"Worship as Counter-Culture"

Rev. Everett L. Miller

Those challenging words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” have echoed throughout the past 20 centuries and still confront us everyday of our lives. There is to be something fundamentally different about a Christian after he or she has been transformed by the renewing of their mind by God. Life just isn’t the same as it was before. Everything, from the words we speak and the way we treat people, to the forgiveness we offer to others and the way we use our talents and our resources have to be looked at through transformed lenses, through the eyes of Christ.

In our modern lives time might be the biggest commodity of all and the most difficult to manage because there is always a fixed amount of it. No matter how hard you try you cannot stretch a day any longer than 24 hours. A pastoral counselor I knew in Austin used to tell the group of students that met with her, “You cannot add anything on to your schedule unless you are willing to take something away. There are only 24 hours in a day. You will never have time unless you make time.” She told us that in regard to Scripture reading, prayer, and meditation. So often our culture sends the message that we are not doing enough. Make sure your kids are in sports, music, tutoring, community service clubs, youth group, etc. Even a lot of retired people are so busy they can’t find time to actually retire. I’m as bad as anyone. Yes I’ll do that and that and that and that. But we can only go on that way for so long, until we are burned out or until we realize that that is not what life is all about. Then we come to realize that Paul’s words, “do not be conformed to this world,” has a great deal to say about viewing our time in a way that is counter to our culture, viewing our time through Christ’s eyes. And at no time is this more important, perhaps, than in Christian worship.

As we have discussed at length as of late, it is the Holy Spirit, which draws us into this life of Christian faith and service even though this life is counter to our culture. At least for my age group, for the people born around the time that I was, and even for my family, it is quite counter-cultural just to be willing to have faith in Jesus Christ and to attempt to live out the Christian life. But it isn’t just this way for today’s young people. It is that way for everyone. To be Christian and to really care about what that means is a counter-cultural act. Sometimes it is even counter to the culture of the church itself. Although there have been times in history when it seemed that everyone in America was a Christian and everyone went to worship on Sundays, I would imagine that even when almost everyone went to church, it was still just as rare to find real Christians. For those who do believe in something it is counter-cultural these days to be willing to say what you believe in. If it cannot be proven, if it cannot be seen, if it cannot be measured, and if we cannot show exclusive video of it on the nightly news, then it is not worth believing in it. It is counter to our culture to put yourself after God and even after others. It is counter to our culture to say, “God what do you want me to be? What do you want me to do?,” instead of saying, “Here is what I am going to be and do and here are the seven steps that will get me there.” It is counter to our culture to be still, to be silent when there is so much to do.

The early Christians were disliked by the Romans for the most part because they were counter to Roman culture. The early Christians didn’t have temples, they wouldn’t offer sacrifices to the gods, they very often refused to serve in the military, and they refused to declare that Caesar is Lord. The early Christians were derided as atheists because they did not believe in the Roman gods and they would not pledge their allegiance to the Roman state. They would not participate in the culture as it was offered to them. They were counter-cultural, but in a very specific way that isn’t concerned about appearances but with the kingdom of God.

At the top of the list of counter-cultural activities by Christians (and really all religious people) is worship. Worship is one of the most counter-cultural acts in which we participate in our lives. This may come as a surprise to many of you who have barely missed a Sunday in sixty or seventy years. Worship is just a part of your lives and maybe it always has been, but if you were to skip church one Sunday and go to restaurants, or the golf courses, or knock on people’s doors during our worship hour, you would begin to believe me when I say that worship is counter to our culture. Our culture does not know what to do with worship.

Two aspects of life that are given a great amount of value in our society are production and individuality. Worship does not produce anything. Worship does not allow us to do whatever we want to as individuals. In fact, worship calls us away from production and away from individuality.

For our Jewish friends from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday is the Sabbath. For religious Jews the Sabbath is not just another day. It’s not even just a day when you go to synagogue worship then do whatever else you want to. It is a day of worship and rest. It is a divinely commanded day of being anti-productive and anti-individualistic. That’s the point for Jews. The Sabbath is counter-cultural. The Sabbath is different. It is a time that is outside of time. The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asks the following questions in response to God’s command to keep the Sabbath holy: Is it possible for a human being to do all his work in six days? Does not our work always remain incomplete? What the verse means to convey is: Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done.” Now that is a counter-cultural statement about worship and the keeping of holy time.

