Author: harryjheintz

[I had the privilege and honor of serving at the funeral of Flora Alexia Chin at Gates Presbyterian Church on Saturday, September 28.]

 

I am currently on pastoral emergency call for a local church whose pastor moved almost two months ago. Last week I was called to serve a family for a funeral. I met with a handful of family members two days before the service—and I knew this was going to be a special honor for me. Flora died at age 89. She was born in Jamaica and came to the United States as an adult with her husband, settling in Rochester. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, along with many nieces and nephews, form a large family. While those generations are American born, their Jamaican cultural roots are vital. We spent an hour planning the service as they graciously told me about their beloved mother, grandmother, and aunt (Auntie Flo).

 

A first challenge dealt with whether the casket could be open for the service, which was their desire. The church has a policy that caskets be closed for funerals. I agree with that policy, but I saw that there was a meeting of two cultures, both good and honorable. I suggested that the casket be open during a visitation hour before the service and then closed for the service. The church leaders and family agreed.

 

While I do not prefer the custom of open caskets for public viewing, as I sat silently in a pew, occasionally walking around to greet people during the visitation hour, I was moved by the tenderness and love evident as people quietly approached the coffin and paid their respects. There were tears and some audible sobs—all communicating the affection in which Auntie Flo was held.

 

A few minutes before the time for the funeral, the family and I exited to a side room. Simple white flowers were distributed to all the relatives. Then, the hour at hand, we processed back into the sanctuary. One-by-one and two-by-two, the relatives made that final journey to Flo’s casket. When all were finished, the funeral directors quietly and reverently closed the casket and placed a spray of red roses in it.

 

The service was filled with tears and laughter, as relatives and friends shared their memories. There is nothing unusual about that at a funeral or memorial service, but there was a depth to the comments that is not so common. A granddaughter reminded us that Flo often quoted Proverbs 22:6, about training a child in the right way so that the when they are old they will hold to it. That gives parents of wandering children hope. Then she scanned the congregation, seemingly making eye contact with every one of her cousins, to drive home the point. All scripture readings and quotations were from the old King James version, except mine. Two grandchildren sang solos beautifully. Knowing the size of the family and the number of people pre-selected to speak, they didn’t assign me a sermon (and I love preaching the Good News at funerals), but said I could say anything I wanted whenever I wanted. I contented myself to start singing “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine…” knowing they would quickly join in. We excited the sanctuary to the strains of “This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior all the day long.” That was well over 90 ministers after we had started. And it didn’t bother anyone one bit.

 

On Thursday I had suggested that from the sanctuary, the pall bearers would carry the casket right to the hearse. “Oh no,” one of them said. “She will be carried away in a glass-sided carriage, just like Princess Di was.” I asked, seriously, if horses would pull it. “No, a motorcycle will.” I couldn’t wait to see this carriage after the service. Sure enough, a glass-sided carriage connected to a motorcycle was waiting for the casket. When I saw that many others were snapping photos, I got out my iPhone and joined them. It was, indeed, a beautiful way to send off Auntie Flo.

 

The long procession of cars following the glass-sided carriage was quite a sight going from surface roads to an interstate highway and back to surface roads. A second motorcycle went ahead blocking off intersections, and stopping, almost by force, any drivers that didn’t know funeral procession protocol. He would not let this solemn procession be interrupted by the unknowing!

 

As the graveside service ended, the funeral director said a few words of gratitude to send us away, when one relative said, “We want to see it go down. Can’t we do that?” Yes, we could and we did. Two workers lowered the casket into the pre-dug hole. When they stood aside, one by one, we took those red roses we had plucked from the casket spray and dropped them into the hole and onto the casket. That is such a healthy way to honor that moment of finality. But we weren’t finished. One woman began singing a song with a simple refrain about saying goodbye to this world. Others joined her. Then she seamlessly moved into “I’ll Fly Away, oh glory,” with even more of us singing those well-known words.

 

The repast, the meal following the graveside service, was a Jamaican feast, as promised. At our tables in a jam-packed church fellowship hall, cups of goat-head soup were brought to us first. The Jamaican man t my left reminded me that enslaved peoples never got the best cuts of anything, so they learned to slow cook the lesser cuts with the right spices—and nothing was wasted, not even a goat’s head. The soup was delicious. And so was everything on the long serving table: white rice, brown rice with beans, cabbage in some exotic sauce, chicken in brown sauce, Jamaican jerk chicken, goat stew, small white fish (whole fish with heads intact) in onions, some other meat dishes, Jamaican bread, and more. And callaloo. There is a story there. At the Thursday gathering they said that there would be a Jamaican feast. I spent some summers in my youth in southern Caribbean islands and became fond of callaloo, a thick broth with cabbage, spices, and whatever else was available in it. I asked if there would be callaloo. They said no. But during the visitation, one of Flo’s daughters, Tammiko, came up to me and said that she had made a large batch of callaloo on Friday. The first bowl of it was brought to me at my table. It was all I had hoped for and more.

 

I had left my home at 9:00am that Saturday morning. I returned home at about 4:30pm, my heart filled with joy and gratitude for the rich honor that was mine to be included in such a day, such a sendoff. Auntie Flo, rest in the Lord’s peace. You are dearly loved.

[This sermon was delivered on 9.1.19 at Perinton Presbyterian Church.]

 

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched…. ⁷ When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸ “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹ If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. ¹¹ For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

¹² Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:1, 7-14)

 

Do you have a bucket list? I do, a list of things I’d like to do before I die. Recently, my wife and I hosted good friends from out of state for three days. In one of our rambling conversations, Carl asked each of us: what is on your bucket list? We enjoyed hearing each other’s answers. One of mine is this: I would like to attend a state dinner at the White House. It wouldn’t matter the occasion. I have walked through the East Room of the White House on tours several times; I would like to enter it in formal attire and be seated at a table for a genuine state dinner. It wouldn’t matter which table, but I wouldn’t mind if it were close to the head table.

