How Can I Make My Life Work?

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Mark 10:17-31

June 30, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Whenever you want to be a part of a group or a club or a team, there are certain things you need to do or certain ways you need to live if you’re going to join or continue to be a part of that group or team. For instance, when you’re part of a team, you’re expected to show up for practice. Suppose you wanted to be on the baseball team, but your only commitment was to stay home and watch the Cubs or the Sox on television. I suppose you could learn a lot about baseball by doing that, but you’ve missed out on the experience. You know about baseball, but you don’t really know baseball. Or suppose you wanted to be part of a service organization and you like every part of it, including the people, but you don’t want to participate in any of the service projects. Your membership in the club doesn’t amount to much, then, does it? To be part of any group is not just about having your name on a membership roll. It’s about being a certain kind of person or living in a certain way.

This young man who comes up to Jesus in our Gospel lesson is looking to be a part of something. He is, most likely, a well-respected religious leader, probably well-known in the community and maybe even beyond his own community. Perhaps he was a chief of the synagogue (sort of like chairperson of the Administrative Council) or a member of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Supreme Court). Today, he’d be someone they might interview regularly on morning news shows. He was wealthy and powerful and young (cf. Luke 18:18; Matthew 19:16)—and he was empty. He’s achieved everything he wanted, and he looks around realizes it doesn’t matter. There’s still something missing (cf. McKenna, Communicator’s Commentary: Matthew, pg. 209).Then he hears about Jesus and what he’s doing, and something within this man senses he wants to be a part of what Jesus is doing.

This young man, though he lived two thousand years ago, is a lot like many people today. Pastor Pete Wilson tells about Lindsey, who had everything going for her: a great family, a great job, and a whole lot of supportive and caring people who surrounded her. But still something was missing. “At first I thought it was depression,” she said, “and then maybe a midlife crisis, but I just feel this sense of unhappiness. I spent the first twenty years of my life dreaming of what I thought I wanted in life, and I spent the next twenty years making that dream a reality. I’ve got the marriage and family I thought I wanted and the house I thought I wanted and the career I thought I wanted. I’ve got it all, but none of it has met the expectations I’d built up. I thought achieving these things would fulfill me. So I’ve been running and running and running, trying to achieve my goals. But now that I’ve met them, I feel like I need to keep running because there’s no satisfaction. I just don’t know what the point of it all is anymore” (Empty Promises, pgs. 15-16). Lindsey is not alone. Hers is a common story, dating back to at least the rich young ruler, and actually to the beginning of human history. In our own time, we’ve learned to run faster and harder than ever before and still we wonder what it’s all about.

For the last month, we’ve been talking about life and death and life after death, and I can tell you that when I stand by caskets and when I meet with families who have just lost loved ones and when I talk with people who have been told they don’t have long to live, the single most pressing question has to do with significance, meaning and purpose. What does life mean? How can I make my life work? What am I missing? Why am I not fulfilled by all the promises that fame, fortune and success made? All too often, I talk with families whose loved one lived a long life and yet they have nothing to say about that loved one other than they were a “nice person.” I don’t know about you, but when I reach the end of my life, I want to be remembered for more than being “nice.” I want my life to count. And so this morning, as we wrap up this series, I want to us to think about that singular question: how can I make my life work?

Jesus has been teaching around Judea, the southern part of Israel. He is “on his way,” Mark says, when this rich young ruler comes up to him. Jesus has just finished blessing little children, telling the crowd that “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (10:15). Now, perhaps this ruler heard that statement; we don’t know for sure. But as Jesus begins to head somewhere else, he comes and bows down in front of this teacher. It’s a rare question he poses to Jesus in that it’s neither a test nor a trap (Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 128). Instead, this is a person seeking honestly what to do to find meaning in his life. The question he asks, though, has a huge assumption behind it: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:17). The assumption? That eternal life is something you earn by what you do. That’s why he calls Jesus “good,” because he knows Jesus as someone who does “good” things. For him, goodness is tied to performance. Goodness is something you do. Jesus corrects that first off. Goodness is not something you do; goodness is who you are, and that’s why Jesus says, “No one is good—except God alone” (10:18; Card 129). But then Jesus goes on to put the man’s assumption to the test. If you can “earn” eternal life (whatever that is, and we’ll talk about that in a moment), then here’s how you do it: keep the commandments. All of them (though Jesus only names six of the top ten). Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, don’t defraud, and honor your father and mother (10:19). And the young man is quick to respond: “I’ve done all of that. All these I have kept since I was a boy!” (10:20). I’ve done all that, Jesus, and yet I still feel empty. Like Lindsey and millions of others through the centuries, this young man has done it all, has kept the rules, is probably perceived by everyone around him as a success and a very religious man. But he still feels empty. He still feels like he’s left outside. He still feels incomplete. Something is missing, and his assumption is that there’s got to be something else he can do to feel complete, to be part of Jesus’ group.

His response is often ours, as well. We have this idea that becoming busier will somehow fill the empty places in our lives, the holes in our soul. I’ve known people, and you probably have, too, who will start going to church when things get difficult, as if walking in the doors somehow earns us points with God. Or we take on a project, or sign up for more classes and studies, or we might even agree to teach a class. Now, none of that is bad in and of itself, but we must not believe that doing those things somehow raises our worth in God’s eyes. We can’t hang onto the lie that says doing more makes us more righteous. We’ll talk in a bit about why we do what we do, but at this point in the story it’s important for us to hear this truth: we cannot work our way into feeling significant, or purposeful, or more Christian. We cannot earn what God offers freely. It’s sort of like what happened with a youth group I worked with many years ago. They decided to offer a free car wash to the community. For a specified amount of time, we would wash any car that came by and we would take no money. Do you know how hard that was to explain to people? Do you know how many people would shove money in my hand and walk away? Enough that I began to feel a bit uncomfortable! But we have a hard time wrapping our heads around not being able to earn something. Like the rich young ruler, we always tend to believe that there must be something we can do, some amount of money we can spend, some way we can feel like we’ve earned what we’ve gotten. At Red Bird Mission, even in the midst of extreme poverty, they charge for the things in their store, things that were donated to them. Why? Because when they tried to give them away, no one would take them. The leaders of the mission were told it was an insult to the people; they would rather earn what they got, buy what they received. Like the rich young ruler, we have a pride issue, and we believe there is “no free lunch.” So, like this man in Mark 10, we approach Jesus and say, “What must I do? How much will it cost me to find purpose, meaning and significance? How can I buy a life that works?”

I love what happens next in this story. Mark says, “Jesus looked at [the young man] and loved him” (10:21). The word for “looked at” there means to see someone with your mind, to understand what’s going on in their soul, in their life. It’s better translated as “gazing,” which has this sense of looking long and hard at someone or something. It’s the same word Luke uses when Jesus sees Peter outside the place where Jesus is on trial for his life (Card 129). He looks into Peter’s soul, just as he does with this rich young ruler. And he sees a man here who is not trying to pull something, someone who is desperately trying to fill a hole in his soul. He sees a man who has bought into the lie that a person can really keep all the commandments fully. And, Mark says, Jesus not only looked at him, but he loved him. He loved him with agape love, unconditional love, no strings attached love. He loved this young man just because he was. Is it hard for you to imagine that Jesus looks at you the same way? He doesn’t see you the way others see you. He doesn’t see you as a failure, as someone who hasn’t measured up, as someone who goofs up from time to time. He doesn’t see you even as the successful or the righteous or the popular person. He see you as you. He sees you as the person he made. As Pastor Craig Groeschel puts it, “You are one of his children. He’s crazy about you. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. And there is nothing you can do to make God love you less. Love is not something God does. It is who God is. And because of who he is, God loves you. Period” (The Christian Atheist, pg. 64).

