Monday, January 28, 2019

Many Members, One Body


Many Members, One Body
1 Corinthians 12:12-31[1]
Most of us typically like to spend our time with people with whom we have things in common. It’s a feature of life that is customary across all kinds of lines: race, religion, political affiliation, regional customs, and personal interests. This tendency is reflected in the saying, “birds of a feather flock together.” The history of that adage in the English language can be traced at least to the mid-16th century. But almost 2000 years before that, the Greek philosopher Aristotle observed that “like cleaves to like.” It seems that our inclination to associate with those who are like us is one that has defined the human family for a very long time.
Unfortunately, in the church, that trait has led to the observation that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. Most of us prefer to go to church with people who look like us, who talk like us, who dress like us, who share our beliefs and values, and who practice the same lifestyles as we do. While this preference is understandable, it flies in the face of the biblical vision of what the church is meant to be. Despite the fact that the Bible can use the language of “chosen people” for a certain group, the intent of the church is clear from its founding on the day of Pentecost: it is to be a church of all nations, all races, all languages, all ethnic groups; in short, a church of all peoples.
As I mentioned last week, the church at Corinth was a church that was badly divided, not least by their differing views on spiritual gifts. And it would seem that they had a problem with people forming factions and cliques with others in the church who were like them. In fact, this problem showed up in their observance of the Lord’s Supper. It is likely that they shared a meal prior to the Lord’s Supper. But in the church at Corinth, this was not a time for the whole family of faith to gather and share their bonds of fellowship. At least not for them all. Paul chides them for the fact that the wealthy members of the congregation came early and enjoyed a feast, while those who were not so well off came later, very likely after work, and only had meager fare.
It’s hard to imagine a more blatant demonstration of the division in the church at Corinth than a meal at which some feasted and others were left to make do with bare necessities. And St. Paul tells them off quite plainly. He says, “it is not the Lord's supper that you eat” because they are despising the church as the body of Christ and “humiliating those who have nothing” (1 Cor. 11:20-22). In fact, he goes so far as to say that those who distort the Lord’s Supper in such a way “eat and drink judgment” on themselves (1 Cor. 11:29)! It is clear that Paul believed it should not be so among them!
The challenge was how to balance the differences between them with the unity they were meant to embody in Christ. As in any group, there were many differences among the church at Corinth: they came from different ethnic groups, they had different religious backgrounds, they practiced different customs, and they even represented different classes of society. While those differences affected their lives in practical ways outside the church, within the church, St. Paul insists that what united them in Christ was more significant. They had all received one and the same Spirit; they all placed their faith in one and the same Christ; they all belonged to one and the same body—regardless of what their lives outside the church may have looked like.
On the other hand, it’s not as if St. Paul was opposed to diversity in the church. In fact, he viewed the diversity among the members of the church at Corinth as a good thing. He recognizes that just as our bodies have many different parts, so it is a good thing for the church to have members who have different strengths and backgrounds. The members of the church are not all the same; in fact, they are not meant to be all the same. Difference is good; it can be healthy. It is necessary for our bodies to function properly, and it is necessary for the church to function properly. But that difference must never be allowed to invalidate the fact that all members of the body of Christ are one (1 Cor. 12:12-13).
Rather than granting different levels of honor to individuals in some kind of “spiritual” hierarchy within the church, Paul insists that all of the members are equally important. In fact, he says that, just as we show greater respect for “less respectable” parts of our own bodies, so also in the church “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor” to members that might seem to be “inferior” to others (1 Cor. 12:23-24). I think St. Paul has already made it clear that he doesn’t believe that anyone in the body of Christ is “inferior” in any way.
I think St. Paul’s comments also make it clear that, as the body of Christ with all its different parts, the church’s purpose is to function together as one. He says that the way that God has “arranged” the members of the church is so that “there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:25). While it may be a practical reality of life that people naturally associate with those who are like them, our lesson from St. Paul for today teaches us that this is not God’s purpose for the church. It is to be a church in which people from all races, nations, ethnic groups, political persuasions, and economic classes may join together as one. The fact that there are many different members in the church is a good thing. But while there are many members, we must always recognize that we are all part of the one body of Christ.


[1] ©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/27/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman NE.

