To You is Born a Savior

 To You is Born a Savior

Luke 2:1-20[1]

I saw a sign several days ago that said to “keep Christ in Christmas.” It’s a slogan that’s been around for a long time. It originated as a protest against the phrase “Merry Xmas.” So “keeping Christ in Christmas” meant spelling out the whole word, Christmas. But I really don’t know what it means more than that. It’s one of those slogans that’s been so overused I’m not sure it means anything anymore. Some of us might think it’s obvious what “keeping Christ in Christmas” means. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ, or the Messiah. So, keeping “Christ” in Christmas means making the celebration of Jesus’ birth the focus of Christmas. But I’m not sure a worn-out slogan can tell us much about how we’re supposed to do that.

In our lesson from the Gospel of Luke we heard the angel’s announcement to the shepherds, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” That helps us, because it tells us that Jesus was born as the “Messiah” or the “Christ” and that means he’s the Savior. Those of us who are connected with a church have at least an understanding that we need a Savior, and we celebrate Jesus’ birth because he came to be our Savior. And the angel said this message was meant to be “good news of great joy for all the people” (Lk 2:10-11). But there are a lot of folks these days who don’t see that they have any need for a “Savior.” In fact, the very language of looking for someone to “save” us or “rescue” us, is considered to be unhealthy in relationships. And rightly so. It’s a mark of health to recognize that we’re all responsible for our emotional well-being.

But while it’s good to be self-responsible, you can take a good thing too far. When we turn it into the attitude that it’s up to me whether I thrive in this world, it can lead us to think we can dispense with “God” or any thoughts of a “Savior.” When we do that, we may believe we can live our lives, make our choices, and engage in our own pursuits without giving God or Jesus Christ a second thought. But living that way is an illusion. It really amounts to an effort to avoid facing hard truths. We may succeed for the time being at avoiding what we don’t want to deal with but living our lives without any reference to God will leave us facing a deep emptiness.

I don’t believe the point of our lesson from the Gospel of Luke is to “keep Christ in Christmas.” I think it goes far beyond that. Celebrating the birth of Jesus as our Savior means “keeping” Christ as the focus for all of life. We “keep” Christ in our lives when we recognize that the only way to truly thrive is through the hope and peace and joy and love that Jesus brings us. We “keep” Christ in our lives when we recognize that we do not live our lives to ourselves alone, or solely by our own efforts. Rather we live in a world that overflows with God’s loving presence. That’s why we celebrate the birth of Jesus as our Savior. He came to fulfill the promise of “Immanuel,” or “God-who-is-with-us.” He’s our Savior because he brought us the assurance that we are never alone in this world. No matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, because of Jesus—his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his continuing presence in our lives—we are never alone, but rather we are constantly surrounded and embraced by the love of God. That’s what it means to celebrate the birth of Jesus as our Savior on this night!

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[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A Christmas meditation delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/24/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/5cHGVLyZwmo

Jesus the Messiah

 Jesus the Messiah

Matthew 1:18-25[1]

The assumption that everyone you meet has a similar notion of God is not one you can make these days. We live in a world in which people increasingly view the notion of “God” as irrelevant. They’ve grown up, lived their whole lives, and may be at the point of facing the end of life, all without any reference whatsoever to God. And we are living in a time when children are being raised by parents who have lived without any faith in God (in some cases grandparents). When you’re looking at the third generation of people who live their lives without any reference to God, it’s hard to find common ground as a basis for sharing the good news of Jesus’ birth.

Even the church, we can’t assume that everyone shares the same view of God. We believe in a God who loves us all unconditionally, undeniably, and irrevocably—from eternity past, throughout time, to all eternity. Most Christians would agree with that statement. But for many, God’s love is reserved only for those who do all the right things, say all the right words, and look acceptably “Christian.” Those who fail to “live up” to a particular standard are simply excluded from God’s love. And they believe that happens by design and for all eternity. I don’t know about you, but I find the idea that God only loves people who look and think and talk and act a certain way pretty scary!

