Will Rice - Sermon #13 - Christmas Day - Rejoice

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Psalm 96
Luke 2:1-14

“Rejoice”

For a pastor every Sunday is a challenge. It is a challenge because each and every week we are faced with doing a number of different things in worship. If you to ask me to name the primary purpose of worship, I would probably say that it is about expressing our love and reverence to God, praising God. But we all know it is much more complicated than that. The word in Greek that we most often translate as worship (proskewneyoh) conveys a meaning of bowing down before. The word in Hebrew (ahvad) conveys more of a sense of serving. In worship we do these things and more. We praise God, we bow down before God in prayer and in confession, we serve, or at least we reflect upon how we do and should serve. We also experience the mystery of God in the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. And there is more.

Because, for many, worship is the primary, if not only contact with the church, we teach. We teach in order that we may expand our faith and deepen our relationship with God. We teach, not only through the words of the sermon, but through everything we do. The songs usually not only lift praise to God, their words can teach us about God. The words and actions of our sacraments tell about God. Even the place we worship teaches. Stained glass is more than just beautiful decoration. The images in the glass teach us about our faith in pictures.

If that were not enough, worship can be evangelism, in the true sense of the word, meaning to spread the good news of the Gospel. Worship can be a place where people for the first time or again can experience call of God on their lives and reach back toward the outreached hand of God.

Somehow the pastor, and this only works with God’s help, has to pull all these things and more together into something that makes some sort of sense and doesn’t go much over an hour. But I think on Christmas day, the challenge is a little less. Christmas day may be the one day where we can make worship simply about rejoicing and absorbing the wonder of Christmas.

But as good as that sounds, it can be kind of hard for a pastor to do. If I just read you the Christmas story again and say, “let’s just rejoice in the good news of the birth of Christ!” I am left wondering if I have done a disservice. As a teacher, I am wondering if we all know what that means, as an evangelist, I am wondering if that is enough for those searching for God to feel like they have found a connection.

But then I think back. I will never forget, as a young boy, standing outside in the freezing cold of a Western New York winter in front of the United Methodist Church down the street from my home. My oldest sister was singing "Silent Night" as part of what I think was a live nativity. I remember being moved by the sounds I heard, but not knowing why.

I think Christmas reminds us that is sometimes alright just to be moved by wonder and not worry about why. Don’t get me wrong, the why is important, and throughout the year, in sermons, in liturgy, in Bible studies, we will and should talk about the why. We should explore the questions of our faith in hopes of deepening our faith and enriching our relationship with God, but today, perhaps we can just rejoice.

Donald Miller in his book Searching for God Knows What takes me one step further. He contends that there is stuff you just can’t understand in your head until those things sink into your very being.[1]

Today’s reading from the Hebrew prayer book, The Book of Psalms so reflects that idea of wondrous praise and rejoicing.

⁹Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth.

Notice it says “all the earth.” Not just, all the people, all the earth.

¹⁰Say among the nations, “The Lord is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.” ¹¹Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; ¹²let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy ¹³before the Lord

All the trees in the forest sing for joy! What a wonder-filled image. If you look at plants, from the tiniest weed to the grandest oak, they all reach up their leaves in branches in praise, their very existence in triumphant praise to God.

I think back to that cold night listening to the words of “Silent Night.” As United Methodists, we believe in prevenient grace, that idea that long before we go searching for God, God is reaching out to us, seeking to draw us close, just waiting for us to reach back. As I think about that moment and that music, I sense God's wonder in it and consider how that worked in my heart for decades before I reached back and accepted the love that God had always offered me.

It is humbling when preparing for Christmas worship, when thinking about all the details and all the words, to consider that no matter what I do, God will be reaching out, whispering to us all, teaching our hearts the story of Christmas in words we can all understand.

Today, I will just try to stay out of God’s way.

---

[1] Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2004) 57

Will Rice - Sermon #12 - C is For ?

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Isaiah 61:1-2

¹The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; ²to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

Ever since the first Sunday of Advent, just a couple of weeks ago, people have been asking, “when are we going to start talking about Christmas?” And John and I keep responding with something about preparing the way, preparing our hearts, or in general getting ready for Christmas. Today, we are going to talk about Christmas. Well, sort of.

Once again though, I will ask, “What is Christmas?” And that is a question I have asked for some time. I got a lot mixed signals growing up. Mel Torme told me that Christmas is:

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Which, of course left out any notion of decking the halls with boughs of holly, something that we never managed to do at my house.

I knew as a young child that Frosty the Snowman was a jolly happy soul, with a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal. But even now that I am married to my true love, I have yet to receive 12 drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a milking, seven swans a swimming, six geese a laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French Hens, two turtle doves, not even one single partridge in a pear tree.

Now, I do know that Christmas has something to do with dashing through the snow, and being from Western New York, I have done that, though never in a one horse open sleigh.

I have dreamed of a white Christmas, and Corpus Christi even got one last year. I even remember as a child during one unusually warm December saying, “It’s not really Christmas if it doesn’t snow!”

I’ve sung:

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
and presents on the tree

And I have spent December 25^th at work, far away from home, with no mistletoe, no tree and no presents.

But still…

It's the most wonderful time of the year.
With the kids jingle belling,
and everyone telling you,
"Be of good cheer,"
It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I love all of these images, because they remind me of a wonderful time of year. They all give me warm and fuzzy feelings. They represent family and love and the magic of this time of the year and I embrace them. But, one of the things I am trying to do in Advent is clarify. I am trying to clarify what things are good in a sentimental way and what things are clearly about Jesus Christ.

There is a big outcry right now (not that it is really a new thing) about the “secularization” of Christmas. Someone the other day wanted me to boycott a large retailer because they were saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” I have to tell you, I think them saying “Happy Holidays” is just fine. I will instead decide whether or not to shop there based on how they treat their employees, who they buy their products from and how they help to take care of the environment.

You see, I am not so interested in what retailers are doing, for their business is to make money and more interested in what we, the church, whose business is changing lives, is doing.

