"Wonderful Words of Life"

Matthew 4:1-4

Rev. Everett L. Miller

This being the first Sunday of the New Year, it is a time when a lot of us make resolutions for how we will change our lives for the better this year. Sometimes we are very specific, such as, “I will read one book each month” or “I will workout three times a week,” or “I will stop smoking by February 15.” More often, we make vague commitments to some sort of general improvements in our lives. “I’ll eat healthier this year.” “I’m going to treat people better.” “I will spend more time with my friends.”

If you are anything like me, when the end of the year finally comes and I’ve survived Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s with all of the parties, meetings, and end of the year reports, not to mention the advertising blitz around Christmas, you are so frazzled that all you want to do is to get back to the basics. “I’m going to grow in my faith. I’m going to enjoy my family. I’m going to just work hard for my living.” The New Year is a good time to get back to the basics of life.

When I was thinking about what I would preach on at the beginning of 2008, I thought about this idea of getting back to the basics. Maybe I should preach about the basics of faith, of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, kind of a confirmation class refresher for all of us. So we will get back to the basics, the foundations of faith. Over the next couple of months we will cover such topics as Holy Scripture, Who is God?, and What is the Church? And many more. So let’s get back to the basics.

This past Thursday morning I was all alone in our sanctuary, and I sat down in the first pew. As a break from the busy day, I decided to sit for ten minutes in silence. At first all kinds of thoughts came to mind: the dried poinsettia leaves on the carpet, the e-mail I’d forgotten to send to a colleague. Then after three or four minutes my mind had quieted and I was just sitting there, being. All morning I’d been thinking about how I was so frazzled and stressed. The bad thing about taking vacation is that while you are gone little elves don’t break into your office and do all of your work for you. It is always waiting for you when you get back. So I had four days of work to complete in less than two days. I had presbytery business which I needed to finish and Sunday worship to plan. To top it off my office is so messy and disorganized that I can’t find anything when I need it. Everybody has gone on vacation and come back to that. Surely you’ve had one of those days when you feel like you are being drawn and quartered by all the different directions you are being pulled.

As I was sitting in the silence, the scripture passage I had been reading earlier in the day in preparation for this Sunday’s sermon came to mind, Jesus’ response to Satan’s first temptation in the desert. “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” I said that over and over again as I breathed in and out. Then I realized that I was so frazzled not necessarily because I had a lot to do, but because I was living “on bread alone.” I’d been on vacation for over a week, and I hadn’t kept up on my praying and scripture reading like I should. I rested but I guess you could say that I didn’t recharge. I was just living on the surface, so when I returned to the church office I just kept on going that way. I was living on bread alone, meaning that I was not gaining my strength from God. Do you ever find yourself trying to live on bread alone?

It is inevitable. When I live on bread alone my life gets out of whack. And one of the ways that I have tried to re-center myself when my life gets out of whack, is to hike. I’ve only had the opportunity a couple of times but I like to hike the trails at the Chaplin Nature Center just west of Arkansas City. There is something about being out in the woods all by myself, listening to the wind blowing through the trees, feeling the sun on my face as it peeks through. I feel relaxed and happy. I feel close to the earth and in a way I feel close to God as though God and I have finally been able to slip away from the crowds to take a walk together. There is a sacredness to my hikes. Some of you may have had that type of experience at the beach or in the mountains. But although those hikes tend to help immensely, usually what I need when the edges begin to fray is sitting on a bookshelf collecting dust.

I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas or Angel Falls, but I’ve seen enough of nature to know that a person can come away from the majesty of nature with at least an idea that there must be a God and that this God must be good and wise and powerful. But no matter how sacred my hikes seem to be, they are not enough to give the knowledge of God that is really needed, the knowledge of God that Jesus was referring to when he said that we should live “by every word that comes from God’s mouth.”

A few hundred years ago, the folks who wrote the Westminster Confession called this the “knowledge of God and God’s will that is necessary for salvation.” In other words, the general revelation of God in creation, as beautiful and sacred as it is, or really any aspect of life as a whole, needs to be informed and transformed by something more specific: the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, the unique and authoritative witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To look only to creation without looking to the scriptures in a quest to learn about and encounter God is living only on the surface. It is like living on bread alone.