Monday, January 21, 2019

Called to Serve


Called to Serve
1 Corinthians 12:1-11[1]
One of the preoccupations we have in this culture is with “reaching your highest potential.” It has taken different forms over the years, from “I’m Okay and You’re Okay,” to the “Feeling Good Handbook,” to “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” to the “Kaizen Method” of getting one percent better every day. I would say that all of these contributions have helped people in some way to improve their lives. I have personally benefited from some of them. And I applaud anyone who is trying to do what they can to effect personal growth. I think one of life’s most important tasks is to continue growing as a human being all of our lives.
But one thing that concerns me is that at the heart of many of these self-improvement methods is the belief that our identity, and perhaps even our worth, is measured by how much we achieve in life. That’s great if we have a nice list of accomplishments that we can use to bolster our ego. But if we think that we have somehow fallen short of our potential, or are lacking in terms of what we could have or should have done with our lives, it can be a big problem. When we measure ourselves by how well we perform what we do, we can wind up in a downward spiral of self-criticism. After all, no matter how much we may achieve in our lives, there’s someone out there who’s done more. Even when we’ve done the best we can, it’s easy to look at someone else’s “best” as “better.”
To some extent, our lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth for today addresses this problem. This was a church that lived literally at one of the major cultural crossroads of the ancient world. You could find just about any of the expressions of the human spirit in Corinth. It was a genuine melting pot for the various cultural currents in that day. More than that, the church at Corinth is a fascinating case study. They seem to have experienced all the “normal” challenges most churches still struggle with, and also some of the more “extreme” problems. Because of that fact, Paul’s letters provide pastoral advice that is still relevant today.
One of the challenges they dealt with in the church at Corinth was interpersonal rivalry. In fact, the struggle for power in that church was so intense that they actually had four different factions. One claimed loyalty to Paul, one to Peter, one to Apollos (a teacher who had spent some time there), and the last one claimed to belong to Christ. Perhaps the last group saw themselves as “above the fray” of all that dissension. But the reality was that they were a congregation badly divided by loyalties, by questions of morality, by the extent to which they believed they could or should interact with the culture in which they lived, and by the divergent lifestyles of their Greek and Jewish members.
One of the ways in which this rivalry apparently played out in the church at Corinth was in the area of spirituality. Some of the folks in the church were convinced that they were more “spiritual” than the others. And the way they measured their spirituality was by the particular “spiritual gifts” they had. Interestingly, the “gift” that found its way to the top of the totem pole was “speaking in tongues.” This was not the ability to understand other languages, but a kind of unintelligible prayer-speech that was uttered in a trance-like state. Why this particular gift was valued above all the others was probably due to a combination of false teachings they encountered and the religious environment in which they lived.
Again, the upshot of all this was that those who had this particular gift claimed to be at the top of the spiritual “food chain” in the church of Corinth. But St. Paul wouldn’t hear anything of it. In response, he emphasized clearly that there was no “hierarchy” in the area of spiritual gifts. He makes it clear that all spiritual gifts come from the same God, Father, Son and Spirit: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone” (1 Cor. 12:4-6). And rather than claiming “credit” for their spiritual gifts, Paul reminds them that they are the work of God, “who activates all of them in everyone” (1 Cor. 12:6).
But, perhaps equally important in our day is the message that St. Paul had about the availability of spiritual gifts. He makes it clear that these abilities are given to everyone in the church. In fact, he says that they are “allotted to each one individually as the Spirit chooses” (1 Cor 12:11). That doesn’t leave anyone out. St. Paul also makes clear the reason why the Spirit distributes these gifts to us all. He says plainly that they are intended “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). The gifts God gives us are for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. That eliminates any kind of spiritual “hierarchies” or any kind of spiritual pride about certain gifts in comparison to others. Everyone in the church has a gift of the Spirit to share for the benefit of the whole body of Christ.
As I reflect on this Scripture, it occurs to me that the point of the Christian life isn’t any kind of “self-fulfillment.” In fact, it’s not about us at all; rather it’s about what the Spirit of God is doing through us. And the intention isn’t about being able to total up our accomplishments. The purpose of all this is to enable us to serve others. Whatever ability the Spirit has given you, it’s there for you to use “for the common good.” It’s a very specific means by which you can give yourself away in service to the body of Christ and the world at large. After all, that’s what Christ called us to do. He called us to serve. As we make use of the gifts we have from the Spirit, I think we reach our highest potential by serving others in love.