Because of that, then, Jesus’ response is not meant as an answer to his question. It’s not yet another requirement or rule he has to follow. And it’s also not meant as a rule for all time, for all believers. Rather, Jesus’ response is intended to reveal the man’s heart to himself. It’s a statement about what’s really important in his life. And it’s an observation that proves the lie of what he has said. He has not kept all the commandments, in fact (Card 129). Jesus says, “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (10:21). Mark then tells us the man’s face fell at this call (literally, the image is of a sunny day quickly turning to a cloudy day—that’s the way his face changed, Mark says), and he went away without saying anything more “because he had great wealth” (10:22). You see, he had in reality broken the first commandment, to have no other gods before the one true God. Money was his god, and he wasn’t willing to give that up. Money was what stood between him and being able to fully follow Jesus. That’s the call that is for everyone: follow Jesus. Put everything else aside as of secondary importance and follow Jesus.

Now, before we go much further, we need to ask what it was this rich young man was asking for. Or, put another way, what was he giving up for the sake of his money? He wants to, he says, “inherit eternal life.” Literally, he asks for “the life of the Age to come” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 135). For the Jews of that day, time was really divided into two “ages.” The present age, where we live, and the “Age to come,” which was to be the time when God set all things right. In their understanding of the prophets in the Old Testament, the Age to come would be started by the “Day of the Lord” and would be the moment when God punished the evil and rewarded the good. The righteous wouldn’t going to a timeless, otherworldly dimension; rather, this was to be the time when God brings heaven and earth together, when creation is the way it’s supposed to be. We talked about that a few weeks ago when we looked at the way Revelation describes what we commonly call “heaven.” It’s not about escaping this place; it’s rather about living in a re-created creation in which everything is made right—a world with no more tears or mourning or pain or death. In other words, the rich young ruler is asking what he can do to guarantee that, in that day, he would be on God’s side of the equation. How could he make sure things would balance in his favor? Christians understand the “Day of the Lord” to have begun when Jesus came, and that when he comes again, it will be completed. He will deal with the sins of the world in a single day on that moment (cf. Zechariah 3:9), and we won’t be looking to escape this world, but rather to live in a perfect age, a world re-created, made in God’s image. We usually ask the question, especially when we’re faced with mortality, “How do I get into heaven?” And while eternal life is promised, Jesus is more concerned about getting heaven into us while we live. So how do we get that?

Had this young man gone to ask the Pharisees of his day, he would have been given a further list of rules, and told to try harder, work harder, do more. Had he gone out to the Dead Sea and asked the Essenes who lived there, the ones who were waiting on a coming battle between darkness and light, who had given up on the religious leaders in Jerusalem, he would have been told he needed to join their group, practice their rituals daily, and turn his back on worldly things. Had he spoken to the Sadducees, those who controlled the Temple, he would have been told he needed to give more to the Temple offering, and to make regular sacrifices (cf. Wright 135-136). But instead, he went to Jesus who gave him a way to make his life work that was easier and more difficult all at the same time: “Follow me.” Eternal life begins when we learn to follow Jesus.

When the man goes away sad, the disciples can’t help but notice. Don’t you love their reaction? I don’t think it’s too much to say that Jesus really rocked their world in this moment. They’ve grown up and lived and worked in a culture which taught that wealth meant blessing from God (McKenna 211). And so when Jesus tells them it’s hard for those with a lot of money and stuff and possessions to enter the kingdom of God, they’re shocked. Everything they’ve always believed would have said this man, above anyone else, had the best chance of entering the kingdom. “Who then can be saved?” they ask (10:26). Peter even goes so far as to point out that they’ve given up all their stuff and all their hopes of success and achievement in order to be Jesus’ disciples. “We have left everything to follow you!” he says (10:28). And Jesus points out that salvation is not something we do. Salvation is God’s work (10:27). We can’t earn it. We can’t produce it. We can’t achieve it. We can only receive it. The way to real blessing and real contentment is found when we choose to follow Jesus.

So how does that happen? And how much of us will it require? Well, it happens when we choose to give our lives over to Jesus. I grew up in the church; my family’s involvement in church goes back many generations. I was baptized as a baby at the Sedalia Methodist Church, which closed shortly after that. I’m fairly certain there was no connection between my baptism and closing the church, but anyway, we became active at the Rossville Methodist Church, where I remember growing up in Sunday School and Bible School and youth group and many different dinners and worship services and activities. My parents had strong faith, and they took us to church most every time it was open. It didn’t matter what we had done on Saturday evening, we were in church on Sunday morning. But in fifth grade, during the Vacation Bible School, something clicked in my mind and heart. Somewhere in the midst of that week, I realized that my parents’ faith was not sufficient for me. I couldn’t sneak into the kingdom of God on their coattails. So I asked Jesus to save me during that Bible School—which is, by the way, why I am always a part of Bible School. It’s one of the most important things we do every year, and I can’t encourage you enough to be a part of it as well. Since that day, long ago, I’ve tried my best to follow Jesus. At first, I had this idea that it was just enough to “say the prayer” and get your “get into heaven free card.” But I came to realize it is so much more than that. Giving my life to Jesus was just the first step. Following Jesus is about a radical transformation in your lifestyle. Now, I don’t have one of those “I was a really bad guy until I found Jesus” stories. But following Jesus means I have to allow him to set my priorities, and that’s hard. Some days I am able to do that, and many other days I fail miserably. But the question isn’t whether I fail or not; we’re all bound to trip and fall when we’re trying to follow Jesus. The question is whether or not we get back up and keep trying to follow. People may call you a failure, but Jesus never will. When we trip and fall, it’s his voice we hear saying, “Get back up, and let’s try again.” Following Jesus means I allow my life to be shaped by his example, by his life. Following Jesus means becoming more like him each and every day. And how much does it require? Only everything we have, given over to Jesus’ service. Eternal life cannot be bought, but it will cost us our all (McKenna 211).

Following Jesus is about far more than going to church. The late Keith Green used to say that going to church makes you a Christian as much as going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger. Really following Jesus means we have to decide what is most important to us. There’s that image Jesus uses in this passage of a camel going through the eye of a needle. Sometimes, when you go to Israel, a guide will tell you there used be a gate named “The Eye of the Needle,” and that camels had to stoop down to go through there. Unfortunately, while that makes a good story, there is no archaeological evidence for such a gate, and besides that, why would someone choose to go through that gate when there were and are so many other large gates to enter the city by? No, Jesus is using exaggeration here to make a point. It would be the same as saying today, perhaps, it’s like an elephant going through a button hole. A camel was just about the largest animal the disciples would have known. Try sitting on one; you’re way up in the air and sometimes afraid you might not get down (cf. Card 129)! Jesus’ point is this: you can’t enter the kingdom if your first priority is your stuff, if you insist on bringing it along. He’s not condemning wealth or stuff or anything like that, because our “wealth” can be most anything, not just money. What is it that we hang onto, that we put in “first place” in our lives, ahead of Jesus?

