistake you can throw the first stone, and since you’re all here clearly none of you have been stoned to death, so go ahead, since you’re perfect, throw the first stone.

There’s a pause, can you feel the anxiety of this moment? Slowly, the hollow sound of stones hitting the ground begins to echo in the crowd. One by one the would-be executioners walk away, and when there is no one left to condemn her, Yeshua helps her stand up.

You would think that this sort of behavior would make him popular, and to some extent you’re right, but the self-righteous leaders of the day aren’t fans. Yeshua’s refuses to show respect for anyone’s sense of self-centered spiritual accomplishment. It’s how he treated the self-righteous and questioned those in power, always asking if anyone in authority really knew what they were doing that got him in trouble.

Just imagine eating with him. In this time, it was common for a popular prophet and preacher to accept an invitation to dinner from the local dignitaries. Those that spent their time studying the law would get a chance to see what the rising start had to say. But Yeshua keeps ignoring their invitations and either inviting himself over or inviting those from the crowd to eat with him. It’s the unrespectable citizens, the sex-workers, bar owners, the down and the out that Yeshua spends the most time. But every now and then he does accept an invitation from the upright, and when he does, he’s almost always casually insulting to them.

One person like this asks him, “Teacher, what must I do to be saved?”

Surrounded by wealth and prestige, Yeshua looks around the room, his eyes almost glaze over as he estimates the value of everything he sees, and says, “If I were you, the first thing I’d do is get rid of all this stuff.”

As inspired some are by Yeshua’s teachings, others are afraid and annoyed. They recognize the cost of discipleship and would rather not pay.

And who can blame them? He wants our love to expand beyond the tight circle of our self-interest, beyond our charity and altruism too, because, let’s be honest, we like to give knowing that it means we get some kind of roundabout love in return. But Yeshua isn’t concerned with love in return, he is passionate about love for the sake of love, gifts that are given without any expectation of anything in return. For Yeshua, God wants to love us wildly and without calculation. God wants us to love the people we don’t like, more than that, God wants us to love the people we hate and the people that hate us.

This teaching isn’t practical, it doesn’t seem safe, to many it even sounds deranged and dangerous. But Yeshua insists that God’s love is with us so we can be with one another, no matter what.

He says that the law was never enough, that it was necessary, but not sufficient. It is a gift and one that we should cherish, but the law is not the whole pattern of what God wants for us. We need laws, we need justice, we need a way to order our life together and settle quarrels. Innocence and guilt must be acknowledged, punishments and boundaries and necessary because restitution and reconciliation don’t simply happen on their own. Yeshua has nothing against the law, he just keeps insisting that the law s needful for us, not for God.

The law says everyone should get what they deserve, and we have used the law to give and take more than that. God knows what we deserve and gives us only love, hoping that we will do the same.

As Yeshua describes what it’s like to live with this love, he keeps talking about a kingdom, a new family and community, a kin-dom, but he never tells us what it is, only what it is like. Sometimes it’s like a tiny seed, while other times it’s like a large tree. It looks like how children see the world. It looks like a servant using their master’s money well. It looks like getting paid a full day’s wage even if you worked less than an hour. It looks like a judge fixing a case in your favor. It looks like a wedding party, like yeast in dough, like a treasure, like a harvest.

To show us what the kin-dom is like, Yeshua tells a lot of stories and some of them are strange. The stories don’t always make a lot of sense, they can bother you like a rock in your shoe, they stay with you, and keep your attention. While sometimes the stories are clear, other times they are mysterious. The stories are about people’s everyday life and experience – they are about sheep and work and money and weddings and bosses and parents and children. There’s a story about a person that gets mugged, and how a foreigner was the only person to care for them. There’s a story about a son that says to their dad, I wish you were dead, give me everything that’s coming my way, and amazingly it’s not a punch. The dad gives the son money, and the son wastes it, squanders everything, but when the son comes home, the father welcomes him with open arms and throws a party. With a wink and a nod, Yeshua says this is what God is like.

He tells a story about sheep. Yeshua says, “Imagine that you have one hundred sheep, and you lose one. Wouldn’t you drop everything, leave the ninety-nine, and search for the missing one, never stopping until you found it?”

When Yeshua tells that story, just think about how the people would have responded to him. They might have said, I appreciate the point you are trying to make but if I have ninety-nine I don’t really need one more. They may have said, have you ever worked with sheep before? Sheep have a way of wandering off so maybe we’d go searching but only after we locked up the ninety-nine.