Some people are upset at the President for sending out “Holiday” cards instead of Christmas cards. Once again, holiday cards are fine with me, because I am more interested in how public policy reflects our priorities of justice and mercy than I am in a small token of recognition sent out to friends and campaign contributors.

You see, I think if we are going to stand up at yell, “Put the Christ back in Christmas!” we better stop to consider what the heck that means.

So, as we continue on our journey of Advent, as we continue to prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, let’s take another look at what we are indeed celebrating. As we do that, let’s read about the very first sermon by the young man in question, Jesus of Nazareth.

Luke 4:16-21

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

“C is For?”

Jesus was, of course reading from the prophet Isaiah, which we heard read during our Old Testament reading. As I read from that same passage this week, I realized that perhaps it might yield some clues about what it would actually mean to put Christ back in Christmas.

I don’t want to get all academic here, but let me explain something. The Luke text, I just read, was originally written in Greek but it recounts Jesus reading something that was written in Hebrew. So, I am going to be switching back and forth between Luke and Isaiah, don’t worry. It reads in Isaiah:

¹The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me;

At the end of the today’s Luke text, Jesus says:

"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

He is claiming this prophecy. This is about him. He is the anointed one of God, the Christ, and this text tells us what that means.

I think, if we read this carefully, we can see what Jesus is all about, and as we continue to work our way through Advent, we can see what Christmas is all about and more importantly what we should do about it.

¹The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed

The first word here is a word of comfort. In Luke’s Greek, there is actually a word euvaggeli,zw (euongaeleitzo) that means “to proclaim good news.” The first thing that Jesus feels called to do, the first thing that we can do to follow is to simply proclaim the good news, bring comfort to the world through sharing the gospel. We can tell the world “there is something else, there is a better way.” We might not totally get it, we don’t have all the answers but we believe that contained in the scriptures, in our tradition, in our attempt to be faithful, is a better life, here on earth and a promise of something more. A word of comfort.

But as Christians we quickly learn that comfort is not always enough. We learn that we have to do more than just talk. Because it doesn’t just say “bring good news,” it says

bring good news to the oppressed

And very often good news to the oppressed has to be more than “come to church” or “Jesus loves you.” The second word here is care. Care is a great word because it is a noun and a verb and even an active and passive verb. I can care deeply for you in my heart, but I can also reach out with my hands and care for you. That’s the kind of care I am talking about and the kind of care I think Isaiah is talking about. If I am oppressed for whatever reason, words of comfort are helpful, but I need more. If I am oppressed by hunger, yes I need to know that Jesus loves me, but I also need something to eat.

This is where I start to see the disconnect with the outcry over the direction Christmas is taking. If the world’s largest retailer says “Merry Christmas” to everyone who walks in, there might be, in there, a word of comfort, but does that translate into care?

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted,

“Bind up the brokenhearted…” Bind up here is literally to bind up like you would a wound.

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted,

The third word I see here is the word compassion. That’s a word we bandy about quite a bit, but what does it mean?

com·pas·sion n. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.[1]

That is another word I love, an active noun. It is not just a deep awareness, it is coupled with a desire to do something about it. If I leave it like that, it sounds just like care. But it is more. If we split this word apart and look at it, we have com which is a Latin root meaning with or together with and then passion. Now that is not passion in the intense emotion sense, but in the sense we use it around Easter, as in the passion of Christ, as in suffering. So put this word together and we get suffering with. That is to see one’s pain or burden and suffer with them.

This text isn’t the only clue that Jesus is all about compassion. When you read the gospels you see that Jesus was very concerned and deeply moved with the suffering of others, whether they were poor, sick, trapped by their own bad decisions. I get the impression from the gospels that Jesus would have made a terrible pastor. His disciples were always trying to get him here or there and he was always stopping to help someone. If Jesus was a pastor, he would be so distracted by the needs of others that he would never get his sermon written, never get the bulletin together. He would always be late for the staff meeting and he would probably never return his email, because Jesus had a deep awareness of the suffering of others, coupled with the wish to relieve it. Jesus suffered with those who suffered.

There is actually a word for this in Greek splagcni,zomai (splagknizomy) which means to be moved with compassion that is only used about Jesus, except when Jesus uses it to describe in a parable how we should act – with compassion.

If we are following Jesus we are suffering with those in the world who suffer. We are aware that they suffer and we are moved to relieve their suffering. Comfort and care are assumed in this and it is more. You see I can give comfort and I can give care, without really being all that in touch with one’s suffering. I sometimes help just because it’s the right thing to do or because I feel I should. But when I am truly moved with compassion, I don’t have much choice in the matter. I feel moved to help those I suffer with.

When I get here, I think back to the idea of being upset that the place I shop says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and I think, “so what?” This year alone, there have been a number of devastating hurricanes and floods, a massive earthquake, a record number of people falling below the poverty line, civil wars in countries too poor to feed their people in the first place. And right in our midst, people imprisoned by drug addiction, homelessness, violence, and disease.

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted

Compassion.

And you know what? Jesus will take us further than even compassion.

to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; ²to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor.

Jesus takes us one step further with a word about change. This is what eventually got Jesus into a whole bunch of trouble. No one gets all that upset when you want to bring words of comfort or care or even compassion, but when you start talking about change, people, even good people get upset.

When Jesus is talking about releasing prisoners here, he is not likely talking about murderers, and kidnappers, though Jesus compassion really knows no limit, he is probably talking about political prisoners but even more than that, he could be talking about people imprisoned by anything that keeps them from having a real shot at life. We have that now. We have people imprisoned by generational poverty, lack of education, drug addiction, lifetimes of bad decisions.

Jesus proclaims liberty and release and even more the year of the LORD’s favor. I don’t have time to go into the full ramifications of saying such a thing, but Jesus is talking about change. Jesus is talking about a change in the very systems of society that make put people in these prisons in the first place.

Now this is something that people don’t like to talk much about at Christmas, but this is the kind of savior whose birth we are getting ready to celebrate. This little baby born in a manger did and will call for radical change.

As we are moved with compassion, Jesus calls us to suffer with those who suffer and then begin to figure out why they suffer in the first place and then do something about it.