Jesus said, “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (10:31). He’s talking about our spiritual posture or attitude. Jesus himself demonstrated what he means on the last night he was with his disciples. When they gathered for dinner, no one bothered to wash their dusty feet, as would have been the normal practice. After all, that was the job for a slave, and they were all important men. They were the twelve disciples of Jesus. They’d rather have dirty feet under the table than be the one who took on the role of a slave. So Jesus did. Their leader. Their master. Their Lord. He took the bowl of water, wrapped himself in a towel, and washed their feet, each and every one of them, as they sat there in stunned silence. Only Peter tried to protest, but Jesus washed his feet anyway, and then he told them all, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). The secret to greatness, the path to eternal life, is found when we serve God and we serve others. We don’t serve so that we can earn our way. We serve because we have been shown the way. We serve as a response, an act of gratitude toward a Lord, a savior, who loves us enough to not leave us like we are.

Like the rich young ruler, maybe you’re at the point where you’re wondering how you can make your life work. Maybe everything looks good on the outside, but inside there’s an emptiness, a wondering, a questioning. Jesus calls us to follow him, to place our trust in him and allow him to lead us in our life. That’s what Christians call “salvation,” and it’s not just about going to heaven. It’s about finding life here and now, the “abundant life” Jesus talked about (cf. John 10:10). I have a friend named Charles who had been part of the church for most of his life—at least he showed up for worship on Sundays. He was successful in his field, well respected. Then, one year, on a whim, he heard about a trip to the Holy Land that the church was planning, and since he had just retired, he decided he and his wife would go. It would be an historical journey, but what Charles didn’t count on was meeting Jesus there in Israel. In a very real way, Charles came to know Jesus as he walked the places Jesus walked, and when he came home, he said to me several times when we would share lunch, “I only wish I’d started earlier.” Not “started going to the Holy Land,” but started truly following Jesus, allowing Jesus into his life more than just an hour on Sunday morning. Charles’ life was radically changed, and he found himself seeking ways to serve, even teaching Disciple Bible Study a few times. And when health challenges came his way, he found he could rely on his faith to carry him through.

How can I make my life work? What’s going to sustain me when I come to the end of my life? It’s a matter of allowing Jesus into your life, and then following his direction every moment from then on as you serve him and others. Where is Jesus leading you? I’ve already told you that one of my passions is Vacation Bible School, and I plan to be here during the week of July 21, helping out in whatever way I can, helping kids see how much Jesus loves them. Might that be a place you can serve? We always have places to serve in the areas of radical hospitality, outreach, and missions. We have a Car Show coming up in August in which we not only get to see cool cars, but also have a chance to reach out to the community with the love of Jesus. We have had folks come to the church and come to know Jesus because they came first to the Car Show. And there are many other ways to serve in the church, as well as throughout the community. Want to help relieve those who are hungry? Kathy Mendoza would be glad to get you connected to the Food Pantry. How about those who are needing clothing and basic essentials? We can connect you to the Resale Shop, as they are in particular need of folks to help with an upcoming big project, of moving to a new building and to a part of the city where they can meet needs better. There are as many ways to serve as there are people gathered here—more, in fact. Where is Jesus calling you to serve? You see, your job is what you do. Your vocation is who you are, where you’re called to serve. Jesus is calling you, “Follow me. Put aside the things of the past, the things that have gotten in your way, the things you think are more important—put all that aside and follow me.”

When we moved into our parsonage in Muncie, we had a man who lived next door who called himself the neighborhood grouch—and he did everything he could to live up to that. We invited him to church on a couple of occasions, and he told us that the church would fall down if he entered. While I know he was trying to make a joke, I also imagine there was something there, something he felt Jesus could not forgive, something so bad that it caused him to believe he was beyond hope, no matter what the new young preacher next door said. Whatever it was or might have been, the belief that it would keep him from Jesus is not true—not true for any of us, ever. Saving is God’s business; he makes all things possible (10:27; Card 130). Jesus is waiting, gazing, and calling: “Follow me. Put the past behind, and follow me.”

VIDEO: “Clean Slate”

Before Your Time

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Ecclesiastes 7:15-18; Matthew 27:1-5

June 23, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It was early on a Wednesday morning, and I had gotten up to get the kids ready for school, then sat down to briefly check my messages. There was a private message on Facebook from a woman who is like my twin sister. We had met when her boyfriend and I roomed together in college. He was in my wedding, and Cathy and I drove to Indianapolis from Wilmore, Kentucky to be there when they were married. We didn’t get together all that often, mainly due to distance, but whenever possible, we would share a meal and it seemed like we could pick up just where we had left off. We had prayed him through several difficult, even life-threatening, situations, and no one gave me a harder time than she did. Still, it was strange to get a message from her that had been sent in the wee hours of the morning. The message was simply this: her husband had died the night before. I stared at the screen, shocked. It didn’t make sense; he was younger than me. How could this happen? Still stunned, I went upstairs and told Cathy. “Do you think it’s real?” she asked, and I remember saying, “I think so. I’m afraid so.” Later in the day, I was able to connect with her by phone and I learned that he had found himself in a desperate place. Many things had come crashing in on him, both in business and in his personal life, and so that night, he had left, telling her he was going to a meeting, when in reality he drove to a rental property they owned and took his own life. A few days later, we drove to Indianapolis to be present for his funeral, and the church was packed, as you would expect. None of us, at that moment, had any idea all the things that had led to his decision to end it all. We just knew that he had left behind a wife, two young sons, and many friends who were devastated, angry, confused, and hurt. It’s been almost three years since that happened, and I can tell you that the ripples of his decision in that moment continue to impact many people’s lives.

This morning, we’re continuing our journey through some of life’s most difficult moments, seeking to find “hope from the ashes.” As I shared a couple of weeks ago, there is no topic I’ve been asked more about in twenty years as a pastor than the topic of life and death. And so we’ve been discussing those issues this month, starting with matters of heaven and hell two weeks ago, and last week Pastor Deb helped us think about how we deal with our grief. But then there is the kind of death that one author has called a “fierce goodbye,” and that is suicide, the taking of one’s own life. For me, suicide was always a topic to reflect on, to think about, even to preach about, until about three years ago. All of a sudden, it became a reality, something that had directly affected my life. If you’ve been through it with a loved one, you know the pain, the devastation, the overwhelming hurt that decision causes all those who knew and loved the one who kills him- or herself. And maybe you’ve unfortunately also been the victim of someone who thinks they know what the Bible says and tells you that no person who commits suicide can be saved, that they are doomed to eternity in hell. The questions we want to address this morning are these: what does the Bible say about suicide and how can we help our friends or loved ones who might find themselves in such a desperate place where they would they contemplate taking their life before their time?

