Safe and Secure

Safe and Secure

John 10:1-18[1]

Much of what we do in this life is directed toward our sense of security. We choose the neighborhood in which we live based on whether it feels “safe.” We may install fencing or external lights or even an alarm system to enhance our feeling of security. We work to find a job that will provide us with the opportunity to work productively for as long as necessary to ensure that we will have a stable livelihood. We have insurance policies to enable us to meet our major medical needs and to protect us in case of unforeseen damage to our cars or our homes. And we save up a nest egg to try to make sure we can retire as comfortably as possible.

For all of our efforts at feeling “save and secure” in life, however, the hard truth is that none of them are foolproof. Career, home, and finances can be swept away in the blink of an eye. In a very real sense we are all like the rich farmer Jesus used to illustrate the fragility of our lives. He saved up so much grain that he had to tear down his old barns to build bigger ones. But Jesus pointed out that his life could be snatched away at any time. The things he had stored up for himself could not provide ultimate security. The same thing is true for us. We cannot know what today will bring, let alone tomorrow. Finding security in the things we have only serves to distract us from the vulnerability that we all face in this life. We have to find our security elsewhere.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus declares that he is the “Good Shepherd” who cares for, protects, and even lays down his life for his flock. He is the one who “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (Jn 10:3). He is the one who enables them to “find pasture” and “abundant life” (Jn. 10:9-10). Unlike a “hired hand,” Jesus as the “Good Shepherd” protects the sheep from all dangers, even at the cost of “laying down his life” for them (Jn. 10:11-12). Jesus knows those who belong to him in the same way that Father knows him and he knows the Father (Jn. 10:14-15). And he not only “lays down his life” for the sheep, but he also “takes it up again” (Jn. 10:18). Thus he remains the “Good Shepherd” for all time.

Part of what’s going on in the background of all this is that Jesus is engaging in a not-so-subtle criticism of the Jewish leaders of his day. Like the prophets before him, he saw the people of Israel as God’s “flock,” and the leaders were intended to be “shepherds” who cared for them. Instead, as the OT prophets pointed out, these “shepherds” were often more concerned about their own welfare than the welfare of the people. In fact, in one place, God speaks through the prophet Ezekiel to say that he would rescue the “sheep” by sending his “servant David” to “feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23).

I don’t think anyone in Jesus’ day would have failed to hear the criticism of the Jewish leaders in what Jesus was saying. Time and again they demonstrated that they were more concerned with maintaining their own religious rules than they were with the welfare of people—especially those who were hurting. I also don’t think that anyone in Jesus’ day would have failed to hear in the statement “I am the good shepherd” an allusion to God’s promise to send one who would be a true shepherd for his people by caring for them. I think Jesus was saying that he had come to offer true and lasting care and protection to his people.

There are two aspects to that care in this passage. First, Jesus says, “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father” (Jn. 10:14-15). We find our safety in Jesus because of the relationship he has with us. Part of what’s behind this is the idea that those who belong to him are “his own” because they have been “given” to him by the Father. But the other part is that Jesus says he knows those who are “his own” and they know him in the way that Jesus and the Father know each other! We are “safe and secure” in Jesus’ hands because we share the same relationship with Jesus that he shares with God!

 The second aspect of Jesus’ care in this passage is found in that he says, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11). Now, at first glance, this makes perfect sense. But when you think about it, if the shepherd “lays down his life,” who will be there to protect the sheep? I think that’s why Jesus also says, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again” (Jn. 10:17). In fact, he says that he has received the “power” or perhaps better the “authority” to do so from the Father. In this respect, then, he can be the one who lays down his life us, and because he has “taken up his life again,” he can also still be the one who is there to protect us from any dangers.

The hard truth of life is that all our efforts to secure our lives will ultimately fail. No amount of protection can keep us from the fact that we will all have to face death someday. But because we have a “Good Shepherd” who has laid down his life for us and has taken it up again, we can trust him to keep us “safe and secure” even in the face of death. More than that, because we share the same relationship with Jesus that he shares with God, we can trust him to walk with us every step of the way, no matter what life may bring. That not only means that we have a constant companion and guide, but that “no one can snatch” us out of his hand. Because Jesus is our “Good Shepherd,” we can trust that we are safe and secure in his hands!