If you are being particularly attentive, you may fear that this is about to turn political, that I am about to tell you what the government should do to bring about change. I am not. I am going to do something much more difficult. I am going to suggest that we are responsible.

Let me give you an example. I am going to use something that is really on the hearts of some members of this congregation and that has come to my attention. When someone walks through our doors who is imprisoned by poverty, living with little hope of ever getting beyond a place in life that is defined by wondering every day how they will feed themselves and their family, we can follow this pattern.

We can comfort them, invite them in here and tell them the good news.
We can care for them, help to provide for some of the basic needs that they go without.
We can have compassion, taking the time to really understand what it is like to be them.
We can work for change, truly learning about the systemic condition that lead to a life of poverty. We can take time to put aside our assumption, our preconceived notions, our prejudices. And then with a deeper understanding we can look for our role in helping to bring about an individual or on a societal solution. Change.

Man, Christmas is a lot of work. But hear the good news, we are not in this alone. Coming, to this manger, a savior. The son of God born to save us from our own sin and to lead us in truly changing the world, to bring a glimpse of heaven to earth. It is a most wonderful time of year.

---

[1] Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Will Rice - Sermon #11 - What Are We Waiting For?

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

I am going to guess that you fall into one of two camps. You are either a ripper, meaning that upon receiving a gift, you rip the paper off as fast a humanly possible to get to the gift or, you are a true unwrapper, meaning you carefully remove the tape, undo the seams peeling the paper away from the package taking as much time as necessary to open the gift. My wife is a ripper I am an unwrapper. I drive her crazy.

When I was a child I was a ripper. I never enjoyed the process of unwrapping gifts, I just wanted to get to the gifts. But I think I have to credit my current status as an unwrapper to my parents. Although we were not explicitly Christians, my family did celebrate Christmas and we had a very particular way about it. There was a certain time boundary before which we were not allowed to go downstairs where the tree was. At the specified time, we were allowed to go downstairs and open our stockings. Our stockings were mostly filled with fruit, nuts and oddly enough a new toothbrush. Sometimes there were Hershey’s Kisses and sometimes a small toy like a Matchbox car.

After opening our stockings, we had to wait. We had to wait until my parents had made coffee before we could open even one present. After that coffee was made and the first present was opened, we had to wait again, for breakfast. As a child, the process of waiting was painful, but wonderful. One of my friends was allowed to go downstairs whenever he woke up and just tear open all his presents. His Christmas was over in about 2 minutes. Mine lasted all morning.

This has turned me into quite an odd adult. I like waiting for presents. My wife Alisha can put my birthday presents out weeks ahead of time and she asks, “doesn’t it just kill you looking at those boxes and not knowing?” Actually, I rather like it. More than I love the gifts, I love the anticipation.

Today’s scripture is from Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 13:

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

28 ‘From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

32 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. ³⁵Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

What Are We Waiting For?

With our stomachs full of turkey and our mental eyes already gazing toward the holiday of all holidays, Christmas, today would seem an odd day to talk about the end of time. For those of us who would like to embrace the joy of the festive holiday season, today’s assigned reading is like a bucket of cold water or a Christmas stocking full of coal.

There is a temptation on the part of the preacher to just take today’s assigned gospel reading and quietly sweep in under the carpet and move on. In fact, it is more than just a temptation. One of the things that I have heard over and over in my short time as a pastor is a general complaint about Advent. People come to church on the Sunday after Thanksgiving expecting to see the sanctuary decorated, which it is, and expecting to hear the songs of Christmas. What are we waiting for?

If we follow the media marketing machine Christmas should begin full force right after Thanksgiving and vanish in one big flurry of gift returns on December 26^th.

So why, on what should be the first Sunday of our Christmas celebration are we reading this passage about the end of the world? It is really tempting to sweep today’s gospel passage under the rug, especially given the fact the pastor John preached about the end of time last week. Two weeks focused on the end of time when what we should really be talking about is Christmas trees, and holly, a bright paper packages tied up in ribbon. What are we waiting for?

But if I take my cue from the world around me, this shouldn’t be a problem. It seems people are keenly interested in the end of time. The series that is supposedly loosely based on the book of Revelation, a series that takes a fictional approach to the end of time, Left Behind by authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is a publishing phenomenon.

Books in the series that talks of the rapture, horrible tribulations and an effort of converted believers to stay alive in the face of the horribly evil, yet impeccably dressed anti-Christ have sold over 58 million copies. “Publishers Weekly reports that the only authors whose publishers will print 2 million hardbacks for the first printing are J. K. Rowling, John Grisham --- and Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.”[1]

So people are interested in the end of time, but just not right now. It is Christmas for heavens sake. Let’s get on with it, what are we waiting for?

Perhaps we should think for a moment what it is we are in such a rush to get to. Christmas, the incarnation, the virgin birth of the son of God, Emmanuel, God with Us.

Today’s text doesn’t sound very much like Christmas.

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

What is Christmas, but a celebration of God breaking into our reality? This is why I think Advent is so important, because it can cause us to dwell on what we are really celebrating. If we just rip all the paper off of our Christmas gift, we may either miss the gift, or be truly shocked by what is inside. Maybe one of the reasons I am not ever in a hurry to open my gifts, why I like to wait, is that the anticipation is more of a certainty than the gift itself. What if I don’t like what is in the box? It is nice to sing,

Away in a manger,
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Laid down His sweet head
The stars in the bright sky
Looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay

But think about it this way, the very creator of the Universe decided to enter into our reality in a somewhat frightening way. Think about it this way. When we pray to God and ask for stuff, we don’t think much about how God will pull it off, do we?. “God, help me not be late for work.” Somehow, magically, we hope that God will turns all those signals to green. But, What if God came crashing through the clouds, landed in the middle of S.P.I.D. in a flash a radiant brilliance and started directing traffic. You might, at least, think twice about your next prayer. It would be nice if God would be relatively discreet about coming into our world, using gentle whispers, quiet miracles, perhaps the occasional virgin birth, but,

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

Is certainly over the top.