We, as Gentile Christians, do not tend to keep the Jewish Sabbath. Instead, we worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, which we call the Lord’s Day. We gather on this day to worship because it was on the first day of the week that God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, inaugurating the new creation. We step out of our extremely important lives of productivity—being farmers and bankers and teachers and mothers—to do something which is in its very essence non-productive. We stop to turn to God’s Word, to sing songs of praise, to pray as a group, to share our joys and concerns with one another, to pray for the world and our neighbors, and to catch up and hug one another in Christ’s name. We set aside our individualities to become a group. It is a weekly re-membering of the body of Christ. Although we are to live every minute of our lives in gratitude for God’s grace and to do every single task we have, no matter how menial it may seem, as though we were doing it for Christ, there is something special about this hour to hour and a half on Sunday mornings. It is a time that we have set aside and dedicated to God.

I remember once in the room with the choir before worship at the Guthrie church. One of the choir members said, “We need to get out there. It’s time for worship to start.” Another one of the choir members who was kind of a cantankerous guy said, “They can wait. They won’t start without us.” Then one of the elders of the church spoke up. “No. It’s not just that we promised them we’d start at 10:45. We set an appointment with God at 10:45.” It is important to set aside time dedicated to God, a time when we have said, “We will not go by the rules of the culture during this hour. We will not worry about productivity. We will not put ourselves first. This is not a time to do, but a time to be with God and one another.” That is why worship is so important. It is a weekly glimpse of what we can be with God’s help. It is a glimpse of what it is like to be dedicated to God and to be a member of God’s community. Then we take the experience we have in worship into our daily lives.

People come to worship for many different reasons. The same is true for people who do not take time to worship. One of the reasons people don’t worship is that they are so busy Monday through Saturday that Sunday is the only day they have to sleep in and to spend time at home. Some people don’t come to worship at traditional churches like ours because there isn’t enough going on. There isn’t anything to keep them interested and engaged. And I can understand both of those. I have to admit to you that although I am your pastor and love being your pastor, I, like you, sometimes have a Sunday when I would rather sleep in or go sit at Starbuck’s and sip on a coffee while reading a good book. Some Sundays I just want to be by myself or be with my family. But that’s why worship is so important. Because it reminds me that my life is not my own, my time is not my own, and that I must be drawn out of myself and into God and the gathered body of Christ.

Some of the older folks at one of the Native American congregations I served that one summer when I was in seminary used to tell me about how when they were little if you didn’t show up for worship you would get a knock on your door while worship was going on. You would open the door to find a couple of the church elders standing there with a tall wooden staff that they’d used to knock on the door. They would firmly remind you that this is worship time and nothing else. Then you would guiltily put your church clothes on and head up to the church building. The elders of that congregation didn’t care whether or not you wanted to worship or felt that you needed to worship because the rest of the congregation needed you there at worship and because if you think you don’t need to worship you are wrong. Can you imagine waking up on a Sunday morning to see Jim Crossland and Dorothy Leaming standing on your front porch carrying staffs asking you what it is that you think you are doing during the worship hour?

In the 2nd Helvetic confession from 16th century Switzerland, which is in our Book of Confessions, it reads: “Meetings for Worship not to be Neglected: As many as spurn such meetings and stay away from them, despise true religion, and are to be urged by the pastors and godly magistrates to abstain from stubbornly absenting themselves from sacred assemblies.” Can you imagine getting a nice greeting card with the pretty picture of the church building on the outside only to open it up and to see a nice note from me urging you “to abstain from stubbornly absenting yourself from sacred assemblies”?

While both of those examples come from different times and different cultures than our own and you don’t have to worry about Jim and Dorothy interrupting your Sunday morning coffee when you decide to play hooky from church and you don’t have to worry every time you open a card from me that you will be called stubborn, they illustrate how important worship is not just for the life of the individual Christian but even more so for the life of the faith community as a whole. You may not feel the need to be here, but the rest of us need you here. As I’ve said, worship is counter to our culture and counter even to what we want to do sometimes. Worship is not about me. That’s hard for all of us to stomach.

