Freedom is Near!

 Freedom is Near!

Luke 21:25-36[1]

It doesn’t take any great insight to observe that we are living in a time when things are not as we expected them to be. While some scientists warned us that a global pandemic was on the horizon, most of us didn’t pay much attention. I surely didn’t! The problem is that when life doesn’t go the way we expect, it can feel like chaos. There are a few personality types who actually thrive on chaos, but for most of us it causes stress and fear. And some of us may find ourselves “shutting down,” so to speak. We may find it difficult to keep doing our normal everyday tasks. Trying to get through the day may feel like we’re wading hip-deep in molasses!

There are a lot of reasons why different people react to uncertainty in different ways. But there are some things that are true for all of us. For one thing, our brains are hard-wired to respond to anything we perceive to be a threat. Fear can creep up on us when we least expect it, and once it gets hold of us, we can have a hard time thinking straight—literally! Another factor is that most of us have a lot of expectations about the way life is “supposed” to be. They can be so deeply ingrained in us that they become like “scripts” for life. And when life doesn’t “follow the script,” our expectations can be like chains that bind us. Unfortunately, I’d have to say that these uncertain days have revealed that we are all less “free” than we would like to think.

Jesus addressed the uncertainty of his times in our Gospel lesson for today. As we’ve mentioned before, the situation in Judea was unstable and even chaotic. Although the Romans appeared to be firmly in control, there was a constant undercurrent of resentment and even rebellion among the Jewish people. There actually was an underground group who made it their goal to assassinate Romans and Jewish leaders who were perceived to be traitors to their people. All of this would boil over into an all-out war within a few decades, and the result would be Jerusalem destroyed. Eventually, the Jewish people would be expelled from their land and prohibited from living there.

I think Jesus’ disciples must have been aware of what was going on. While they may have hoped that Jesus might be the one to lead them to overthrow their Roman oppressors, the fact that they couldn’t predict the outcome of any of this led them to ask Jesus for reassurance. They asked him to tell them the “signs” as a way of making the stress and uncertainty more “manageable.” After all, we’re not so afraid of what we can predict. But Jesus didn’t give them any signs. Instead, he told them that the world in which they lived would continue to be as uncertain and unpredictable as ever. If they wanted reassurance, they would have to look beyond their expectations and their fears.

As we saw a couple of weeks ago, Jesus answered his disciples’ desire for reassurance in an unexpected way. He told them there would be “distress among nations” due to their “confusion” (Lk 21:25). He said that people would “faint” from “fear” and dread of “what is coming upon the world” (Lk 21:26). But he urged them not to give in to fear and dread. Rather, he said, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Lk 21:28). “Redemption” is a word that might not use every day. But Jesus was talking about freedom—from the Romans, from their fears, from everything that kept them from living fully.

It may seem like a strange response on Jesus’ part. But I think Jesus was pointing them to something beyond the everyday affairs of life that they could “manage.” He pointed them to the day when he, the “Son of Man” would come “with power and great glory” (Lk 21:27). And as our lesson from Jeremiah reminds us, the promise is that he would come to do “what is right and just” so that the people would live in safety (Jer. 33:15-16). That’s the kind of “redemption” or “salvation” Jesus promised: that one day he would come with God’s power and authority and would set right all the wrongs and set free all those who live under oppression of any kind. And he reminded them that this promise would be kept, saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Lk 21:33).

It may seem odd to be talking about these things in Advent. The coming of Christ to set right all the wrongs may seem like dreaming of what lies on a distant horizon. We might wonder how this helps us find freedom in the midst of the uncertainty of our times. While it’s always helpful to be aware of our fears and expectations and the way they affect us, we don’t have to let them define our lives. I find that when I shift my focus away from my expectations and my fears to faith in the God who has promised not only to send us a savior but also to be our savior, I feel much less troubled by the surprising ways life can twist and turn. That kind of freedom is always available to us.

More than that, however, this is the season to celebrate the birth of the one who made the very promises we have based our lives on. I think the scripture readings for this season point us forward for a reason. Just as certainly as Jesus came to be “God-with-us” in the manger so many years ago, so he will come with God’s power and authority to fulfill every promise. When our fears overwhelm us because of the chaos of our days, we need a way to help us feel more grounded. One of the ways we can do that is to put our trust in the promise Jesus made, that our freedom is near. And when we doubt that we can remember that his words remain true forever!