 

I have served at over 200 weddings, so I know something of seating protocol at formal dinners. There is the newlywed couple, then the wedding party, the immediate families, the good friends of long standing, and the more distant friends and relatives. My main concern is that I not be assigned to a table right in front of a big, loud speaker. That makes conversation impossible. If I am assigned a seat in front of a speaker, I might survey the room for empty seats at other tables and make a stealthy move.

 

I like being at formal dinners. The food is usually well above average. And there is a festivity. The tables are set with fine linen, often with fresh flowers and candles in the center of each table. There are more forks than one needs, each with its own unique purpose. There might be little treats, like chocolate, intended to follow dinner, but I usually find a way to open them before dinner and sneak them into my mouth, discreetly of course.

 

Why do Pharisees keep inviting Jesus to their dinners? I think they would know in advance that they are likely to disagree with him about fine points of theology and faithful living. He doesn’t wear the finest clothing, because he doesn’t have any. He probably doesn’t shower every morning. He doesn’t even own a home, or a chariot; not even a donkey. I can only imagine that they find him so interesting. Immensely interesting. His ability to spin stories from everyday life is already legendary. Like him or not, he brings life to the party. The table conversation will be anything but dull.

 

“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched….” Aha! They are carefully watching him. Perhaps they are looking to catch him saying something so wrong, something heretical by their standards, that they can have him turned over to the leading rabbis and be done with him.

 

Sure enough, Jesus is troubled. He sees a pecking order, according to which people readily know where they stand—and sit—in this dinner party. We can picture it. The wealthy get these seats. The well-connected get those seats. The beautiful people are there. No, no, no, Jesus says: “But when you are invited, take the lowest place….” Then he illustrates by way of a wedding feast story, ending with this jarring conclusion: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” That is just not the way most people see life working. In our current immigration crisis, some see the answer as having a merit approach. Let those best able to care for themselves and succeed come in, but not others that cannot care for themselves as well. Jesus is not addressing the current American immigration crisis, but he challenging the ways things are, the way we tend to do life. He doesn’t seem to endorse the meritocracy approach.

 

Jesus is always challenging the status quo, the ways things are. He sees things in new ways, different ways, better ways. He is ever rocking the boat and stirring the pot. His first words spoken in a synagogue in Luke’s gospel give warning: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:17-18)

 

Jesus continues, as the dinner guests are either delighted or troubled by him (I expect some were in each camp). “When you throw your next lunch or dinner party, don’t just invite the usual people: the wealthy and well-connected. No, invite some less obvious folks”: “…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind….” Invite some people that can’t pay you back.

 

Many see life as all transactional. I’ll scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine. Two movies illustrate different approaches. In “The Godfather”, Vito Corleone does favors to people and keeps track, so he can call in those favors when he needed them. He likes having people in his debt. Another movie took a different tack. In “Pay It Forward,” the one receiving a favor was not to pay it back to the benefactor, but to find someone else in need and do the kindness to that one. There is no question which way Jesus leans. Do kindness to people that can’t pay it back to you. Set them free to help others. “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” Invite those so often overlooked.

 

The author of Hebrews urges such radical hospitality. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” The New Testament word hospitality literally means loving the foreigner, the stranger. Hospitality can be a power game, in which the one offering hospitality is in the obvious place of privilege and power. It can be like, “I have a nice, large house and you don’t, so I will invite you over and impress you with how successful I am.” That is not biblical hospitality. In biblical hospitality, we sit at the same table, stand on level ground, and look each other in the eye as friends, as sisters and brothers. These two passages link humility and hospitality.

 

When I pastored in eastern New York, I was a member of a covenant group of pastors that met every other month for a full day of worship, mutual support, and food. For one meeting we had a guest speaker, whom I hosted at my home the night before. As we drove to the meeting, he asked me about the group. There were about 12 regulars and I described them as I knew them, one at a time. When it came to John, I said something like this. “When John enters a room, he looks for anyone that might be on the edge, perhaps feeling alone, and he goes over and quietly welcomes that one. Then he looks for what needs to be done and he does it, quietly, never calling attention to himself.” When we arrived at our meeting place, I started introducing Michael to each member already there. About half were there and others were coming in. Michael saw one person quietly moving chairs to create a circle for all of us, making sure coffee mugs and water glasses were filled. Michael looked at me and looked toward that one, and mouthed to me, “John?” “Yes,” I mouthed back. John wasn’t trying to look humble; he just was. He wasn’t trying to look like a servant; he simply was a servant. His humility wasn’t broadcast; it was authentically lived.

 

1. S. Lewis caught what biblical humility is in two simple sentences:

• “Humilityis not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”
• “A man (or woman) is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.”

The worst form of pride is trying to look humble. We are not called to look humble, but to be humble. Humble and hospitable. If we are good at something, it isn’t humility to pretend otherwise. That may be pride, which is the polar opposite of true humility. If we are good at something, true humility allows us to accept that and give glory to God, the source of every good and perfect gift. Jesus embodies humility and hospitality and calls us to do the same.

 

The next time we invite people over for dinner, what will the guest list look like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[This sermon was delivered at Community of the Savior, Rochester NY, on Sunday, August 18, based on Luke 12:49-56 and Hebrews 11:31-38.]