To these retorts, Yeshua smiles, because even if they missed the point, he knows what matters most, and recognizes that they’ll figure it out too, because what is lost can be found, what’s broken can be redeemed.

That’s why more and more ‘lost’ people start to follow Yeshua. People that don’t have it all together, whose bodies and minds aren’t working properly, people that have been cast aside, outside the usual bonds of empathy because they are sick or boring or dangerous or just weird. Each person that finds themselves with Yeshua is, at least for a moment, a lost sheep that has been found. He’s never disgusted with them, no matter what they’ve done, no matter what has been done to them. No one is too dirty to be embraced.

This all-embracing love changes people – all are healed but some of the healings are more obvious than others. Leprosy, epilepsy, paralysis, schizophrenia, all sorts of demons that seek to destroy lives are no math for the love that created the universe. What seems impossible occurs. The blind see, severed nerve cells reconnect, infections go away, pain ceases.

Even with all that he can do, he can’t mend all the world’s sorrows, and he weeps. The healing of bodies is only a sign of what he’s come to do. Our hearts must be mended. Yeshua sees in each one of us the sin that we hold in common, our human tendency to mess things up, to know what’s right and still choose to do what’s wrong. That’s the disease Yeshua is seeking to cure.

The prevailing thought at the time was that the only way to be free from the stain of this disease is to make a sacrifice. It worked like this – when you do something wrong, when you break a commandment of the law, you look at what the law requires of you and go to the temple, pay a tariff and buy a pigeon or bull or ram, and give it to the priest who kills it on your behalf. Because you have come with penitence and offered this sacrifice, the wrong that you did dies with the animal and you are free to go back to your life, on God’s good side yet again.

But Yeshua insists that no number of dead doves can rewrite our history. These sacrifices might make us feel better, but if they don’t inspire us to be better they haven’t done anything. Yeshua starts to forgive people.

One day someone comes up to him and says, “Don’t you know that only God can forgive?”

At that moment, bits and pieces of the roof start to fall in and suddenly a light shines into the darkness of the house where Yeshua has been teaching. It’s not a sign of divine favor, it’s a hole in the roof created by some friends that wanted to jump the line and make sure their friend can see Yeshua. They lower their friend from the hole in the roof, not sure what will happen next but trusting that Yeshua will live up to his reputation.

Yeshua thinks back to the question he was just asked, “Don’t you know that only God can forgive” to which he responds, “Yes, but we must all agree it would be more difficult to heal this man. So, friend, why don’t you get up and walk, don’t forget to take your bed too.”

Some people start to call Yeshua a king and they give him a parade as he heads into town. He goes to the temple and is devastated to see how faithfulness has been turned into another commodity that can be bought and sold. Yeshua grabs a whip, flips some tables, and burns a lot of bridges.

Some think he’s finally sparked a riot that will get rid of him, but no one joins in. They contemplate what he said, looking at the coins scattered on the floor, wondering if forgiveness could still be found there.

Slowly people scatter away, and Yeshua has marked himself as a menace to society, not only a heretic but a threat to Rome. The Empire already has one king, and even though they have many gods, they don’t have room for many kings.

That night, Yeshua shares a meal with his friends and the mood is just a little…off. They eat lamb, they drink wine, they have bread and bitter herbs. They tell the story of how God liberated them from Egypt and brought them into freedom.

Everyone around the table grew up with this meal, they knew the story well, and they longed for this freedom to be theirs. That’s when Yeshua changes the script. He grabs a piece of bread and says this is my body, broken for you. Then he takes a cup of wine and says this is my blood, poured out for you and for many. Remember me.

The finality of Yeshua’s words up the anxiety in the room. His friends ask, “Why do we have you remember you, you’re with us? Where are you going, because we will go there with you.” They try to say that they will never abandon him, but in a couple of hours, they all do.

Yeshua is in custody and for the rest of the night, he is marched from place to place, beaten as they go back and forth. Interviewed and mocked, this kind of treatment is what any rabble-rouser would expect to receive. He’s punched a few times to keep him moving, worked over to encourage some cooperation in the conversations that he has with those in power. Throughout it all, Yeshua stays, for the most part, silent.