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm Ph. D. on 11/28/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman NE.

He Shall Reign Forever

 He Shall Reign Forever

Daniel 7:13-14; John 18:33-38[1]

One of the challenges of holding on to our Christian faith, hope, and love in times like these is that it may not seem to do much good. We are surrounded by images of what passes for “power” in this world, and it doesn’t seem to have much to do with faith, or hope, or love. In our world, power is defined by the ability to force others to do your bidding. That can take the form of troops and tanks and bombs. Or it can take the form of “arm-twisting” intimidation. All too often, power comes from having enough wealth to “buy” people to do what you want. The way power works in our world has very little to do with faith, or hope, or love.

We’d like to think that there was a time when we were more wary of that kind of blatant abuse of power. But if you read history carefully, you find that there have always been those who were willing to do whatever it took to wield power simply for their own benefit. While we criticize those who did so in the past, we can be infatuated with those who do so now. The notion that it would be “cool” to “have that much power” can be found in the minds of everyone from children idolizing their heroes to aging politicians clinging desperately to the last remains of their fading influence.

The situation wasn’t much different in Jesus’ day. The Jewish people lived under the control of the Roman empire. And whenever anyone tried to buck them, they had the most powerful army in the world to put them back in their place. Roman Governors like Pontius Pilate didn’t hesitate to unleash the legions on unarmed crowds of men, women, and children to keep a firm grip on their power. The Jewish people also lived under the control of their religious leaders. Then as now, while there were many who were sincere, it seems that there were plenty who were willing to abuse their position to manipulate the people and to maintain their own position and wealth.

That’s the background for the scene in our Gospel lesson for today. After making a show of interrogating Jesus, the “chief priests” brought him to Pilate to have him executed. Although they could have had Jesus stoned to death, they wanted him crucified by the Romans. They used their influence over the people to force Pilate to do their bidding. They “played their hand” shrewdly, publicly claiming that if he didn’t execute Jesus, the “king of the Jews,” Pilate would be disloyal to the Roman emperor. As if they cared about that!

And so Pilate’s private interview with Jesus was about true power. Of course, Jesus was bound, at the mercy of the Jewish religious leaders, on trial before the Roman governor. I think Pilate’s question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” would have been dripping with irony, because by all appearances Jesus had no power whatsoever. But Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world,” meaning that his authority was completely different from Pilate’s notions of power. In fact, later when Pilate remarked over Jesus’ failure to recognize his power, Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (Jn 19:11).

I think Jesus was talking about something that was beyond Pilate’s grasp: the power of God’s kingdom that would never end. It’s likely that Jesus was drawing on the visions in the book of Daniel. There, God’s kingdom is likened to a great stone “cut out, not by human hands” that crushed the powerful empires of the world (Dan 2:34). In our lesson for today, Daniel’s vision of four beasts represented four kings whose power would be taken away and replaced by “someone like a Son of Man” who would establish God’s kingdom that would never end (Dan 7:13-14).

Although Pilate had no clue what Jesus was talking about, I would say that Jesus was giving him a lesson in real power. Pilate had bought into the image of power through force, through intimidation, and through wealth. But Jesus had a much bigger image of power. He knew that the true power in this universe is the reign of God. It’s one of the basic affirmations of the Bible, and we heard it in our lesson from Psalm 93: God has always ruled as king, despite all appearances to the contrary. And as the Book of Revelation reminds us, one day, “The kingdom of the world” will become “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). God’s reign is the true reality behind all the appearances of power in our world, and one day it will be fulfilled “on earth as it is in heaven.”