Just like these images, Christmas can be a wonderfully frightening thing. The birth of a child, who happens to be God who will disrupt the world as we know it. In Luke’s Gospel, from which we get most of the imagery that surrounds Christmas, the angel, the manger and the shepherds, the narrative quickly hints that this isn’t going to be all warm and fuzzy. In chapter two, when Mary and Joseph are presenting the child Jesus at the temple, a man name Simeon says:

³⁴“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”[2]

Advent helps us to remember and prepare for the fact that Christmas is much more wonderful than some warm and fuzzy celebration of the birth of a child 2000 years ago. We are considering a wonderfully frightening event, God coming to us. And in Advent we are not just preparing to celebrate that one isolated wonderfully frightening event, we are making sure we are prepared for it to happen again.

For many, Christmas is the central day of our Christian beliefs, but really it is just the beginning. We believe in the amazing birth of Jesus, and we also we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and we believe, it is central to our faith, that Christ will come again.

32 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. ³⁵Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

I love how big dogs sleep. My sister’s Labrador retriever Hobie, after a hard day of running and sniffing and retrieving will curl up and sleep in such a way that, if it weren’t for the snoring, you would think he was dead. But, if you were to go two rooms away and drop a piece of meat on the floor, Hobie would be up, across the house and eating it before you could lean down and pick it up. My lab can be sound asleep in bed with me and he will be up and at the door ten seconds before I hear my wife’s car pulling into the driveway. Dogs sleep watchfully.

These dogs are not anxious, but they are watchful. I think we have trouble being watchful, especially without being anxious Many of us have alarm systems on our homes to help us with the fact that we are simultaneously afraid of what might sneak up on us and totally unprepared to deal with something should it come.

Can we live in the tension of feeling the anticipation without it leading to a feeling of fear or even worse a feeling of self-righteous satisfaction?

We do not know when the next Christmas, the next Easter will come, so what should we do in the meantime? By carefully unwrapping the gift of Christmas, that answer may come easily to us. Over the next few weeks, as we read and consider the scriptures and we search for meaning in the stories surrounding Christmas, we may find ways to live our lives searching for those glimpses of God’s breaking into our world, little Christmas, places where we can be a part of God’s coming to us. We need to stay awake and alert, not so that we can see signs of an impending rapture, but so that we can be able so see those things in front of our very eyes that are ways that we may be participants in the breaking of God into our world.

Advent, for me, is about more than helping us to take our focus away from the commercial side of Christmas and look instead to the Christian side, it is about refocusing ourselves to see that not only is it Christmas every day, it is Advent every day. Every day is about anticipating, preparing for, participating in, searching for God’s revelation, incarnation, God’s breaking into this world.

Advent is about realizing that when God enters into our happy little world, it may be in ways that startle us. God was born to a virgin in a stable, Jesus will come unannounced, with odd repercussion to our solar system. God may appear in the face of the homeless, in the cry of the oppressed. God may be revealed in our actions or in the inactions of others.

Christmas is less like ripping the wrapping off a gift and more like watching a gift slowly revealed before our eyes. Let’s get ready to watch and wait.

What are we waiting for?

³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

---

[1] FaithfulReader.com, online at: http://www.faithfulreader.com/authors/au-jenkins-jerry.asp, accessed 20, November 2005, internet;

[2] Luke 2:34-35, NRSV

Will Rice - Sermon #10 - Protecting God?

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Matthew 25:14-30

This parable makes me nervous and uncomfortable. For the first couple years of my ministry, when someone would ask me what it meant, I would usually say something like, “I don’t know, leave me a alone.” Back in Austin, a member of my Disciple class become so frustrated by my lack of understanding that he bought me a book on the subject hoping I would read it and explain it to him.

The book made it worse.

This is the Parable of the Talents. What is a talent anyway? Scholars argue about this but lets say that a talent is a certain sum of money worth about 6,000 denarii. We learned back in The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard that a denarius was the value of a days wages, so a talent was worth about 6,000 days wages or about 16 years of day wages if one worked 7 days a week. A nice chunk of money.

But this parable is not about money.

Talent has come into our own language in a different way. Our dictionary definition of talent is:

• A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment.
• Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality.[1]

That definition actually comes from here. Our word talent is from the Greek word ta,lanton (talanton), which is simply a unit of money.

Now I often warn people about using the dictionary to interpret the Bible. This is a good example, because this parable is not about using our innate abilities, our talents.

This is the Parable of the Talents. We get our word parable, which the dictionary defines as “A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson,”[2] from another Greek word parabolh,, (parabole). Which conveys a meaning of setting one thing along side another. We get other words from here parallel, parabola.

This parable is then not about money or our innate abilities. It is, in fact using other things, that we may understand to help us see something we don’t understand but what?

‘For it is as if a man,

Our parable starts out with “it is as if.” What is the “it”? We have picked up Jesus mid conversation. If we back up to the beginning of chapter 25.

‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.’

Jesus tries one explanation of what the kingdom of heaven is like, now another.

It, the kingdom of heaven, is as if…

14 ‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; ¹⁵to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

I want to point out that, after Jesus’ death, his followers initially thought that his return was imminent. They were basically just waiting around for Jesus to come back and change everything for good. As Matthew’s gospel is being written down in the first century, people are realizing they may be waiting a while and these words of Jesus become very important. In fact this parable comes in the line of a bunch of words about watchfulness and what Christians are called to do while we are waiting for the return of Jesus. We are still there today. We are living in the joy of knowing Christ now, but still waiting for the great day of Christ’s return, although we aren’t all that sure what that will be like.

The parable that comes right before this, about the bridesmaids and their lamps uses the image of having enough lamp oil for when the bridegroom comes, about being prepared and watchful. That was one attempt at a parable, laying one thing alongside the other with the hope that it will help us understand. Here is another.