 

Everyone has an occasional bad day. I don’t mean bad hair days; I mean bad days. Days in which we are prone to say things we later regret. Days in which we are too tired, emotionally or physically or both, to be at our best. Days which catch us off-guard and often bring out our worst. Don’t raise your hand and answer out loud. Have you had a bad day recently? Let’s quietly admit that we have such days.

 

Was Jesus just having a bad day? He has made the turn toward Jerusalem and it doesn’t feel like those happy days in Galilee, when throngs were becoming crowds and there was an air of excitement whenever he appeared. Those days when we saw Jesus smiling and laughing. Luke 12 doesn’t feel that way. It is filled with warnings. Two phrases run through the chapter: “Do not be afraid…” and “Do not worry….” Which means Jesus knows his disciples have reason to be afraid and worried. The call is for alertness and watchfulness. Today’s passage ends with a weather warning. “When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, ‘Storm’s coming’—and you’re right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, ‘This’ll be a hot one’—and you’re right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don’t tell me you can’t tell a change in the season, the God-season we’re in right now.” (Luke 12:54-56 in “The Message”) Clearly Jesus didn’t live in western New York, where weather forecasting is a tad more complicated. The Sea of Galilee didn’t cause lake effect snow storms, where one neighborhood might get 12 inches of snow, while a neighborhood one mile away might get a dusting. But, alas, he isn’t talking about meteorology with Doppler radar, satellite images, and 10-day projections. He is talking about seeing realities right in front of us and working with them in faithful ways.

 

The reality in front of them is that Jesus’ message doesn’t always make for happy family times. The icy edge in this passage is that Jesus’ message threatens nuclear family ties. At this point, he is not the family values guy many think he is and that we want him to be. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” It sounds like he is having a bad day. Let’s give him some space. We know he is pro-family. We know he is all in for family values. Don’t we? Isn’t he?

 

Jesus was clear on numerous occasions that the family of faith matters more than the family of bloodlines. When the two—the family of bloodlines and the family of faith—are intertwined, that is wonderful; it has been so in my life. But it isn’t always so. When push comes to shove, Jesus elevates the faith family above the bloodlines family.

 

Jesus didn’t come to save the nuclear family. He came to save broken people and bring them into the new family of faith. That theme that runs throughout the New Testament. Two passages in the gospels catch it well.

• First, we look at Luke 8:19-21, where Jesus is teaching in a crowded room. “His mother and brothers showed up but couldn’t get through to him because of the crowd. He was given the message, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.’ He replied, ‘My mother and brothers are the ones who hear and do God’s Word. Obedience is thicker than blood.’” (Both passages are quoted from “The Message.”)
• Second, we look at John 2:2-5, where Jesus is at a wedding party. “Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, ‘They’re just about out of wine.’ Jesus said, ‘Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.’ She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, ‘Whatever he tells you, do it.’”

 

Jesus comes to make everything new, including how we understand and experience family. I am troubled by many of the ways churches use the word family. I object when churches talk about family ministry in an exclusive way. Everything the church does is family ministry. Musical ensembles, Bible studies, VBS, refugee resettlement, soup kitchens and food pantries, softball teams, mission trips close to home and far away: these are all family ministry. Single people, married people, widowed people, divorced people, remarried people, married people with children by whatever means, people with stepchildren, married people without children they bore—these are all the members of the family. Jesus comes to make everything new, including how we understand and experience family.

 

A relative of mine died two days ago. Barbara lived a faithful and fruitful life. She was my sister, Barbara Jean Riegles, a member of this congregation. She had been in the hospital under palliative care the last few weeks. Jean was a single woman, never married and never bearing children. But that doesn’t mean she had no family. People of this congregation—not just pastors—had been visiting her, sitting at her bed side when she could not communicate or acknowledge their presence. Jean taught music and voice at Houghton College for many years. Former students have been sending messages of love, gratitude, and support. Her faith family was there for her. Jean and I were related in the most significant way: we belonged to and served the same Lord, which made us siblings in this family, this community of the savior.

 

 

Jesus doesn’t come to keep the status quo. He never has and never will. He stirs up the pot. He rocks the boat. He messes with our rigid categories. He ever surprises us by not fitting into our neat religious boxes. He is not a toothless tiger, not a milquetoast messiah. Yet he always comes to in grace and tenderness, welcoming all sorts of people, including some we might be embarrassed to have in the family. Jesus comes to make everything new, including how we understand and experience family. He comes to seek and save the lost. To bring back to the flock the wandering sheep at end of day. To throw custom to the wind as he runs to welcome home his prodigal sons and daughters.

 

In her book, “Leaving Church,” Barbara Brown Taylor writes about moving from being on a pastoral staff at a large church in Atlanta, to becoming solo pastor of a smaller church in a small town in northeastern Georgia. She found that the congregation had all kinds of people in it. She writes, “In a big city they might have found homes in five markedly different congregations, but in a county with only one Episcopal Church they learned to live together—the Yellow Dog Democrats, the National Rifle Association boosters, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the League of Women Voters. I asked a newcomer what brought him to Grace-Calvary. He replied, ‘I know people who come to this church, and I finally had to see for myself how they got through a Sunday morning without assaulting each other.’” Our essential family unit is the local congregation, where we get through Sunday mornings without assaulting each other. Where our unity is not uniformity, but our common commitment to Jesus. And our common table. And our common baptismal font. And our common love for God and neighbor. We are called to be a community of the savior, finding our common unity in Christ.

