First week of the Lenten series. The challenge for me each week will be to move from study notes and small group discussions to a sermon without bogging the sermon down in too much detail. Not sure I achieved that this week. The Chapel sermon seemed really didactic; the Sanctuary service seemed to go a bit better. I know I strayed from the notes quite a bit for the Sanctuary service, but I was not able to capture that in these notes.
“Jesus: The
Heart of Our Existence” March 2, 2014;
March 2, 2014; Lenten series
Introduction: Beginning Lent a week
early! Henri Nouwen; Letters to Marc: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World. They are letter as described in the title,
which are written to his sister’s son Marc.
Nouwen
intended to write these letters once a week during Lent. I don’t believe he actually achieved that
goal, but we will read them once a week.
Invite you
to join a study group or get a book and follow along on your own. Blog each week will have the study notes for
the small groups and for the sermon each week.
Nouwen is 54 years old when he writes these letters;
his nephew Marc is 18 years old.
His nephew is trying to figure out what he believes,
and Nouwen offers to give him insights from his own life.
We spend our time this Lent preparing for
Easter. When we discover that Jesus has
been raised from the dead, in what concrete ways will it make a difference in
your life?
Move 1: Our
spiritual lives are centered in our hearts.
a. Nouwen notes that living
spiritually “is more than living physically, intellectually, or
emotionally. It embraces all that, but
it is larger, deeper, and wider. It
concerns the core of your humanity (4).
1.
He suggests that spiritual is not the opposite of physical or emotional
or intellectual (4), but notes that the “unspiritual” would be that which does
not affect the heart of our being (4).
2. Nouwen identifies the spiritual life as being
centered in our hearts. He does not use heart to make a contrast between heart
and head (i.e. feeling vs. thinking), but he suggests that the heart is the
center of our being.
c. Nouwen
puts his spiritual life in the context of his Christian faith.
1. Just like we do.
2. this means that to live spiritually, is to live “with
Jesus at the center” (6,7).
Move 2: Who is
this Jesus to whom Jesus refers?
a. Nouwen references a story from the gospels when
Jesus asks the disciples “who do you say that I am?”
1. we read that particular story from the
Gospel of Matthew this morning.
2.
Caesarea Philippi had a shrine to Pan, the god of shepherds and flocks,
and the city was associated with various displayed of imperial power.
3. A world in which people have lots of options.
4.
Sounds familiar to we who live in a world with multiple things and people that pull
and tug at us to gain entry into our lives and become the foundation for who we
are.
b. In
this context, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
1. Interesting question.
2.
they have lots of background for it.
3. Jesus has just performed miracles and argued
with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
4. They could go in lots of different directions
and still be accurate.
c. The
disciples offer answers that reflect their history and what they have observed in
their time with Jesus.
1. Elijah – great prophet; took on the religious
authorities; Jesus certainly ha acted like a prophet.
2. Jeremiah – another prophet; took on the way in
which God’s people were living their lives and the values their actions
espoused.
3. John the Baptist – wild man
running around calling people to repentance, baptizing, and announcing the
coming of the one who was greater than he.
d.
but Jesus wants them to claim him in a way that goes beyond describing and
connecting with others.
1. he asks them, “Who do you say that I am?”
2. Peter answers
(not sure if there was a pause or not), “You are the Messiah, the Son of the
Living God.”
3. Jesus affirms
that Peter got it right. Not because Peter
has somehow desribed Jesus accurately, but because he has claimed Jesus and his
life-cahning ways for himself.
4. Question
this week: If you have do finish the
sentence “Jesus is….. (and don’t use compound sentences in your response!), how
would you?
Move 3: Nouwen truly believes that being in a relationship
with Christ makes a difference in his life and ought to make a difference in
the life of his nephew and in our lives..
a. . Nouwen finishes by noting that he does not lecture
his nephew about who Jesus is (share book knowledge), but he wants to share how
he has come to know Christ.
1. Nouwen notes
that this will not avoid the big questions, but it will allow them to be
answered in the context of Jesus, who is at the heart of his existence (7)
2.
Nouwen will just tell his nephew his story about life in relationship with Jesus.
b. Lenten journey to which you are
invited is not a theoretical exercise to determine who Jesus really is.
1. Invitation to reflect on your relationship
with Christ.
2. and to connect Lay claim to how that relationship changes
your life.
Move 4: As you begin your exploration into which Jesus is in your life,
I offer a final story and a thought.
a.
You may have heard of Dobri Dobrev.
1. A Bulgarian man in his late 90s.
2. Photos of him reveal
a man who looks like an old beggar. Lots
of hair, flowing beard. Clothes that look
like they come from a Bulgarian Salvation Army store.
3. He walks the streets of Sofia , Bulgaria
4. What many didn't know until fairly recently
was that Dobrev wasn't begging for himself: he has lived off his monthly
government pension and some assistance provided by others, while donating all
the money he had collected (estimated at about 40,000 euros) to help
cover the costs of restoring decaying Bulgarian monasteries and churches and
paying the utility bills of orphanages.
5. A life that reveals Christ at the center of
his very existence.
b. Peter’s confession: second time around.
b. Peter’s confession: second time around.
1. Interestingly, this affirmation has already
been made by the disciples when Jesus walked on water to join them in the boat
(14:33). Maybe we need to keep laying
claim to who Jesus is in our lives!
2. Reminder that we are on a journey –
not simply a light switch that we turn on once, and its done for good.
3. a journey full of stories – Nouwen will
tell his stories; we reflect on our stories.
4. Stories told to reveal and shape who
we are as people who have chosen to have Christ at the center of our existence.
Amen.
Resources
used in preparation of these notes:
The New Oxford
Letters to Marc about Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World; www.henrinouwen.org/about_henri/about_henri.aspx
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nouwen
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