Honoring Jesus

Honoring Jesus

Acts 3:12-19[1]

It seems to me that “honor” is one of those words that has lost some ground in our society. To be sure, there are places where honor still plays a role, like the military. And Scouts pledge on a weekly basis “on their honor” to do their best. But the scandals that have rocked our society in recent history have diminished the honor we attribute to our leaders and those who serve our country. After Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Tailhook, and others, the honor with which we esteem leaders even at the highest levels in our society has seriously eroded. The fact that many of our leaders are to be addressed as “honorable” may stick in our throats when we try to say it.

On the other hand, there are aspects of our life where honor still plays a role. We seek to honor our parents, especially when they get older and need help. We honor those who retire from positions after many years of faithful service. Around here, we honor those who have served our church faithfully for many decades. We also have a tradition of honoring those who work behind the scenes with little public recognition with our annual “Church Mouse” award. Of course, there are also other community leaders that we respect and honor for their integrity, their devotion, and their passion for their work. It’s a joy to be able to hold those who serve and lead in our communities in honor.

I find it interesting that the story of the early church in Acts is recounted in a way that essentially honors Jesus as the source, the inspiration, and the driving force behind everything they did. Many of the amazing things that they did they attributed to the power of Jesus’ name. In our lesson for today, Peter says it this way: “by faith in [Jesus’] name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you” (Acts 3:16). When the people tried to honor the Apostles for their astounding deeds of mercy, they consistently pointed the crowds to Jesus.

It may be difficult to understand this theme, but I think essentially they were talking about the fact that, as our lesson for today puts it, “the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13). Again, the idea of “glorifying” someone is not all that common in our world today. If we use the concept at all, it has a negative connotation, as in someone who is only interested in glorifying themselves. In my mind, however, what was going on in our lesson is that through the early Church God was publicly honoring Jesus, whom the Jewish leaders had subjected to a humiliating death.

This is but one way in which the Church saw themselves bearing witness to Jesus as our Savior and Lord. When you read the book of Acts closely, I think it becomes clear that their witness was a combination of words and deeds that promoted the new life in Christ as well as a lifestyle that publicly demonstrated the reality of that new life. The gospel they proclaimed was that through Jesus Christ God was in the process of bringing new life to all people.^[2] And those first believers saw themselves as a community that was already experiencing the new life of the resurrected Jesus. What made their witness so effective at honoring Jesus was the combination of their message with their life.

Our lesson for today recounts a story in which that new life took a very tangible form.  It is a story of the Apostles Peter and John healing a man who was crippled from birth, so that he “jumped up” and began “walking and leaping and praising God” (Acts 3:8)! Obviously that kind of thing would make a great stir.  But what we should not overlook is the fact that everything about the first Christians’ life together demonstrated this gift of new life. When they devoted themselves to their fellowship with one another, it enhanced their experience of the new life in Christ.  When they shared their possessions with one another help the needy, it made God’s promise to renew all things a reality. When they lived and worked in the harmony of “one heart and mind,” it demonstrated the new life the Spirit had given them.

Many will debate the truth of a miracle story like this. But I think to do so is to miss the greater truth: everything about the early Church’s life together bore witness that in Jesus the Christ God was fulfilling all the great promises of restoration and renewal and new life. The quality of their life and work served as evidence that the “wonderful times of refreshment” were already coming “from the presence of the Lord” and that “the final restoration of all things” that “God promised long ago through his prophets” was already in the process of being fulfilled (Acts 3:20-21, NLT). And all of this was intended to honor Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

I think one of the most important ways we can demonstrate honor in our personal lives is by seeking to line up our lives with our faith. It’s a matter of doing what St. Paul said when he urged us to “lead lives worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:10). He put it a little differently when he said, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17). As I tell the confirmation class every year, if we truly seek to live out the question “What would Jesus do?” I don’t think we’ll go too far astray. Again, the idea here is that by our words as well as our actions we are to bring honor to Jesus. We are called to show forth by our whole lives the new life we have received. And as we do so, hopefully we do it in such a way as to bring honor to our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/15/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, 110-111, where she speaks of shalom as “God’s dynamic wholeness” that is the “central vision” of the Bible.

Faithless?

Faithless?