There are six stories of suicide in the Bible, and we’re not going to have time to do more than just look briefly at them, but if you follow along with the readings this week, you’ll read all six of these stories. So, roughly chronologically, the first story we come across is a man named Abimelek. In the days of the Judges, he made himself king. This was before Israel had a real king, certainly before God had authorized it, so Abimelek became king by killing all of his opposition and declaring himself as king. Then, as often happens, he pushes his attack too far and he enters a city that isn’t ready to have him as their king. When he enters the city to attack a tower, a woman drops a millstone on him, wounding but not killing him. It hurts him badly enough, though, that he knows he won’t recover, so he asks his armor-bearer to kill him so that no one could say he was killed by a woman (Judges 9). He dies by his own request. The next story is also in Judges; it’s the story of Samson. Samson is somewhat of a legend; his story is often told in Sunday School, which is odd, because it’s rather violent and he’s not the best example of how to live your life. Samson is given great strength by God; he is set apart as a special ambassador for God’s people. But Samson likes the party life, and likes the pretty faces. That becomes his downfall, and through a series of tricks by his enemy, the Philistines, through his girlfriend Delilah, he loses that strength and ends up in a Philistine jail. One day, they decide to bring him out, to show off their great prize, not realizing that his strength has come back. Samson asks to be put between two pillars of the Philistine temple, and he uses his strength to bring the temple down on him and on his captors. Samson dies, and takes many enemies with him (Judges 16).

King Saul, the first king appointed by God to rule Israel, also took his own life. The Philistines continued to be enemies of Israel, and in the midst of a battle with them, Saul is critically wounded. Like Abimelek, he asks his armor-bearer to kill him, but the man refuses, so Saul falls on his own sword in order to prevent being captured by the Philistines. His armor-bearer then kills himself as well (1 Samuel 31). It doesn’t seem to ever end well for armor bearers! Another member of a royal court kills himself in 2 Samuel 17. Ahithophel had served as an advisor to Absalom, King David’s rebellious son who tried to take away the kingdom. When Ahithophel realizes his advice is not being followed, he goes home, sets his house in order, and then hangs himself (2 Samuel 17:23). And the final Old Testament suicide is Zimri, a man who served as king of Israel for seven days. He murdered his predecessors, but the people didn’t want him as king, so his army turned against him. Under attack, he went inside the palace and set it on fire. He is listed as an evil king, but not because of his suicide, because of his actions that were not honoring to God (1 Kings 16).

If you’re keeping track, that’s five. There is only one account of suicide in the New Testament, and it is, perhaps, the most famous of all. We read that account this morning; it’s the story of Judas, a disciple who lost his way. Judas was one of the twelve followers of Jesus, but after three years of following, for reasons that aren’t spelled out in the Gospels, Judas decided to betray Jesus, to turn him over to the religious leaders in exchange for money. He sold Jesus to them for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver. There have been a lot of people who want to speculate as to why Judas did what he did. Had he lost his faith in Jesus? Was he hoping to force Jesus’ hand, make him into the kind of Messiah Judas wanted him to be? Was he just misguided? Did he expect Jesus to fight back? We don’t know, and we will most likely never know, because the Matthew doesn’t feel the need to tell us. He simply reports Judas’ betrayal and his subsequent realization that he had done the wrong thing. The other three Gospels ignore Judas altogether after Jesus is arrested, though Luke does mention his death in Acts. Where we pick up the story in Matthew 27, though, Judas sees Jesus being led away, bound, early in the morning, we’re told he was “seized with remorse” so he goes back to see the religious leaders again. You might remember that the Temple was made up of different courts, every one of them more restrictive than the other, and Judas charges through them all. He passes through the Court of the Gentiles, through the Court of Women, and into the Court of the Israelites. That’s as far as anyone could go in. He’s deep in the Temple, deep in the holy space, when he demands that the religious leaders take back the money and free him from his betrayal. It’s not too strong to say the religious leaders don’t care. They’ve got what they want, and whatever rethinking Judas might be doing is his problem. Judas is desperate at this point, and he throws the coins across the floor of the Temple. Can you imagine that sound, early in the morning, echoing in that huge building? Can you imagine that, even as Judas left the Temple, he could still hear the coins clattering? Judas runs out of the Temple and goes to hang himself. Literally, Matthew says he was “strangled.” Luke, the doctor, tells it much more graphically in Acts 1, but the fact remains that Judas saw no other option. He couldn’t face the other disciples. He couldn’t deal with what he had done to Jesus, an “innocent man.” He saw no other way out except to take his own life (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, pg. 226; Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 314).

And that is often the case. When someone begins to think about suicide, they can’t see beyond the present dark moment. Whatever the situation, the person begins to believe nothing will ever be better. There is no room in their thinking for grace, forgiveness or mercy, the very foundations of the Christian faith. Every year, 30,000 Americans succeed in their suicide attempt, but for every one that completes the act, there are between 8 and 25 attempts that are unsuccessful. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people ages 15-24, behind accidents and homicide. There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but there are three female attempts for every male attempt. Men complete suicides more often than women (save.org). It’s safe to say that suicide has the potential to touch every person in this room, and in the church, we haven’t done a whole lot to help with the stigma of suicide. For too long, the church had this idea that anyone who committed suicide would go immediately to hell. The thinking was that such a person was taking a life, which is forbidden by the Ten Commandments and other laws in the Bible, and that by taking their own life, they could not ask for forgiveness; they would not have time. Without asking for forgiveness, they could not be saved. At least that was the thinking. And a lot of folks still hang onto that, but you know what I notice in all of those accounts of suicide in the Bible? There not a single one of them who is condemned for that particular action. The closest we get to that is in Acts, when the disciples are choosing a replacement for Judas. In their prayer, they ask God, “Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs” (1:24-25). But even in that prayer, there is not condemnation. They do not say Judas went to hell; only to “where he belongs.” There is trust there in a God who will judge justly.

The question is this: does God judge us based on our weakest moment? A couple of weeks ago, I shared about my grandmother who, in the last years of her life, had many strokes and did not act the way I knew my grandmother would act. She said things and did things that were out of character. Does God judge her based on those actions that come out of a weakness? I don’t believe so, any more than I believe God judges a person based on a single action performed in a moment of extreme weakness when they give in to the darkness around them. God’s grace is bigger than that.

Our United Methodist Church expresses that thought this way: “We believe that suicide is not the way a human life should end…A Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Therefore, we deplore the condemnation of people who complete suicide, and we consider unjust the stigma that so often falls on surviving family and friends” (2012 Discipline). Sometimes that stigma comes from within, as family and friends grapple with a darkness they weren’t aware even existed. In my first appointment, within the first year, I got a call about one of our college students. She had been to Epworth Forest with us that year and then began as a freshman at Ball State that fall. But the pressure had been building for some time, and one afternoon, it became too much. She told us later that she thought she’d just take some pills and go to sleep and everything would be better. Thankfully, someone found her, got her to the hospital, and her life was saved. Today, she’s a married mother of twins, doing well. But in that moment, the darkness seemed to be too much. And I remember her friends and family—all of us—wondering what we could have done. What had we missed? And many were embarrassed to talk about it because of this stigma. Rather than judging persons who find themselves in this midst of this dark situation, I believe the call of Jesus would be, instead, to respond with help and hope in the midst of that darkness, to offer hope that arises out of the ashes.