 

We got an unusual glimpse of family in the wake of the terrible gun violence in El Paso on August 3, which killed 22 people. Antonio Basco’s wife of 22 years, Margie, was working at that Walmart and was shot to death. Because they didn’t have many relatives left and none nearby, Antonio was concerned that his wife’s life and death might not be noted. In the obituary, he included the phrase, “all are invited to her memorial service.” And, oh yes, Margie loved flowers. The flowers started pouring in, sprays by the hundreds, from all over the country and across oceans. Sensing how the El Paso community was responding, the funeral director moved the memorial service to a large church. People stood in line for several blocks to greet Antonio. Of the thousands of notes of sympathy, one simply said, “We are your family.”

 

This family has room for all sorts of folk. Like “Rahab the prostitute… And Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets…” And those “…who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness…. Others were tortured…. suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented….” Talk about bad days. They come even to the faithful. And the faithful keep faith. They are family. We are family. In the family, we pull together and support each other. Welcome to the family reunion, which we do every Sunday morning.

 

 

 

 

 

In the past week in the United States, there have been three mass shootings, two in a 13-hour period taking at least 31 lives and wounding many others. These jump out because the news media reports them, as the news media should. The media do not report, except sometimes at local levels, acts of gun violence that happen every day. Every day, without exception.

 

On Monday, August 5, the president suggested that these mass shootings are mainly due to mental disorders and the violent video games. When we look at the gun violence statistics of all advanced nations (and likely all nations, advanced or not), we see that the incidence of gun violence in the United States is far greater than in any other nation. No other nation is even close.

 

In all those nations there is internet. In all those nations there are people with mental disorders. In all those nations there is ready access to violent video games. In all those nations there are people of religious faith and people of no faith. In all those nations there are criminals. In all those nations people are people.

 

What is the difference, then, between the United States and all those other nations, such that our incidence of gun violence is staggeringly higher? What do you think?

 

If the Second Amendment to the Constitution means that guns of all kinds, including horrendous weapons that can fire lethal rounds in a matter of seconds, are readily available to everyone, then the Second Amendment should be repealed. If the Second Amendment means that reasonable gun control actions cannot be legalized quickly, then the Second Amendment should be ripped out of the Constitution.

 

Just in case you haven’t read the Second Amendment recently, I include it here:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Does that amendment mean what we are experiencing today is necessary and normal?

 

I am a person of faith and pray daily. Prayer is being seriously misused and abused when it is an excuse not to act for the common good and safety of a free people. Prayer is not a partisan tool. Yes, I pray for the bereaved in Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton (and that Sandy Hook elementary school in CT and that Baptist church in Sutherland TX and that synagogue in Pittsburgh PA and that public concert in Las Vegas NV—and on and on it goes). And I pray for our governing leaders to do something to stem this tide of gun violence that goes on day after day after day. The land of my birth, the land that I love, should not be known as the most gun violent nation on earth. No nation should boast about or tolerate the reality that it has more guns than people, which is the case in the United States, when people are being killed by those guns every day—every day!—on our streets, in our schools, in our houses of worship, in our stores, and in our homes.

 

Mr. President,

 

In tweets and public comments made over July13-15, you said that Americans not happy with their country should leave it. I am not happy with my country and I am not leaving it.

 

I am not leaving it because is it my country. My father’s family line came here from Germany and my mother entered this country as an immigrant child from Italy. I am a patriot, which means that I love my country; I love it enough to recognize and admit its failures and shortcomings, to criticize it with the goal of making it a better country. I am a white American that recognizes my country’s long history of racism, including legal slavery for over two centuries. I recognize that when our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, led us toward the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery, he was assassinated by a man that believed that he would be seen as a conquering hero for killing Lincoln. My country produced both Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. When my country finally abolished slavery—and that at the cost of a bloody war between two great regions of our country, the bloodiest war we have ever fought—it followed it with the Jim Crow era, which featured the systematic subjugation of African-Americans for another century, with thousands of lynchings, and not just in the south. In some ways, I am not happy with my country and I am not leaving it.

 

In my lifetime, which is the same span of years as yours, racism has continued. The civil rights crusade of the second half of the twentieth century produced some monumental results—and more bloodshed and violence. And now some of those hard-fought gains are in jeopardy of being lost as you laud “fine people on both sides.” I am not happy with my country just now and I am not leaving it.

 

I respect Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe for their courageous stands on behalf of millions of Americans that aren’t sharing in the American dream. They are patriots, in the tradition of the great prophets of the Old Testament that railed against Israel’s injustices and called the nation to honor its charter in pursuit of justice for all, precisely because they loved Israel. Biblical prophets would never say “love it or leave it,” or “my country right or wrong.” They would say something more like this: repent and makes things better, in the name of God, for friend, neighbor, and foreigner. When you try to bully Americans like Kaepernick and Rapinoe and Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley and Tlaib and Omar, I am not happy with my country and I am not leaving it.

 

Patriotism does not overlook the flaws and failings of one’s country. Love of country demands honest assessment and diligent work to improve that country, to seek, as our nation’s charter has it, “a more perfect union.” I love my country; therefore, I criticize it when it falls short of the ideals which have shaped its vision.

 

You campaigned for the presidency by criticizing our country. Your inaugural address has become known as the “American carnage” speech. You regularly criticize the congress and the judiciary system. You criticize the Department of Justice and the F. B. I. You criticize our immigration system. You criticize the press. You criticize members of your cabinet that you appointed to office. You criticize your predecessors in the office of president. You criticize just about everything. It is the inalienable right of every American to criticize it, to name its failings, and to seek for a better tomorrow. Being unhappy with our country is not sufficient reason to leave it. I am not happy with my country and I am not leaving it.

 

It is precisely because I love my native land that I resist your efforts to bully people into submission. It is precisely because I love my country that I cannot be silent when you provoke hateful racism and thinly veiled white supremacism and nationalism. It is precisely because I love my homeland that I have no intention of leaving it. Because I respect the office of the president of the United States, I object to how you are serving in it. These days I am not happy with my country and I am not leaving it.

