12.23.09 Sermon: “That’s the power of God?”

Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Luke 2:1-20

Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap the tallest buildings in a single bound! Through sheer power he brings down the corrupt and rescues those in danger! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Superman! Since Superman made his first debut in comics in 1938, he has become a cultural icon of superpower. He has been the subject of movies, of TV shows, video games, and of countless comics. He is an idealized depiction of superhuman powers, which probably most of us have secret fantasies about possessing. As individuals, this is the sort of power we probably wish we could have.

And then there are those other images of power in our society: the patriarch or matriarch of a large family, the wealthy CEO, the movie and sports stars who have people at the beck and call, the strength of our government and the military force of our country. For our culture, power indicates a sense of control and authority over others, to have a certain amount of clout. To have this kind of power can be pretty enticing, and in fact, isn’t this what the American dream is all about? Raising ourselves up by our bootstraps through the ranks of society so we can inch our way towards the top. This is power by the world’s definition. This is just the sort of power that we all seek: the power of security, the power of having a place in the world, the power of having some sort of control over our own lives, and we all go after it to varying degrees. Seeking this kind of power isn’t always a bad thing.

We often talk about the mighty acts and the power of God. The Old Testament is filled with great events in which God intervenes. A few of the biggies: the flood, the Exodus from Egypt, the conquering of the Promised Land. Those are all pretty major things, with what I think could be considered pretty flashy shows of power. But the greatest show of God’s power is in the gift of his Son Jesus Christ. Yet, when we look at the person of Jesus Christ, in whom the full power of God dwelt, we see something very different from the world’s definition of power, or even the way God often worked in the Old Testament. In fact, what we see at Christmas is the complete weakness and the vulnerability of an infant. What we see at Christmas is God emptying God’s self out to become a human being, and paradoxically, it is in that emptying out that we find the power of God.

The continually surprising thing about God is that God always seems to act in a way that is the opposite of what we are expecting, in ways that seem counter-intuitive to us. As Israel waited for the Messiah, many were expecting a political revolutionary, a strong military leader who could defeat the greater forces of empire that were marginalizing them. They were looking for someone with worldly strength. And why shouldn’t they? What they thought they needed was someone who could liberate them from their current political, economic, and social circumstances. As they watched and waited, looking for a sign that this Messiah had come to establish a new order, they missed it because they were looking for the wrong thing. How could it possibly occur to them that God’s power would be manifested in a baby born to a couple of nobodies in a small town in a smelly barnyard?

This is the nature of God’s power in Jesus Christ: to work in the most unexpected of ways. Tonight, we are celebrating Christmas (even if it is a early) and at Christmas, we look to the incarnation: to God coming in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the most popular of Christmas decorations is the nativity scene, often depicting a serene image of Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus, surrounded by animals and the three wise men. Usually we look at it and think, oh, that is nice. But if we stop to think about what that scene is representing, the word “nice” doesn’t really cut it.

In this scene, we see the first picture of the incarnation. Jesus as a baby, completely dependent upon his parents’ care. Jesus as a baby, who can’t even hold his own head up, who can’t even feed himself. Jesus as a baby. God making himself as one who becomes completely dependent upon human beings to care for him. That is true vulnerability. That the God of the universe should condescend in that way is mind-boggling.

Oh well, we can say, he wasn’t a baby forever. He grew up to be a self-sufficient man. He performed miracles that exhibited God’s power. These things are true. All of his miracles acted as a testimony to his identity so that the world might understand who he was. But it was not in these miracles that the fullness of God’s power dwelt. Instead, it was in his vulnerability as he accepted his fate at the hands of the world’s violence on the cross. As the famous Christ hymn of Philippians 2 says, “he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.” God, in Christ, became human in every way. He not only lived as one of us, but died as one of us. This is the miracle of the incarnation. God became one of us, with all of our weaknesses, frailties and temptations. And he did not become a powerful human being, as defined by the world. God didn’t come as an earthly prince seated at the top of worldly political structures. Instead, he was born in a barnyard in tiny Nazareth, to an unmarried teenage mother, as part of largely marginalized people group, on the edges of the Roman Empire. In the eyes of the world, he was a complete nobody. Even during his own lifetime, he only traveled a small distance, and a limited number of people had even heard of him. He didn’t come, taking the world by storm. But he did come.

The power of God is not a power that takes control, or that overthrows by force. The power of God is the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, putting himself at he mercy of the world. It is the uttering of the words, “not my will, but your will be done.” At the hands of the violence and the power-grabbing of the world, Jesus did not fight back against it, but instead allowed it to overtake him. Is that the power of God? How can it be? On the cross the world’s power met God’s power. And the world appeared to win. But we know that it did not. We can focus on the resurrection, and say that ultimately that reflects God’s true power, to conquer death. And it does. But we cannot ignore or quickly pass by the incarnation of Christ to get to the resurrection. Who Christ was on earth, how he lived and died reveals to us the nature of God: who God is, what God does, and above all, the greatest defining characteristic we can know about God. That God is most fully revealed as a self-giving love.

As we celebrate the Incarnation this Christmas season, what we are really celebrating is that God his given himself to us fully in the person of Jesus Christ. As the theologian Karl Rahner said of the incarnation, “There is no longer any abyss between God and the world.” In becoming a human being, God entered into the world to be with us in a new way forever, and God revealed his own power which ultimately contrasts with the power of the world.

We look at people like Superman, with his extraordinary strength and speed, wishing for superpowers like him. And then we look at Christ, who offered the greatest superpower of all: that of self-giving love. Superman may save a few people, but Jesus Christ has come to save the world through the most unlikely of means. He gives himself. He gives himself not only through his death on the cross, but also through his continual presence with us. As one who knows what it means to be human in every way, he understands us, he empathizes with us. In the person of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit to remain with us forever, God offers himself to us over and over again, never leaving us or forsaking us, and tonight, as we share the Holy meal at the Communion table, Christ again gives himself to us in a unique way. When we share in communion, in the gifts of the bread and the cup, Christ is present in them. We don’t simply remember what God has done for us in the past, it is not just a memorial. Instead, as we receive from the bread and cup, Christ is with us in that act, nourishing us, renewing us, simply being with us, feeding us spiritually with his own body and his own blood. In this communal act of worship, we come to the table to meet the living Christ, who gives himself so freely to us, and who gives us the bread and the cup so that we might be able to touch him, taste him, to recognize his presence in a more tangible way. The celebration of communion is a gift that God gives to us that not only reminds us that once Jesus Christ walked the earth with us, but that he is here with us now, giving himself to us.

As we approach the communion table tonight, may we recognize God’s gift in Jesus Christ, who is with us. It is almost Christmas, where we mark the incarnation, of God entering into the world in a new way. As we celebrate the gift of Christ’s presence with us, may we also be transformed into people more like Christ as we learn what it means to both receive and offer his self-giving love. For that is the power of God.

12.13.09 Sermon: “Costly Grace”

Texts: Zeph 3:14-20, Isa 12:2-6, Luke 3:7-18

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy or repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Wow. Those are harsh opening words from John the Baptist. But surely they are only directed to that crowd of people by the Jordan river. Surely we escape those words of judgment! After all, we, as Christians, experience the grace of God through Jesus Christ. If we are clothed in his righteousness, we can happily ignore that pronouncement of judgment, right? Right?

John commands us: bear fruits worthy or repentance! In other words, repentance cannot be empty words. If repentance is words alone, that is no repentance at all. For John, repentance involves a change in lifestyle; it reflects a turn away from ourselves towards God and towards others. Genuine repentance bears fruit. It bears evidence that we are in the process of being transformed.

This time of year, the TV schedule is filled with Christmas movies, and one of those movies was adapted from one of my favorite Christmas books growing up: How the Grinch stole Christmas. We all know the story. The Grinch, with his heart three times too small resents Christmas being celebrated by the Whos down in Whoville and he does everything in his power to prevent Christmas from happening. He steals Christmas trees and presents and everything he can think of. His plan is succeeding, or so he thinks! But then his plan fails. On Christmas morning, he hears songs of joy and thanksgiving rising out of Whoville. He realizes that he was in the wrong, and hearing these songs begins to change him. He sleds back down the hill to Whoville with everything that he has stolen, with a changed heart, one that is learning what joy is. The Grinch then shares in the Christmas celebrations, with a new and generous heart. This change reflects his repentance. He has changed!

For John, repentance is always a conversion experience. It is more than simply saying “I’m sorry” and then going back to life as normal, as if nothing has changed. God offers us grace freely, grace that can transform us if we let it, but how can we let it transform us if we are not willing to allow ourselves to be changed?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers two concepts of grace that are related to John’s call to repentance: that of cheap grace and that of costly grace. He says, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow upon ourselves.” In essence, John is accusing the crowds of adhering to cheap grace by claiming Abraham as their ancestor and assuming that’s all they need.

On the other hand, costly grace is much more in line with what John is talking about in today’s gospel lesson. “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has…. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” John asks us to live a lifestyle that reflects an understanding of costly grace. If we do not, then in reality we are missing the good news that God has offered to the world!

Today’s reading from the prophet Zephaniah offers us an image of what the kingdom of God in its fulfillment will look like. God’s kingdom is one where the lame are healed, the oppressors are thrown down, the outcast are brought into the center of society. It points to a new social reality, and a new relationship with the one who creates and sustains the world.

For John, true repentance leads one to consider what it means to live as God’s hands and feet in the world. John’s call to repentance is not simply a pronouncement of judgment. It is directly linked to his command to do justice and show compassion to the neighbor. It is to become aware of the needs around us, to begin to see things more in line with the way God sees things. John challenges us to live lives without greed or the desire to accumulate material possessions for ourselves, but rather to give freely out of our abundance. We, in response to God’s mercy, are called to turn our eyes away from ourselves towards the world. And not just towards the spiritual needs of the world, but also those social needs, those physical needs. Many churches fall into the pitfall of focusing solely on the spiritual needs of people in the surrounding community that they neglect physical needs or fail to see them as related.

Two summers ago, Darick and I participated in a weekly food pantry run by several churches in the community of Shallotte, NC. Every Saturday, people would come seeking groceries for themselves and their families. Because the role of handing out groceries was already filled, both Darick and I took on a more pastoral role in the ministry, assisting in or leading the optional worship service for the people of the food pantry, and spending time talking and praying with people while they waited for their food. This was the first time I really participated in a ministry that sought to nurture both the souls and the bodies of people. To me, this ministry was an example of what it means to begin to consider that the good news of Jesus Christ extends beyond the spiritual realm.

So as we have seen so far in John’s preaching, he has emphasized a call to both judgment and justice. But the third thing he emphasizes is his confession of Jesus as the Messiah. At first, this third emphasis may not seem directly related to the first two, but it is. Both judgment and justice are directly connected to his confession of faith. In fact, if we look ahead to Luke 7 when John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus to ask if he is the awaited Messiah, Jesus gives them this message: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” This message indicates a direct correlation between God’s radical action intervening in the physical and social realities of the world and a confession of faith in the Messiah. To confess Jesus as Savior not only means to enter into a personal relationship with him, it also means we begin to align ourselves with how God both views and acts in the world. To confess Jesus as Savior means that we are no longer our own gods, seeking to serve only ourselves, but that Jesus is Lord and we now seek to serve his interests: and his interests are people—whole people.

In reality, our whole lives should reflect a spirit of repentance, a continual turning away from the self towards God and others. Not only does this build up our own relationship with God, but it also leads us to be faithful witnesses to the transformative power of God’s grace. This is our salvation. Not only that we have the promise of life with God in the hereafter, but that we also have the promise of becoming new people, here and now, though this road can at times be difficult and demand sacrifice on our own part. This is the life of costly grace.

We have been talking a lot about renewal and revival in Dunbar lately, and we have been praying for this transformation. How do we even begin to reach our community, with so many unchurched? At times it seems like a monumental task, even when we know that God can do all things. We know that God can and will work. But what can we do? What role are we to play in God’s plan for Dunbar? We must begin by recognizing that renewal and revival in Dunbar is about more than just people’s souls. It is about proclaiming the kingdom of God, which is not just spiritual in dimension. Today’s Scripture lessons remind us that God’s kingdom also points to a new social reality: a place in which things are flipped on their heads: the poor will be brought out of poverty, the lame will walk, and the outcast will no longer be on the margins. In God’s kingdom, it is not just souls that matter. It is people’s lives, here and now. As a church, we do share an abundance. Even in these more difficult economic circumstances, we are a community that is blessed by much, surrounded by a greater community where there are needs that aren’t being met. The road to renewal and revival in Dunbar will be fueled if we are a congregation who understands and seeks out a lifestyle that reflects costly grace. Costly grace means stepping outside of what is comfortable. It means going out beyond these church walls, and doing more than just finding a way in conversation to invite people to church.

As a congregation, we must undertake a collective life of costly grace. This begins with recognizing our own need for grace, and those sins that we fall into as the Body of Christ. What will it mean for us to bear fruits worthy of repentance? How might the Holy Spirit be guiding us to show compassion and offer justice in Dunbar? True evangelism comes through faithful witness to Jesus Christ. As we have heard in today’s Scripture, John’s witness came through three things: judgment, justice, and confession of faith. May we allow this pronouncement of judgment guide us to self-examination and repentance as we continue to look towards what role we are to play in a renewal and revival of our community.