Suicidal people are those who have lost all hope. So first of all, we have to pay attention to people. We have to become aware of what’s going on in the lives of those around us. There is no single “cause” of suicide; there are causes, so to be able to speak hope into someone’s life, we need to learn to pay attention and become aware of some common signs: things like prolonged depression, abrupt changes in behavior or mood or work performance, giving away personal belongings, things that were once important to them. And, of course, sometimes there are verbal statements like, “I don’t see any reason to go on any longer.” Or, “Life just isn’t worth living anymore.” Many people who attempt suicide have told someone they were thinking about it, hoping someone would hear them. Other times, suicide grows out of serious or even terminal illness. One of the demographics that is at high risk of suicide is the elderly, those who have suffered serious setbacks and don’t see that they can ever recover. And yet, still, we’re not to take the place of God. There’s a delicate balance here, between sustaining life with current medical technology and using that same technology to bring it to an end. It’s an ethical dilemma we don’t have time this morning to fully explore, except to recognize that sometimes, not always but sometimes, life-threatening illness can bring on suicidal thoughts. It’s not just young people who consider suicide.

So how should we respond? First and foremost, we take every suicide threat seriously. Don’t laugh it off. Don’t say something flippant, and for heaven’s sake, don’t quote Romans 8:28 to someone and tell them how everything will work for good. Quoting the Bible to someone who is in that sort of a desperate state will not accomplish what you think it will. At that moment, they don’t believe that all things will work out, which is why they are considering ending it all, and no amount of you quoting Paul is going to change that feeling. So listen, take their feelings seriously, but don’t ask them what they want to do. Tell them what they are going to do. Find help. Don’t leave them alone, but help them find someone who can direct them on the road to healing. Sometimes a person who is thinking of suicide will ask you to keep their thoughts a secret; never make that promise. This is a secret you cannot and must not keep. If you don’t know where to turn, you can call this number, the National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK, that’s 1-800-273-8255. Put it in your cell phone, memorize it, whatever it takes, because you never know when these moments might come up. And, in every moment, be someone who offers hope. Pray with them if you can, and in that prayer, offer hope. Help them remember that the worst thing is never the last thing.

Sometimes, though, there aren’t any signs. Or the signs are well hidden. In the case of my college roommate, I was stunned when he took his own life because I didn’t see it coming. Cathy, my wife, is a trained counselor, and she didn’t see it coming. He was a master at hiding what was really going on inside of him. We’ve come to realize how there were previous failed attempts, but he passed those off as accidents, and it all seemed perfectly believable. So what do you do when there aren’t any signs, or you miss them, and the suicide is successful? How do we handle that? Last week, Pastor Deb talked about the stages of grief, and we’re likely to experience all of those, maybe all at once, or so it might seem. But the one that stands out in the midst of suicide is anger. I know I’ve felt a lot of anger toward my college roommate, for what he has done to his wife, to his children, to his friends, for the way he avoided taking responsibility for the mistakes he made that led to his decision. And it’s okay; anger is natural and even expected in this situation. Be honest about it, but be sure, as Paul said, to not allow your anger to cause you to sin (Ephesians 4:26). There is no sin in being angry; it’s how we handle it and how we let it affect others that determines whether we sin in our anger or not. Even being angry at God isn’t a sin; God is big enough to handle it. But do know this: God did not cause your loved one’s suicide. Sometimes we want to blame God to avoid blaming the one we loved. And then, sometimes we even try to blame ourselves.

So maybe here’s the main thing we need to know in those times: it’s not your fault. I know I spent a lot of time wondering what I could have done to stop my friend. All the times we were together—did I miss something? Could I have helped him in some way? Those are natural feelings, and the reality is I couldn’t have stopped him. And it wasn’t my fault. I can’t take responsibility for his actions. There are limits to my power. I also came to realize there were more people involved in this than just me, and it was important for all of us to be able to talk about it, to share the grief and loss. Professionals advise that children be talked to honestly about a suicide also. Let the children know that the person was very unhappy, but don’t let them think that death is the answer to unhappiness. And to anyone who is caught in the midst of this trauma, offer to be there, to care. Offer them yourself. I know that I made a commitment for the first year just to send a text to my roommate’s wife every day to encourage and support her, to listen, and as a family we made more efforts to get together, to just be there for she and her children. In the end, all we really have to offer is ourselves and our faith to strengthen them. We can pray, and we can be there. We can be the community of hope that someone like Judas needed. In the face of and in the midst of a desperate situation, we are called to be the church (Kuenning, Helping People Through Grief, pgs. 169-182).

In the midst of the Old Testament is a book that sounds like it might have been written by someone who is contemplating ending it all. Tradition says it was written by Solomon, the wisest of all of Israel’s kings, but the book itself only claims to collect the words of “the Teacher.” The book begins in a dark place: “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And that’s very much the tone of the book, even in the passage we read this morning. “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness” (7:15). But then he talks about living a balance of wisdom and righteousness. To be unbalanced in the way we live our life is to cause destruction, even to “die before your time” (7:17). So what is he talking about there? Well, when we talk about “wisdom,” we often are really talking about knowledge. But in the Bible’s understanding, wisdom is not just piling up information. Wisdom has more to do with knowing how to live. It’s knowing what to do with the information and knowledge we have. That’s why the “wisdom” books in the Old Testament, such as Ecclesiastes, are more about finding the way to the healthy and good life than they are about teaching us facts. And over and over again, having true wisdom means having God and God’s way of life in the forefront of your life. Wisdom is “the inner strength that comes from a God-instructed conscience” (Wright, “Ecclesiastes,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, pg. 1176).

Righteousness, then, is the way we live our faith, the way we line up our faith with what God calls us to do and who God calls us to be. When the Teacher is talking about being “overrighteous,” the first image that comes to my mind is the Pharisees whom Jesus warned against. Now, granted, the Pharisees were not in existence yet when Ecclesiastes was written, but certainly their forebears were. In every generation you can find the legalists, the ones for whom everything is black and white, on or off, right or wrong, and who don’t mind imposing their views on everyone else. That’s what Jesus got so upset with the Pharisees about. They said they were concerned about people following God’s law, and so to make sure they did, the Pharisees devised a whole set of other laws that people were not to break. Jesus got after the Pharisees for really being more concerned about their rules and their traditions than they were about helping people find God. Christians are always in danger of becoming legalists, overrighteous. The Teacher, then, says we need a balance. We need not be arrogant or overly pious, and that’s why the Teacher says, “Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes” (7:18). Once we see ourselves in the light of who God is, we realize none of us measure up, and we’re reluctant to assume we ever can.

So, what does this have to do with suicide? Again, the Teacher’s constant message is that the road to hope in this meaningless life is found when we embark upon God’s road for life. The only hope we have in this life is found in God, in living life the way God intended it to be lived, in grace and freedom, in hope and mercy. The image that came to my mind as I read this passage this week was of a desperate person, hanging over a wide chasm or abyss, and they’re holding onto two lifelines: wisdom and righteousness. They need both to be able to hang on. An over-focus on one or the other can cause us to fall into despair, to want to give up, and so our call as the church is to offer hope by helping people in desperate situations find the lifelines of wisdom and righteousness—a life of authentic faith. The end of this dark and difficult book says this: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is duty of all mankind” (12:13). When our lives authentically and hopefully point toward our creator, toward the one who made us and loves us more than we can imagine, toward the one who is the reason the worst thing is never the last thing—then we will help keep people from dying before their time.