 

 

An American patriot,

 

 

Harry J. Heintz

Whether one likes a given president or not, we are taught to respect the office. It is particularly so when we don’t like a president. After all, it is easy to respect the office when you like the current office holder. But what about when you don’t like or respect a given president?

 

I have about 120 books in my own personal library about American presidents. Most are biographies, though some are collections of letters and speeches. Over half of them are about Abraham Lincoln, my favorite president. I haven’t read all these presidential books, but I have read many and continue to read them. I also check out presidential books, both written and in audio (for driving time), from my local library. In the past six months, I have read a book comparing the presidencies of Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Lyndon Johnson, a major biography of George H. W. Bush, and another biography of John and Abigail Adams (the first political power couple in our country). I just finished a new book entitled “Lincoln’s Last Trial,” about the last case Lincoln the Springfield lawyer tried in 1859 before becoming president. My presidential library includes both Republicans and Democrats. I like to read about our presidents—I am fascinated by the office of the presidency.

 

I say all this to indicate that I respect the office of the president of the United States. I have taken the public tour of the White House several times. I have visited over a dozen presidential homes and libraries and I keep a list of those I haven’t yet visited. I watch the “American Experience” biographies of our presidents on PBS. I watch movies that deal with our presidents. I respect the office—I am fascinated by the office of the presidency. On a recent trip to Washington, D. C., I spent over an hour at the National Portrait Gallery looking at every portrait of our American presidents hanging there, and reading the brief biographies of each one. If I am anywhere near Air Force One, I try to get close to it—I have twice.

 

I am deeply distressed when a president shows me no sign of respecting that office. This is not a matter of partisan preferences. For example, I didn’t vote for George W. Bush either time he ran (though I did vote for his father), and I think he made some serious misjudgments as president. But I never for a moment found him disrespectful of the office. To the contrary, I saw him doing his best to honor the office. When Reagan was president, so great was his respect for the office, that he never entered the oval office without a tie and suit coat on. While I can quibble that a president can be at the resolute desk with coat off, sleeves rolled up, and no tie on while still respecting the office, I am moved by Reagan’s sense of reverence for the office of the presidency and the oval room itself.

 

In terms of respecting the office of the presidency, I look for qualities like these in a president:

• humility;
• modesty;
• graciousness;
• honesty, but with discretion in knowing when the whole truth cannot be told;
• willingness to admit mistakes and learn from them;
• civil speech;
• familiarity with and respect for the Constitution, with an appreciative understanding of the balanced and distinct roles of our three branches of government;
• respect (if not always fondness) for the press;
• respect for our global allies, along with a willingness to befriend and negotiate with our global adversaries in the pursuit of peace and justice;
• honoring the traditions that have developed around the office over two centuries, while not being rigidly bound by them.

 

 

Because I respect the office of the president of the United States, I am pleased with presidents that respect the office (even if I disagree with their policies), and I am displeased with any that do not show respect for the office.

[This sermon was proclaimed at Brunswick Church, Troy NY, on Pentecost, June 9, 2019.]

 

I don’t much like waiting. They have been waiting. We set the scene. In Acts 1, just as Jesus was about to ascend into the heavens, he told them to wait: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” I have come to accept that waiting is a necessary part of life, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like waiting. When I am about to check out at Wegmans, I study the traffic patterns. I usually have maybe 5-15 items. As I approach the check-out lines, I survey the 15 items or fewer line and the 7 items or fewer line. There are four people in the 15 items line and just one in the 7 items line. I look quickly in the basket. I have 8 items. Now I am facing a weighty ethical dilemma. Do I pretend I have 7 items instead of 8? Do the cashiers really count them? What if I get in the 7-item line with 8 items and a person gets in line right after me and counts my items on the conveyor belt? Archibald Hart, then a professor at Fuller Seminary, suggested that pastors learn to deal with their impatience to see God work quickly by getting in the longest check-out line at the market and praying for all the people in a hurry to check out. I never mastered that spiritual discipline.

 

Waiting for God the Holy Spirit isn’t about whether I have 7 or 8 items in my basket. Scripture puts a high value on waiting for God to fulfill God’s promises. Isaiah tells us, “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

 

The embryonic Church was waiting in weakness, waiting in hope. Really, it was waiting with some doubt, as Ted preached here last Sunday. Count me among those that have doubted. Seven weeks before their world had been jolted into stunning reality, their dreams dashed, when their Lord was crucified on a Roman cross and buried in a borrowed tomb. That he had told them at least three times that this was coming was of no comfort in the reality of the devastating blow.

 

He gave them 40 glorious days, revealing his risen glory in multiple ways. Then–poof!–he was gone. This time not even in a tomb, where they could go with their spices and grieve. This time, gone in a cloud. “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” Do you understand the cloud? Neither do I. Let’s see, my iPhone and iPad are sharing information in a cloud. That’s as mysterious as Jesus’ ascension. Again, he is gone.

 

And they wait. The day arrives. Pentecost. A Jewish festival celebrating the early spring harvest. One of the big three festivals, which means people flow to Jerusalem from all over the world. People were pouring in across their southern border, their northern border, and their eastern border. Would this crush of humanity be for them intimidation or opportunity? They will not be intimidated by the global gathering, but will declare Good News to the world at their doorstep.