Still others have been raised in a setting in which God comes off as anything but a loving father. The foundation for their whole framework of faith is not God’s love, but rather human sin. When you grow up in a church that constantly hammers into you that God disapproves not only of what you do but who you are, it can be hard to even want to have anything much to do with God. If your “faith” beats you down on a regular basis, it should come as no surprise that those who have a choice about whether or not to participate walk away from it. I wouldn’t want to subject myself to that kind of treatment either. It’s toxic!

One thing we have to understand about the story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew’s Gospel is that it is about reframing our view of God. What you may not know is that Jesus completely redefined the way in which people understood God. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a very different view of God in some books of the Bible. The sacrificial system was based in part on the belief that they had to kill an animal in order to keep from being killed by God, who was angry with them for their sins. The very idea of getting “close” to God was the opposite of what people believed: if you got too close to God you could wind up dead!

That understanding about who God is was literally set in stone at the Temple. The very walls of the Temple were there to keep the “wrong” people from getting too close to God. And only certain people, following certain rigidly prescribed procedures, could even dare to think about entering God’s presence. That was a privilege reserved for a select few, while most people could only watch from a distance, if they were even permitted to do that. In a very real sense, Jesus came to tear down the walls that had been built up around God by the Jewish religion and its leaders. He came to open the doors to God’s presence to everyone.

That was his role according to Matthew’s Gospel. And Matthew explains all of this by calling Jesus “Messiah,” “Savior,” and “Immanuel.” These ideas weren’t new in that day, but Jesus filled them with new meaning that most people didn’t expect. When the people of his day looked for a “Messiah,” they expected someone who would ascend to the throne of David. That was what Isaiah looked forward to: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isa 9:6-7, ESV).

Given our traditions of worship at Christmas, we naturally assume that Isaiah was predicting the coming of Jesus. But Isaiah was speaking to people living 700 years before Jesus was born. It seems clear that Isaiah was talking about the birth of a king who would lead the nation of Judah to freedom by establishing peace and justice. But even the best kings were only human. The promises God made to his people through the prophet were never fully realized. And that gave rise to the hope for one who would truly and finally bring peace to the Jewish people.

Given the fact that Jesus didn’t exactly follow the “script” people were expecting, we might wonder why Matthew would make such an effort to identify Jesus as the “Messiah.” Part of the answer is that Jesus also redefined what it meant to be the Messiah.[2] And, as we saw last week, this was about what Jesus did, not about trying to figure out the theological problem of Jesus as God and man. Jesus fulfilled the role of the Messiah by carrying out the promises of salvation, promises like “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt 11:4-5). Matthew called those actions the “deeds of the Messiah” (Mt 11:2). Jesus was the Messiah because of what he was doing: he was acting to “save his people,” just like the Angel told Joseph in his dream.

But just as important was the fact that Jesus the Messiah was also “Immanuel,” or “God is with us.” Jesus also fulfilled this role by what he did. As he engaged in his ministry, he broke through all the boundaries that the Jewish religious leaders had thrown up to keep “undesirable” people away from God’s blessings. Jesus’ preference for spending time with the “common people” became such a scandal that he came to be known as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19). That was not a good thing! What really turned the tables on them was the fact that Jesus shared meals with “unclean” people.

All of this was simply Jesus carrying out his role as “Immanuel,” “God-who-is-with-us.” It redefined not only their expectations about a Messiah, but also their prejudices about who was “acceptable” and who was “outcast.” By sharing God’s love with those who were despised and rejected, Jesus demonstrated that not only God’s love, but also God’s presence and God’s blessings could not be limited by the narrow constraints of those who were smugly “holier-than-thou.” As Jesus would tell them all, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45). This was Jesus fulfilling the role of “Immanuel,” the one who definitively and once and for all made it clear that God is “God-who-is-with-us,” and that includes all of us![3] 

When I think about the many ways people either misconstrue who God is or ignore God altogether, I’m comforted by the news of Jesus’ birth as “Messiah” and “Immanuel.” It reminds me of something that the Study Catechism that we use in Confirmation class tells us: that “God does not will to be God without us.”[4] Because of God’s very nature, God seeks us all out through Jesus.[5] And that means that no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, God is with us, loving us to all eternity. Whether we joyfully celebrate the embrace of a loving God, or we cringe  and shrink back from a God we fear will punish us, or we go about our lives without giving God a second thought, God is with us. Jesus made that clear just by being born. But he also made it clear by the way he lived, by carrying out the “deeds of the Messiah” in his ministry, by dying on the cross and rising again to new life, and by promising that “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20).