I think we need that kind of “bigger picture” to help us through times like these. When all we see reinforces the appearance that power in this world comes from force, or intimidation, or wealth, it can be discouraging to those of us trying to live out our Christian faith, hope, and love. But the Bible gives us a different image of power: it’s the image of the all-powerful God who created all things in the beginning. It’s the image of the God who entered this world in the person of Jesus to redeem us all with the power of love on the cross. It’s the image of the power of new life defeating the power of death on Easter Sunday. It’s the image of Jesus reigning over all the “powers” in our world at the right hand of God even now. It’s the image of that reign fulfilled one day “on earth as it is in heaven.” And the promise is that “he shall reign forever and ever”! When we understand where we come from, to whom we belong, and who ultimately defines our destiny, it helps us to face the challenge of our times.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 11/21/21 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Faith, Hope, and Love

 Faith, Hope, and Love

Mark 13:1-13[1]

Whether we are aware of it, I think the events of the past year and a half have triggered fear and even panic in many of us. Much of what we knew as “normal life” before Covid has changed. From school to work to shopping to entertainment to church to family, the “foundation stones” of our lives have been shaken and, in some cases, toppled over. All of this leaves us wondering if things will ever be the same. Even those of us with the strongest faith can find ourselves dealing with fear and even panic over what the future holds. And panic can make our commitment to Christ, and with it our faith, hope, and love seem to evaporate into thin air.

Sadly, times of great change and the fear and panic they inspire have done just that to many good people. Some have provoked panic with their cries that “the end is near!” Great change, panic, and cries of “the end is near” seem to go together historically. Many of us here remember the “Y2K” scare twenty years ago. Due to concerns of a massive glitch in the system, the fear was that most of the world’s computers would crash at 12:01am on January 1, 2000. This was supposed to have affected everything from banking to power to our homes to the food supply. Of course, that date came and went, just like all the other “end is near” moments throughout history. All the fuss was for nothing.

 Believe it or not, our Gospel lesson from Mark relates to this. The reading for today is the introduction to a whole chapter that addresses the fears that were going around Judea in those days. What we need to understand is that the Jewish people had lived under the rule of foreign powers for centuries. It shouldn’t surprise us to know that they resented and resisted those powers. By the time the Romans came on the scene in the century before Jesus was born Judea was like a powder keg. And there were several who tried to “light the fuse” to overthrow the Romans through violent revolt. Most of them claimed to be the “messiah,” which was the equivalent of crying “the end is near” in that day.

That was the backdrop of Jesus’ conversation with his disciples. In response to their admiration of the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus made a prediction that probably would have shocked them. He said, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mk 13:2). The Temple not only represented the place where God was thought to dwell, it was the core of the Jewish faith and the Jewish nation. For the temple with its massive buildings to be “thrown down” would have been the equivalent of saying “the end is near!” That was the only setting in which they could imagine such a catastrophe.

So they asked Jesus, “when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” (Mk 13:4). They were asking him for “the inside track” so they would know what was going to happen and when. But Jesus didn’t indulge them. Instead, he simply told them that there would continue to be upheavals and crises that would seem like everything was coming to an end, just as there had been all along. Nation rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, and other disruptions like them have been around throughout the history of the world. But Jesus told them not to give way to panic because these things “do not mean that the end has come” (Mk 13:7, TEV).

Instead, Jesus called them to persevere in following him through all the hardships they would face. And he didn’t hesitate to warn them that they would certainly face hardships if they followed him. They would be “handed over” to the authorities and called on the carpet for their faith. Even members of their own families would betray them. Jesus warned them, “you will be hated by all because of my name” (Mk 13:13). A quick survey of the book of Acts confirms that these things actually happened to the first Christians. But Jesus promised them, “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mk 13:13). Rather than giving in to fear and panic, Jesus called them to persevere in their faith and continue to follow him.

I think it’s easy to understand why there are people who may look at what is happening in our world and think that the “end is near.” Some have lost careers and homes and family members to this pandemic. When it seems like all the foundations of our lives are crumbling, it’s easy to panic. When we give in to fear it’s incredibly difficult to practice the faith and hope and love that define what it means to follow Jesus. Instead we withdraw, we disconnect from the community of disciples, we lose faith, and along with our faith we lose hope. When we let panic overwhelm us, it’s hard to live out our faith by loving God and loving others.