Can you imagine what it might have been like if Judas had waited just another day or so? What if he had waited until Sunday? What if he had seen the risen Christ?  What if he had the chance to encounter the Christ who says to all of us, “No matter what you’ve done, you can be forgiven. Mercy and grace is for you, too, Judas”? Can you imagine the story he could have told? “I betrayed him, but even I found grace, forgiveness and mercy.” What a witness his story could have been, but we’ll never know. And for all the people in our lives who find themselves in a place without hope like Judas did, we need to be those who constantly offer hope, healing and help. Who in your life might need you to be the ray of hope, the shining light? Shine that light today, don’t wait. And be one who rescues that person from the very darkest place. I can’t go back and change what happened to my roommate, but I can invest hope in the lives of others. So can you. Be the light. Be hope. Let’s pray.

Glimpses of Eternity

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Revelation 21:1-8; Luke 16:19-31

June 9, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Questions, questions, questions. Life is made up of questions, isn’t it? From the moment we start talking, we start asking questions. You know the first one we learn, don’t you? Why? Why does this happen, Daddy? Why are you telling me no? When our kids are little, we can sometimes put them off with, “Because I said so.” That’s a phrase I swore I’d never use, and yet I found myself saying it more than I wanted! As we get older, the questions become more difficult, harder to answer, to the point where we sometimes wish we had someone to refer them out to! Being a pastor, I often find myself in the question-answering business. At my previous church, one of the Disciple classes that I wasn’t teaching would often e-mail me questions and began calling me “BibleAnswerMan.” I am pretty sure I don’t deserve that title, because I don’t know all the answers, and that’s especially true when we come to the questions I’m most asked, the ones having to do with life and death and life beyond death. Last fall, when I asked on Facebook what sorts of topics people wanted us to explore as a church in 2013, one theme that came up over and over again was eternity. That didn’t surprise me, because in my twenty years as a pastor, I have probably fielded more questions about heaven, hell, and eternal life than I have about any other single topic. Because it’s so unknown, we wonder what it will be like. Every once in a while, a book comes out that purports to describe heaven, or hell, or a bright, shining light, and people get very excited about that. But then we begin to wonder about it again. Is that really what it will be like?

For the rest of this month, we’re going to be exploring questions around life and death and life after this. But the reality is we only have glimpses in the Scriptures of what eternity is like. I think that’s why we’re so eager to believe whatever someone writes, because we want to know. We want to have a clear idea of just what we’re getting into. And so we’ve gotten ideas that hell is fire and darkness, and heaven is clouds and golden streets. Maybe sometimes we even picture heaven a little like this…

VIDEO: Is Heaven Boring?

So what does the Bible say? That’s the question we should always go back to as Christians, and if what someone else says is not supported directly by Scripture, then it’s just speculation. That’s not saying it’s wrong; it’s speculation. When the Corinthians were speculating about eternal things and “secret knowledge,” Paul reminded them, “‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor can we fully understand what waits for us in eternity. And that’s why the Bible only gives us glimpses. And yet, as we look at those glimpses, it’s my prayer that over the next four weeks, we’ll find hope springing up and be reminded again that the worst thing is never the last thing. That’s the Christian hope. That’s our story.

One of the brightest glimpses we get of eternity in particular is in the book of Revelation, at the very end of the Bible. There are a few things we need to understand about Revelation, however. It’s not a road map to the end times; instead, it’s a vision meant to encourage persecuted believers. John wrote this book while he was in exile, away from his brothers and sisters in Christ, punished for preaching the good news. And one day, during worship, he was given a glimpse of eternity. The sense in the book is that there are all these things happening all at once, and John’s just trying to write them down as quickly as possible. It’s not a linear vision; it’s a circular one. We keep coming back to the same images, most of which are drawn from the Old Testament and the wisdom writings like the Psalms and Ecclesiastes and Job. To try to take the book of Revelation and match it up to current events in any time or place completely misses the point of the book. John is trying to give his people hope, and he does so in coded language. Babylon is Rome. The Beast is any system that tries to oppress God’s people. And so on. The point of the book is simply this: God wins in the end. No matter how bad it seems to get here, God will triumph. In trying to communicate that truth, John is using the language of his day, but it’s insufficient to really tell us what eternity is like. It’s as if John is saying, “It’s like this, but so much more” (cf. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, pg. 187). We need to keep that in mind as we read.

Revelation 21, often read at funerals, tells us several things about eternity. First, notice how often the word “new” is repeated. New heavens. New earth. New Jerusalem. “I am making everything new.” The word for “new” doesn’t refer to something that never existed before, though. This is not like getting a new car or creating a new dish to serve at dinner. Instead, the word refers to a change of quality or a change of essence (Mulholland, Revelation: Holy Living in an Unholy World, pg. 315). It’s a renewal; it’s not a total destruction of all the old things. God made the world and saw that it was good (Genesis 1); we’re told that in the very beginning of the Bible. God’s opinion has not changed. When John says that the first heaven and first earth have passed away, he’s not talking about total destruction any more than we are talking about total destruction when we say someone has “passed away.” What John means by that is that creation is going to be renewed, made new, re-created the way God intended it to be from the very first. We live in world full of tears, death, mourning, crying and pain. But when the world is made new, there will be, John says, “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (21:4). The old way of doing things, the way that leads to heartbreak and hurt and woundedness—that will be done with. This is a renewed world, where sin no longer reigns and death is a finally defeated foe. Revelation tells us all things will be made new.

The next thing Revelation 21 tells us is that God’s grand plan is a place where God dwells with his people. No longer distant. No longer seemingly absent sometimes. Present with his people. John hears that word clearly in verse 3: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” And he will not just be with us in a spiritual sense. One image that’s come to mean a lot to me recently is in verse 4. We read past it sometimes too quickly to get to the promise of no more death, but listen to it again: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Who’s going to wipe tears away? Some angel? Someone heavenly functionary? No! God himself will wipe every tear from my eyes and from yours. I remember so many times when my kids were upset and would be crying over a hurt or something, and I, as their father, would stoop down so that I was looking them eye-to-eye, wrap my arms around them until they calmed down, and then, ever so gently, wipe the tears from their eyes. And John says God himself will do that for us. God will stoop down, take us in his arms, and wipe the tears, caused by all the hurts and all the pains of this life, from our eyes. As Tom Wright says, it’s an act of “utter gentleness and kindness to be performed…by God himself” (190). Eternity is the place where God our creator and Father is.