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[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/18/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KD-rPMjNnJI

[2] Cf. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII:270: “To say that Jesus is the Christ is not only to say something about Jesus, but to transform the meaning of Christ as well” (emphasis original).

[3] Cf. Boring, “Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII: 138: “for Matthew, the story of Jesus is a way of talking about God.  In Jesus and his story, God is with us.”

[4] The Study Catechism, 1988 (question 88 in the full version, question 66 in the confirmation version). This originated with Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2:735: “God does not will to be without us, but, no matter who and what we may be, to be with us, that He Himself is always ‘God with us,’ Emmanuel.” 

[5] Cf. Desmond Tutu, Made for Goodness, 198: “For Christians, finding our way home to God is not a ‘self-help’ project. Jesus Christ is our hope for complete wholeness, for healing that is salvation. And that hope has already been accomplished. So we are constantly called to experience the truth about us: that we are beloved of God.”

Living Joyfully

 Living Joyfully

Matthew 11:2-19[1]

I think finding a way to enjoy life is perhaps one of the most fundamental human pursuits. One of the reasons I believe that is because we have become more cut off from the very ordinary sources that humanity has looked to for joy over the ages. With that loss of “ordinary joy,” we turn to the extraordinary, to “special events,” in our search for happiness. We plan bigger and grander vacations. We mark milestone events with “over the top” gestures that we then have to try to “outdo” next time. We find ways to extend our “celebrations” of birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays as long as possible to get “the most” out of them. But with all that energy and effort going toward making it more “special,” I wonder if it gets in the way of finding joy in the “ordinariness” that has always been a part of human life.

At the same time, I think we try to keep our distance from the extraordinary. The smartest student in the class is often viewed as “freakishly smart.” We honor the soldier who goes over the hill first, risking life and limb, but we want our loved ones to avoid “playing the hero.” When it comes to religion, I think we still have remnants of the old Roman Catholic reverence for “saints.” Because we both admire and fear them, we put those who have lived extraordinary lives of devotion to Christ on pedestals high enough to keep our distance. We do so to prevent their “extraordinary” piety from “rubbing off” on us and removing us from being comfortably “normal.”

I think something like this was going on with John the Baptist. The fact that he carried out his ministry in the “wilderness” was not “normal.” And then there was his lifestyle: he wore clothing made of camel’s hair and ate a strange diet of locusts and wild honey. But the real “clincher” that marked John off as extraordinary was his message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2). But he went beyond that: “the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I …. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:11). This was very different from what people were used to hearing.

That last part became one of most important ways of identifying John the Baptist in the Christian tradition. He was the “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’” (Mt 3:3). That marked him off as a “prophet” in the eyes of most people. That this was the way people identified him not only expressed that conviction, it reinforced it. That was because the very words came from the prophet Isaiah. That people would take a page from Isaiah and apply it to John only elevated him even higher on their religious pedestals. And like us, the people of that day both admired and feared anyone who behaved like a prophet.

Here was John, his message one that led many people to expect that he was the one to announce and even bring in the hopes the people had cherished for centuries. In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus endorsed the rumors that must have been going around: “if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Mt 11:14). And yet, Jesus seemed to say both that John was special, and that John was nothing special. He said it this way: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt 11:11). I would say that Jesus’ point was simple: John was indeed extraordinary, and he played a special role in the fulfillment of God’s purpose. John was the one who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah. But literally in the same breath Jesus said that John was also ordinary, no greater than the “least” of those who had the faith to follow Jesus.

I think we see John’s “ordinariness” in that John asked Jesus a surprising question. At least it’s surprising to hear it from a “prophet,” the one who was the “voice crying in the wilderness” to prepare for the coming Messiah. Matthew tells us that “When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” (Mt 11:2, NIV). Wait, what? How could John doubt whether Jesus was “the one who is to come”? It doesn’t make sense. I think this gives us a glimpse of the “ordinariness” of even one so “extraordinary.” For all of his unique devotion to God, John remained a man. And Jesus wasn’t behaving in the way that anyone expected from the “Messiah.” John included.