But that’s why Jesus calls us not to give into panic, especially in times of great change. In fact, he said that if we respond to the upheavals of this life by holding fast and staying the course, it will offer a “testimony” to those around us (Mk 13:9). When it seems like the foundations of our world are crumbling, and we don’t know what the future holds, we can trust in the one who holds the future firmly in his loving hands. That faith can help us hold on as well to the hope that no matter how hard things may get for us, God will turn it all to good one day. And our faith and hope can give us the courage to put love into practice. Instead of withdrawing into the fears and suspicions panic provokes, that’s how we “endure to the end”: through faith, hope, and love.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 11/14/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

With All Your Life

With All Your Life

Mark 12:38-44[1]

There’s an old saying that says “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” Of course, in reality we do that all the time. As a veteran book shopper, I can tell you a thing or two about the way bookstores arrange their books. The best sellers are the ones with their covers facing out so that everyone can see them easily. Then there’s the artwork and design. Selling books is a business, after all, and a lot goes into making a book look “good enough” to buy. I must confess that a book’s cover may attract my attention at least at first. The real truth is that we judge a lot more than books by their “covers.” We do it with people all the time.

But one of the lessons of Mark’s Gospel is that it’s not always the people who put on a show of being “religious” who actually put their faith into practice. In fact, many of those who would have been considered the “spiritual leaders” of that day turned out to be cruel in real life. Many of them fell under Jesus’ criticism of putting on a “show” of being godly. In fact, in Mark’s Gospel, even the twelve “Apostles” failed to grasp the most basic things Jesus was trying to teach them. Instead, it was some of the most unlikely people who demonstrated their faith by what they did. It is these “unlikely people” who serve as the examples for true faith.

In our Gospel lesson for today, we see one of those “unlikely” people: a widow who gives an offering that would have been barely noticed by most people. Mark says that while Jesus was watching the crowd, “A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny” (Mk 12:42). Now there’s a translation problem here. What she gave was probably worth more than an actual penny is worth today. But even so, it wasn’t enough to buy food for a single meal. Perhaps we might say it was the equivalent of a dollar in our terms. It wasn’t going to make or break the Temple treasury!

By comparison, Mark tells us that “Many rich people put in large sums” (Mk 12:41). We don’t know exactly what kind of container held the offerings, but apparently it was something that would have been very public. And since money in that day consisted of coins, it would have been obvious to all present that they had given a lot. But Jesus wasn’t impressed with their large gifts. He said it this way: they “have contributed out of their abundance” (Mk 12:44). They gave what was convenient to give. They gave what may have been “pocket change” to them. They gave what they wouldn’t miss. They made a show of being “religious,” but that’s all it was: a “show.”

To reinforce that point, Jesus says this widow gave more than all the rest! On the surface of things, that might sound like a contradiction. They gave “large sums” of money, while what she gave was virtually worthless. And yet, what makes the difference for Jesus is that “she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mk. 12:44). What she gave may have seemed pointless to those who put in so much, but she gave everything she had. It may not have been “more” in terms of the actual amount, but it meant a lot more to her than what they gave meant to them.

There’s actually a play on words going on in this verse. In one sense, “all she had to live on” would refer to all the money she had. But the original word is bios, and it could also be translated “her whole life.” When you consider that we’ve just talked about Jesus’ agreement with a particular scribe about the greatest commandments, I think this comment takes on added significance. While the scribe in our lesson last week knew that the greatest commandment was to love God with your whole life, this widow put that into practice. By offering her last two coins to God she loved God “with her whole life.”[2]

It might seem unlikely that Jesus would notice this widow and her gift, but in Mark’s Gospel, it’s unlikely people like her who set the example for the rest of us. The woman who suffered from hemorrhages broke taboos to seek out Jesus, and her faith became the example for a leader of a synagogue (Mk 5:21-43). A woman who was a foreigner came to Jesus and refused to take no for an answer when she sought healing for her daughter (Mk 7:24-30). The blind beggar named Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus for mercy, and he kept crying out even when Jesus’ own “followers” tried to shush him (Mk 10: 46-52). And this widow gave all that she had as a demonstration that she loved God with all her life.

As we approach our stewardship commitment for next year, I think all of this can help us. In the first place, the Bible teaches that everything we have and everything we are belongs to God. But none of us can afford to give all that we have to God. While this widow did that, there were social support programs in place that would have assured she didn’t go hungry. Secondly, the fact that what she gave was virtually worthless indicates that it’s not the actual amount that you give, it’s what it means to you in terms of demonstrating your commitment to love God. St. Paul said it this way, “Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly” (2 Cor 8:12, NLT). That last part points us to a third lesson: whatever we give, what honors God is that we give it “eagerly” or “cheerfully” (cf. 2 Cor 9:7). When we give generously, not only of our possessions, we love God with all our lives.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 11/7/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, 590.

