Dr. Donald E. Keeney – 06 November 2013

hunter — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:11:25 +0000

Our texts begin with the magnificence of the gifts of God –

Psalm 112

2b) Happy are those who fear the Lord,

3) Wealth and riches are in their houses,

and their righteousness endures forever.

4) They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;

they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

None of them, it seems, is poor. They are quite successful.

Our readings end with a call to discipleship – to hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself. The passage precedes Luke 15, with the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost brother.

So there is active seeking to retrieve the lost in the immediate context of Luke.

In Luke, Jesus also commands us to love our enemies and do them good (Luke 6:35), so hating our families cannot mean actively trying to do them harm. But putting obedience and devotion to Jesus ahead of any family commitment may look like hate to the family and to the rest of the world. ,

But how do we get to Hate your family and carry your cross

from

wealth and riches, mighty in the land?

I think that if we look at these texts together more than once, we get a different picture.

Wealth and riches are in the houses of those who fear the Lord.

I reed about these riches and I note that they seem to be primarily material, but the followers of the Lord “rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;

they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.”

I think the bigger picture from the narrative gives us hope.

And responsibility.

The followers of Jesus carry their cross.

Jesus says, Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

One of the challenges for congregational leaders is the role of pop culture.

Anything can become a slogan. You may recall that one of the popular images at football games, both officially professional and at college, is someone holding up a banner with John 3:16. Some see this as a type of evangelism. I have heard that one of the faculty might even hold up a banner at the Polity Bowl this Saturday. I will not tell you her name, but her initials are Jane Patterson.

The cross is a popular image. It is often jewelry, especially a neckace. It is available in Gold, silver, platinum, plastic, wood and steel. Popular images in cultures take the degradation of the cross and make it comfortable.

It is difficult to communicate the horrific emotional kick the cross had to first century Christians. But I think Clarence Jordan (whose name sounds as though it is spelled Jerden) has done it well.

In his CottonPatch gospels, Jordan transposes the first century Jesus to mid 20th century Georgia. Jerusalem is Atlanta, other cities include Valdosta, Nashville, and Washington.

He translates Luke 14:27 as, “Anyone who does not accept his own lynching and fall in behind me cannot be my disciple.”

I caution you that to a congregation, talk of lynching may be unsettling. But I think it has the right emotional kick. Lynching was all too common in the South.

So Jesus calls us to follow him. And we are still not sure how we get here from the blessings of the righteous.

I think the answer is in the broader narrative of Luke-Acts.

In the next few chapters of Luke’s gospel, in Luke 18:28, Peter says to Jesus, “We have followed you, abandoning our own families and vocations. And early disciples – some of them did leave father mother, families and vocation. Other early disciples would have heard this in the smaller groups that met in to talk about this Jesus. Some would have heard this message in the public proclamation of the Gospel. Disciples who followed Jesus abandoned him at the cross, but followed him after the resurrection as part of community. And at the end of the book of Acts, In Acts 20:35 there is the saying of Jesus that is not in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, nor in the letters of Paul.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Here is the meaning of the gifts of God. Here is one part of following Jesus. Those who take up their cross become part of community.

For those with ears to hear, listen to the needs of your neighbor.

Then the Psalm is describing you

They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;

they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

God’s blessing are not for me to keep. They are for me to steward. For me to administer.

They are my responsibility, not mine to keep.

Go and follow Jesus.

And love one another.