I have heard people say that they go to worship to be fed spiritually. While that does make sense in regard to the words of the Psalmist, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” and in Jesus’ saying that he is the bread of heaven, I am always bothered by it because I think it is incomplete. For some people, and probably for all of us at one time or another, worship is like going to a restaurant where they provide the food and we eat it. We want it to be like the wonderful old Native American ladies in Seminole who would invite me over to eat and absolutely refuse my help in any way. They provided the food. I provided the appetite. Worship is not like that, at least not in the Reformed tradition. The pastor and liturgist are not spiritual restaurateurs and this is not a spiritual super-buffet. Communal worship is more like a pot-luck dinner where everyone brings something to the table and we all enjoy it together, even if the pastor and the liturgist act as waiters. It doesn’t matter what songs we sing, what prayers we pray, or what the sermon says, if everyone in the room is not prepared for worship and is not willing to offer something in the worship of God. If you have a spiritual appetite, remember that everyone else does too, so bring food to share. So I would rather than hear someone say, “I was fed,” say, “We all cooked and we all were fed.”

I saw a story on the news not too long ago about a school program that is teaching kids how to cook healthy meals. The parents weren’t taking the initiative on the diet of their kids so the school did. They tried all kinds of educational programs—speakers, videos, and workbooks. But it wasn’t sinking in. So they recruited local chefs to teach the kids how to pick out the ingredients, how to prepare them, and how to serve them. Then the parents of all the kids in the class came to the school cafeteria for a fancy multi-course dinner all prepared by the kids with the help of their parents. Then after cooking together they all sat down and ate. It was amazing the effect it had on the families. They hadn’t just been fed, they offered themselves and enabled others to be fed as well. So it is with worship. The worst Sundays that I have had as a worship leader have had very little to do with how things went during the worship service. Those Sundays were bad not because there wasn’t enough for me to eat, so to speak, but because I showed up without my dish to share.

Just before Paul writes the words, “Do not be conformed to this world,” he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Paul is talking about offering your whole life as a worshipful sacrifice to God, as opposed to worship in the Jewish temple, which offered an animal’s death as a worshipful sacrifice to God. This is about a total transformation in your life, Paul is saying. Give everything you have to God, especially yourself. He knows this is a counter-cultural thing to say. But it is necessary, he claims, so that “you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Be who God wants you to be, not who the world wants you to be. Do what God wants you to do, not what the world wants you to do.

I’ve heard it said that we have forgotten that we are human beings and we have become human doings. That is one of the reasons that worship is so important. Because in worship we do not produce anything and we are drawn out of individuality and into community. We catch a glimpse of who we can be with God. It is a scheduled, dedicated, sacred time of being who God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do, so that we can carry that out into our everyday lives. We praise, we confess, we forgive, we sing, we pray, we listen, we speak, we are generous in giving, we fellowship, and nothing that can be measured or sold comes out of it. We don’t come just to be fed but to share with others. Our culture does not know what to do with worship, and that’s okay as long as we do.

"Who are We that You are Mindful of Us?"

A Biblical Theological Anthropology

Rev. Everett L. Miller

In Psalm 8, David gratefully asks the question of God, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” David knows that the infinite, creative, holy God that he worships does not have to care for him or for any other person. So he asks this rhetorical question as an act of praise and thanks for the fact that God chooses to care for humanity. This is a question that has kept philosophers and theologians and all of us regular folks busy for millennia. Who are we human beings in relation to God?

Well, if you believe in the God of the Scriptures, the first thing you would say about humanity is that on the most basic level, human beings are creations of God. But so are dogs and fleas and grass and trees. We all know there is something different about us, though, or at least there should be. This is what the author of Genesis calls, “the image of God.” In Genesis 1 we read, “ Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them and God blessed them.”

When the Jews lived in exile in Babylon they were surrounded by a religion that had a very different view of where humanity came from. The Babylonians’ creation myth said that two Gods, Marduk and Tiamat fought a war. Marduk killed Tiamat and used her insides to create the heavens and the earth. Then Marduk killed Tiamat’s husband and used his blood to create human beings as slaves to the gods. So the Babylonians believed that humanity came forth from violence and were simply slaves to the gods. The Jews, on the other hand, said that their God created humanity peacefully, with care, with blessing, and even in God’s own image. This is a very different way of looking at things: that human beings weren’t just made to be useful but also to be in relationship with God and one another. David says that human beings have been made “a little lower than God, and crowned…with glory and honor.”