John 20:19-31[1]

I think there are all kinds of reasons why people keep their distance from Christian faith. In many cases, it’s not necessarily the faith that keeps them away, but the church! In some cases, I’m not sure I blame them. In view of the way some Christians justify their faith, it’s no wonder there are many who don’t want to have anything to do with it. For some, “faith” is simply a matter of maintaining a tradition from their childhood. Of course, tradition can be a good thing as long as it’s more than just a matter of keeping things the way they were. For others, “faith” is more a conclusion based on evidence that “proves beyond a doubt” what we believe is true. Like many, I find the words “faith” and “proof” to be at odds with one another. Don’t get me wrong—I believe, and I do so joyfully. It’s the “proving beyond a doubt” that I don’t get.

It’s amazing to me the evidence some people think proves beyond a doubt that their faith is true. Some people point to supernatural, miraculous experiences as their evidence. In fact there are shrines all over the world that claim to house the evidence that proves faith beyond all doubt. The church across the street from one of my previous pastorates was called “The Shrine of the True Cross,” because they believed they had an actual piece of Jesus’ cross. And that was a crucial factor in their faith! Others point to a higher, infallible authority; sort of a “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it” approach.  For some this infallible authority resides in a particular church. For others, infallible authority resides in the Bible as God’s word.  But at the end of the day, in my opinion, all these efforts fail.  Faith isn’t something you can “prove beyond a doubt,” any more than love or hope or mercy.

As I mentioned last week, embracing faith in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead can be challenging for some of us. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, because it was challenging even for Jesus’ disciples, even for those who were closest to him! In our Gospel lesson for today, Thomas, one of Jesus’ hand-picked apostles, refused to believe without proof. No matter what the others told him, he simply would not believe.  Unfortunately, this incident has earned him the nickname “Doubting Thomas.” As a matter of fact, when Jesus addressed Thomas, saying, “Do not doubt, but believe” (Jn. 20:27), the word translated “doubt” should probably be rendered as “faithless” (as the King James Bible does). Jesus told him not to be faithless, but to believe.

But actually Thomas was by no means “faithless” in his relationship with Jesus.  Quite the opposite was true—he was one of Jesus’ most diligent and devoted followers. When it became clear that Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem to die, it was Thomas who said to the others, “let us go, that we may die with him” (Jn. 11:16). That doesn’t sound like Thomas was “faithless.” I wonder whether the intensity of Thomas’ devotion to Jesus made the pain of his death particularly difficult for him to move past. Perhaps he had seen some of the others waffle in their faith, and wasn’t prepared to rely on their word alone. Like many today, Thomas may have had good reasons for his difficulty in believing.

 Whatever the reason, a week later Jesus appeared to the apostles again. This time Thomas was there and Jesus invited him to see for himself that what the others had claimed was indeed true.  He let Thomas see the very wounds that he still bore on his body. He invited him to do just exactly what Thomas said he would need to do in order to believe: to touch his wounds. He overcame Thomas’ apparent “faithlessness” and accommodated his need for more than the word of the others. And in response, Thomas made one of the most exalted confessions of faith in Jesus contained in the Bible: he called him “My Lord and my God!” (Jn. 20:28).

But Jesus’ approach to faith was not one that generally endorsed seeing the evidence in order to believe. He said “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed” (Jn. 20:29).^[2] 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 only 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 evidence, and never truly find their way to faith. 

In a very real sense, faith is a choice; 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.^[3] But that kind of choice isn’t something you can prove. Faith is a response to our experience of something beyond us, something that perhaps even strains our ability to understand or even imagine. Some of us need help to get over the obstacles we face with faith. Whether it’s the love of a community, or a sense of God’s presence, or the feeling that Jesus is calling us by name, most of us need something to help us make that choice. And making the choice of faith is not something you do once and then you’re done with it. Like any relationship, “the decision to trust … has to be made again and again.”^[4] So it is that we are called by Jesus to continually make the choice not to be faithless, but to believe.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/8/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 226, where he points out that even those who had seen had to make the transition to believing without seeing.

[3] Cf. Keith Ward, God: A Guide for the Perplexed, 209, where he defines faith as “committing ourselves to the continual possibility of goodness.” 

[4] Douglas John Hall, “Faith: Response in Relationship,” in The Living Pulpit 1 (April-June 1992):14-15.