---

[1] ©2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 4/25/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Open to Faith

Open to Faith

Luke 24:36-49[1]

Last week we talked about why faith isn’t easy. I think there’s another reason why faith isn’t easy for most of us. We like to be in control of our lives. We believe that if we just work hard enough, we will be able to “wrangle” life to turn out the way we want it. Life tries to teach us time and again that it really doesn’t work that way. But we’re persistent folks. At least I am. Or perhaps I should say I can be pretty stubborn at times. And I can “wrangle” with the best of them! I’ve spent long years stuck in a rut of trying to push my way through the doors of life only to realize that the sign says “pull”! Surrendering my notions of control, accepting life as it is, not what I would have it be, and learning to “pull” instead of “push” have been challenging lessons for me.

If we pay close enough attention, we find that the Bible calls us to do just that: to let go our illusions of control and surrender our lives into the hands of the one who truly knows what’s best for us and has the power to accomplish that! In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus began his preaching ministry with the Beatitudes. In our Wednesday night study this week, we saw how Jesus invites us to view “the part of us that is weak, broken, or poor” as “the place where something new can begin.”[2] That may make us a bit uncomfortable, but the only way to open ourselves to faith is to recognize that we don’t have it all down!

When we compare our Gospel lesson from Luke with the other Gospels, we find an interesting development in the Easter story. In Mark’s Gospel, all that’s necessary to proclaim that Christ is risen is the empty tomb. Matthew and John add to the empty tomb the appearances of the risen Christ, and the disciples respond with joy, though we’re reminded that “some doubted” (Matt 28:17). But in Luke’s Gospel, when the risen Lord appears to them and says “peace be with you,” every one of Jesus’ own hand-picked disciples respond with fear, doubt, disbelief, and amazement. They even thought they were seeing a ghost (Lk 24:37)! It sounds like they responded to the risen Jesus no differently than they responded to Jesus in his ministry!

There’s a bit of irony here, though. In comparison with the other Gospel accounts of Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection, the story in Luke’s Gospel seems to go “above and beyond” to demonstrate that Jesus was really alive, and that he truly was present with them in some kind of bodily form. In an interesting parallel to the story of Thomas, he invites them to touch him and see that “a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Lk 24:39). Then, not only does Jesus show them his “hands and his feet” (Lk 24:39), but he also eats a piece of broiled fish in their presence (Lk 24:42-43)![3] It would seem that all of this was meant to dispel any lingering doubts or disbelief they had. But the irony is that it doesn’t! I think one of the points of our lesson for today is that it takes something more than the message of the good news, it even takes something more that an experience with the risen Christ, to find faith.

That “something more” is that Jesus had to “open their minds to understand the scriptures” (Lk 24:45). That might seem like a strange “sticking point” for those who had followed Jesus and heard him teach. But if you look at how the rest of the NT describes faith, it’s a combination of factors. Faith results from a personal encounter with Christ. But faith also arises as the words of Scripture are brought to life—not only in our minds but also in our hearts. And while the disciples gathered in that room had Jesus to “open” their hearts and minds, for most of us, that’s the work of the Spirit. Faith awakens as we encounter the living Christ through the word of the Lord as the Spirit brings it to life for us and opens our hearts to believe.

In a way, Luke’s story of Easter is all about “openings.”[4] It begins with women discovering that the tomb was opened (24:2). The disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus had their eyes “opened” so they could recognize him (Lk 24:31). As they were returning to tell the others, they were awed by the fact that their hearts were “burning” while Jesus was “opening the scriptures” for them (Lk. 24:32). And here, Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Their eyes were “opened” for them, their hearts were “opened” for them, and their “minds” were opened for them. All of that had to happen for them to be able finally to have the faith to rejoice on that first Easter Sunday (Lk 24:52).

Opening our eyes, opening our hearts, and opening our minds isn’t something that comes easily. We have certain ways of seeing things and we have certain ways of thinking that we insist “should” be true. I know in my life it took being broken for me to be able to open myself up to truly have faith. Not faith that’s easy and convenient, but the faith that enabled me to let go of my fears, my efforts to “wrangle” life my way, and my stubborn persistence that was only keeping me trapped in a prison of my own making. When God brought me to the end of myself, the Spirit opened my eyes, my heart, and my life to a level of faith I had never known. And I hope that—even if it means facing more challenges to grow—I will continue to remain open to faith.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 4/18/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri Nouwen, Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety, p. 35.

[3] Only here in the entire Gospel tradition do we hear of the risen Jesus eating food. John 21:5 mentions food, but doesn’t say Jesus ate it.