So humanity is created by God in the image of God, which could include all kinds of things like reason, self-awareness, love, creativity, etc. But unfortunately any time we talk about humanity from a Christian perspective, we can’t stop with our being created in the image of God, but we must also talk about the distortion of that image: sin. It is not very popular to talk about sin, or to even use that word, in many circles these days. Even in the circles in which sin is a safe subject to bring up, it is usually only other peoples’ sin that is talked about. But as Paul says about humanity: “There is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin is the common condition of humanity.

And sin isn’t just the bad stuff we do, the individual mistakes we make, but the condition of humanity as a whole. In a very real way, if someone does not believe in the reality of sin, then the entire gospel begins to unravel, because if you are not a sinner, you do not need a savior. Sin is a fact. It exists. The Scriptures tell us that when God created humanity, sin wasn’t the original plan, but we human beings, from the very beginnings decided that we could get by on our own, without our loving Creator, in whose image we are all created. The prophet Isaiah puts it this way: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”

If you recall, last week I mentioned the time in history called the Enlightenment and an idea that went along with it, that of Deism or the belief that God created the world to run on its own then left. Another idea that came out of this time period is that humanity could do well on our own to continue making the world a better place and working toward peace through advances in the sciences. While I think all of us are thankful for things like penicillin and the automobile, this idea that we could do just fine on our own came to be questioned during the 20th Century. Why would that be? Well here are a few reasons: World War I, when the wonderful advances of the human race resulted in the first modern war and the deaths of 15 million human beings created in God’s image. The Nazi Holocaust when well over 6 million Jewish, Catholic, Homosexual, and other people created in the image of God were murdered in the Nazi effort to create a “better” and “more advanced” society. And World War II, the deadliest war ever, when human ingenuity led to the deaths of 55 million human beings created in the image of God. After witnessing the bloodiest century in the history of humankind, even many religiously skeptical people began to realize that when we humans are left to our own devices, tragic events often occur.

Despite the often tragic consequences, we human beings have chosen to go our own way and brought sin into the world. This sin causes separation from God, from one another, from the rest of creation, and even from ourselves through the severing or perverting of these relationships. When we pervert these relationships, no matter what kind of relationship it is, that is sin against God because ultimately all of our relationships, whether with people or things, reflect our relationship with God.

Theologians argue over whether or not sin can be defined as one particular overarching impulse. For many sin can be defined as pride of some sort. Yet, for many others it can be described as a lack belief in their own importance. Both are put in check by God. To the prideful person, God might say, “You only have importance because of me. Get over yourself.” To the person who does not believe in their own importance, God might say, “You are extremely important because of me. I want you and other people need you.” In both of these, God turns us out of ourselves and to God and others. In fact, St. Augustine believed that the Fall and sin were basically a turning in on yourself and away from the other and God. This can happen to individuals, to families, even to churches and communities. Some say that sin is basically selfishness and everything that stems from it.

I have also heard it said that sin is basically the fact that we are prone to do anything to avoid being human, meaning we either try our hardest to be more than human or to be less than human. By more than human I mean that we go after power over other people or creation; we attempt to be self-reliant and to replace God. By less than human I mean that we begin to act like animals by giving into any violent or sexual urge that might hit us.

While I think all of these definitions of sin do a pretty good job of exploring the issue, I also really like the church reformer John Calvin’s idea of sin as well. He says that fundamentally sin is lack of trust in God. This would mean that everything from violence to greed to self-loathing to oppression to racism all goes back to a lack of trust in God. That’s certainly worth thinking about.

So far we know that biblically speaking human beings are creations of God, created in God’s own image to be in relationship with God and one another, and that we are blessed by God. Yet, we also know that we human beings have chosen to go our own way and brought sin into the world. This sin is not just the individual things that we do, but it is the common condition of humanity which has been described in numerous ways such as pride or severed or perverted relationships with God, one another, creation, and ourselves. It has been called a refusal to be human, meaning the constant attempts to be more than human or less than human. It has been described as an underlying lack of trust in God. And it has been described as turning in on yourself or selfishness. This infests not only individuals, but communities, societies, and economic systems.