Easter Faith

Easter Faith

John 20:1-18[1]

For most of us, I think “faith” is a word that we associate with the content of what we believe. Whether it has to do with our faith in Jesus Christ, or our faith in our public institutions, or our faith in our families, it’s a matter of believing something specific about each of these aspects of our lives. But I think there is a deeper dimension to faith than what we say we believe. It has to do with what drives the way we actually live our lives. I’m pretty sure most of us aren’t always fully aware of the faith that drives our actions in this meaning of the word. But make no mistake: we all act out our faith, whatever that faith may be.

This kind of faith is something that has been ingrained in us, in many cases from childhood. It may have to do with the belief that it’s important to get up as early as possible in order to get started with the chores of the day. From that perspective, if you’re not working by the time the sun comes up, you’re burning daylight. That’s a kind of faith. For many of us, this deep level of faith may have to do with what our family life is supposed to look like. For some, that means that the family that prays together, stays together. For others, it means taking every opportunity to plan for times to play together as a family; in other words, the family that plays together, stays together. We have these proverbs we live by, perhaps unconsciously, that drive our actions in a powerful way. And I would say that our actions show where our faith really lies.

I think if we’re honest with ourselves, when it comes to the Easter story, many of us run into a wall with our faith. Most of us can accept that Jesus was born. And that Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. But when it comes to Easter, it can be different matter altogether.  How do you wrap your head around the Easter Gospel that a man who was really dead somehow as raised to life? It’s one of those aspects of faith that moves us beyond our normal experience.  We tend to live our lives based on what we can see and touch.  That’s not a rejection of faith, it’s simply a particular kind of faith. It is the faith that our future rests on what we do for ourselves.

But the Easter Gospel is that God does not operate within the limits of what we can see!  Easter faith in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead points us toward the hope that God really is working to make all things new. That may make Easter Faith sound attractive, but I don’t think it makes it easy.  As one of my favorite philosophers puts it, our faith moves us beyond the realm in which we can understand and manage things.  It moves us into “the sphere of the impossible,” where “only the great passions of faith and love and hope will see us through.” ^[2]

I think, in part, that means that it’s not enough just to “believe” our faith intellectually. Rather, the miracle of Easter calls us to trust God with all that we are. More than that, it calls us to base the way we live our actual everyday lives on something we cannot see. For some of us that may come fairly naturally—like John the beloved disciple from our Gospel lesson for today.  Although I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m something of a skeptic, I’m also at heart a believer. When I think about the great questions of life, in the depth of my being, in that place where all pretense is stripped away, the hope and faith that there is a God who loves us all, who is working to restore and renew everything and everyone, simply rings true. If that is true, life makes sense to me; without it nothing makes sense.

For others like Mary, Easter faith not so automatic.  When she came face-to-face with the risen Christ, she thought she was talking to a gardener who may have removed Jesus’ body. It was only when Jesus broke through her sorrow and her suspicion by calling her name, “Mary,” that she recognized him. For some of us, it takes an experience like that to break through the walls we put up to protect our hearts. And there are many of us who have had such experiences—in one way or another, at one time or another, we have felt that we experienced the presence of God in our lives in a unique and profound way. I think many of us put our faith in Jesus because an experience like that puts us in touch with the love that is at the heart of all things, and therefore calls forth within us a profound faith.

But how do we encounter this presence of Christ?  It’s one thing for Mary to meet Jesus in the garden.  It’s another thing for you or me to encounter him now.  I think there can be many answers to this question.  For me, I find myself experiencing God’s love calling me by name through the presence of Christ in the community of faith.  I encounter Christ through the love and support and affirmation I receive from other people who have also encountered the risen Lord in their lives.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with many of the proverbs that we live by. But Easter Faith calls us beyond believing what we can see to entrusting our lives to the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. It is a different path, a whole new way of life that sees the light shining in the deepest darkness.  And when we walk in the light of Easter Faith, I think it makes a profound difference in the way we live our lives. Easter faith enables us to move from a life that we have to manage and control by our own efforts to one that is fundamentally based on the hope that there really is a God who loves us all. And Easter Faith enables us to move beyond trusting only what we can do for ourselves to trusting that this God loves us all so much that he is working to renew everything and everyone. That’s the kind of Easter Faith that can make all the difference in the way we live our lives.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/1/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 8-9.