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The Mission of the Church

wpengine — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:26:51 +0000

When I was first aware of my call to ministry it was not a call to be a pastor. It was a call to be an evangelist. I wanted to seek and save the lost. The seeking part was easy, the lost were all around me. It was the saving part that had me baffled. In my early delusions of grandeur I imagined that work almost completely in terms of preaching the gospel to the unsaved masses. You might say I was a Billy Graham wannabe. I was only a little disappointed when I enrolled in a school of preaching when I really wanted to find a school of evangelism. Fortunately, evangelism was a high priority in the school of preaching so I soon found myself being introduced to methods and strategies for teaching the gospel to others. I also discovered that I was very uncomfortable with the ‘sales’ approach that seemed to inform our efforts. I attempted to be an evangelist by wearing my piety on my sleeve, I took my huge black Bible with me to the Laundromat in the hopes that someone would approach me and ask to be saved. You can imagine how well that worked. I attempted to turn every conversation into an exploration of the state of one’s soul and eternal destiny and soon lost the ability to have a conversation about things other than salvation, and the repentance that accompanied it. In my zeal, and as part of the school’s curriculum, I attended revivals in Texas, Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas. I knocked on doors. The offer was usually the same, “Would you like to study the Bible with us?”. Imagine a twenty year old at your door asking to study the bible with you. I do not exaggerate when I say this was a very ineffective method. But there was always some anecdotal evidence that this method could save at least one soul from the fires of hell, so we persevered.
In college my evangelistic zeal was outfitted with a new approach. No longer would we knock on doors and ask people to study the Bible with us. We appreciated John Stott, an Anglican and Evangelical, who when asked if he believed in evangelism, said something to the effect, ‘if you mean grabbing someone by the lapels and pounding them with gospel fragments, then no, I don’t believe in evangelism.’ I had done my share of gospel pounding. In our new approach we would knock on doors and invite people to attend “Life Seminars”. I spent a summer in Miami in an internship with about twenty other college students practicing this “Friendship Evangelism”, as we called it. The emphasis was on building relationships without the pressure of ‘closing the deal.’ To keep our evangelism mission clear we coined the motto, “don’t go all the way on the first date.” A good motto because our earlier attempts had been just that: Let’s study the bible for an hour and then hop into the baptismal pool! This new style of evangelism suited my personality much better.
Lately, we have heard much about evangelism, especially in Episcopal circles. As we reaffirm the mission of the church today Isaiah and Matthew have much to say to us.
In the expansive vision of Isaiah, the Servant is to broaden his mission from Jacob/Israel to all the nations. In fact, a mission only to Israel is ‘too light a thing’ for the servant so God assigns the servant to a universal mission. In Matthew Jesus too expands the mission of the disciples from the lost sheep of Israel to the nations. Go and make disciples of all nations. Isaiah’s “I will give you as a light to the nations” has he same resonance. God’s interest in all people is highlighted in these passages and the promise made to Abraham that his seed would be a blessing to all nations is realized in Judah and in the church.
The command is to go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching are the means by which disciples are made. The command is to make disciples, not Episcopalians, or Lutherans, or Methodists, or Baptists. Make disciples. Bishop Andy Doyle emphasized this in his lectures last year when he said we should be in the world serving, loving, and being a light in the darkness without consideration for whether or not someone would join our church. Our mission is to live out the kingdom values that define us. Isaiah and Matthew reach outside the bounds of one group of people extending blessing to all peoples, nations, and races.
Go, we are told and disciple.
Matthew’s verse 17 offers an important glimpse into that early community and the response of those near to Jesus. When he appeared they worshipped him, but some doubted. At first we may be surprised by this but on further consideration we recognize this reaction as typical of commissioning narratives. Consider Moses who, after a number of failed objections, finally said “get someone else to do it.” Or Jeremiah’s “I’m too young”. Or Isaiah’s “do you know what I am like? Have you seen where I come from?” Commissioning is often met with hesitancy, refusal, fear, and doubts. The task seems to great for us, it is not a light thing but a heavy one, we question our skills, we fear our inadequacy. The only thing that can strengthen us is the living presence of Christ. So it is fitting that the scene ends with Christ saying “remember, I am with you always”. It is easy to remember this when we are gathered in here, when we meet the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It is more difficult outside these walls, but that is where Christ has already gone. The cross standing outside of this chapel is a reminder that Christ’s presence is in the world as much as in here, and that as disciples we must go with Christ outside so that we might be a light in our world.

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Dr. Donald E. Keeney – 06 November 2013

The Mission of the Church