And if we as human beings are honest about it, we admit that no matter how hard we try there is nothing that we can do about it on our own. As the Apostle Paul wrote of himself in Romans 7: “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” This isn’t a cop-out, a sort of “the devil made me do it” statement. This is just the realization that no matter how hard you try to escape from sin you can’t do it. And here’s the kicker: nothing can happen to fight against this predicament until you or I or whoever comes to the realization that this is the case.

This brings me back to John Calvin. He spent his entire adult life working on his gigantic two volume theological masterpiece, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. And in the very first sentence of the more than 1,500 pages he writes, “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” From the very get-go Calvin is saying that if you are going to try to come to know God then you better be prepared to get to know yourself and admit some things about yourself before you can know anything about God.

This process of getting to know ourselves is often not very fun. One of my favorite authors, Frederick Beuchner writes, “The voyage into the self is long and dark and full of peril, but I believe that it is a voyage that all of us will have to make before we are through.” John Calvin puts it this way: “We cannot seriously aspire to [God] before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. For what [person] in all the world would not gladly remain as he [or she] is—what [person] doesn’t remain as he [or she] is—so long as he [or she] does not know himself [or herself].” Let me repeat the first part of that statement: “We cannot seriously aspire to God before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.”

On the very first page of this enormous theological classic, Calvin seems to be saying that each of us must come to grips with the fact that I am a sinner just like everybody else and there is nothing I can do about it on my own. Each of us must come to the point where we say with the Apostle Paul, “Wretched [person] that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” This is the beginning of knowledge about yourself and subsequently knowledge of God. Because as Calvin says, “the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to [God].” This is the theological version of the old psychological truth that you cannot get help for your problem until you admit that you have a problem.

When I was in college, this book, called Life After God by an author named Douglas Coupland was one of my favorite books. I’m not sure why I liked it so much because it is a pretty depressing book about a young man who is leading a kind of pointless and sad existence filled with broken relationships and addictions. Maybe I liked it because at the end of over two hundred pages of these desperately sad and introspective stories, on the next to last page the narrator says this:

Now here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”

The narrator of that book seems to have come to the dark, yet freeing realization that “We cannot seriously aspire to [God] before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.”

So who are we human beings? We are creations of God, each and every single one of us all over the world beautifully created in God’s own image to be in relationship with God and with one another. Yet we have chosen to go our own way and subsequently sin is the common condition of humanity. We are sinners, each and every single one of us all over the world and there is nothing that we can do about that fact on our own. As the narrator of Douglas Coupland’s book says, “[we are] sick and can no longer make it alone. [We] need God to help [us] give, because [we] no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help [us] be kind, as [we] no longer seem capable of kindness; to help [us] love, as [we] seem beyond being able to love.” Who are we human beings? We are sinners in need of a Savior. But there is hope. And this hope is the one who has been called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” This hope is Jesus.

"More than Just a Ticket to Heaven"

Soteriology

Rev. Everett L. Miller

Not long after I moved here, someone from a different church came by to ask me if I knew whether or not I was going to heaven if I was to die today. He didn’t ask me if I was lonely or guilt-ridden or in need of love or of a family of faith. He asked if I was to die would I go to heaven or hell. That turned my stomach, not because I’m unsure of what will happen to me after I die, but because I don’t think that is the question that needs to be asked by Christians. A while after that I was seated next to a person at an event and when she found out that we were from different denominations she said very kindly, “Well, it doesn’t matter what church you go to. It’s all about heaven, isn’t it.” Again, my stomach turned. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in Ponca City and I drove by a church sign that said, “Free Ticket to Heaven. Details Inside.” There went my stomach again. Then around the same time I received a mysterious postcard in the mail that was hand addressed to me and had a Ft. Worth postmark on it. I have no idea who sent it to me but on the back of it in bold were the words: How to Get to Heaven. Then there was a four or five step guide of isolated scripture quotes that showed how that might be achieved. Again, it turned my stomach.