And that brings us to the fact that there is more going on in this Gospel lesson than just answering the question who John the Baptist was. More importantly, it’s about answering the question who Jesus was and is. When John’s disciples asked Jesus the question, “are you the one?”, he answered in a way that they might not have understood in the moment: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt 11:4-5). I would say that’s the closest thing we have in Matthew’s Gospel to Jesus claiming that he was indeed the Messiah.

But the way he demonstrates this is by pointing to what John already knows: that Jesus was doing the “deeds of the Messiah” (Mt 11:2, NIV). What follows is in one sense simply a summary of what Matthew had already reported about Jesus: healing and restoring people, raising the dead, and proclaiming the good news.[2] But it’s also a summary of the promises of salvation found especially in the book of the prophet Isaiah.[3] We heard some of those promises in our lesson for today: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isa 35:5-6). But not only does Isaiah promise healing. He says that all those who have been “ransomed” by the Lord will have “everlasting joy”; “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa 35:10). Jesus called John to rejoice because he was indeed fulfilling the promises of God’s salvation.

That’s where all this fits in with our ability to live with joy. Recognizing that Jesus did indeed come as the Messiah to fulfill the promises of God’s salvation is cause for joy. And the joy of God’s salvation in the process of being fulfilled by Jesus the Messiah can serve as the foundation for a life of joy. While it’s true that we still deal with “sorrow and sighing,” we have in Jesus the demonstration of the beginning of God’s salvation. And I would say that Jesus’ whole life serves as a demonstration of God’s intent to complete the work of salvation. When that kind of “everlasting” joy serves as the foundation for our lives, I believe it sets us free from trying to grasp at joy in ways that may be artificial. It sets us free to live joyfully in all the “ordinary” ways that are available to us every day.

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[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/11/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/vWDLT5ggoJA .

[2] Cleansing a leper: Mt 8:1-4; healing the lame: Mt 8:5-13; Mt 9:2-8; raising the dead: Mt 9:18-23; restoring sight to the blind: Mt 9:27-31; restoring hearing (and speech) to a mute: Mt 9:32-33; proclaiming the good news: Mt 9:35-36.

[3] Isa 26:19: “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise”; Isa 29:18: “On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a scroll, and freed from gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see”; Isa 35:5-6:

A Mighty Savior

A Mighty Savior

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 1:68-79; Colossians 2:11-20[1]

  One of the age-old human desires is for someone to come and rescue us from the brokenness of our lives. At times have looked to our “God” to be the one to save us from the pain and suffering that seems to define our existence. At times that desire has been focused on a specific person—a “hero” who would throw off the yoke of oppressors, or a leader who would step up and set things right, or a spiritual figure who would come and save us. At times, the disappointments of life have driven us to look for our own solutions—some good, some not. But when push comes to shove, we tend to look to God to save us.

  In ancient times, this desire was directed toward the promise of a Messiah. That idea originated because, as Jeremiah declares, those who were supposed to care for the people had failed to do so. More than that, they had taken advantage of the people, “destroying” and “scattering” God’s flock. In response, God promised to send one who would be a true shepherd. This one would enact true justice, rather than exploiting the people for the sake of power and wealth. This one would bring true peace that enabled them to thrive, not just the richest of the rich. This one would be called “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6, NRSV), or “God-Who-Puts-Everything-Right” (The Message)! Jeremiah was looking for a mighty savior!

  So was Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. In Luke’s Gospel we hear his song of praise at the birth of his son. He took that to be a sign that God was in the process of fulfilling ancient promises. Promises to save the people from their enemies and from the hand of those who oppressed them. Promises that God had made to Abraham and David about the days when the people would be able to serve God freely. Promises that light would come to those living in darkness, and peace would come to those who were troubled by violence, or cruelty, or want of common necessities, or simply a place to call home. And Zechariah believed God was going to do this by raising up “a mighty savior” (Lk. 1:69).