He had been so eloquent before, his wit and banter, his stories and sayings worked so well before, but now he says nothing.

When he’s accused of planning to destroy the temple Yeshua simply says back, “You say so.” When they call him a blasphemer he says, “You say so.” When they call him an enemy of the people and a self-proclaimed king, all he says is, “You say so.”

With the bruises and beatings he’s received, by the next morning no one would confuse him with a king. He had saved others, the people that see him in this state start to wonder if he will save himself. Like countless others in the empire, Yeshua will be crucified. He stumbles under the weight of the crossbar. As he walks by, whispers spread of the company he kept, how these things happen to those people.

When they make it to the execution site, a sign is placed over his head – Here is Your King, written in all the languages of the area. The chief priests didn’t like the sign, but the governor has to make a point – this is what happens to would-be kings.

At this moment, Yeshua cannot do anything but slowly die. His heart is as wide stretched open as his crucified arms. As his breath slows, he says, faintly, “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

In the midst of all this suffering and shame, this horror and despair, he doesn’t try to escape it, he doesn’t turn away from the wretched mess he now finds himself in. Yeshua claims the cross as his own, he embraces it. The splinters gouge him, the harm of this moment cannot be escaped, because this love will go where we all go in the end.

There are glimpses of love at the cross, Jesus sees his mother and one of his friends, he tells them to take care of one another, but the pain cannot be ignored, eventually, the pain becomes too much.

For the first time in his life, Yeshua is alone, forsaken, and afraid. All that is left is a man dying in pain, a man that was foolish enough to give up their life and breath to be a carcass on a pole just outside the city limits. Through his tears, with his last breath, Yeshua acknowledges what everyone else already knows, “It is finished”. And with that, he dies.

At dusk his friends finally feel safe enough to come out of hiding and ask for his body, hoping to give Yeshua a quick burial. They only have the time to place his body in a tomb. Washing the corpse and caring for the body, giving one last act of respect will have to wait. It’s almost the Sabbath, the Holy Saturday where work is forbidden, and by now no one wants any more confrontations, no one wants an argument, so they wait.

The next day the city is quiet and life moves on. There are questions that linger, hopes and dreams that won’t go away, but there’s nothing to be done about them now. Yeshua is dead, so people go back to their old lives and try to move on.

Early on Sunday morning, one of Yeshua’s friends braces herself for the work that is before her. She’s returned to the grave with rags and a jug of water, as well as oil and spices that are supposed to help with the smell. Since no one else would pay this final respect for Yeshua, she would.

As she enters the grave, she sees the linen but she doesn’t see the body.

If the indignity of the cross wasn’t enough, being robbed of this final moment of respect is more than she can take. She’s weeping, she’s afraid, and she feels alone. As the world begins to wake up around her, as dawn unfolds, through her tears she barely notices the feet that appear just at the edge of her vision.

“Don’t be afraid”, says Yeshua, “More can be mended than you know.”

She’s weeping, and he helps her to stand up, just like he helps us to stand up today.

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly honored him and gave him a name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the [Creator].

May it be so, and may we unapologetically embrace the great love of Yeshua as we share it with one another.

Amen.

Unapologetic was written thanks to works by Francis Spufford, Rob Bell, Barbra Brown Taylor, and Diana Butler Bass

Grace United Methodist Church Des Moines, Iowa live stream 1/26/20

Live-stream from Grace Des Moines 1/26/20

Posted by GraceDesMoines on Sunday, January 26, 2020

January 27 – February 1, 2020

Click on the day to expand the guide.

Monday

Read – Acts 2:22-47

Notice – Fifty days after Jesus’ crucifixion at Passover, Peter boldly laid out the case for faith in the risen Jesus at the feast of Pentecost. At the heart of Peter’s Spiritguided sermon was verse 32: “This Jesus, God raised up. We are all witnesses to that fact.” Deeply convicted, the crowd asked the key question we must all ask when we encounter the claims of Jesus: “What should we do?” Peter replied, “Change your hearts and lives.” Scholar William Barclay wrote, “When repentance comes something happens to the past. There is God’s forgiveness for what lies behind…. When repentance comes something happens for the future. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and in that power we can win battles we never thought to win and resist things which by ourselves we would have been powerless to resist.” *Have you allowed Jesus’ power to give you a fresh start from your past, and a future decisively altered for the better?