You know, it’s not that the Scriptures don’t mention life after death, because the New Testament anyway, does mention it, but less often than most people think. It’s not that it isn’t a part of Christian faith, because it is. And it’s not that I don’t look forward to being within God’s love in all of its fullness after I die, because I do. It’s just that when I see the church using phrases like “Free Ticket to Heaven” and “How to Get to Heaven” as both the reason for turning to faith in Jesus Christ and the only goal of that faith, as I said earlier my stomach starts to turn because that doesn’t seem to be what is in the Bible and it certainly doesn’t seem to be what Jesus proclaimed. Punching your ticket to heaven? Is that really what salvation is all about?

Seeing as our sources of what salvation is are not always reliable, let us look at what the Bible, which is supposed to be our guide on matters of faith and ethics, says about salvation. In his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul reminds his readers that “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” Most Christians agree that you cannot earn salvation from God. Jesus Christ has accomplished the work of salvation. As Paul writes in Romans, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” The Holy Spirit has been at work in your life drawing you toward God, opening your heart to repentance and building up your faith. God has made the offer to you. None of us can gain or win or steal our own salvation from God, it is a gift of grace. But we have to decide whether or not we will accept that gift and live accordingly in gratitude for God’s grace. So it is clear that salvation is a gift from God. But again, what is salvation?

Unfortunately, at least in this part of the country anyway, salvation and going to heaven when you die have become synonymous, and it would seem, all inclusive. Oftentimes Scripture verses are quoted without any context whatsoever. This is sometimes the case with the Psalms. Well, in the Psalms salvation most often means a very literal salvation from death at the hands of an enemy army. Also, in the Old Testament salvation very often refers to God’s salvation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. This is a very literal, practical way of looking at salvation. God has saved me from a very real situation in which I found myself. I have heard people say things like, “God saved me from alcoholism” or “God saved my marriage.” Yes! These are very real ways that God saves us in the here and now, and the here and now is a part of our salvation.

But when we get to the New Testament, salvation begins to take on a different tone. This is one of the big problems that Jesus faced. It seems that many people expected a very literal salvation from the Romans, which Jesus did not provide. In the gospels, however, salvation in connection with Jesus very often means forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God and others, and inclusion in God’s family. Jesus provides rescue not simply from hell, but from isolation from God and others, and from selfishness, materialism, hypocrisy, individualism, and idolatry. When it comes to Jesus if we were to ask what does Jesus say about heaven then the answer would be “not much.” But if we ask what Jesus says about salvation then we could answer, “quite a bit.” As one book I read this week states, “It’s clear that [Jesus’] message was not really about how to get to heaven. It was about a way of transformation in this world and the Kingdom of God on earth.” As Matthew might say, the kingdom of heaven has broken in to our lives here on earth.

Jesus never asks anyone if they know where they will go if they die today. Jesus never offers anyone a free ticket to heaven. Jesus never says it’s all about getting to heaven. Jesus never gives instructions on how to get to heaven. That is not the core of his ministry. In John, the gospel from which we get a lot of our information about the importance of eternal life, Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus is speaking in the present tense. This life which he offers, this eternal life, this abundant life begins now.

When we speak of the salvation offered by Jesus Christ we cannot only talk about Jesus’ teachings, though. We must also talk about the cross, which is the center of our faith as Christians. As Paul writes in Galatians, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” As Christians we believe that through Jesus, God offered forgiveness of sins and the opportunity to come back into relationship with God. And as Christians we believe that this was achieved most fully through Jesus’ death on the cross. This is the belief that Paul calls, “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” This is what people are talking about when they use a statement like, “We are saved by the blood of Jesus.” But again, Jesus didn’t die on the cross just so that we can go to heaven when we die. Jesus died on the cross because as Paul writes, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” The salvation given through the cross starts now, today is the day of salvation.