  After raising their hopes through the many amazing things he did, Jesus dashed those hopes by going to the cross. “Mighty Saviors” don’t get publicly humiliated by a brutal execution. In the minds of the Jewish people that just couldn’t happen. A truly mighty savior would have the power to overthrow even the Roman Empire, who kept the Jewish people firmly under the heels of their army. A truly mighty savior would bring back the days when the Jewish people were a world power. When Jesus died on a Roman cross, the hopes of those who followed him died as well.

  But that was not the end of the story. By raising Jesus from the dead, God demonstrated that he was indeed doing something “mighty” through Jesus. I think it took the first Christians a while to understand all that meant. It meant that God was doing something much bigger than just freeing the Jewish people. Through Jesus the mighty savior, God was going to free all people. And he was going to free us not just from the political and economic powers in this world, but from all the evil, hatred, injustice, and brokenness that burdens us in this life. Because he defeated death itself, the first Christians began to recognize that there was no victory that Jesus, our mighty savior, could not win.

  As a result, they began to see Jesus’ work as something that would involve a much bigger picture that simply the fate of nations. In Colossians, Jesus’ work as our mighty savior includes nothing less than creating all things in the beginning and restoring all things in the end. Because of Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, Jesus’ role as our savior was much bigger than anyone had imagined. As the “firstborn of all creation,” he was the one “through whom and for whom” all things were created by God. We may not understand all that means, but as our mighty savior, Jesus participated with God in the creation of all things.

  Beyond that, Jesus’ work as our mighty savior includes restoring “all things” in the end. Now, in the Greek language “all things” is worded in such a way as to point to the whole created order. It refers to “all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe” (Col. 1:20, The Message). I think that’s going way beyond what most of us can imagine, let alone understand. Somehow, the Scripture says that Jesus reigns as our mighty Savior over the whole universe. And he will carry out his reign “with wisdom, power, and love” by making all things right—throughout the whole cosmos!

  I think our desire for a Savior tends to be focused on ourselves. We tend to want our Savior to help us out of our difficulties. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, of course. But we can’t stop there. According to the New Testament, our mighty savior is engaged in a work that will make all things right again, just the way they were at the very beginning. I don’t think, however, that because Jesus is the Savior of the universe that somehow means that our concerns are too small for him. Rather, I would say that when we turn to him with our burdens, we can do so in the confidence that our mighty savior is the one who is working to restore the whole universe and everyone in it! Surely that means not only that he can help us, but also that he will!

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[1] © 2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 11/24/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Who Is This?

Who Is This?

John 1:43-51[1]

I think it’s hard to ever really get to know another person. We are such complex creatures, and we constantly grow and change. Even when you spend a lifetime with the one you love, there are aspects of that person you may never know. Unfortunately, romantic relationships are prime situations for this problem. Most of us have an image of the “ideal” person we’d like to meet. And when we “fall” for someone, it’s because we have decided that s/he fits that ideal. But the unfortunate part is that our starry-eyed infatuation is usually fueled by our own imagination. When you actually live with someone, you learn sooner or later that nobody can live up to any “ideal.” Hopefully, that’s when real love begins: learning to accept another person.

One of the dynamics that you find in the Gospels is that people are constantly misunderstanding who Jesus is. Part of the reason is their own pre-conceived notions about him based on what they may have heard or seen. In the Jewish culture there were lots of expectations about what a “Messiah” would be like and what he would do for their people. Those expectations were quite varied—all the way from being a true high priest who would cleanse the temple to leading the Jewish army on a stallion to rout their Roman masters in battle.

This is the context for our Gospel lesson for today. Following Jesus’ baptism, John the Baptist directs two of his own disciples toward Jesus. One of them, Andrew, found his brother Simon (also known as Peter), and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41). Something similar happens in our lesson when Philip sought out Nathanael. Philip told him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” (John 1:45). Initially, Nathanael is skeptical about Jesus. But later when he meets Jesus, he exclaims, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49).

 All of this probably sounds very natural to us. But  I’m pretty sure Andrew and Nathanael didn’t fully understand what they were saying when they called him “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “King of Israel.” I would say that their expectations were too high, while at the same time they were too low. They were too high in that it seems like they expected Jesus to miraculously deliver them from their enemies, and re-establish the Kingdom of David. Jesus has to tell his own closest friends over and over that wasn’t his mission. At the same time, their expectations were too low. They were looking for a human deliverer; mighty in battle and wise as a ruler but nevertheless human. And the kingdom they imagined pales in comparison to the kingdom that Jesus intended to bring: the kingdom of God.