But eternity is not about going to heaven. Now, before you accuse me of heresy, I want you to look at the text. In Revelation 21, John says he saw “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (21:3). He also talks about earth being made new. In other words, eternity is going to affect all of creation. It’s about everything God made being renewed, freed from the “disgusting and tragic” effects of sin. Eternity is about the world being made right, becoming a place of “beauty, power, delight, tenderness and glory” (Wright 189), fit for us to live in. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says this is what the creation has been waiting for: “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration…in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (8:19-21). The imagery of the Bible is that heaven, so to speak, is coming to us rather than us going to heaven. A renewed and remade world is where we will be with God. It’s about the restoration of all things (including human beings), renewed the way God intended them to be (Wright, The God I Don’t Understand, pg. 198). Now, I’ve tried to imagine what that will look like. I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel to some beautiful places in my life. Over my desk hangs a calendar with pictures from Italy, because the Italian countryside really captured my heart. It’s beautiful and there are times I imagine myself walking through some of those pictures. I also love the beauty of the Austrian Alps—tall, majestic mountains pointing toward the sky. I love the starkness of the desert southwest in our country, and I can understand why Jesus chose to center his ministry around beauty of the Sea of Galilee. But all of that pales in comparison to what God has in store when the world is made new. Those are shadows of the beauty God has in mind. That’s what John tells us (cf Smith & Card, Unveiled Hope, pgs. 209-210). New heaven, new earth, and the place we will live as beautiful as a bride.

Now, having said that, we might be bothered by John saying “there was no longer any sea” (21:1). How could the world be truly beautiful without seas and oceans and lakes and beaches? I mean, we live right here on the shores of one of the most beautiful lakes in the nation. How could it be that there would no longer be any bodies of water? Again, this is a place where we have to understand the whole of the book. In Revelation, the “sea” is the place where rebellion, chaos and evil come from. The Beast comes out of the sea in chapter 13, and the great prostitute sits on “many waters” in chapter 17. The sea is the place of rebellion. That’s what will be gone. No more rebellion, no more chaos, no more evil, no more sin. John’s not literally saying there will be no bodies of water (Smith & Card 210; Mulholland 315). In fact, in chapter 22, there’s a river of the water of life flowing out of God’s throne (22:1). Can you imagine the beauty of the seas, renewed to the way God intended them to be, with no more pollution, no more waste dumped in them? They will be more beautiful than we can imagine.

So, with that in mind, a couple of questions that I get asked a lot fit in here. First, do I go to heaven right away or will I have to wait? The parable in Luke 16 speaks a bit to this—if it is a parable, that is. It’s the only so-called parable where Jesus uses names; none of the characters in his other parables have names, so some think this might be an actual story. But whether it is or not, we are given (again) just a glimpse of what happens after our death. Lazarus is a beggar who lives outside the gate of a rich man, and he is ignored by the rich man. In time, both of them die, and we’re told Lazarus goes to “Abraham’s side.” The rich man, however, ends up in Hades (literally, the place of the dead), where he is “in torment” (we’ll come back to that in a few moments). There are many messages in this parable, but this morning, let’s just notice this one thing: there doesn’t seem to be a “gap” of time between when the two men die and when they find themselves in eternity. Paul says that to be away from the body is to present with the Lord (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:8). What that looks like we don’t know exactly. We do know that, at the end, when Christ returns, we will receive our resurrection body, a body like Christ’s after his resurrection (cf. Philippians 3:21). In between, we don’t really know except that when we die, if our faith is in Christ, our next awareness is that we will be with Jesus.

The other question that fits in here is whether or not we’ll know people there. Will we know our loved ones? Will they know us? Cathy and I had a miscarriage several years ago, and because I believe that’s a living being from the moment of conception, I’ve often wondered if we’ll meet our son or daughter. Will we know him or her? There are, again, glimpses. In the parable in Luke 16, the rich man can look from Hades to Abraham’s side and he recognizes Lazarus. Now, it also seems that Lazarus either can’t see or doesn’t recognize the rich man; only Abraham talks to the man in Hades. We also have the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8) when Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah. The disciples seem to know who they are. How did they know? Moses and Elijah lived centuries before the disciples. Were they wearing “Hello, My Name Is…” stickers? From these glimpses, I believe we will know other people, including people we have not met. Though we may not look like we do now, I think we’ll know each other. How relationships are carried over, we don’t know, though Jesus did say, “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (Luke 20:35). The reason relationships will be different is because every need we have will be completed in God. When we see Jesus face to face, we will be whole.

So there is a new—a renewed—place for the believer in Christ to live forever. That is a promise we can count on. But what about those who turn away from Christ? Because John says there is a dividing line. He says, “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (21:8). Wow, that’s quite a turn from what he has been talking about, but the whole book of Revelation shows a clear line between those who believe and those who turn away. This picture of a lake of burning sulfur and images from the Gospels of a place where the fire never dies have inspired many artists as they try to depict what we call hell. These images also informed an Italian poet named Dante Alighieri, who in the fourteenth century wrote a poem that is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. It’s called the Divine Comedy, and it purports to take people on a “tour” of hell, purgatory and heaven. Honestly, most of our images of hell are drawn more from Dante than from Scripture. Dante imagines nine circles of hell, where every torture gets worse, culminating in the tenth level, where Satan is.

In the Bible, though, Jesus often refers to a place called “Gehenna.” That’s a Hebrew word that refers to one of the two major valleys surrounding Jerusalem. In Old Testament times, Gehenna was a place where some people sacrificed their children to a pagan god, Molech. Because of this, that valley was considered to be cursed. In New Testament times, Gehenna was the city dump. It was the place where you put your garbage, the stuff that was no longer useful and you no longer wanted. There was a fire that “never went out;” it was a place that constantly smoldered as the refuse from Jerusalem was destroyed (cf. New Interpreter’s Dictionary, Vol. 2, pg. 531; Wright, Surprised By Hope, pg. 175). But the point is not really the fire; the point is the separation from the holy city. Jesus doesn’t focus a lot on what happens to those who reject him. Instead, he’s more focused on how to get heaven into us. But he does talk about a different fate for those who reject him, a separation. If things that distort God’s good and lovely creation are not part of the new Jerusalem, then those things and people would, by default, be left out. Evil cannot exist in God’s presence. I personally believe Tom Wright is correct when he puts it this way: “When human beings give their heartfelt allegiance to and worship that which is not God, they progressively cease to reflect the image of God…[because] you become like what you worship…It is possible for human beings so to continue down this road, so to refuse all whisperings of good news, all glimmers of the true light, all promptings to turn and go the other way, all signposts to the love of God, that after death they become at last, by their own effective choice, beings that once were human but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all” (Hope 182). Hell, in the Biblical sense, is separation from God. The final punishment, if you want to call it that, is to be forever worshipping that which cannot give you life, to be outside the city, so to speak. The great author C. S. Lewis put it this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it” (The Great Divorce).

That takes us to the question of those who haven’t heard. Again, Scripture only gives us glimpses, but it has become my conviction that every person is judged or weighed in terms of their response to the light they have been given. There have been too many stories of missionaries who go into a remote area, tell people about Jesus, and they hear a similar response: “You’ve finally told us the name of the God we knew must exist.” Romans says God has not left himself without a witness, that creation itself proclaims his presence (cf. Romans 1:20). We are held accountable for the light which we have seen, which speaks two things to us: one, it’s imperative for the church to continue to shine the light, to be the presence of Christ in a broken and hurting world, and to declare the good news to all who will listen. Some of us may do that directly; some of us may even go to a far-off land to shine the light. But we’re all called to be following the final command Jesus gave us: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). And the second thing this puts on us is this: we’ve seen the light. There is no excuse for those of us who have heard this message week after week, all our lives. If those who have experienced God without hearing his name are called to respond to that light, small though it may be, how much more will we be held accountable for the light we have been given? Paul says we’re “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). These glimpses of eternity are not meant to just makes us sit around and count our blessings, glad that we have been saved even though others are not. These glimpses of eternity are meant to cause us to give ourselves more to the mission of the church, to call us more and more to become a community in this place where all people can encounter Jesus Christ.