The Apostle Paul often speaks of this subject by using the phrase, new creation, as in “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away; see everything has become new!” Then just a little bit after he writes these words in 2 Corinthians he expresses the urgency of the call to become a new creation in Christ when he says, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” In other words, what are you waiting for? You could experience what it is like to be a new creation in Christ today. Then Paul goes on to list ways in which he and his partners in ministry have lived their lives as new creations in order to help others to come to the same place in their lives. He does not approach his readers with questions of their final, eternal destinies but with questions about what their life is like now and why they delay coming into relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
But in addition to this, we praise God because through Jesus’ resurrection we know that God’s salvation is so all-encompassing that we are not only saved in this life but that not even death can hold back God’s saving love, and there does come a time when we do start to think about what our salvation in Christ means for us after we die. At funerals we focus on those promises of eternal life that are in the Bible, because although it is not the only aspect of salvation or of Christian life, it is surely important, especially when you’ve lost a loved one. Then we do concentrate on passages like in 1 Thessalonians when Paul encourages his readers by saying that we will be with the Lord forever, or 1 Corinthians 15:54-56:
When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
Or Philippians 1:21-26:
For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.
Is salvation about a better life and a better world now? Yes. Is salvation about being freed into a life of reconciliation and peace and feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and showing overwhelming hospitality to the stranger? Yes. Is salvation about being with God in a new way after we die? Yes. But salvation is not only about any one of these things, but all of them. Salvation is all of these things. Salvation is both now and not yet. But whatever salvation is, it is not just a ticket to heaven. That church might have needed a bigger sign but I wish that that church sign said, “Liberation. Wholeness. Homecoming. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Life Together. Purpose. God’s love that never ends. Details inside.”

"The Handoff"

Acts 1:6-14

Rev. Everett L. Miller

William Willimon, who is a Methodist bishop and the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke Divinity School, tells a funny story that he heard from an Episcopalian friend of his, which he calls Pastor Ed. Pastor Ed tells a story of when he was in seminary. One year on Ascension Day, the dean, the professors and all the students were in the chapel celebrating the Ascension. There was a boys choir singing Deus Ascendit, which means literally “God went up” in Latin, as the procession left the chapel, led by clouds of incense. Unbeknownst to all of the worshippers, one of the more mischievous seminary students had acquired one of those cheap hollow plastic statues of Jesus and put some sort of rocket device in it. As the procession came out of the chapel he lit the fuse and hid in the bushes. The statue shot up out of the shrubs with smoke and sparks, almost hitting some of the people as it ascended up into the air. It finally landed on top of the roof of the dorms and went out. When the dean asked him what in the world he was thinking when he did it he said sarcastically that he simply wanted to dramatize his belief in the reality of the ascension. The ascension was, in some sense, a joke to him. And even though what he did is kind of funny, it shows that the image of the ascension is not one that is always taken seriously.

Within the Presbyterian Church and most other Protestant churches, the Ascension of Jesus Christ, meaning when Jesus ascended to heaven, which we read of today in verses 9-11, is somewhat ignored both in Church doctrine and in the church year. For instance, how many of you knew that this past Thursday was Ascension Day, which is celebrated in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopalian churches as a holy day? I’ve never celebrated it in my life and I had to check my calendar just to verify the date of it. But the ascension is something in which we say we believe every week when in the Apostles’ Creed we say that Jesus “ascended into heaven.” So really, what does the ascension mean to us? Does it inform our faith in Jesus Christ or does it just come across as some strange story of a Mary Poppins Jesus popping open a black umbrella and floating up into the sky?

In our passage today, Luke tells us that “[Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” This may seem a little strange to our modern minds, but when we understand Luke’s use of biblical imagery then we begin to comprehend just how important the ascension is for our faith in Jesus. The truth of the matter is that if we get stuck on the fact that Luke tells us that Jesus went up into the sky and how that doesn’t match up with our modern knowledge that heaven isn’t up in the sky because we’ve seen pictures of the earth from outer space, we are missing the point. What Luke is telling us here is that Jesus went to be with God the Father in that realm we call heaven and for a very specific reason. After all, in the Apostles’ Creed we don’t just say “he ascended into heaven” but we add to that “and is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” A divine transition was occuring.

He was taken in a cloud, which again may seem kind of strange to us, but just about any time a cloud is mentioned in the Bible we know that it represents God’s presence. There was a cloud that guided the children of Israel in the wilderness. There was a cloud that enveloped Mt. Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments. The prophet Daniel had a vision of the coming Son of Man who would ride upon the clouds. At Jesus’ transfiguration Jesus, Peter, John, and James were also enveloped in a cloud. God was present in a very real way on that day because the ascension is a moment of great significance marking the transition from Jesus’ earthly ministry to when Jesus went to rule as the great priest-king of the universe, ruling, judging, and praying for all of creation.