There’s an interesting exchange that happens between Jesus and the people who acclaim him. They call him “Son of God” and by that they mean he is the extraordinary human being chosen by God to lead the people of Israel to their former glory. But Jesus responds in a strange way. He doesn’t exactly deny it, but he also doesn’t exactly confirm their expectations. They constantly come to him calling him “Son of God,” and he responds by referring to himself as the “Son of Man.” That’s what happens in our lesson for today. Jesus tells Nathanael and the others that they will see greater thing, including “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51).

This may seem strange to us, I think we have to understand the background of the “Son of Man”. It comes from Daniel 7, where at the end of his vision of all the man-made kingdoms of the earth brought to an end by God’s kingdom, one like a “Son of Man” comes “with the clouds of heaven” and appears before God, as if he were equal to God (Dan. 7:13)! And what is said of him should sound familiar to us: “To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14). With that background in mind, I would say that Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man” in order to indicate that he was much, much more than people imagined when they called him “Messiah” and “Son of God.” He had not come simply to restore Israel, he had come to rule over a kingdom that would encompass all the peoples of the world!

Much of what Jesus said and did left his own disciples scratching their heads and asking, “Who is this?” Throughout the centuries, people have been asking the same question, “Who is this?” And the same is true for us. We may wonder whether Jesus is the one who will make our hopes come true. Or we may wonder whether Jesus really makes any difference in our lives at all. I’m afraid that the way we approach Jesus may be similar to his first disciples: our expectations are too high and too low at the same time. Jesus is the one who definitively shows us who God is. Jesus is the one who gave up his life for us all. And he is the one who even now rules at the right hand of God over not just the nations of the world but the whole cosmos. I think that means that he is much more than our expectations can ever define. If we truly grasp who Jesus is, it should leave us all asking, “who is this?”

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/14/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Perishable Things

Perishable Things

Jn. 6:24-35[1]

Last week we talked about the difficulty of putting our faith in a God that no one has ever seen and a Savior whom none of us ever met in person.  I think the challenge we have with believing in things “unseen” is one reason why we tend to put our faith much more easily in other things.  Things we can see and touch.  Things like career, finances, family, relationships, and our own ability to control our lives. Unfortunately, life has a way of reminding us that our faith in those things may not be rewarded in the way we expect.  When it comes to our career, most of us these days can expect to experience a significant disruption in our career at least once in our lives.  Finances are no more reliable.  We entrust our life savings to financial institutions who engage in what is basically a sophisticated form of gambling, and may wind up losing our shirts.  And people—whether our family or our spouses or our children or our friends—are all flawed and fallible and imminently capable of letting us down when we most need them. 

In a very real sense, most of the what we invest our faith in fall under the category of “perishable things” that Jesus talks about in our Gospel lesson for today.  After feeding the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, he and the disciples crossed the lake, only to find that the crowd had followed them there.  When they approached him, he abruptly accused them of seeking the “food that perishes.”  In a sense, he said they followed him not because they were trusted in him and in God’s cause of peace and justice and freedom in the world, but because they had a good meal.  In the dialogue that follows, it would seem that they were looking for a repeat of the miracle of manna in the wilderness.  It would seem that they believed that if Jesus could give them the manna from heaven like Moses did, then he must really be the Messiah.[2] It’s hard to tell whether the crowd was even aware of the miracle that had happened the day before.[3] What they did understand was that it was Jesus who fed them, by whatever means. 