[4] Cf. F. Bovon, Luke 3, 395: “The process, however, is not merely intellectual. … The transformation involves entire persons, especially their inner being.”

Coming to Faith (Again)

Coming to Faith (Again)

John 20:19-31[1]

Faith isn’t easy. As people of the 21^st century, we have some challenges with faith. In the midst of a skeptical world that demands proof for just about everything, it can seem impossible to get a firm grip on faith. Pretty much all efforts to “prove” faith fall short. As the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard put it, “for every proof there is some disproof”.[2] As a result, we may find ourselves feeling like we’re hanging in mid-air at the end of a rope and we have no idea what that rope is attached to! If we cannot prove our faith in God and salvation and eternal life, how can we be certain about them? And if we cannot be certain, how can we have faith? Faith isn’t easy. 

And yet we could say that our Gospel reading for today about Jesus’ resurrection attempts to do just that. We are told that the “signs” Jesus did are recorded here “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31). Unfortunately, one could say that’s just restating the problem. For the most part we are not moved by the “signs” that moved people in the First Century. They simply don’t commend the same kind of faith as they did in ancient times. I would say this problem of “certainty” is fundamentally built into our search for faith. If it’s faith, we can’t prove it, can we? And if we can prove it, where’s the need for faith?

While it does seem important that our faith rests on something more substantial than “wishful thinking,” I’m afraid that all efforts at demonstrating exactly what that “something more” is fall short of being convincing. I know there are those who come up with all kinds of “evidence” that supposedly “proves” why we should believe. But at the end of the day none of those arguments can achieve certainty for us—at least not the kind of certainty most of us are looking for. A “faith” that is something we’re “compelled” to believe by whatever means—whether “fulfilled prophecy” or “miracles” or “the authority of scripture”—has never done much for me. I tend to think that in the long run it doesn’t do much for most people. This is part of what makes faith so hard for us: it’s simply impossible “prove” spiritual things.

At the same time, the conclusion that since we cannot have certainty we cannot have faith at all has never worked for me either. I grant that in this day and age it’s impossible to avoid the suspicion that if something sounds too good to be true it must be. But if our “suspicion” is the final judge of all things, including spiritual things, then all we have to go on is our own (limited) intellectual ability and our own (incomplete) experience of life.  If that’s it, then the only things you can count on really are death and taxes, and we’re all trapped in a vicious circle that leaves us hopeless and godforsaken in this life. That approach to spiritual things doesn’t do much for me either!

In our Gospel lesson for today, we find that Jesus himself did not endorse the approach of seeing the evidence in order to believe. He said “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed” (Jn. 20:29). This is consistent with what we know of him elsewhere. The multitudes kept coming to him and asking him for some kind of miraculous sign in order that they might believe that he was who he claimed to be. But Jesus refused those who wanted him to prove himself to them. I think he knew that any so-called “faith” that depends on some kind of proof constantly needs more evidence. Those who look for evidence are always looking for more, and they never truly find their way to faith. 

Faith isn’t easy! I would say that at the end of the day, faith is a choice. It is a choice to look at life from the point of view that God is making all things new rather than that death is the ultimate reality. But that kind of choice is going to be a personal one. It isn’t something you can justify to anyone but yourself. Faith is also a response. It is a response to our experience of something beyond us, something that perhaps even strains our ability to understand. That experience is also always going to be intimately personal. But it’s rarely something we can do alone. We tend to experience Jesus calling us by name more effectively when we wrestle with these questions together with a community of faith.

Faith isn’t easy. Part of the reason for that is the whole experience is not something that happens once and then you’re done. Those who study the development of faith in the course of a human lifespan have determined that there are some fairly common stages we all go through.[3] We may start out feeling very sure of ourselves, but that’s just the beginning of the journey. Many of us go through a stage where we question everything we’ve been taught. That’s normal. We may find ourselves becoming more interested in a relationship with God than in maintaining religious structures. That’s also normal. A few of us may finally reach the point where the entire focus of life shifts from self to God. At each stage, we have a kind of “conversion” where we choose faith all over again. To do that we have to remain open to the stages and changes in our faith journey throughout life. As we stay open to the one who urges us onward, we find that Jesus calls us to make the choice to come to faith again and again.

---

[1] ©2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 4/11/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] See Charles E. Moore, ed., Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, 256.

[3] There are many approaches to this but James Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, is a classic.

Afraid?

 Afraid?