John Calvin wrote, “(Jesus) truly inaugurated his Kingdom only at his ascension into heaven.” Calvin goes on to say, “he withdrew his bodily presence from our sight not to cease to be present with believers still on their earthly pilgrimage, but to rule heaven and earth with a more immediate power.” Although we probably don’t think about the ascension all that much compared to the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus’ ascension to heaven is essential for our salvation. If it had not happened he would not be in a position to claim us as his own. When the world seems like it is crumbling around us, it is good to know that ultimately Jesus Christ is in charge and if it wasn’t for the ascension he wouldn’t be in charge.

But this is all easy for us to say, looking back on that day from 2,000 years later. Surely the day of Jesus’ ascension was bitter-sweet for the disciples. They weren’t surprised that it happened; they knew it was coming. After all, remember what we heard Jesus say last week: “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” A little bit after that he tells the disciples, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.” But when it does actually happen we don’t really hear of the celebrating or rejoicing. They just kind of stand there, looking up into the sky. I imagine that even though they knew that day was coming that they hoped it never would. It’s like the day when your child graduates and moves out. Even though you’ve known it was coming for eighteen years it still hits you like a ton of bricks. Like a parent standing in the road watching their grown child drive off into the distance, the apostles are staring up into the sky thinking, “Now what?”

As they stand there dumbfounded, two men in white appear to them. This is presumably the two men in white from the empty tomb in Luke’s Gospel. They say, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” These two men seem to be asking them, “There’s work to be done. Why are you just staring up into the sky?”

I have never been able to verify the truth of the story I’m about to tell you, but it makes the point so with that disclaimer I’ll tell it to you anyway. A classmate of mine in seminary told me about the huge, magnificent Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. On top of the towering spires of the temple are beautiful gold angels that reflect the sunlight. People would come from all over the world to see the temple and its golden angels. They would stand below staring up into the sky, backing up more and more trying to get a better angle so that they could see all the way to the top. Many times people would back up so much without paying attention that they would back up right into the busy street and get hit by cars. It happened so often that the Mormon Church ended up buying the street from the city and closing it off so that people could look up at the temple without getting hit by cars.

Again, I don’t know if that is true, but you can see how it makes the point. The disciples in our passage are in danger of becoming like the people who are staring into the sky, not paying attention to anything that is going on around them, like the people who keep backing up and backing up, oblivious to the cars speeding toward them. They have to tell themselves, “Quit staring up at heaven. Look around at what is going on here. Remember what Jesus said just before he ascended. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So while Jesus has ascended so that as the Westminster Confession claims, he can “receive gifts for [humanity], raise up our affections [there], and to prepare a place for us,” he hasn’t left the disciples without a sense of purpose or without direction. He’s told them that the Holy Spirit is coming who will give them the strength and courage for their mission and he’s told them what that mission is. It is no less than to take the gospel to the entire world starting right where they are. He will no longer be with them. From now on he is going to be working through them. The ascension is, in a matter of speaking, the great handoff from Jesus to the Church.

A book I read this week put it this way: “It’s like the son who has been working in his father’s business and one day the father comes to the store and says, “Son, I’m not going to be coming in as much any more; you can handle things here.” It was a day the son knew was coming, but could he handle it? Could he keep up the things that his father had begun?” So right here in the first chapter of Acts we know that this book is going to be different from the gospels that are placed before it. Jesus isn’t going to be showing up in the flesh anymore. This book isn’t going to be all about what Jesus did when he walked this earth. Instead, this book is going to be about what Jesus did through the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church to spread God’s love and acceptance to the world. The great handoff had occurred.

Standing as descendents of the faith of the apostles, we too have been handed the very mission of Jesus. Encouraged and empowered by our belief that Jesus really did ascend into heaven and that he does sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as well as our experience with the Holy Spirit, we take on this mission starting right where we are. Although I hope that as many of us who can and who feel led to will get to go to places like New Orleans or the Czech Republic or South America to do mission work, the truth of the matter is that it is right here in Newkirk where we are begin to live out Christ’s mission everyday. The handoff has occured. What will we do with it?