If you think that a sunrise over the Smoky Mountains or a sunset in the desert is stunning, try looking at it again after reading in the scriptures that the One who created that sunrise and sunset also created you and loves you. It takes the beauty of that moment to a whole new level. God’s self-revelation in creation may be able to bring us to awe, but it won’t bring us into relationship with our creator. Maybe that is why my hikes seem so sacred, because I look at the woods through the lens of the Bible. I walk through the forest in relationship with the One who formed the universe. I guess that is one way to describe a Christian: someone who walks through the forest of life in relationship with the One who formed the universe. And the way we come into that relationship is through encountering God in the Scriptures. The Bible is not just an accessory to Christian faith. It is absolutely essential.

This Tuesday I am going to start teaching an undergraduate class, Introduction to the New Testament, at Southwestern College, which is a Methodist college in Winfield. The other day I had coffee with head of the Philosophy and Religion Department. I asked if I should assume that all of the students in the class are Christians. He looked at the class roster and said, “I’m pretty sure they are all Christians.” Then just a couple of minutes later I asked for advice in my preparations and teaching. He said, “You should also assume that they no almost nothing about the Bible.” In my mind I thought, “Christians who know almost nothing about the Bible?” After getting over the initial shock I thought about how wonderful it will be to help these students encounter God’s Word and to help them realize that they may have been trying to live on bread alone. Hopefully they will come to see that life can be so much better than that. But surely many of them will come to class on the first day wondering, “Why is the Bible so important?”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we go to the scriptures because the Bible is where we learn of our Lord, of his teachings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. It is the Word through which the Holy Spirit teaches us what to believe and how to live. But if any of those students become convinced of scripture’s power to transform I will not be able to take the credit for that. It will have been the Holy Spirit working in their hearts. Those students, just like all of us, must be open to the Holy Spirit working in our lives through scripture, which as I will say on the first day of class, begins with our opening the Bible. The Bible isn’t just important; it is essential for the person of faith. It does not merely inform us like a history book or an encyclopedia, but God uses it to transform us. When we let God in, the scriptures are not just a book but a place where we meet God.

So as Christians, whether we have been a Christian for eighty-five years or if we just came to faith this morning, we can’t neglect the Bible, thinking that hearing the preacher’s sermon on Sunday is enough. As I have found many times, and most recently this past week after I returned from vacation and found myself sitting in that front pew for ten minutes, it is pretty safe to say that the Holy Spirit won’t work through the Bible if it is collecting dust on a shelf all the time. Instead, we must turn to the scriptures, prayerfully asking the Spirit to open us up to God’s transforming work, working through those ancient words to conform us not to the expectations of our culture but to the likeness of Christ Jesus. We do this both as individuals in personal devotional time and in communities like informal study groups or church bible studies or in Sunday School.

This is a new year, a time for getting back to the basics. It is a time to decide that when the world and your busy life tries to keep you living on the surface, that you will respond, both in word and action, with “I do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The New Year is a time to decide that this will be the year when you experience God’s wonderful words of life.

Amen.

"Deciding to Walk Beside Them"

Matthew 1:18-25

Rev. Everett L. Miller

Preached Following the Burning of the Methodist Church

Maybe someday I will be asked to speak in front of a gathering of Christians from all kinds of different churches: Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and so on. I’ll look out on the faces of all these people who have come together, who are maybe a little suspicious of each other: Catholics at the same tables as Pentecostals, Salvation Army members sharing the salt and pepper shakers with the Greek Orthodox. I will know that they are unsure about what the idea of Christian unity looks like when it is lived out, and I will step up to the podium and begin by telling a story from the past.

I will tell the story of how several years back, in late 2007, the Methodist Church burned down just 100 yards or so down the street from the church where I am pastor. And I will tell the story of how all the churches were the hands of Christ to the people of that congregation. I will tell them about the horrible tragedy and the memories lost and how we mourned with them as best we could, going as far as we could with them in their grief. I will tell that varied group of Christians about how we watched as God did what God does, bringing something good out of something terrible. I will tell them about how we prayed for them and how we were encouraged in our own faith by the strength we saw in the people of the Methodist Church. I’ll tell them about how the Christian community in Newkirk put to the side names like Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, and Methodist and became the body of Christ. Maybe I will read 1 Corinthians 12:12 and 12:26: “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ… If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

As I am telling this story they will think that I made this town up. They will think that there is absolutely no way that Christians in America today could ever put the non-essentials to the side in order to come together to support another group of Christians with a different symbol and a different name. They will think that I am either outright lying or at least exaggerating how it all played out. But a I always do, I will keep talking anyway.