[1] ©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/20/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Monday, January 14, 2019

You Are Mine


You Are Mine
Isaiah 43:1-7[1]
Among the fears we can deal with in our lives, the fear of rejection can be one of the most devastating. For some of us, that fear is only a “what-if” possibility. But for many of us, it comes from our life experience. We have actually experienced rejection by those who we thought would give us love: parents, spouses, children, family, or friends. It is one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to endure in this life. Many of you have had your share of rejection, and I think you might very well agree. When you go through rejection once, or twice, or perhaps more than that, it ingrains in your soul the fear of being rejected again. And fear is something that keeps us from fully living our lives.
I think part of the reason why the fear of rejection is so powerful is that it affects us so deeply. At the core of our being, we long to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that there is someone in this world who will always love us, through thick and thin, come what may. When we think we have that kind of love, and we find ourselves rejected by the ones we thought we could depend on, it makes it hard to trust that we will ever be safe or loved again. No matter how kind, no matter how affirming, no matter how loving someone may be, the thought is always lurking around that they could change their mind and walk away.
Our Scripture lesson from the prophet Isaiah for today is one that was addressed to a people who very likely felt rejected by God! They were people who had lost everything: homes, lives, land, and even in some cases family. They had been forced to leave it all behind. When the prophet spoke his message, they were living in exile in Babylon, far from anything familiar. I would imagine it was hard for them not to feel rejected by God. Though their faith may have been shallow, they had believed that with God on their side, they were safe from having to suffer the kinds of things they had gone through. But the Babylonians brought them to a rude awakening.
One of the Psalms sheds light on how the exiles must have felt. Psalm 137 is one of the most bitter laments in the Bible. In it, the Psalmist recounts how their captors asked them to sing the songs of their land and their faith. But the response was “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:4). In the devastation they felt, they had “hung up their harps” on the willow trees and instead of singing they sat and wept by the rivers of Babylon (Ps. 137:1-2). In fact, the end of the Psalm is one of the most disturbing expressions of the desire for revenge in the Bible. While they asked the LORD to remember and avenge them, I would think that a significant cause of their bitterness was the feeling that they had been rejected by God.
Into the darkness of their despair, in the name of the LORD the prophet assured them that, regardless of what they had been through and in spite of what they might be feeling, God had not rejected them. The prophet called on them not to fear, and promised in the name of the LORD that “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isa. 43:2). That probably sounded hard to believe. They had been through the waters and had felt overwhelmed. They had been through the fire and had very likely been burned.
In the face of all that they had been through, the basis for this promise was who God was and what God had done. The prophet called on the people not to fear the flood or the fire because of who God is: “the LORD … who created you” and “the LORD your God, …, your Savior” (Isa. 43:1, 3). The God who had created them in the first place was the same God who had proven that he was their Savior many times. But perhaps more importantly, he was also the God who loved them. In the midst of their heartbreak, he was the God who declared: “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you” (Isa. 43:4). Because of that love, he was also the God who had “called them by name” and had declared definitively: “you are mine” (Isa. 43:1).
From a real-life perspective, you can’t go through a flood without getting soaked through. And you can’t go through a fire without at least smelling like smoke, and maybe even getting singed. The hard truth about life is that bad things happen to good people. And at times it can be so tragic as to leave us wondering whether there is anyone out there who knows us and cares about us, including God! The many holocausts that we have witnessed through history are prime evidence of that hard truth. But the promise is not that we will never suffer, but rather that these hardships will not consume us. And the reason for that is that God promises, come what may, that “you are mine.”
The fear of rejection can make life just as bitter for us as it was for the Jewish exiles in Babylon. And there are some experiences that are so tragic we can also wonder whether God has rejected us. But the promise of Scripture is that no matter what we may go through in this life, God has declared to us, “you are mine.” Nothing can change the fact that God has claimed us as his own out of his unfailing love for us. In case we have any lingering doubts, God himself came among us in Jesus to make clear once and for all that he is our Savior. In Jesus, God demonstrated once and for all, out of his unfailing love for us, that he has claimed us as his own. The God who created us and the God who saves us is the one who has declared forever: “you are mine.”