But Jesus was constantly aware of the dangers of faith that is based on tangible results.[4]  Whenever you get whatever it is you asked for, it’s only a matter of time before you begin to wonder, and then you need something more to bolster your faith.  I think that’s why Jesus was so harsh with the crowd.  He was aware that they weren’t looking for the new life of God’s peace and justice and freedom.  They weren’t following Jesus because they believed he was bringing them this new life.  They were following him because they were looking for some kind of visible confirmation so they could believe.[5]

But Jesus called them to a completely different kind of faith.[6]  He called them to “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent” (Jn. 6:29 MSG).  That means throwing their lot in with God’s cause.  It’s the same kind of the faith that the three young men displayed when they confronted King Nebuchadnezzar and refused to worship his statue.  In effect, they said to him, “Our God is able rescue us from the fiery furnace, but even if he doesn’t we will not worship you” (Daniel 3:17-18).  They had “thrown in their lot” with God’s cause in the world.  They weren’t about to give that up for the sake of anything or anyone.

That kind of faith is not easy. It’s very much like Abraham and Sarah setting out on a journey without even knowing where you’re going.  That kind of faith without external props can feel incredibly uncertain. It deals with “things hoped for” and “things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).  It’s impossible to wrap your hands around that kind of faith and get a firm grip on it.  It’s no wonder most of us prefer to place our faith in something concrete, something we can see and touch.  But at the end of the day, all those seemingly reliable objects of our faith fall short.  They all let us down.  And we really shouldn’t be surprised at that.  Because those “perishable things” that we put so much of our faith in simply lack the ability to satisfy our deepest need.  What we need is the life that only God can provide.

I think Jesus knew that we all have a tendency to put our faith in things that ultimately cannot satisfy the deepest longings of our soul.  St. Augustine said it this way, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”[7]  The only “bread” that can truly satisfy our hunger is the life that God offers us.  And the amazing truth is that when we take the risk of “throwing in our lot the one whom God sent” to carry out God’s cause in the world, we find that somehow we experience a peace, a freedom, a quality of life that none of those “perishable things” can possibly provide.  When we take the risk of faith and begin to quiet our restless hearts, we find the life God offers us truly satisfies us in ways we may never have expected.

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[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/5/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, 98.

[3] To some extent, it would seem that only Jesus and his disciples knew what had happened. Cf. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:599: “The crowd does not recognize the sign that has been enacted before them.”

[4] Cf. O’Day, “Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:611; cf. also ibid., 576: “The person who interprets a miracle solely as a miraculous act will remain transfixed by and limited to the act itself … .  Jesus could be revered, perhaps even believed in on account of that act, but only as a miracle worker.” On the contrary, “it is not the miracle per se, but the glimpse of the presence of God at work with and in human experience that can lead to faith.”

[5] This is somewhat problematic in John’s Gospel, because one of the main emphases in the Gospel is that Jesus works miraculous signs so that people might believe.  I think  Stephen Fowl “John 6:25-35,” Interpretation 61 (July 2007): 315 puts it in perspective well when he says, “the signs challenge those who see them, hear about them, and ultimately read about them, to look beyond the miracles that are performed to the one who performs the miracles. … Signs, rightly understood, deepen and strengthen belief in Jesus. They are gracious gifts. Like many gifts, however, they are not always received in the right ways.”

[6] Cf. Gerard S. Sloyan, John, 73: “This chapter is about believing without seeing (v. 36), about coming to God through Jesus and being assured that trust in him cannot be misplaced (v. 37).” 

[7] Augustine, Confessions, I.1; cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 15, 29, 127, where he discusses Augustine’s statement from the perspective that faith always involves an element of being restless and “unhinged.”

The One who Sets Things Right

Jer 23:1-6[1]

We live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.[2] We live in a world where money makes the world go around, where might makes right and the race doesn’t always go to the one who deserves it. We live in a world governed by people elected not necessarily because they are the most qualified for the job, but because they have the slickest campaign. We live in a world where billionaires buy off representatives and senators in order to ensure that they keep getting a bigger slice of the pie.[3] And we live in a world where the ones who control the army also get to control aid money worth billions—funds intended to help the ones who have no food, no clean water, and improper sanitation, but that all too often end up enriching those who hold the purse strings.

Most of this is beyond dispute as a description of “the way it is.” My question, as we approach a time of year when we look for something better coming, is simple: why? Why, when the reality of injustice and violence and oppression and suffering is so obvious all around us, do we think we should look for something better? After all, some spiritual leaders will tell you that the only way to successfully manage our lives is to accept reality as it is. Wanting something different from what we have is a prescription for perpetual unhappiness and dissatisfaction. The way to “get along” is to “go along” with the way things are.