 

Rochester has a nationally renowned Lilac Festival every May. Last month’s came in an unusually cold, damp week. It was so cold and damp that they closed the festival on Monday. Then on Saturday afternoon, it turned warm and sunny. We quickly decided to go the festival. In Highland Park, the north side of Highland Avenue has 1800 lilac plants of over 500 varieties. The south side of the street has almost as many food trucks and vendors that week. Some people go to walk among the lilacs and some go to walk among the food trucks and eat some high octane junk food. We were hungry. We went another day to see the lilacs. And because it was finally warm and sunny, hundreds of people were crowding every walkway among the food trucks. We saw people of every skin color. And every hair color, including many colors God didn’t give them directly. We saw a high school couple on their way to the prom, he wearing a tuxedo and she a beautiful blue gown. Munching on carnival junk food. We heard numerous languages being spoken. We saw body art—some call them tattoos—of all colors and kinds. The next day I would be preaching from Revelation 7. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  (Revelation 7:9) I thought, the crowd at the lilac festival walking among the food trucks looks more like the heavenly congregation in Revelation 7 than most churches on Sunday mornings. It was a multi-cultural festival.

 

But that lilac festival crowd couldn’t top that Pentecost on which the Spirit descended and the Church was birthed. “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven…. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”  Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’” What does this mean? Opportunity. The world is at their doorstep.

 

The world is not orthogonally designed, with everything at right angles and perpendicular. It’s a world of circles and endless connections that aren’t always in straight lines. God is working with ever larger circles. From the beginning of God’s salvation story, God’s heart for the other, the outside, the foreigner has been clear.

• “I will make you into a great nation,and I will bless you;  and all peoples on earth

       will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

• “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
• “For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7)
• “there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  (Revelation 7:9)

 

Jesus in his earthly ministry honored the limits of living in one place at one time. He never traveled to Athens or Rome. Yet, he was always breaking boundaries by reaching out to outsiders: women, outcasts, diseased, people despised by the religious authorities. No wonder the religious leaders were always upset with him; he upset their rigid rules of exclusion. Then, when he left them he sent the Spirit and opened the floodgates.

 

The world at our doorstep, Brunswick Church. Russell Sage College, just a few miles west, has two cohorts of students from Lebanon and one from Thailand coming to study this fall. RPI, also a few miles away, has students from 44 countries, about one out of every seven students, studying here. In the last three years, two of those students from other nations have become followers or Jesus and been baptized here because of your welcome. The world at our doorstep is our opportunity.

 

The Church stands in danger today. The danger of seeking temporal power. The danger of seeking governmental favor. The danger of taking pride in our buildings and grounds. The danger of thinking our cutting edge ministries and programs will impress people. The danger of complacency. The danger of certainty that we have everything figured out. Religion has always tended to draw tight circles that tell us who is in the circle and who is outside the circle. God messes with those circles and keeps enlarging them to include people from all nations. Pentecost thrusts the Church out with Good News for all nations, all peoples, all tribes, and all language groups.

 

A few decades ago there was a TV program called “I’ll Fly Away.” In one episode, Lily, the housekeeper, tells her eight-year-old daughter Adelaine that a woman was hospitalized when her house suddenly settled two inches, scaring her nearly to death. She said, “It made me remember when we were building our church. We made sure to build a firm foundation. But still one windy day it pitched and swayed, such that I thought it had the Spirit of God in it.” Adelaine responded, “Don’t worry, Mama. The church ain’t settlin’, its movin’.”

 

What does this mean? God has entrusted us with Good News—the best news—that in the risen Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, God’s love is shared with every nation, tribe, people, and language. This church ain’t settlin’, it’s movin’. Let the Church be the Church.

 

 

 

 

 

Since becoming a pastor in 1974, I have included prayers for the president of the United States, and those in governing authority, in the pastoral prayers I have led virtually every Sunday. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, then bringing pastoral leadership to a local congregation, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” I was taught that pastors should do this as regular practice and model it for the congregations they serve.

 

The week before Sunday, June 2, 2019, Franklin Graham came up with the novel idea of calling on churches to pray for President Trump. Why? It seems that Graham thinks Trump is being persecuted. Perhaps Trump gives Graham the sense of proximity to temporal power, and that must be heady stuff. I wonder if Franklin has forgotten how President Nixon did the same with Billy Graham, Franklin’s father. Nixon skillfully developed a friendship with Billy Graham and used it shamelessly for his own political gain. Doesn’t Franklin know that at least some of us pastors lead congregations in prayer for those in governing authority every Sunday? Did Franklin ever call for such a Sunday of prayer when Obama was president? I can’t remember him doing so. Did he?

 

When I lead congregations in prayer for the governing authorities, including the president, I lay aside any partisan views I may have. Since 1974, I have regularly prayed every Sunday for our presidents: Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, and Trump. Sometimes I mention them by name and sometimes I don’t. I also include the congress and the courts, at the federal, state, and local levels. I also customarily prayer for the leaders of other nations. I pray for elections in our country and other countries to be fair and peaceful. I pray for troubled places in our nation and beyond.

 

[Confession: When I am worshiping in other congregations and not leading the pastoral prayer, I listen carefully as I am being led in prayer by another. If those in governing authority are not mentioned in prayer, I miss that. If the world and its troubles are not mentioned, I am troubled.]

 

For 38 years those prayers were in one congregation. It was my intent to reveal nothing of my political views or what I may have thought of any of those presidents, but to lead prayer in a biblically faithful way. I knew the congregation included Republicans, Democrats, independents, liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, etc. I wanted them to know that I was pastor for all of them. I did not give up my freedom to support my political convictions at the personal level, to vote in every election, and to think and care about national and global politics. I never told the congregation which candidate to vote for. Now that I am retired from being a pastor, I am preaching in different congregations almost every Sunday, usually leading the pastoral prayer. I make the same assumptions and follow the same commitment.