Pray – Jesus, those who knew you best unanimously said they were witnesses that you rose from the dead. By that same power, please continue to give me new life as I follow you. Amen

* William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series: The Acts of the Apostles (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1976, p. 29rvan. Kindle Edition.

Tuesday

ReadMatthew 8:14-9:13, 35-38

Notice – How did Matthew express the reason for Jesus’ compassion when he saw the crowds? To what extent do you think some of your neighbors, co-workers, maybe even people you see in church are “troubled and helpless…sheep without a shepherd” spiritually? How much do you care about their well-being? Is your attitude toward those with different beliefs or lifestyles one of condemnation, or more like the spirit Jesus showed in this passage? Even in this relatively short excerpt, how many types of healing did Matthew describe? If Jesus had preached good news, but not healed anyone, how do you think that would have limited his effectiveness? What about if he had healed sick people, but not offered anyone the spiritual power of God’s Kingdom? What abilities and resources has God given you that you can use to help reach people with the multifaceted good news of Jesus?

Pray – Jesus, well-being and wholeness, in many forms, seemed to spring up wherever you went. I need that, too, so I’m grateful that you continue to work in my life today. Amen.

Wednesday

ReadLuke 19:1-10

Notice – Zacchaeus was a despised tax collector. When Jesus invited himself to eat with Zacchaeus, people grumbled. But Jesus’ love, not condemnation, changed Zacchaeus’ life. Jesus saw a man who could be generous. To the townspeople’s amazement, he turned out to be right. Zacchaeus said, “I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.” Do you know anyone who radically reoriented their life after meeting Jesus? What good qualities has Jesus drawn out or magnified in you?

Pray – Jesus, you don’t condemn me? You want to stay in my home, in my heart? I welcome you, I thank you, and I commit my humbled, grateful self to follow you. Amen.

Thursday

Read – Romans 7:14-8:17

Notice – Paul told the Romans plainly about the struggle between good and evil in his own life. Gritting his teeth and resolving to do better, he said, didn’t produce the good he sought. It was only as he trusted in Jesus’ grace that he found, day by day, God’s power freeing him from evil’s grip. Paul’s picture of our inner struggles was not unique. The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote of “our helplessness in necessary things.” But Paul’s words did not end in despair. “Who will deliver me from this dead corpse? Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verse 24-25) When have you experienced Christ’s power, not wiping out the struggle, but empowering you to more and more come out on the right side of it?

Pray – Jesus, as a member of your family, I choose to focus on you and the power of your reconciling love, rather than on myself and my feelings of shame and despair. Thank you, Jesus, for making this new life possible. Amen.

Friday

Read1 John 1:-2:6, 4:7-12

Notice – John’s claim was (and is) amazing. He said he had heard, seen and touched “the Word of life” which was “from the beginning”: i.e. God, creator and savior! This was no abstract theory. John wrote about someone he’d known. How can John’s direct testimony give you a firmer basis for your faith? Does that quality of testimony help you trust that Jesus is “the eternal life that was with [God]”? When first-century writers said, “We knew Jesus,” how seriously should you take the implications of their claim? Most of us know the words: “God is love.” Are there life experiences and inner messages that make it hard for you to rely on God’s love? What helps you trust God’s love more? Which people do you find it hardest to love as God loves them? In what ways has God’s love, and the love of other people you know, helped you to keep living in love even when you face trouble, confusion, harassment or life knocking you down?

Pray – Jesus, you are the ultimate source of love, the awe-inspiring model who shows me the lengths to which love went to reach me. Keep growing my ability to love you and others in all circumstances. Amen.

Saturday

ReadJohn 3:1-8, 16-21

Notice – Nicodemus, a member of the highest Hebrew religious council, saw Jesus’ obvious spiritual power, and wanted to talk to this new teacher. He came at night—he wasn’t ready to risk his status as a leader. John 3:16 sprang from their visit. Earlier in their talk, Jesus spoke about being “born again” (perhaps a pun with a serious point—the Greek word anothen translated “again” could also mean “from above”). How did Jesus connect the ideas of “birth” and “new life” in this section? In what ways (if at all) do you believe your eternal life has begun due to the impact of God’s love on your life? How has God brought you from the darkness into the light?

Pray – Jesus, you continually and lovingly call me to walk in your light. Keep breaking me free from any ways in which I love darkness, and drawing me to your loving, light-giving presence. Amen.