Sermon Video: "In the beginning was the Word" - John 1:1-5

The story of Christmas, with all its wondrous details of angels, shepherds, magi, and a manger is a compilation from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  The Gospel of Mark begins its narrative of the life of Jesus with the adult John the Baptist’s call to the people of Israel to repent, John’s Gospel, like Mark’s, begins its narrative with John the Baptist, but it does include a prologue that sheds some powerful light upon the Christmas story even without mentioning any of the parts of the story that children love to hear.  Luke begins his story with the coming of Gabriel to Zechariah to foretell the birth of John the Baptist, Matthew with the dream of Joseph where the angel tells him that Mary’s pregnancy is not a sinful mistake but a divine intervention.  John’s prologue backs up much further than either of these accounts of Jesus by starting, “In the beginning”.  The one who will become incarnate at Bethlehem has a history that predates all of creation and even time itself.  Before anything that now is, except for God, had come to be, the Word of God already was in existence.  That Word, which could also be translated as: thought, expression, idea, or speech, was both with God “in the beginning” and that Word was God from the beginning.  With his opening statement, John’s Gospel makes an incredible and amazing claim for Jesus: he was, and is God. 

                This same claim concerning Jesus will be made throughout John’s Gospel, most famously with the “I AM” statements, yet here in the prologue John has already removed all doubt from those who would question his intention.  If John is taken at face value, Jesus must be considered as fully God, anything less is to ignore the Gospel’s claims.  Along with existing before all else, the Word also had a necessary role in the creation of everything that exists, so much so that John assures us that nothing exists that he didn’t have a part in creating. 

                The next thing that John shares concerning the Word of God pertains to life itself.  It is clear that human life is qualitatively superior to all other life as we know it, we alone ask ourselves about where life came from, what its purpose is, and what happens to us after we die.  Such questions have been asked by our ancestors throughout history, but the light had only shined dimly through natural revelation (looking at the world around us) and those who had a connection with God but were themselves imperfect vessels.  All of that changed with the coming of the Word, who was both originator of the life of mankind, as well as a beacon of light shining in the darkness and pointing us toward the Father.  The darkness, for its part, has been entirely unable to understand/overcome the coming of the light of Christ, it cannot understand how humility, service, and self-sacrifice are God’s ultimate tools of victory because hate does not comprehend love.

                John has already made definitive claims about who Jesus, as the Word of God, was and is, as John’s prologue continues, in vs. 10-14, the purpose of his coming among us in the flesh will be made clear.

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What if we fail to act?

The parable of the talents, located in Matthew 25:14-30, and Luke 19:12-27, has been interpreted in a variety of ways, some taking the talent literally and focusing on our use of money, others using the coincidence in English to talk about talents as our skills and abilities, still others focusing on our time or energy.  For the most part, these various interpretations focus upon the obligations and responsibilities of the followers of Jesus Christ as individuals.  The local church, and the Church in a community, as well as the Church as a whole, likewise has a responsibility to utilize its talents, whether that be money, abilities, facilities, or whatever other resources, for the kingdom of God.
What happens when a single church, or a whole community of Churches, instead sits on the sidelines and doesn't do much with what they have been given?  The same response that Jesus explained in the parable for individuals applies to the collective body of Christ as well.  If we fail to act, if we fail to be a part of the solution for peace, justice, dignity, and the value of human life, we will have failed in an integral part of our task as the Church of Jesus Christ.  Our primary focus is, and must always be, the reconciliation of the lost to Jesus through faith in his death and resurrection, but that cannot be the only thing we care about as a church nor the only thing we devote ourselves to working toward.  The passage that immediately follows the parable in Matthew contains Jesus' encouragement and warning that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."  There is fear in some evangelical circles of mixing the proclamation of the Gospel with social causes, lest concerns for poverty or social justice overwhelm the spread of the Good News, but there is an equal danger of sterilizing the proclamation of the Gospel and robbing it of its power to transform not only individuals, but communities and society too, if we remove Jesus' often repeated concern for the needs of the "least of these" from our efforts.
What will it cost us to properly proclaim the Gospel?  We will certainly have to invest our time, money, labor, and love in the lives of other people through efforts such as: food and clothing pantries, disaster relief, utilities/housing assistance, and whichever other ways we can strive to help those in need.
There is one other area that we will have to stretch in order to fulfill our calling as the Church of Jesus Christ:  We're going to have to work together.  Individual churches will not be enough, the problems are too big, we need the whole power of ALL of the Church, not just those portions of it with which we feel comfortable, not just those portions of it that look, feel, and sound like us.  The calling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ demands more from us than that which we are comfortable giving, if we truly hope to multiply our talents and hear one day, "Well done, good and faithful servant", we've got to get serious as local churches about working together.

Sermon Video: "Give thanks to the LORD" - Psalm 107

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  A familiar refrain from Psalm 107 that is echoed throughout Scripture.  In this psalm, there is a clear pattern that repeats itself of ABCD, ABCD, ABCD, and ABCD.  For each time through, the “A” is an example of on type of trouble that people endure in life, “B” is the universally appropriate response, “they cried out to the LORD in their trouble”, along with God’s ever-merciful response, “and he delivered them from their distress”. “C” is the description of how God saves, and “D” is the necessary response of thanksgiving from humanity, “Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men”.  Thus the “B” and “D” are like the chorus of a hymn, repeated each time through to show that no matter what the problem is, where it came from or what caused it, the proper response is still to cry out to the LORD who will hear and help, and then to follow that deliverance up with thanks given back to God.  The purpose of the psalmists words is to show us that we have only one place to turn in times of trouble, for only God can save and he is willing to do so, and to teach us that we owe God our gratitude for all that he has done for us.  In much the same way as the venerable hymns of Luther, Wesley, Crosby, and our other favorites, not only is the psalm meant to be pleasing with its sound when sung, but thought provoking to our minds as we consider its words.  The last verse sums it up, “Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the LORD.”

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Sermon Video: The Consequences of Forsaking the LORD - 2 Chronicles 24:17-25

The second half of the life of King Joash of Judah raises difficult to answer questions.  In the first half of chapter 24 of 2 Chronicles, Joash was the driving force behind the restoration of the temple of the LORD, but after the death of his mentor and father-figure, the priest Jehoida, everything begins to fall apart.  After listening to bad advice from flatterers, Joash abandons the temple of the LORD that he had so recently been dedicated to and instead embraces idol worship.  For Joash, and the people of Judah, this isn’t simply a choice they’re making to worship as they see fit, it is a betrayal of the covenantal promises made by God and Abraham, expanded upon by God and Moses, and recommitted to under Jehoida’s leadership only a few years previously.  That covenant is very specific in its requirements for complete fidelity on the part of the people of God, any flirtation with other gods is considered to be a form of adultery, the false god being akin to a harlot. \

God doesn’t take such betrayal lightly, and in this case he responds by sending prophets, who are ignored, and then ups the ante by calling upon Zechariah, the grandson of Jehoida, to deliver a message of judgment against Joash and the people.  Instead of repenting following Zechariah’s words, the people conspire, with the consent of the king, to murder Zechariah by stoning him to death within the courtyard of the temple.  This monumental act of ingratitude by Joash toward the kin of Jehoida who had risked his life to protect Joash as a child and restore him to the throne of David, is hard to fathom.  What could have gone so wrong in Joash’s mind that he fell so far from grace?

In the end, Joash dies at the hands of his own household officials and is refused burial in the tombs of the kings of Judah alongside David, even though Jehoida had been given that honor.  The choices of Joash to worship false gods had consequences, his refusal to repent compounded by his murder of God’s messenger, brought disaster on himself and his people.  He could have followed David’s example of repentance, even after Zechariah’s words, but he chose to follow the path of destruction to the bitter end.  Don’t let the same pattern of sin and judgment continue in your life, or the life of those you love, sin will always have consequences, it is inevitable, but while life lasts, falling upon our knees in repentance before the mercy of God is always an option.

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Who is responsible for the poor?

Whose responsibility is it to help the poor, the government or the Church?  Prior to the Industrial Revolution the answer was the Church by default, nobody else had the resources to help much, even if the various kings or emperors had wanted to.  After Constantine, the Church had grown in influence, wealth, and power, eventually receiving tithes in the forms of taxes and taking on the responsibility to help the destitute.  After the French Revolution, that arrangement began to change, modern constitutional governments were more efficient and the horrors of Dickensian working conditions in overcrowded cities cried out for universal protections against misfortune.  By the time of the New Deal and Great Society, the Church had taken on a much smaller role in poverty relief, relegated to running the occasional shelter or food pantry, organizing disaster relief, perhaps helping out with an electrical bill or overdue rent. 

                But what if the answer to the question of helping fight poverty wasn’t either the government or the Church, but instead the government working in cooperation with the Church?  What if government could tap into the willingness of faith inspired volunteers to help their fellow man, and the churches could tap into the resources of government for help with financing and administering that volunteer spirit?  It would take a degree of trust from both parties.  The government would have to understand that fighting poverty requires a spiritual element alongside all the others in order to find long-term success, and the churches would have to understand that their call to make disciples is best fulfilled when real help in the name of Jesus Christ is included.

                This isn’t just a hypothetical, it has been tried with success in a variety of places and circumstances, recently here in Western Pennsylvania where the Human Services Department of Venango County has partnered with dozens of churches to work together to help the most vulnerable living amongst us.  The resulting leap of faith created Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County, a non-denominational para-church organization which in two years has helped nearly 300 clients by harnessing over 6,000 hours of volunteer labor and multiplying a local government grant, as well as charitable grants and donations from churches and individuals, by at least four-fold.  The answer to poverty isn’t the Church OR the government, the answer begins with trust and cooperation from both of them.