14 ‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; ¹⁵to one he gave five talents,^* to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

The scripture uses the term slave. The word dou/loj (doulos) could as easily be translated as servant and it often is. The first servant gets right to work, takes his boss’s five talents invests them in something and doubles his money. The second servant, got a little less, but works just as hard and doubles his money. The third buries his in the ground. Now, and this is one of the reasons I love scripture so much, he technically follows the law. In Jesus time, Rabbis or teachers, read the Law of Moses, in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, etc. and acted sort of like judges and lawyers, taking those laws and devising more specific case law around them. We call that case law rabbinical law and it stated that if someone lent you money, and you buried it the ground, you wouldn’t be responsible for its loss.

This parable makes me nervous and uncomfortable. This servant has done what is right in the eyes of the law and he is getting in trouble for it.

If you read the gospels carefully, Jesus doesn’t shun the commandments and the laws that God gave in what we call the Old Testament, but he never, ever lets the law get in the way of Grace. Jesus healed on the Sabbath day. The rabbis said that it was against the Law of Moses, but Jesus put grace first. From Matthew 12:

⁹He left that place and entered their synagogue; ¹⁰a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, "Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?" so that they might accuse him. ¹¹He said to them, "Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? ¹²How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath. ¹³Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other.

For Jesus grace always comes before law.

The Church tends to be conservative. I think many are shocked to hear the way the “conservative” servant is treated. Think about it like this, if you had to go away for a while and you had, say $100,000. Before going, you give it to me and say, “will you take care of this for me?” I say I will. You call up a few weeks later, which of the following would you rather me say, “they money is fine, I invested it in a number of highly volatile stocks, but man if they pay off, you are set.” Or “It is in my safe.”

Many of us would like to reward the final servant for being prudent. He didn’t squander the master’s money, he didn’t take any unnecessary risks. If you have ever invested money in something that offers a greater return than the bank you have heard or read that non-FDIC insured deposits carry inherent risks. But remember this is not about money. This is a parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like.”

When we read this as a parable, we can see that the servant misjudged the master when he said:

²⁴Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; ²⁵so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

The servant misjudged the master when he thought that the master would punish him for taking risks with the money. What really upset the master was that his money sat idle.

I think we misjudge God when we think that God will punish us for taking risks with the Gospel. What I believe will really upset God is if the Gospel sits idle, protected by physical and mental barriers that keep it safe. I think we misjudge God when we think that we will be condemned for not defending God’s holiness. I think we misjudge God when we think that God will be upset that we opened up to the church to the wrong kind of people that God will be mad that we erred on the side of Grace. I think we misjudge God when we think God will punish us for taking risks with the church.

I truly believe that I want to stand before God and say, “God I was nearly reckless with your grace, I invested the gospel in high risk, high gain investments. I tried to share your gospel and your grace with everyone. I tried to share your love with men and women, rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight, petty thieves and corporate criminals, democrats and republicans, I took your 5 talents and made five more.”

And I hope to hear:

“Well done, good and trustworthy slave… enter into the joy of your master.”

A relative of mine, who had been away from the church for some time visited us one Sunday. When I made the invitation to communion I said, this table is open to all, and she believed me and she came forward. I saw her the other day and she said that she was sorry she hadn’t asked me first if it was ok, she just felt moved to come. I said, don’t apologize, who am I to deny you God’s grace? Another relative of mine, one from a much more conservative denomination that closes their table to non-members gave me a look that I read as “there he goes again, being reckless with God’s grace.”

If I am wrong, I am going to be really, really, wrong, and I am ok with that.

This is my hammer. It is in really good shape. If you look closely, you will see that it is still quite clean and shiny. The stickers that came on it are still there. This hammer has been well cared for.

This is my father’s hammer. My father works with wood, does all his own home repairs. He has been a mechanic, on cars and airplanes and a shop teacher. His hammer is all marked up. It is dirty. It is even a little rusty. My father uses his hammer and he isn’t at all worried about getting it dirty because it is a hammer and that is what hammers are for.

This is one of my Bibles. I received it as a gift from the Annual Conference on my commissioning as a pastor. It is really good shape. It is really well cared for. I keep it in this box I got it in. This is my other Bible. It is dirty, torn, marked up, beautiful. I am not worried at all about getting it dirty, because it is a Bible and that is what it is for.

A pastor in Virginia recently began a huge stir in the United Methodist Church by telling a certain man that he couldn’t be a member of his church because he felt that the man was guilty of a certain kind of sin that the pastor felt was somehow different than the sins the rest of us carry around. I guess he felt he was protecting God or God’s church from something. It was sort of like putting this Bible back in the box and on my shelf. It becomes fairly useless.

God doesn’t need our protection. Jesus isn’t going to come back and say, “Why were you so reckless with grace?” If I am ever so misguided as to try and deny God’s grace to anyone under the guise of protecting God, I believe I deserve to hear “You wicked and lazy slave!” Pretty harsh, but pretty clear.

---

[1] Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[2] ibid

Will Rice - Sermon #9 - Thanks for Nothing!

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Mark 10:17-27

I have chosen to preach from a very dangerous piece of scripture this week. This text places the preacher into the tension of actually claiming that Jesus wants us to sell everything we own and give it to poor, a claim that will usually lead to a few people getting up and leaving and a few others writing angry letters, or completely spiritualizing this text to the point where it seems as though Jesus would rather us give up nothing at all and remain perfectly comfortable, just the way we are. There is another option. That option is to focus in on the gift Jesus is offering this man and to us.

This is such a radical story, that we tend to want to just ignore it. When we do, we miss one of the most colorful stories in the New Testament. It is so colorful that Matthew, Mark and Luke all mention it. Notice what happens:

¹⁷As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him,

The man didn’t shout from across the street, he didn’t grab him by the arm. He didn’t e-mail him. He ran up to him and knelt before him. This man is pretty excited!

17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

The man has a good question but Jesus throws a little cold water on him.

¹⁸Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’

I should learn from Jesus. When people come up to me and say, “That was a great sermon!” I should say, “Only God is truly great.”

Neither what Jesus said nor what I should say are acts of humility, they are words of refocus. We need to always refocus on God.

I have a wonderful, loving Labrador retriever, but he is easily distracted. When he was a puppy, I had to train him to be able to keep his focus on me and listen for commands, even when there were lots of distractions. I would sit with him between my legs facing me and because he was so interested in the every little thing going on around him, I had to literally grab his head and keep it turned toward me.

But then Jesus answers the question, sort of.

¹⁹You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.”’

Not all of us know the Ten Commandments, but most of us know there are ten, and Jesus has left some out. These are the easy ones. Murder, adultery, stealing, lying, we all do pretty good on those on a daily basis. You shall not defraud, well that’s not really a commandment, but I don’t want to challenge Jesus. Honor your mother and father; we can at least pay lip service to that.

Where are the tough ones? Where is the “have no other gods before me?” That sounds easy, until we realize we spend more time thinking about money and things than God. What about keeping the Sabbath Holy, which I plan to do once I get the yard mowed? Oh, and don’t forget about coveting. Maybe we have that one licked. I mean no one here has ever looked at something someone else has and wanted it and wanted it for themselves, have they?

But Jesus just leaves those out for now. The man responds:

²⁰He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’

Alright, so he hasn’t killed anyone, stolen anything, committed adultery, or lied and he has been nice to Mom and Dad.

²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said,

This may be the most important line of the whole text. Notice that Jesus didn’t get mad at him, Jesus didn’t waggle his finger at him, Jesus didn’t get revved up for a lecture, Jesus looking at him and, loved him. So, what he is about to say comes from a place of love, therefore it is likely not a punishment, but a gift. Parental gifts.

²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

The man’s reaction is not unexpected.

²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Different translations do this differently; he was shocked, he was sad. The word in Greek conveys something that I can only compare to one of those cartoon characters with a dark cloud over its head.

The man is quite discouraged because he either doesn’t see the gift that was offered to him or he just can’t bring himself to accept it.

Thanks for nothing! And he walks away.

Last summer I spent two weeks in New Mexico and Colorado taking a course called An Adventure in Wilderness and Spirituality. The course is designed as a way to consider and develop ones spirituality in the context of a number of wilderness environments and in the context of the dynamics of a small group. In other words 9 of us got into a van and went looking for God.

In order to be allowed to take this trip, I had to agree to some very specific rules. For some of you, these rules probably seem like some form of punishment. We were told exactly what we could bring, two medium duffle bags full. There were no watches, no phones, no cd players, no computers, just clothes, not nearly enough to change underwear everyday, a journal, toiletries, and camping gear. We were told when to be dropped off at the seminary campus and when we should be picked up. We were not told exactly where we would be going. We were told that there would be no contact with our families or loved ones for the entire two weeks, unless there was an emergency and even then, contact might be difficult.

It took a couple of days to get used to living without stuff. We didn’t stay in hotels. At first we stayed on church floors and sometimes in cabins, so showers were a rarity. The small amount of clothing we were allowed to bring, along with no washers and driers meant wearing the same clothes over and over. There were no newspapers, no television news, no phone calls.

The stuff in those two duffle bags seemed like luxury items when we reached the final phase of our trip, 6 days in the backcountry. We split up the tents, stoves, food and other community gear among all our backpacks, and after adding cold weather gear, raingear and a sleeping bag, I had room for one clean t-shirt, one pair of underwear, an extra pair of socks, a toothbrush, a little flashlight, disposable camera, my journal and a tiny little towel. For six days. Packing our backpacks was a great exercise in need vs. want. Can I take an extra shirt? It doesn’t weigh much. My guide would respond, multiply the weight by the number of steps you will take up and down the mountain with it on your back.

²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

At the elevation of the Weminuche wilderness of Colorado, with the steep, slippery trails that wind through the woods up and down the sides of mountains and through streams you realize what a gift it is to have less.

All that stuff in my backpack seemed like luxury when we reached the last two days of our time in the wilderness. The stove and the tent got left behind and I got to take the clothes I was wearing, my journal and flashlight, my sleeping bag, a Ziploc bag full of food and a plastic sheet and spend two nights by myself, in the woods. As I was working on this message, I read through the journal I had with me in the wilderness. It is amazing what you dwell on when you are living all alone under a plastic sheet in the mountains of Colorado. Is it going to rain? I am cold. When will the sun come up? Is that thunder? What time is it? What was that noise? I am cold.

What is more interesting is that, in the mere fact that I had an adequate caloric intake in that Ziploc bag, in other words, because I had enough to eat and because I was able to fashion my plastic sheet in such a way as when it rained, I didn’t get wet, I was still among the wealthy. At least, I am not among those one billion people in the world that are considered to be in extreme poverty, meaning that they simply don’t have enough income to provide the basic necessities of life, enough calories to eat, a dry place to sleep.

But for a middle-class resident of the United States of America, I had pretty much nothing. Here is what is interesting. Being stripped of everything I have, being alone, in God’s creation, with almost nothing, none of the comforts I normally surround myself with, none of the safety I claim that I have around me, with no distractions, being alone with nothing to separate me from God, that was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. An abundant blessing.

Thanks for nothing.

When you strip life down to its bare essentials you realize how all those things we surround ourselves with weigh us down, distract us from the truly important, separate us from God.

I mentioned earlier that Jesus only hits on the easy commandments in today’s passage. What Jesus was showing the man was how he was keeping the first ones, but the other ones are all tied up in stuff. “Have no other gods before me.” Stripped of all of my possessions that I thought kept me safe and made me whole, I realized how much I depended on those things that are not on God, elevating my things to status of God and lowering God to something less. “Remember the Sabbath!” Alone in the woods you have time to think about how much time, effort and energy you spend in trying to maintain and keep all the things you have leaving no time for rest! You shall not covet. In the woods with nothing, it is possible to see that God surrounds us with such wonder, such goodness, that we don’t need to look at what others have and think that if we could only have those things we would be ok, we would realize that we have what we need and we are already o.k.

As my two nights alone in the woods alone were over, I rejoined the group and started putting things back in my pack. In comparison to being alone with nothing, the tent and stove and fuel in my pack felt comfortable, but heavy. They weighed down every step on the miles back to the trailhead. The weight of my pack made me stumble on the steep decline.

²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’

Every step down off the mountain carried the weight of my own being plus the things I thought I needed to be safe and well and whole. Back on the mountain, under my two giant trees, on the soft ground, I left behind the weightless understanding of only needing God.

Off the trail, back in civilization, there were hot showers and lights and cars and endless distractions. More comfort, but more weight. Travel went from foot travel to van travel, with all of our stuff packed in the back. Back to home where there was television and sermons to write and a million e-mails to return. There were cars to take care of, a house to worry about, bills to pay, things to attend to, so much stuff. There were enough things to keep me well burdened, comfortable and distracted, enough to make it quite difficult to think about things of God. It was nearly overwhelming.

We often talk about giving as sacrifice, but I have realized that giving up isn’t a burden, it is a release, a gift from God

²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

Jesus wasn’t trying to punish the man. He was trying to heal him.

This stewardship campaign marks the first one that I am doing as a full-time pastor who is completely done with seminary. While I still have some school debt, I am no longer paying for school or books, I have a full-time salary, and the church helps me with a house. I no longer have any excuse not to make a commitment and follow through. This year, Alisha and I will make a significant step-up toward tithing. We won’t be quite at ten percent, but I hope to stand up here next year and say that we are.

I will say this, at the level I am committed to give this year, I will decidedly have to go without some things I want. My 1996 Chevrolet will have to hold out a bit longer. I may go without the latest electronic gadget, but listen closely, I don’t see that as a sacrifice, I see it has a gift, I see it as God grabbing my head and refocusing me toward God, I see it as a gift from God, for whatever it is I give up will be something that I never really needed and would ultimately keep me from what I do need which is God. Thanks for nothing!

Let me say one last thing. I give because I am trying to accept the gift that God is trying to give me. God is trying to unburden me, God is drawing me nearer. What is amazing about God is what God can then do to transform what we give. Money that would have created more stuff to burden my existence becomes the stuff that can change the world. I am a walking talking example.

I spent 27 years with a giant God-sized hole in my life. That hole would still be there if there hadn't been a church sign to guide me to a place where I could hear about God. My life would still lack meaning if there hadn’t been a trained and experienced pastor there to talk to me about God in terms I could understand. I would have remained floundering and trying to buy happiness if there hadn’t been a Disciple Bible Study where I could deepen my faith.

God transformed generous giving into a complete change of life for me and I am not the only one. The church is in the life changing business and there are a lot of lives that still need change. When I think of what God can do with what give to God, I am so glad to give.

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Will Rice - Sermon #8 - Asleep at the Wheel

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Mark 4:35-41

It is not like I was the only person who life was disrupted this week, but I must admit, I had a different sermon set for today. The last two times I preached, my sermons were driven by the events of the day. Two weeks ago, it was the anniversary of 9-11, the week before that, we were reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. So, this week, I set out to preach the way I like to preach. I selected the text, read it, studied it, thought about it, and then let the scriptures, with the help of the Holy Spirit begin to form a message within me. The message was quite interesting. It was a reflection on how Jesus refuses to answer bad questions. I was to talk about how instead of getting dragged into no-win ideological debates, we can tell stories like Jesus did.

But, as the week progressed, I realized that the message, while a decent message might be a little too abstract. Part of what I try to do when I preach is to take the scriptures and find a way for us all to see their relevance for our lives today, to try and put them in our context. Well a very large part of the context of our lives this week was a giant hurricane bearing down on us.

Like a TIVO slow-motion-replay of a terrible accident
is the mention of the name Rita,
layering dread upon souls
already drenched with misery;[1]

Imagine if once the disciples had actually awoken Jesus in this week’s text, instead of calming the waves, he had given the disciples an hour-long lecture on the finer points of salvation.

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

If it wasn’t so panic inspiring all by itself, the hurricane would be a perfect metaphor for chaos forcing its way into the order of our lives. It is not by coincidence that the Bible, with its words about the very beginning of everything begins with something like a hurricane.

Genesis 1 ¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

But onto today’s text.

³⁵On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."

Sometimes I don’t know if the disciples were just incredibly naïve or if they were just amazingly obedient. If you have never read Mark’s gospel, pick it up when you get home to see what it is that Jesus is getting these guys into, but let leave it with, the “other side” is not a place where nice young Jewish fishermen should be going. Besides that, as a person who grew up on a large shallow lake, Lake Erie, I wouldn’t be very likely to take an evening trip on the Sea of Galilee. Have you ever been out in a big lake or in the gulf on a little boat without lights at night? But, off they go.

³⁶And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. ³⁷A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

Now for those of you who went out of town for the last couple of days, I don’t know what you were doing. For the rest of you, I do know what you were doing. You were sitting in front of the TV watching CNN or The Weather Channel. Some of us know new terms like eyewall replacement cycle, others can decipher projected path computer models that use different storm path algorithms.

So, to try and keep your attention, I know many of you are tired from putting up, and then taking back down the plywood over your windows, I will try to explain what is going on in more meteorological terms.

The Sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level. The hills around the inland lake reach to about 1,500 feet above, giving you about 2000 foot difference between the lake and the tops of the hills. With that kind of elevation shift, there are often huge differences in temperatures, cool dry air up top, warm, moist air below. When those start colliding, wind and storms come up. The Sea of Galilee is a shallow lake about 150 to 200 feet deep, very similar to Lake Erie where I grew up. In deep water, like in the ocean, the energy of the wind is absorbed into large, swelling waves. In shallow water, the wind whips up the water into sharp, violent waves, not very good for little boats with disciples in them.

³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion;

There is always that one guy or girl. You know the one, you are on an airplane, being rocked by turbulence, you are pretty sure you are going to die, or at least lose that crummy airline lunch you had, and you realize the person next to you is asleep, oblivious to the danger around them, or perhaps fully aware of it and also aware of the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the world they can do about it.

³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" What a great line. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Sometimes we say it like, “God, do you not care that we are perishing?” “Hello God? Are you awake? Are you not interested in the fact that we are, in fact, in serious trouble down here?”

I mean who hasn’t, at least for a fleeting moment, entertained the idea that God, for one reason or another is just not paying attention has just fallen asleep at the wheel! I imagine for some, stranded on their rooftops after Katrina, their first thought was not about the socio-political systems that had led to a personal, local, state, or federal failure to provide the proper level of aid at the appropriate time. No, I imagine the first thought was, “God, are you gonna help me out here?”

I would imagine for someone inside that Superdome, in the dark, with not much to eat or drink, the smell of waste everywhere, and at total lack of certainty about one’s personal safety, I bet there were lots of questions of who was coming to help, but I bet there were lots of those questions directed up at God.

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

We talk a lot about New Orleans, but what about some of the other towns in Mississippi and Alabama where there is just nothing left. Imagine if you were lucky enough to get out and returned home to nothing. As you pull up to your lot, you only see where your house used to be and small piles of your belongings or perhaps your neighbor’s belongings scattered around your yard. Anything of value left has been picked over by looters. Photographs, keepsakes, memories, all washed away.

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

The devastating effects of storms are the most natural image for this passage, but there are other times when this question comes to mind. In hospital rooms, at clinics, sitting at home after receiving a life-changing phone call, standing by the grave of one who should have had more time and less suffering.

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Wake up! Can you blame the disciples for their impatience? They were perishing in a very real way. Yes the waves can be looked at metaphorically, but they were really about to drown and the one who could save them was asleep!

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Jesus wakes up and rebukes the wind. I can’t say that I have ever rebuked anything. Rebuke, that is the funny word we hear in the very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus was back in Capernaum teaching at the synagogue when a man with an unclean spirit came in. An unclean spirit talked a little trash to Jesus and…

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!"[2]

It is this word: rebuke! evpitima,w (epistimawo) – which means strictly to appraise or assess a penalty, but less formally as in this case to warn, admonish or threaten. Jesus rebuked the spirit and now, he is rebuking the wind.

and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

Jesus, the man who somehow thinks it is ok to talk to the sea says to things to it:

"Peace! Be still!"

They are both imperatives – commands!

You calm down!

You be still!

The word he uses for be still! comes from the same word we see back in the first chapter:

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent (fimw,qhti), and come out of him!"[3]

The same thing Jesus has done to the unclean spirit he has done to the waves. He has rebuked them both and told them both to shut up!

And they listen!

³⁹He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

And then he has a word for the disciples:

⁴⁰He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"

I’m sorry, but if you put me in a rickety boat out on the sea of Galilee at night in the midst of a sudden violent storm, I would be afraid to! Wouldn’t you? But Jesus suggests that perhaps they are missing something. That despite all that they have witnessed so far while following Jesus, they have not yet figured out who they are with. Could this be the same one that spoke to the water once before

¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. ³Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.[4]

The one who with a word separated the chaos and created order. The one who spoke and there was light. And now the one who with an order can still the sea, can bring stillness, peace from chaos.

⁴¹And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Filled with great awe might be an understatement, we could also translate it as “they were filled with a great fear.” I don’t mean to say they were afraid, like when the waves were pounding, but they were filled with reverence, awe, the good kind of fear you should have for someone who just told the sea to be quiet and it listened.

But what about us? There were people in those hurricanes who cried out, “Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing?” And the wind wasn’t rebuked, it didn’t become still. It just kept blowing. What about us? What about those of us who are swamped, pounded by waves, about to go under. “Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing?”

It is an overused platitude to say, don’t worry, Jesus will rebuke the wind of your life if you just have faith. I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that is always true. Sometimes the wind and water really overcomes us. If you don’t believe me, take a trip to Haiti where over 1000 people died last year in tropical storm Jeanne. Ask those who have lost loved ones in Katrina, those who lost elderly parents on a bus trying to escape Rita. Ask any parent whose child hasn’t come home from Iraq or Afghanistan.

This scripture doesn’t tell us that Jesus will rebuke the wind of your life, but it does tell us who Jesus is. Jesus is the one, who just like in the beginning brings order from chaos and we continue to create plenty of chaos. God created and God continues to create. The creation is an ordering of the chaos and we can choose to be faithful and follow Jesus or we can just scream out in fear.

Let me read to you from the journal of John Wesley, the man who began the movement that led to the creation of what we now call the United Methodist Church. He writes this during his journey aboard ship from England to the new colonies in what we now call America.

Sunday, November 25, 1735.—At noon our third storm began. At four it was more violent than before. At seven I went to the Germans. I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behavior.

In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang. I asked one of them afterward, “Were you not afraid?” He answered, “I thank God, no.” I asked, “But were not your women and children afraid?” He replied, mildly, “No; our women and children are not afraid to die.”[5]

Wesley latched on to the faith of these German Moravians. They were not afraid. Not because they expected Jesus to wake up and calm the storm, in fact they were quite prepared for the fact that the storm might kill them. They were calm because they had somehow embraced the greater creative goodness of God. The greater creative goodness of the God who calls order out of chaos, the God who is still creating, the ever present God of creation who became and remains very real to us in Jesus Christ.

In the midst of storms at sea or on land, storms that bring rain and wind or storms that bring inner turmoil in pain, it is quite natural and probably a good thing that we cry out to God. Hello! Can’t you see that we are perishing! It is perfectly natural to hope that God will come and rebuke the storm and bring peace to the sea.

But, what is more important is to begin to have faith in the overall goodness of the creation. It is more important to embrace the creative power of God and follow the one who can still the sea with just a word. All of us will some day perish. Many of us will face storms that we cannot beat. What will make the difference is whether we can hold fast to the faith that no matter what our ultimate physical outcome, we will always be held tightly in the loving embrace of our creator.

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[1] Safiyah Fosua is the Director of Invitational Preaching Ministries at the General Board of Discipleship, Nashville, Tennessee. "Waiting for Rita — A Prayer" Copyright © 2005 The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church, PO Box 340003, Nashville TN 37203-0003. Worship website: www.umcworship.org.

[2] Mark 1:25

[3] Mark 1:25

[4] Genesis 1

[5] John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1951) 17-18