But there is a voice deep within us that simply will not let us go there—not without a fight. Not without the gut-wrenching stress of trying to live in denial of what we know to be the truth. Or not without generous doses of chemical anesthetics designed to make us feel nothing at all. The voice within us tells us the way things are is not the way things ought to be. In fact, whether we like it or not, sometimes that voice screams at us to get us to pay attention to what has gone wrong in our world. Down deep inside, we know that we were not made for the injustice and violence and oppression and suffering that define our world.

In a very real sense, I think it was that same voice that drove the prophets of ancient Israel to proclaim so loudly that the injustice that was rampant in the courts of the king would lead to the nation’s downfall. At least part of the reason for that was because the prophets also had one eye on the covenant Israel had made with their God—a covenant that included stipulations for all people to have an equal access to the means of making a living, a covenant that included the command to welcome the immigrant and the wanderers and the strangers, a covenant that included the demand to care for the weakest in society—those who were impoverished, who were forsaken, and who were excluded from the structures of life.[4]

When the prophets looked at the reality of the way the “covenant people” lived, what they saw appalled them. It wasn’t much different from our reality—the wealthy continued to get richer at the expense of the poor. The upper class indulged in conspicuous luxuries while the vast majority of people lacked basic necessities. The powerful took every possible advantage to gain more power, more wealth, and more land, not thinking twice about whom they were exploiting or enslaving or even murdering.

And right in the middle of all of this injustice, all this violence and oppression, all this suffering, sat the King. Now what we have to understand about the Kings of Israel and Judah is that they were intended to be representatives of God’s reign over the people. They were the ones who were supposed to ensure that all people were treated fairly, that they were free from violence and oppression, and that they were able to thrive in their daily living. They were supposed to be “shepherds” to the people—protecting them, caring for them, ensuring they had their needs met. But the reality of the Kings of Israel and Judah is that, more often than not they were complicit in the injustice that wracked the land, if not the very instigators in the first place.

And because the prophets had one eye on the covenant and the justice God intended for the people, and the other eye on the ones who were supposed to promote and maintain that justice but consistently failed to do so, they began to speak of one who was to come.[5] This one would be a true shepherd, not like the false “shepherds” who exploited the flock. This one would enact true justice, not the usurpation of power and wealth that masqueraded as justice. This one would bring true peace, peace that made it possible for all of them to thrive, not just the top 1% of the upper class, the richest of the rich. This one would be called “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6, NRSV), or “Yahweh is our saving justice” (NJB) or “God-Who-Puts-Everything-Right” (The Message)! The prophets were looking for the true king—the one we await during the season of Advent.

I don’t believe that is merely so much wishful thinking, or that it is foolish and positively harmful to look for this one who will set things right. I think looking for something better is wired into us at the very core of our being. Then as now, for those of us who will listen to that voice of conscience within us, it is plain as the nose on your face that the way things are is not the way things ought to be. And that leads us inevitably to look for something better—or perhaps in this case someone better. Someone who will instead oversee all who live and all of creation (no exceptions!) in a way that brings joy and peace and life to us all.[6]

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 11/21/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Timothy Noah, “The United States of Inequality,” published Sept. 3, 2010 at http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026.

[3] Cf. Jane Mayer, “Covert Operations,” The New Yorker Aug. 30, 2010; accessed at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer.

[4] Cf, Patrick D. Miller, “The Book of Jeremiah,” New Interpreters Bible VI:745, where he points out that the benchmark for justice was “the weakest members of the community, the powerless and the marginalized, the economically depressed and the vulnerable.” He adds, by contrast (p. 746), “We tend to turn the matter on its head and assume that the good society is one that allows those with economic means to hold on to them and not worry too much about those who have nothing.”

[5] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Magic Kingdom,” The Christian Century Nov. 22, 1989:1083, who says, “The rule of justice and peace will not be created by the political configurations of the present age. They have already been condemned by God for destroying what should be protected.”

[6] Our Confession of 1967 puts it this way: “It is the will of God that his purpose for human life shall be fulfilled under the rule of Christ and all evil be banished from his creation.”