Mark 16:1-8[1]

On this day, we celebrate one of the most amazing of all the wondrous acts the Bible recounts to us: that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. It is the bedrock upon which our faith is grounded. It constitutes the “first act” of God’s ongoing work of transforming everything and everyone until all things are made new. The Scriptures speak of what happened on that first Easter Sunday as perhaps the most significant demonstration of God’s power. And they assure us that God is working in all of our lives with that same power. And for that we celebrate this day perhaps above all other days in the Christian year.

But I think that the Resurrection also provokes some hesitation on our part. It’s hard enough to wrap your head around God bringing Jesus back to life. But when we start talking about changing everything and everyone, we might get more than a little uncomfortable. We like the routines of our life because they make us feel safe. For God to intervene in the matter of Death suggests that God can intervene in anywhere he chooses. But we may not want God to start “meddling” with our lives; we may be quite satisfied with them as they are. If you really let the message of Easter, that by raising Jesus from the dead God demonstrate his power and his intention to change everything, it might not be such good news after all. If everything is changing, that means we may have to change our whole approach to life. And change is not usually a welcome guest.

I think some of this may lie behind our Gospel reading for today. It’s somewhat strange in that the only witnesses to the empty tomb respond not with joy, as in the other Gospels, but with fear! In Mark’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome had been the only ones of Jesus’ whole group of followers, including especially the men who would later become the “Twelve Apostles,” who had the courage to actually witness Jesus’ death on the cross. And in our lesson for today they are the only ones who have the courage to go to the tomb to properly prepare his body for burial.

But when they get there, they are greeted by several sights that seem to throw them. First, the stone that sealed the tomb was removed. That in and of itself would have caused alarm. They may have wondered whether someone had tried to break in to desecrate Jesus’ body. When they entered the tomb, they saw two things they didn’t expect. Jesus’ body wasn’t there. The tomb was empty. Again, that would have confused and likely upset them. But they also saw “a young man,” apparently an angel, sitting on one end of the place where Jesus’ body had been. It’s no wonder the Gospel says “they were alarmed!” I think at that point my head would have been spinning so fast I wouldn’t know what to think!

When the “young man” spoke to them, he began by reassuring them that there was no need to be alarmed or afraid. He announced to them the good news of Easter: “you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one. He has been raised; he is not here” (Mk. 16:6). Although Jesus had told his disciples several times that he would be raised to life after his death, they could scarcely grasp the idea that he would die. They had absolutely no conceptual framework to even understand that he might be raised from the dead! The “young man” then “commissioned” the women to go and tell Peter and the others the good news and that Jesus would meet them in Galilee.

What follows seems almost out of place in a “Gospel” about Jesus. Mark says that “they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid” (Mk. 16:8). That’s not what we would expect to happen, in comparison with the other Gospels. They’re “supposed” to go out joyfully and share the good news with the others. Of course, the traditional ending of Mark’s gospel “remedies” that problem, but most NT scholars, myself included, believe that Mark’s Gospel originally ended with this strange verse.

When you look at things from that perspective, it almost casts the role of the women in a not-so-favorable light. They were the only ones to witness the empty tomb, and rather than obeying the commission they received to go and tell the others, they (initially at least) kept it to themselves out of fear. I think ending his Gospel this way this may have been intentional on Mark’s part. When you end the story of Jesus with the only witnesses to his resurrection remaining silent due to fear, there’s something inside you that cries out for a different ending to Jesus’ story. It compels us all to tell the story and not be silent! Of course, we all know that the women did tell the story, Jesus did appear to his disciples, and those who were absent from the crucifixion were transformed into bold evangelists!

One of the interesting features of the Bible is that whenever anyone has a true encounter with God, they almost always respond with fear. When God breaks through to our lives, it’s not an average run-of-the-mill day! It pushes us beyond what we think of as the safe and secure space in which we like to conduct our affairs. I think that’s what happened with the women at the tomb. They were the only ones to have the courage to follow Jesus to the cross, to see where he was buried, and to return to the tomb. They were the ones who were commissioned to tell the good news to the others. Their response of fear and amazement was the “normal” way in which people responded to what God was doing in and through Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. And I think that’s still true today. When we come to the place where we have to choose to really let God into our lives, our first instinct may be to shrink back with fear. But the one who over and over again says in Scripture, “Do not be afraid,” is the same one who will take the lifeless routines our fears box us into and bring us new life in surprising and wonderful ways.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 4/4/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.