[1] ©Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/13/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Living in the Light


Living in the Light
Isaiah 60:1-6[1]
I find that, all too often, I suffer from a kind of spiritual “Attention Deficit.” I come to church and worship with great hymns and hear in the Scriptures the great truths and promises and hopes of our faith. Then I get distracted by matters that press upon me with their urgency and demand my attention. Before long, it seems as if I can completely forget it all. I don’t think I’m alone in that problem. I think one of the great challenges in our world so full of screens and lights and sounds and demands is to find a way to remain focused on our faith. It’s so very easy to let all the distractions of our lives cause us to forget the heart of our faith. At times, the light of the Gospel that shines at Christmas gets blurred by all that clamors for our attention.
To some extent, we see this with the “rush” to get things “back to normal” around the house after Christmas. Even though the “Christmas season” lasts from December 25 to January 5, many of us have stripped our homes of all vestige of Christmas before the New Year rolls around. The practical person in me understands that. After all the “hustle and bustle” of Christmas preparations, we want things to “get back to normal.” But the pastor in me wonders if that’s precisely part of the problem. For many of us “normal” means going about our daily routines, doing business as usual, and not really paying much attention to the message of our faith that we have supposedly been “celebrating” at Christmas.
In fact, the season of Epiphany is meant to reinforce the faith that we intend to celebrate at Christmas. I think we don’t really know what to do with Epiphany. We don’t really know what “Epiphany” is about. Today is the “festival of Epiphany.” It’s the day that we commemorate the arrival of the magi. But the “season of Epiphany” lasts from now until Len. The word “epiphany” itself is not one we use much. “Epiphany” literally means “revealing,” or “unveiling.” In this case, it’s a time for us to focus on the ways Jesus revealed himself during his ministry. It’s a time to reinforce our faith that Jesus truly is the light that has come into the darkness.
In our lesson from Isaiah for today, the prophet calls the people of Israel to rejoice over the light that had come to brighten their prospects. In this section of Isaiah, the prophet is addressing a people who have come back from exile with the promise of restoration. But the reality of what they encountered fell far short of their expectations. Jerusalem lay in ruins. Much of the “infrastructure” that supported life had been destroyed. They were surrounded by enemies who were more established and more powerful. They struggled to keep those enemies at bay, let alone to rebuild their city, their homes, their crops, and their lives.
As is often the case in when we are in dire straits, the people turned to religion as a source of security. But there is a big difference between religion as a way of life and religion as a crutch. When you’re strong enough to walk on your own, you may keep the crutch around, but you don’t use it much. That was the case with the people of Israel. The prophet challenged them at many points with the hollow way in which they supposedly worshiped the Lord. They seemed to pay a great deal of attention to the external trappings of their religion, like observing the Sabbath. But all the while they ignored what God desired from them: showing mercy to those in need, practicing true justice in public life, and honoring God from the heart.
Since this was the case, the prophet declared in the name of the Lord that God would come to set things right. God would establish true justice in the land, justice that applied equally to the rich and the poor. God would intervene to halt the various forms of violence that were practiced by the powerful: cheating workers of their wages, stealing assets and resources from the most vulnerable, and all of it to support a lavish lifestyle they thought they deserved. And the prophet promised in the name of the Lord that when God restored the land by banishing violence and establishing true justice, his presence would be like a light that would drive out the darkness, and and they would find the truly “good life” that only God can give.
Although the people of Israel experienced God’s work in their lives in that they had been released from captivity, the circumstances seemed to distract them from the light that had dawned in their lives. They had forgotten the core of their relationship with God. If you’re like me, you may have to admit that we’re more like them than we would like to think. We need to be reminded continually of the promises that lie at the heart of our faith. That’s why we gather for worship: to remind ourselves of our faith and to refocus our lives toward practicing it. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t practice worship on a daily basis, I can easily lose myself and my faith.
Epiphany is about unveiling what Advent and Christmas promises: that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk. 3:6); that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:5).  That’s why we celebrate Epiphany. It’s a time to remind ourselves that in Jesus a light has dawned that will never go out. Although we may have taken down all the Christmas decorations, perhaps it’s fitting to select a candle to light during the season of Epiphany in order to help us remember our faith. However we accomplish it, this is a time for us to keep our attention on the light of Christ so that we can refocus our lives toward following him. As we do so, the hope is that we will find ourselves living in the light that has dawned for us all in Jesus.