Washing Feet

Washing Feet

John 13:1-17, 34-35[1]

We have a strange and interesting relationship with the word “love.” We can love our families, our friends, our children and our grandchildren. But we can also “love” a movie, or a book, or a favorite outfit. We can love that one special person in our lives, but we can also love sausage, or chocolate, or cherry pie. We can love God, while at the same time we can love sports. I find the many ways we use the word “love” rather ironic and somewhat comical, to be quite honest with you. At times, it seems like love means everything to us, and at times we so overuse the word it can seem like love means nothing to us.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus told the Apostles that the defining mark of their life as his disciples was to be their love for one another. Because of our widely varied use of the word, I’m not sure we have a clear idea of what that love really entails. Our definitions of love often fall far short of the kind of love Jesus had in mind.   He told them, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn. 13:34).  When he said that, I believe he had in mind a very specific kind of love. In fact, he demonstrated that love for them earlier when he washed their feet. It was a kind of love that was so different from what they expected that Peter insisted, “You will never wash my feet” (Jn. 13:8).

I think we can all appreciate the difficultly Peter must have had with the idea of Jesus washing his feet.  In the first place, it is a very personal thing to have someone wash your feet, especially for those of us who don’t make a habit of getting pedicures on a regular basis! But more to the point, in that time and place, washing feet was a task that you normally did for yourself, or one that a slave did for you. It certainly was not something you would expect from your teacher, your mentor, and the one you believed to be the Messiah—God’s agent of redemption for the world!  That kind of thing went way beyond the bounds of what Jesus’ disciples would have considered an appropriate expression of love.  

And yet there Jesus was, washing their feet, doing for them all what none of them would even consider doing for each other.  In fact, when Peter objected, Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me” (Jn. 13:8).  Peter misunderstood this as well.  It would seem that what Jesus was trying to impress on him and on the rest of the disciples was that this quality of humble, self-sacrificing love is what defines God’s very character. It was the quality of love that God shared with Jesus. It was the quality of love that Jesus had shared with his disciples. And it was the quality of love that Jesus commanded them to share with one another. 

Even taking all this into consideration, we might be able to get over the menial nature of washing someone’s feet—or the modern-day equivalent—as an example of the kind of love we’re to share with one another. But in order to see the true nature of the love that Jesus expected us to practice, we have to remember the situation.  He had just washed the feet of 12 men, one of whom was about to betray him. Another of them, Peter, would publicly deny even knowing Jesus. And the rest of them, with one possible exception, would abandon him and run for their lives when the crucial moment came. It would seem that Jesus knew all of this ahead of time, and yet he still demonstrated his love for each and every one of them by the incredibly humble act of washing their feet. 

This is the kind of love that Jesus said would be the defining mark of those who claimed to follow him.  It is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling for someone. The love Jesus commanded us to practice goes far beyond that. This kind of love is defined by the willingness to humble ourselves to do for one another what we would not normally do. This kind of love entails the decision to give ourselves away for the sake of one another.  This kind of love involves a commitment that our lives are to be lived not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of those around us.  It is a love that is incredibly difficult and demands of us the best we have to offer.

On this night when we commemorate Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, many congregations across the world choose to honor Jesus’ memory by holding a foot-washing ceremony. Now I must confess that I’ve never been a part of such a ceremony. And I will also admit that when I’ve had my feet washed by another person, I didn’t always feel entirely comfortable with it. I would imagine that most of us would balk at the idea of holding a “foot-washing” ceremony on Maundy Thursday. But that makes me wonder about how well we have taken Jesus’ command to heart. If we’re not willing to do something as simple as washing each other’s feet, I have to wonder how serious we are about following Jesus’ example of humble, sacrificial love.

Of course, I don’t know that I would say that it is the act of washing feet that is the primary issue here. I think it has more to do with our hearts. The kind of love that Jesus modeled on that night so long ago represents a radical departure from the ways we feel comfortable expressing “love.” Perhaps that’s where the rubber meets the road on this issue. If our hearts are in the right place, we will gladly show love for one another, no matter what it takes.

The love that Jesus modeled for us is not easy to practice in the actual push-and-shove of life. It is a love that is willing to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of one another.  It is a love that leads us to make sacrifices for one another, even when it is unconventional, or inconvenient, or even uncomfortable. It is a love that calls us to humble ourselves and serve one another, even if that means washing each other’s feet.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/29/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.