 

What I find so troublesome about Franklin Graham’s call to prayer is that it comes through as entirely partisan; it makes him look like a court magician, currying the king’s favor, like an in-house prophet who does the president’s bidding and says nothing that would trouble the president. Has he learned nothing from his father’s partisan attachment to Nixon? Eventually Billy Graham realized that Nixon had used him and said so. Will Franklin ever learn?

 

By the way, without any other prompting, I will continue praying for the president, those in governmental authority, and leaders of other nations this Sunday and every Sunday.

 

[This sermon was delivered at the Community of the Savior, Rochester NY, May 19, 2019.]

 

How do you think of the hereafter? Our views of what is to come are often far from biblical. All those stories of St. Peter standing at the pearly gates with a large book may make for good jokes, but are far from truth. Angels playing harps endlessly sounds kind of boring.

 

If you asked me 40 years ago to describe heaven, I probably would have answered in great detail. Now, I don’t have the same certainty. Streets paved with gold doesn’t mean much (as long as there are no potholes). My view has become more relational—and more comprehensive. It’s not pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye anymore, at least for me. The images given to John stir my imagination. A vast throng beyond numbering. People from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages; now that excites me. What is notable in the evocative words of the voice speaking in Revelation 21 is the quality of life: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples^, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” That speaks to me.

 

At the center of the most sensual, spiritual-physical whole-bodied worship imaginable is a Lamb, a Lamb that was slain. Is any animal more vulnerable than a lamb? Then the Lamb speaks: “Behold, I am making all things new.” The verb is not past tense: I have made…. The verb is not future tense: I will make…. The verb is present tense in the active, continuing voice: I am making all things new. The scope of the work is not limited, but comprehensive: All things. Not some things. Not a few things. Not assorted things. Not favorite things. Not selected things. All things. All things new. Jesus is making all things new.

 

The word all occurs over 6,000 times in the Bible. Sometimes it is limited by context. Like all the people who are hearing this. Or all the people in the room. The word can be used in a limited way, but sometimes it goes beyond limits. My favorite concentration of the word all is in Colossians 1:15-20. Paul is describing the glory of Christ. Listen to the frequency and scope of all that we find there. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” Those alls don’t sound limited.

 

That reminds us of the vision God gave to Peter about God’s gracious inclusion of the outsiders called gentiles. “When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’” It shouldn’t surprise us. When God first called Abraham and Sarah to begin their faith journey, God said, “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” There is that word all word again, being used expansively again: “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

 

I don’t remember many poems I memorized in school, but I remember one from my middle school days:

“He drew a circle that shut me out–Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!”― Edwin Markham

Peter was given a vision of God’s inclusive love, even for the Gentiles, who once were seen as the outsiders to God’s covenant. At least by the insiders. But maybe never by God. I have this notion that God has always been drawing a wider circle that we have.

 

Renewing all things is the work of Jesus, but not his alone. From the beginning in Genesis 1-2, God has been calling us to cooperate in God’s work. To tend the garden. To name the animals. To reproduce. We are called to be participants in God’s work, cooperating with the Creator in the cultivation of all creation. We do not pretend to be God or believe that everything depends on us. But neither do we ignore the role God has assigned to us. In Ephesians 2:10, right after saying that we are saved by grace through faith, not by good deeds, Paul writes: “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” We are created and saved to be doing good works in cooperation with God, even the work of the renewal of all things.

 

John is given a glimpse at a new heaven and a new earth. That could mean the present earth redeemed and made gloriously new or something altogether new. I don’t know, but I know that a biblical understanding of stewardship has to include this garden planet entrusted to us. We humans have made a mess of this garden planet. There are now used plastic bags littering Mt. Everest. A recent probe into the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean bed on earth found used plastic bags, seven miles beneath the ocean surface. On the Cocos Keeling Islands, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean, 260 tons of trash have washed up on its beaches. In the Pacific Ocean there is a growing island of trash halfway between Hawaii and California. That patch has almost 2 trillion pieces of used plastic. A smaller garbage patch has been forming in the North Atlantic. There is a distorted view that some Christians hold that says something like: God is preparing heaven for us, so its OK to trash this planet. I was raised in a church tradition that took that view. They thought Jesus was returning in the 1960s, and then the 1970s, and then in 1984, and then in 1988. If Jesus is coming any minute, who cares about the environment? If God is preparing a heavenly home for us and God really doesn’t care about this planet, we shouldn’t care about it either. Forget about Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it…” Forget about tending the garden God gave us. We say, no. This planet is a precious gift from God, designed to delight the senses, stir the soul, and make life abundant.

 

Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch philosopher, theologian, and politician said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Jesus says, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

This Easter season has been a season of life and of death. I think of Kendrick Costillo who took a bullet from a gunman in his STEM school in Colorado, just three days before he was to graduate from high school, and died while stopping the shooter from killing others. I think of Riley Howell, a student at UNC Charlotte. Already twice-wounded, he took down a gunman saving the lives of classmates, while taking a third bullet to his brain. I think of Rachel Held Evans, whose writings about her honest faith have deepened and broadened my faith. She dies at 37, leaving her husband and two young children, and thousands of us whose love for God has grown because of her courageous witness to it. We long for that day of newness when there is no more death.

 

How do we live in this world, with all its troubles, pain, and death? Jesus says that we do it in love: “… love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In the midst of all that we cannot understand, we live in love. Love for God. Love for God’s creation. Love for neighbor. Love for self. Love for the other. Love for the outsider. Love for the immigrant, the alien, the refugee. We live in love with this vision held close: “I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: ‘Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new….’” (Revelation 21:3-5 from “The Message”) Jesus is “making all things new.” All things new! All things. New!

 

[The message below was based on John 21:1-19 and delivered at Parkminster Presbyterian Church, Rochester NY, on May 5, 2019.]

“Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me!’” That’s a heavy message for a restored disciple from the risen Lord. Listen to more of that message from “The Message”: “Jesus said [to Peter], ‘When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you’ll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don’t want to go.’ He said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he commanded, ‘Follow me.’” Hint? That sounds like more than a hint to me. It sounds more like, “Get ready to die.” And in the meantime, “follow me.”

 

This is our Easter season, a time of abounding good news for all in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Is it good news to be confronted by Jesus, the Lord of life, with the reality of the death sentence each one of us lives under every day? Is it good news to have some advance notice that we are going to die?

 

About a half year ago, it was noticeable that a friend was losing some of his mental sharpness. Last December he couldn’t be at home alone anymore. His wife, who still works outside the home, made the difficult, but wise and loving, decision to place him in a caring facility. I visit him there every so often. He has known me for only a short portion of his years, so it isn’t surprising that he doesn’t know me. Those words Jesus spoke to Peter hit me whenever I visit my friend: “’When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you’ll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don’t want to go.” My friend is at the stage where he needs help getting dressed and eating. The death by which he will glorify God seems not far away, but we don’t know just when that day will be.

 

When I was pastoring, I made many visits over many years to people with diseases that were life-threatening. Some were older than I, some about my age, and some younger, some much younger. I have always had a measure of good health, through no merit of my own. But I know how quickly that can change—for me, for you. Leaving a visit with someone that has what looks to be a terminal disease, I often think that that person has an advantage over me in that I might think my health is a given and my days still many. After all, I don’t know what illness or disease may be at work in this mortal body right now. And you don’t know what life-threatening disease may be at work in you.

 

“Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me!’” We don’t know how much time elapsed between Peter hearing those words and Peter dying. But the Book of Acts makes abundantly clear that Peter lived his life fully and faithfully in the interim. He delivers the first sermon of the baby Christian Church on the Day of Pentecost and 3,000 people respond and become followers of Jesus that day. (I keep hoping one of my sermons will have that effect!)

 

Before we get to that day on that beach, we take a closer look at that day in its context. John is writing his gospel some decades after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John was the longest living of the original disciples and was ending his long years as a prisoner on the island of Patmos. He is able to take a longer view of the ministry of Jesus. When it comes to telling us about Jesus appearing and ministering to the disciples after Easter day, John wins. Mark says nothing. Matthew gives five verses. Luke gives four. John gives a chapter and a half, a whopping 33 verses. Only John gives us the narrative we have today.

 

The narrative unfolds in three movements. On a beach, the risen Lord appears to seven disciples. That it was on a beach is not insignificant. Good things happen on beaches. I love beaches. But it is curious that the risen Lord isn’t appearing in Jerusalem. He could be confronting Herod and Pilate with his good news. Or the high priests on duty in the Temple. He could go to Rome, the greatest city of its day and confront the Roman Emperor, the Caesar. Instead he appears on some unnamed beach in the backwater region of Galilee.

 

It is on a beach on the shore of the Sea of Galilee that these disciples see Jesus, but don’t realize that it is Jesus. That is a fairly common experience in the gospel accounts of Easter morning. They are all having trouble believing what seems unbelievable. Jesus gets their attention with a simple question: “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” That’s got to be a little embarrassing—perhaps humiliating—to seasoned fishermen on the body of water they regularly fished, where some once made a living. That leads to a breakfast of grilled fish and toast. “Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them,…” There is something here we cannot ignore. Jesus shows up in ordinary places doing ordinary things for ordinary people that can often be clueless. I think that hasn’t changed. Jesus still regularly reveals himself in ordinary places doing ordinary things for ordinary people that can often be clueless.

 

The second movement deals directly with Peter. We remember that a short time ago in Jesus’ hour of need, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times and then wept bitterly when Jesus locked eyes with him. With three questions—really one question asked three times—Jesus restores Peter. Why three asks of the same question? I don’t think that was lost on Peter. Or on us.

 

The third movement is that sobering word to Peter: “…when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.” Happy Easter, Peter. And, by the way, you’re going to die.

 

Without Good Friday, we have no Easter. Without death, we have no resurrection. Our faith conquers death, but it doesn’t ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist. The sting is gone in the victory of Jesus, but the pain lingers. The apostle Paul says that he dies daily in following Jesus. Late in his earthly life he writes: “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20-21.) Knowing that we are meant to glorify God in our dying can liberate us to glorify God in our living.

 

 

Jesus shows up in ordinary places doing ordinary things for ordinary people that can often be clueless. I think that hasn’t changed. Jesus still regularly reveals himself in ordinary places doing ordinary things for ordinary people that can often be clueless.

 

 

A few years back Tim McGraw sang about a man that found out that he had an illness and his days were numbered:

He said “I was finally the husband That most of the time I wasn’t
And I became a friend a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden going fishin’ Wasn’t such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
I finally read the Good Book, and I took a good, long, hard look.”

And I loved deeper And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
And he said “Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dying
Like tomorrow was a gift And you’ve got eternity
To think about What you’d do with it
What could you do with it What did I do with it? What would I do with it?”

 

Jesus does Peter a favor by reminding him of his mortality. “Then he says to him, ‘Follow me!’” He speaks the same reminder to us and then charges us to follow him in whatever the day holds for us. After all, our days are numbered. This is not another fish story.

 

[Two days after I finished my sermon preparation and a day before I preached this message, Rachel Held Evans, an author who writings have greatly influenced my faith, died at age 37. Like Peter, Rachel lived and died to the glory of God.]