[1]©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/6/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Thursday, January 03, 2019

Looking for Love

Looking for Love
Psalm 80:1-7; Luke 1:46-55[1]
In my experience, most people spend their whole lives looking for love. I know it may be a cliché, but we really do have a way of “looking for love in all the wrong places.” We look to a significant other to fill our longing for love. Many of us are lucky enough to spend our whole lives with that person. But if we’re honest, we have to admit that no human being can truly fill our deep longing for love. Others of us may turn to our families to find the love we’re looking for. While families are wonderful, they are just people. While we may derive great joy from our families, they cannot fill our deepest longings for love. The truth of the matter is that even the good things in this world leave us at time still looking for love.
St. Augustine recognized this centuries ago, when at the very beginning of his Confessions, he said, “you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” [2] It’s a lesson that is difficult to learn. In order to truly grasp the message that only God can fill the longing in our hearts, I think we have to have our hearts broken, maybe more than once. We have to come to the place where we recognize that those we look to in this life to fill our longing for love simply cannot do so. We have to learn the truth that we are made to find our longing for love filled by God, and God alone.
The message of our Psalm for today resonates with this theme. Although there is no specific confession of their sin, the people have strayed from God once again and have experienced the consequences of turning away. They have eaten “the bread of tears” and they have had to endure the scorn of neighbors and the laughter of enemies (Ps. 80:5-6). The Psalm proceeds to speak of Israel as a vineyard whose wall has been broken down and left to be ravaged by the wild animals (Ps. 80:13). For those who considered themselves to be the people of God, God’s chosen ones, experiencing such devastation had to have shaken their faith.
And yet, the very fact that they turn to God and cry out for him to save them implies quite a lot, in my opinion. I think it implies that they realize that they have strayed from God. More than that, they are making the attempt to repent and return to God. The central refrain of the Psalm is, “Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved” (Ps. 80:3, 7, 19). The request for God to “restore” the people could be translated “cause us to return.” That suggests to me that there is at least an awareness that they have strayed. They are seeking to return and are asking God to help them do so.
This prayer acknowledges that God is the one on whom their restoration depends. It is only as God comes among them and “lets his face shine” that they will know his salvation. The prayer recognizes that God alone is the source of their life and their well-being. The presupposition to this prayer is that they are addressing the one who has promised to love them with a love that will never let them go. They recognize that the love they need to be “restored” is the love that comes from the God of “steadfast” love: a love that is unconditional and irrevocable. That is the only love that can truly satisfy them.
The other side of this restoration is found in Mary’s “Magnificat.” Mary’s song is called the Magnificat because that is the first word in the Latin version. In her song she sings with joy over God’s work of restoration. But the way she describes that restoration might sound strange to our ears. God’s work of restoration would come about through what some have called “The Great Reversal”: the proud humbled, the powerful pulled down from their thrones, those who are stuffed sent away empty-handed, while those who are disempowered are lifted up and those who are hungry are filled with good things (Luke 1:51-53).  Mary describes the overturning of the current system of destruction and oppression and violence by the ways of God’s kingdom: mercy, justice, and love.
How we respond to Mary’s song of restoration depends on where we find ourselves. The only way for those of us who are “full” and “rich” here and now to sing Mary’s song with the same kind of joy—the joy of the “lowly” being lifted up—is if we actually join with God in his work of restoration. As one contemporary prophet puts it: “There are only two ways you can enter the kingdom and experience its joy. One is to be among the poor, oppressed, bruised, blind, and brokenhearted; those to whom God comes as healing, comfort, justice, and freedom. The other way is to be among God’s people who are going to the poor, oppressed, bruised, blind, and brokenhearted and bringing God’s healing, comfort, justice, and freedom.” [3]
What may not be readily apparent is the fact that both of these expressions of restoration reveal God’s unfailing love. Both the prayer that looks to God to restore a wayward people and the song that rejoices in God’s “great reversal” reveal a God who will not leave us to our own devices when we have strayed from him. Whatever alternate sources of love we look to in this life instead of God, God remains the one source of love that will never fail us. While it is true that our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God, I think it’s also true that God does not rest until he wins our hearts over with his love. In this season of looking for God’s salvation in Jesus, it is a time to be reminded that all the substitutes we use to satisfy our longing for love will never fully satisfy us. We have been created in such a way that we will only find our life fulfilled as we look to him to fill our longing for love.


[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/23/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, I.1.
[3] Cf. Stephen Shoemaker, GodStories, 217-18