Maybe it will be around Christmastime so I will remind that group of Christians about Joseph. You know, as readers of Matthew we walk in on Joseph as his life is falling apart, as his plans have had to change drastically by no fault of his own. He was betrothed to a woman named Mary, more likely a girl named Mary. To be betrothed was much more binding than our modern engagements. Joseph and Mary were already legally considered husband and wife, although Mary probably continued to live with her family for a year and the marriage was not consummated until after that year. Betrothal was a time of preparation. Joseph was surely preparing a home for his new bride. I’d imagine that Joseph didn’t dream of anything extravagant out of life: a wife, some kids, and their daily bread. It would be a hard life just like everybody else’s around there but they would love God and love each other like good people do. Surely Joseph had dreams of normalcy but was at the same time filled with pride at how his life was about to change.

But then Mary tells him that she is expecting and seeing as how Joseph and Mary have not been together this is of course terrible news to him. Maybe he asked her, “How could you do this to me?” or maybe “Who did this to you?” All of his plans and preparations went down the drain in that moment: the home, the wife, the kids, and the pride. It was all gone. He would become the laughing stock of the town. Mary told him something about an angel and her baby being the Son of God. Good grief, how far will this girl go to deny her sin or to protect the one who has sinned against her?

Matthew tells us that Joseph is a righteous man, a just man, a man of principle. What this really means is that he followed the Law of Moses. But in this particular situation the Law’s prescribed punishment for Mary is death by stoning. Even if the village elders decided not to go that far, she would surely be shamed and her entire family would be ostracized in the community. This is what the letter of the Law says. So what is a righteous man to do? He chooses mercy instead of the letter of the Law. Joseph has found himself in a terrible situation: his betrothed wife is pregnant by someone else, his preparations are worthless, but he will not be spiteful or legalistic. It is easy to see why he is known as Saint Joseph.

With all this weighing on his mind he must have laid in bed for hours. How could this happen to me? Why me? Am I doing the right thing? What now? Then in the early morning hours he finally dozed off. It must have been some dream that he had that night, with a messenger from God telling him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. The messenger tells him that Mary was not lying. She is pregnant, but not by any man, but by the power of the Spirit of God. She will, in fact, give birth to the one who will be called Emmanuel—God with us. It appears that Mary did not have much of a choice in the matter. She had been chosen; she could either accept it begrudgingly or as the most blessed gift ever given by God. After all, in Luke’s gospel the angel tells her: “You will conceive and give birth to a son.” And Joseph is told that she “will bear a son.” God is at work through Mary to bless the world. This is going to happen, the angel says.

But although Mary didn’t really have a choice, Joseph does. He can go ahead with the divorce or he can play his role, however small it might be, in God’s strange and miraculous plan for salvation and redemption. The ball is in Joseph’s court now, so to speak. If he chooses to participate his first action will be to name the child Jesus, the name that is also given by the angel to Mary in Luke. When he wakes up from this dream he has a decision to make. Will he see that what originally was a terrible turn of events is really his opportunity to show his faithfulness to God and his beliefs in God’s promises? Will he see that his life’s purpose is about to rise out of the rubble of his broken dreams and shattered pride?

Anyone who has ever seen a nativity scene knows the choice that Joseph made. Matthew tells us that Joseph took the opportunity he had been given. He decided to face the shame and scorn of his community and take Mary as his wife. And then Matthew says simply, “And he named the child Jesus.” He did it. He made the decision to play his part in God’s work of redemption, even though it was Mary who would carry the burden. He would suffer with her as much as he could and he would rejoice with her when she is honored by giving birth to the embodiment of God’s hope and love for the world.

And after I remind that group of Christians how Joseph walked along with Mary, I’ll tell them about how we at the First Presbyterian Church had a choice to make once. God was going to work whether or not we were on board. God was going to save. God was going to redeem. God was going to give hope. But were we going to join in God’s work even though our part was so small?

I will tell them of how all the congregations in our town watched our Methodist brothers and sisters believe in God’s promises, how we watched their lives’ purposes rise out of the rubble of charred memories and a shattered sense of peace. I will tell that group of how we wanted to help so deeply, and how we were sometimes frustrated by how little tangible we could do to help our brothers and sisters in their time of sadness. I will tell them about how we prayed for them, and how we cried with them in their living rooms, and how we listened to their sacred stories of baptisms, weddings, and funerals. I will tell them how we stood in the margins helping where we could but recognizing that ultimately it was they who have to carry the burden. I will tell them how we suffered with them as much as we could and how we rejoiced with them when out of their tragedy there was a new birth of God’s hope and love for the world right there in our own community.

And I will close by telling them that we said yes to the call because we believe those words of scripture, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ… If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”