At the Center

 At the Center

Mark 12:28-34[1]

It’s hard to avoid the truth that most of us live our lives with ourselves at the center. We may choke on the very words if we try to say it out loud. I think that’s one reason why we have always used the “younger generation” as the scapegoat for our selfishness. But the truth of the matter is that humanity has always lived with themselves at the center. Even when we do something to help someone else, we often do it for approval or simply to feel good about ourselves. Of course, there are those among us who rise above this and truly serve others. But if we’re honest we have to admit that they are the exception that proves the rule.

Although we prefer to locate “selfishness” in someone else, anyone else, it’s something we all have to deal with if we are going to try to follow Jesus as his disciples. That’s why week after week we gather here and confess to God, to one another, and to ourselves that we live with “self” at the center of our lives. That’s one of the basic definitions of the “sin” we try to confess together every week in worship. Our confession is not only an attempt to acknowledge that we all fall short. It’s also a way of trying to reorient our lives with God at the center.

That’s what our Gospel lesson for today is about: the question of what it looks like to live with God at the center of our lives. The question comes at the end of a debate that the religious leaders had been carrying on with Jesus, hoping to make a fool out of him in front of the people who followed him. One torah scholar asks him which of God’s commands was the “first,” or most important. You may find it surprising that I don’t believe this scribe was trying to trip Jesus up. Mark says he asked this question when he saw that Jesus answered “well” those who were antagonizing him. I think the scribe noticed that he was “on the same page” with Jesus, and so he was genuinely curious about how Jesus understood the heart of what God wants from us.

It was no coincidence that Jesus chose love for God and love for neighbor in reply. The “first” commandment came from the Shema, which was and still is the heart of the Jewish faith (Deut 6:4-5): “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk 12:29-30). And the “second” commandment (Lev 19:18), “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is part of a summary of God’s mandates in Leviticus called the “holiness code”. It’s called that because its theme is “you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2). While we assume these two commands go together, what we should understand is that it’s very likely Jesus was the first one to put them together like this.

But in one sense, Jesus wasn’t really breaking any new ground here. These two “great” commands reflect a fundamental framework of faith that runs throughout the whole Bible. It begins with the fact that God loved the family of Abraham and Sarah, and chose them to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. This is called the “covenant” in the Bible, and it speaks of a relationship that God established in his grace and mercy. When we miss the fact that everything else is based on God’s love, we can get on the wrong track about God and about what it means to live with God at the center of our lives.

The next part of that framework is that the Bible insists that those who have experienced God’s love, those who are fortunate enough to live in a relationship in which they know that God loves them unconditionally and irrevocably, will respond by loving God so much that we will put God at the center of life. That’s what it means to love God with all your heart. We may find it surprising that the way to do this is by following God’s ways, by putting God’s commands into practice in our everyday lives. We get confused about this because we think a life of obedience somehow earns for us the right to God’s love. But that’s not it at all. We live this way because we know God loves us, not to gain God’s love.

The next step is that we who love God in this way will demonstrate it by the love we show others. This way of loving God by loving others isn’t just about how we feel about people. It’s about what we do. And the Bible gets very practical, very specific, and very down to earth about what that looks like. We love others when we show them mercy and justice, when we treat them with dignity, respect, fairness, compassion, and kindness. We love others when we feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. That whole framework, responding to God’s love by loving God in such a way that we love others is what living with God at the center of our lives looks like.[2]

I’ll be the first to admit that living this way isn’t easy, and it isn’t something we learn quickly. I find that the farther I go in my journey toward discipleship, the more aware I am of how I fall short. The lure of trying to satisfy our own desires is one that can be incredibly difficult to recognize, and even more so to avoid. But I don’t think that God expects us to be perfect in this life. I think the point is that we take seriously the call live in a relationship with God, a relationship that is grounded in God’s love for us. The way we do that is by loving and serving God through loving and serving others. That’s what living with God at the center looks like, and it’s a challenge that takes a lifetime to master.

---

[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 10/31/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:54-66, where he maintains that this has always been God’s intention against all efforts to “break up” this “one covenant” of grace into a series of different “covenants.”  He disputes the “federal theology” of Johannes Cocceius, whose ideas are probably best known today in the “Dispensationalism” of Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsay.