Reflections on “Love without Limits” James 2: 1-8; Proverbs 22: 1-9

We had a packed service with two baptisms, recognition of teachers as we begin our fun Sunday School schedule, and a wedding taking place immediately following worship (a member and his significant other, with many members staying for the wedding).  I mention that because part of what I tried to do in my sermon preparation was sharpening the focus of the sermon so it could be direct and a bit shorter than most weeks.  As I worked on the sermon, I decided during the Time with Young Disciples to ask them "What one thing would you want to teach child being baptized?"  That question also helped me sharpen the focus for the sermon.

The Proverbs passage (both the James and Proverbs passages were from the lectionary) fit really well with James passage and the sermon, but I did not expand the sermon to reference it.  In retrospect, I probably could have done so easily since the Proverbs text complemented the James passage very well.

“Love without Limits” September 9, 2018, SAPC, Denton; James 2: 1-8; Proverbs 22: 1-9 Richard B. Culp

James 2: 1-8:  My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?[b] 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,”[c] 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.[d] Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Introduction:  This morning we have a baptism; 

not just a baptism, but a double baptism;

not just a double-baptism, but cousins  (Chase will  make St. Andrew his home church, and Matthias will grow up in another community of faith)

As part of the baptismal liturgy, the congregation will be asked, “Who stands with these children?” and you will give your answer by standing, a visible sign of your support, for each child and the parents who present their children for baptism.  You also stand on behalf of the church universal, pledging the support of any community of faith in which these two cousins and their families will fin themselves. will live,

We do not commit to help them grow into nice boys or nice people, although we hope they do.

We commit to raising them in the faith so that one day they might profess Jesus Christ as their lord and Savior.

If you had to teach them one thing - what would it be?

Move 1:  That’s what James is doing in his letter we read today.

a.  He begins with the question:  do you really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?

1. then he wants to give everyone a concrete example on which to base their answer.

2. he picks how they treat those who come into their midst at worship.

3. i’m probably not a fair judge on how people are treated since I seldom attend worship when I’m not identified by robe and stole as a minister, but maybe 10 years or so ago, I had occasion to be a visitor in a congregation.

4.  A group of six guys including my brother and I, along with some men from the congregation I served in OH took off for the week-end to go to Milwaukee (a Christmas gift from my wife).

It was a March week-end, so you can probably guess what we were doing - traveling to watch march Madness in person and on TV. 

We stayed in downtown Milwaukee.  Our games to see in person were on Friday and Sunday afternoon, so we have Sunday morning off.

We all walked over to the nearest Presbyterian church (of course) in downtown Milwaukee.  it was a huge, beautiful sanctuary.  Clearly a church that had seen its better days.  the huge sanctuary had been divided into smaller spaces, one of which was the worship space for a much smaller group.  As I looked around, I knew it was a church that was trying to redefine itself.

they had a moment like we do where people were invited to greet their neighbors.

they saw us, 6 guys in our early 40s and rushed us.  they seemed to pair up on each of us, excited conversation taking place.  all i could figure was they thought we were the advance management team for some company and soon our wives and 2.5 kids would follow, join the church, and redevelop the congregation in a fell swoop.

I watched as each pair discovered we were just here for one hour this week, never to return.  With slumped shoulders they slowly returned to their seats, their disappointment palpable.

I don’t know how other visitors are typically greeted in that church, but we got their best because they could see potential in us, they thought we had a lot to offer.  We were the rich visitors in Jame’s illustration.

do you really believe in our glorious Lord jesus Christ?

if you do, then all people are treated equally.  

No special status for the rich.   No special treatment for those with potential.

a.  Do not play favorites.

1.  Fair.

2. But, it is more than just a doctrine of fairness.

3.  About who we all of us are.

4. All of us are children of God and loved by God.

5.  God, whose love knows no limits.

c.  hard to imagine that kind of love.

1.  think about a first-time parent -  discovers limitless love for the child.

2. then the second child arrives - the parent does take the amount of love for the first child and split it between the two children.  No, the parent discover the inexhaustible supply of love.

3. and the third child, the same.

4. fi there is the fourth, it continues.  

5. Love that has no limits.

6. God has limitless love for each of us.

d. The point James makes is that all of us are children of God, loved completely and fully by God, so we who live out God’s love should show no partiality in who we love or not love.

1.  Regardless of our ethnicity, our socio-economic status, our sexuality, or any other category our world has, God loves us.

2.  And God calls us to love all others with the same limitless love.

do you really believe in our glorious Lord jesus Christ?

If so, show it by how you love everyone.

Move 2:  to be clear, James also wants us to know that how we treat the poor is an important part of how we love everyone.

a.  not because the poor are any more important to God than anyone else.

1. But because they need help.

2.  they are struggling and God desires to see their needs.

b. As the people of God who care called to be the body of Christ, to share God’s love in the world, we are called to care for the poor.

1. I know at some levels that is a complicated task.

2.  You can read books like Toxic Charity that challenge our assumptions about caring for those in need.

3. We can debate which entity should be responsible for the needy in our midst.

4. or, the best way to break the cycle of poverty.

5.  I am not trying to ignore the complexity of dealing with poverty issues.

6.  But, I am pointing out our call to engage those issues.

7.  James is pretty clear in connecting how we treat the poor with our answer to the question “Do you believe in our glorious Jesus Christ?”

Conclusion: As we live out our baptismal vows and help raise children in the faith, we invite them to “believe in our glorious Jesus Christ.”  

And we show them what it looks like by loving all people with God’s limitless love and caring for the poor among us.  Amen.

Reflections on "Washing Hands" Mark 7: 1-8

It was my first sermon out of the the Old Testament since May, although the topic of hand washing took us back to Jewish rituals developed in the time of the Old Testament stories.  I did not like my conclusion going into the sermon, so I adjusted it on the fly, and I ended up with a conclusion that I liked less than what I had originally written (the original conclusion in the text below).

did not get much feedback about the sermon as congregation left Sunday.  The sermon seemed ok to me, but I sort of missed the narrative of the Old Testament from this past summer's lectionary.

“Washing Hands” September 6, 2018, SAPC, Denton; Mark 7 Richard B. Culp

 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands,[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.[c]) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live[d] according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me;

7 in vain do they worship me,

    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Introduction:  The Pharisees think the disciples should wash their hands before eating.

Jesus defends the disciples for not washing their hands before eating.

Jesus defies every parent who has his or her child before sitting down to eat - “Have you washed your hands.”

Or parents who carry hand sanitizer to make sure everyone can have clean hands if there is not a bathroom nearby.

Or churches who prominently display hand sanitizer and have the ministers use it as part of the communion ritual to put the congregation at ease about coming forward to receive elements.

this week I read an article about how to be more hygienic when serving communion.  You'll be glad to know that we are doing pretty well - in fact, having cut bread pieces for intinction puts us pretty high on the hygiene scale!

Jesus’ response seems sort of odd to our hygiene conscious sensibilities.  

Major clue that we live in a different context than the one in which Jesus made his point about clean and unclean hands and there is more going on in this story than meets the eye

Before we begin unraveling this story, a couple of thoughts;    ff we reduce this story to traditions are bad and acting from the heart is good, we might join a lot of others through history who have used this text to attack traditions, but i don’t think it is quite that simple.

Also, you see yourself on Jesus’ side, like you and Jesus have it right and everyone else and their traditions have it wrong, then you might need to rethink what Jesus is saying.

Move 1:  Purity laws

a.  Self-identity and self-understanding

1.  Imagine being Jew in a world where you are a small minority.

2. In the particular moment when this story takes place, the Romans are in power and the Jews are trying to live in the niche they have created for themselves in the world where they have little political power and they are surrounded by a plurality of people who worship a multitude of pagan gods.

3.  The rituals are a way of defining themselves and allowing them to recognize those who are like them [Tom Wright in Mark for Everyone (9) touches on this idea].

b.  Rituals like hand-washing are often tied to their religious tradition.

1.  Notice that the Gsopel of Mark refers to this ritatul as a tradition.

2.  hand washing is not a rule the Pharisees instituted to out of nowhere to make life hard on others;  it was part of the tradition they are trying to keep alive of http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2012/08/ethical-hermeneutics-and-hermeneutical.html

3. Handwashing goes back to days of priests washing as they go into the Temple. 

4.  The temple was the holy place where they would meet God.

5.  To prepare oneself by cleansing was a reminder that when encountering the holiest of holies, they need to be cleansed.  So the priests would wash their hands and say a prayer to God.

6.  As time when by, the ritual became more than just a act of the priests as they entered the Temple.  it was a way for all God’s people to be reminded that they were connected to God and their need to be cleanses as they engaged the holy.

7.  It also became a way to carry on the tradition when they no longer gathered at the Temple.as they encountered God, they needed to be cleansed say a https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hand-washing/

8.  Rituals like hand washing were part of an effort to be faithful to God.

c.  but, but over time the purity laws morph into points of exclusion.

1. By the time Jesus is arguing about this in the Gospel of Mark, the religious leaders had the idea that if you did not follow the rituals, you were outside of the tradition

outside  of a relationship with God.

outside of God’s love.

2. how easily over time rituals came to be seen as gates put into place to exclude.

Move 2:  here’s where Jesus takes issue with the rituals.

a.  Jesus has a different agenda than traditional rituals.

1. Jesus comes to break down the barriers that keep us from God.

2. Jesus comes to expand the circle, instead of shrinking it.

3.  jesus calls us beyond religious traditions or rituals that exclude others.

b.  Did you notice how Mark emphasizes that the Pharisees and scribes come from jerusalem?

1.  For Mark, everything points toward Jerusalem, where Jesus will die and be resurrected.

2.  this discussion of rituals is played out in that context - the rituals cannot free us to know God’s grace; only Christ’s death and resurrection and can bring us to new life.

3.  no food, no rule, no human doctrine can mediate God’s love - only Christ can, and he offers God’s love to everyone.

c. I might also note that the Greek word for washing or washing as in washing of hands or washing the pots is the same root word as to baptize.

1. it seems to me that the point is clearly being made that the rituals are being replaced by baptism.

2. If you want to connect with God and be given new life, be cleansed in the waters of baptism and united with Christ in his death and resurrection.

Move 3:  Finally, remember, it’s about us

a.   it's not the scribes. Not the Pharisees. Not the law. 

1.  What Jesus subjects to fiercest criticism in this passage is the human being. 

2.  Joel Marcus notes the concentration of the word anthrōpos ("human being" or "person") eleven times in the span of Mark 7:7--23 (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1381; matt skinner)

b.  How are you living your life?

1.  Do you live and act in ways that invite people to know God’s grace?

2. or do you like those rules that suggest there are a lot of hurdles to knowing God’s love?

Conclusion: When you come to the Lord’s Table today, reflect on the gift of Christ’s body and blood you receive - is it a gift for all, or a gift to guard with rituals?

  

“Crafting a Prayer” I Kings 8: 22-30; 41-54

Today ended the summer lectionary run through I and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings.  I have enjoyed the preaching opportunities this summer.  Generally speaking, I find it easier to preach narrative texts, which is part of why I enjoyed the summer preaching series.  Ia also discovered that I had never preached many of these great stories, so it was fun to explore them in the context of preaching.

I found particularly powerful NT Wright's image of a Christian praying at the fault line.  He speaks of it in terms of being shaped by Jesus who is holding things together, but my image (shaped by his image) was more of a person praying standing on one side of the gap praying to God on the other side of the gap, who is answering prayer in ways that closes the gap.  I find that to be a powerful image.

My spoken words in the section on the gap were different than what was written in the sermon text.  Not sure what I said, but i know I was not following the written text very well.

“Crafting a Prayer” August 26, 2018, SAPC, Denton; I Kings 8: 22-30; 41-54; Richard B. Culp

41 “Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name 42 —for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, 43 then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.

44 “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, 45 then hear in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.

46 “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; 47 yet if they come to their senses in the land to which they have been taken captive, and repent, and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done wrong; we have acted wickedly’; 48 if they repent with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies, who took them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their ancestors, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name; 49 then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, maintain their cause 50 and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you; and grant them compassion in the sight of their captors, so that they may have compassion on them 51 (for they are your people and heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron-smelter). 52 Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant, and to the plea of your people Israel, listening to them whenever they call to you. 53 For you have separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, just as you promised through Moses, your servant, when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt, O Lord God.”54 Now when Solomon finished offering all this prayer and this plea to the Lord, he arose from facing the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven; 

Introduction:  the people are gathering in the seventh month for the Feast of Booths, which is time for the ceremonial renewal of covenant that goes back to the time of Moses.  

In fact, it appears the dedication of the Temple is delayed eleven months to coincide with the 448th year since Moses gave the command to read the law every seven years (note 448 is divisible by 7) (Richard Nelson, interpretation: First and Second Kings, 50)

The ark has been put in place in the temple, which means the tablets of the law are physically present as symbol of God’s presence.

A cloud has filled the space suggesting the presence of God is in their midst. 

The time to dedicate the temple has arrived.

Solomon has made a speech to the gathered people.

Solomon lifted his hands toward the heavens.

Now, Solomon prays.

What would you pray at the dedication of the Temple, if you were Solomon?

Sort of like praying for the dedication of a sanctuary, or new church building, or building for ministry dedicated to God.

Let’s take a few moments and look at the prayer Solomon prayed that day. 

Move 1:  First of all, the prayer reveals the theology of God’s people at that time.

a.  Chapter 8 has been redacted numerous times to fine tune the theological impact of it (Richard Nelson, interpretation: First and Second Kings, 50).

1.  In other words, the pray we read as Solomon’s has probably been edited in later years to make the prayer reflect what the editors think Solomon ought to have prayed!

2.  A reflection of Israel’s central theological understandings.

c.  Solomon begins with covenant.

1.  “God, remember the covenant you made with us.

2.  Skips over Israel breaking the covenant.

3.  Reminder that at the core of Israel’s relationship with God, indeed at the core of our relationship with God, resides the covenant God made with them and us - the promise to be faithful to us.

d.  Solomon prays about forgiveness and the return of the Promised Land.

1.  Solomon does acknowledge the Israelite tendency to sin, but asks that when Israel repents and turns back to ward God, if God will be true to the promise of giving them land.

2. a reminder of God’s call to repent and God’s promise to the Israelites that they understand in relationship to the Promised Land.

e. Solomon prays about foreigners who come into their midst and lift their prayers to the God they do not know.

1.  Builds on the Israelite tradition of welcoming foreigners.

2.  But also announces their belief in the God’s sovereignty - even if the foreigners do not know God, God will use them.

f.  Longest petition in the prayer is about is exile (vss. 46-51) perhaps reflecting the fact that the story was put together while Israel was in exile.

1.  Important point is made - if the people are in exile, if they can’t be in the Temple to pray, will God still hear their prayers.

2.  In fact, if they turn toward their land, face Israel, if you will, then will that help God hear their prayers.

3. a prayer request rooted in a place, Jerusalem, but hoping in the God of new possibilities who is at work anywhere and everywhere.

Move 2:  We also notice this  divide in which the prayer is prayed in the Temple, heard in heaven.

a.  Prayer is made in the Temple, right there in the midst of the people, but God hears the prayer in heaven.  

1. In fact, in several of the sections of the prayer, Solomon describes the Israelites praying in exile, or on earth, or in the Temple, and God hearing the prayer in heaven.

2.   what do we make of that distinction?

b.  the point is not a distant God.

1. Remember, we have already been reminded us that the God is present in the Temple.

2. But the belief that God is present in their midst is in tension with the idea that the Temple cannot contain the presence of God.

3. Solomon’s prayer points out the gap between our world, the place where we lift our prayers, and the heaven where God hears our prayers.

4. A reminder that even our most informed, our most theological, our best prayers in every sense of the world cannot know what God knows or ask for what God desires to give because we are asking out of our human experience and God is answering out of God’s plan for our lives and our world.

c.  Prayers try to bridge the gap by inviting us to offer our needs, our praise, our desires to God and in turn listening for what God desires of us.

1.  for the pantheist, prayer is simply getting in tune with the deepest realities of the world and of oneself.  Divinity is everywhere, including within me.  Prayer is therefore not so much addressing someone else, who lives somewhere else, but rather discovering and getting in tune with an inner truth and life that are to be found deep within my own heart and within the silent rhythms of the world around....For the Deist, prayer is calling across a void to a distant deity.  This lofty figure may or may not be listening.  He, or it, may or may not be inclined, or even able, to do very much about us and our world, even if he (or it) wanted to...Christian prayer is about standing at the fault line, being shaped by the Jesus who knelt in Gethsemane, groaning in travail, holding heaven and earth together like someone trying to tie two pieces of rope with people tugging at the other ends to pull them apart. “ Simply Christian, N. T. Wright (163-164).

2. Facing the gap, God’s people pray.

  

2.  Solomon in his time stood at that fault line, praised God, and asked for God’s answer to their prayers.

3. When we pray, we stand at that fault line as well, turning to God in the name of Christ, the one who stands with us, and asking for God to move us beyond where we are to the new places God calls us.

Move 3:  Prayer opens us up to possibilities beyond ourselves

a.  Solomon may be praying about specific situations, but as he prays to the God of endless possibilities, he hopes God will move Israel forward in ways he cannot even impinge or articulate.

1. At the end of his prayer, he has laid out his hope for what God and Israel will do.

2.  But he has no idea what God has in mind for Israel.

3.  Solomon might have imagined that if Israel ended up in exile in the future,  God would send a ruler to Persia like Cyrus who would allows the exiled Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  Actually, on the day of dedicating the Temple, Solomon’s imagination would not have been so wild.

4. But could Solomon ever have imagined that God’s Israel’s sinfulness would be to come in the person of Christ?

5.  Solomon could have prayed all day and all night, and he would not have gotten there.

b.  As we hear Solomon pray, we are reminded that God’s answer to our prayers probably do not fit with our best solution.

1.  As quoted Kathleen Norris, the Christian writer notes (as quoted by Ann Lamott):  ‘Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.’” Grace (Eventually):Thoughts on Faith (11).

2.  The risk of praying to God is that God is going to hear and answer, and the answer calls us to do something, often something different than we had in mind.

3.  I am reminded of the story told about a minister who hears a woman is near death in the hospital, so he rushes to visit her.  He walks in and she appears to be comatose.  He leans over her bed and prays for her healing. She sits up.  He races from the room, down the stairs out to his car, where he pauses and says, “dear God, don’t you ever do that to me again!” 

c. Solomon does not know it in the moment.  

1. In fact, he will not live to see all the ways in which God answers his prayers.

2. But God does answer.

3. God answers Solomon prayer in ways Solomon never could have imagined.

Conclusion:  Final image:  did you notice that Solomon begins the prayer standing with his arms extended and finishes on his knees!

the image of Solomon on his knees reminds us of the weight of turning to God in prayer, in awe knowing that the one who hears our prayers does indeed answer;  with answers that can overwhelm us with the new possibilities God has in store for us.