And that brings us to one final set of questions to consider this morning: is our book “written”? Is our destiny set? Do we have any choice in our eternal destination? There are those among our brothers and sisters in the larger church who believe that everything is determined from the beginning, including who will be saved and who will not. Called “predestination” or “Calvinism,” this stream of Christian belief emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of God, and they define that as God deciding everything up front. You have no choice in the matter. Everything you do, say, and are is predetermined. And they can make a Biblical case for that belief, but that’s not our understanding of Scripture. There are clear instances—and we don’t have time this morning to go into it all—where people are given a choice. The rich young ruler, for instance, in Mark 10, is given the choice to follow Jesus or not. We’re told that God desires that all should be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), but we’re also told clearly that not all will be. We’re given instances where people turn away from God, both in the Scripture and in our own life experience. If there is no choice, then we are simply puppets. God will bring it all to a glorious conclusion—of that we can be sure. The word “will” is used repeatedly throughout this passage, and that’s meant to give us an assurance that though the world may seem out of control, there is a God who is constantly working to put it all back together (Mulholland, Journey Through the Bible: Revelation, pg. 115). Sometimes we cooperate with God and sometimes we frustrate God’s plans—on any given day, I can find myself doing both, depending on the moment. You probably can, too. But God has given us the freedom to choose—free will. And that, too, should compel us to tell everyone we know about the good news, to see it become good news in their life, as well.

So I know we’re pretty heavy on theology this morning, and I also know that theology is useless if it doesn’t make a difference in the way we live. We’ve not typically thought a lot about heaven or maybe even hell in our daily lives. Those who talk about it are usually labeled “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” We think about it when a funeral comes around, but other than that, does heaven or hell have any bearing on our daily lives? Maybe if we lived in the light of eternity, we might find our lives shaped more like Jesus than we do now. Perhaps because we’ve lost sight of our ultimate goal we’ve become complacent. The message of Revelation and the reason John writes down this vision of eternity is because the “church is called to be the presence of the victorious Christ in the midst of our fallen world” (Mulholland Holy Living 118). We’re supposed to be the answers to the prayer we pray so frequently: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). I believe those who have done the most for the sake of the eternal kingdom of God are those who have sought to live that verse out wholeheartedly. Heaven in mind, the new Jerusalem on their hearts, and earth in their sights.

Brennan Manning, a Christian author who passed away this past April, once told of a time when he was brought up short by someone who didn’t believe and yet acted more Christian than he did. In his own words: “One Christmas Eve I was working with a rescue team in the Bowery of New York City, fishing drunks out of the street. In a grimy doorway the stench of one particular alcoholic was so vile that I asked my partner, an agnostic social worker, if he would handle that one. ‘No trouble,’ he answered. Whispering tender words of consolation, he gently lifted the drunk into the van, and began to speak tender words of comfort” (qtd. in Dunnam, The Workbook on Abiding in Christ, pg. 181). Manning goes on to say he realized he had failed to live out his faith in that moment, a faith which said Christ could be seen in the lowliest and the least of these. His agnostic friend was more like Christ in that moment than he was. Manning went on to live in light of eternity, seeking to make sure every person after that knew they could be and were loved by their Abba, God their heavenly Father.

One of the most powerful examples we’ve had in our lifetimes is that of Mother Teresa, who lived and worked in the slums of Calcutta, India, reaching out to the dying and the sick. Everyone deserved to be treated with dignity, she believed, and it was her hope of eternity that compelled her to continue on day after day. Malcolm Muggeridge, who wrote one of the most well-known books about her life, put it this way: “It will be for posterity to decide whether she is a saint. I only say of her that in a dark time she is a burning and a shining light; in a cruel time, a living embodiment of Christ’s gospel of love; in a godless time, the Word dwelling among us, full of grace and truth” (qtd. in Dunnam 181). As citizens of God’s New Jerusalem, as those with the hope of eternity in our hearts, we’re called to spread that good news, that hope in every place we go. We’re called to push back the darkness with the light of Christ, to be the presence of Jesus in the midst of our dark and hurting world. We can have assurance that the New Jerusalem is our destination when we put our trust in Christ. As Ben Witherington puts it, the New Jerusalem “is not achieved; it is to be received. It is not accomplished; it is entered by grace through faith” (Revelation and the End Times, pg. 100). But we’re not called to just hang onto that hope for ourselves. We’re called to be those who offer that hope.

My grandmother was a huge part of my life when I was younger. For many years, she lived just two blocks from my family, and we would often ride our bikes to her house, or we’d spend the evening when Mom and Dad were out doing something. She got remarried and moved to Rossville, but that was where school was, so we sometimes went to her house after school. Grandma was a godly woman, she lived like Jesus as best she could and touched many lives with kindness and the light of Christ. She also taught Sunday School for many, many years. Every week, she was in the sanctuary, teaching the “Royal Comrades” class, the older adults class. We had the same problem at Rossville church that we have here: not enough Sunday School rooms for all the classes. It’s a good problem to have, but hers met in the back of the sanctuary. And then Grandma began having strokes; I was with my mom when we found her after her first one. Grandma became someone else. She said things she never would have said before, and she acted in ways my brother and I had never seen her act. The stroke had damaged part of her way of thinking and acting. Eventually, she had a series of strokes and she went home to be with Jesus. And I still remember standing by her grave, a high school student, and weeping uncontrollably. Hers was really the first death I experienced of someone close to me. I was sad to lose her influence and her presence in my life. But you know what? I wasn’t weeping that day as someone without hope. I believe Grandma is in the presence of Jesus this very day. Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for us, and I am confident that I will see her again. In fact, to borrow a line from Pastor Adam Hamilton, I not only believe it, I’m counting on it. I hope you are, too. Until that day, we work to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven and we live in constant anticipation of the day when we bow down in eternity and worship the God who loves us more than we can ever imagine.

Mike King: “I Can Only Imagine”

Rising From the Table

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 17:14-20

June 2, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

As parents, there isn’t anything we wouldn’t do for our children. Now, children sometimes interpret that as, “I should be able to get anything I want,” but what parents most often mean by that statement is that we want the absolute very best for our kids. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s challenging, even when it hurts, we’ll do what is needed, what is best for our kids. I remember when Rachel was very little, not even a year old, and we found she had a physical problem that needed some attention. So they had to run all these tests to try to determine what exactly was going on and how they were going to best treat it. Now, it’s hard enough for us sometimes to understand the medical tests we have to go through; try explaining something like that to a baby. You can’t, of course. All you can do is put them through it and hope they, someday, forgive you for it! This one test that needed to be done required Rachel to lay still and have scans done for about forty-five minutes. That’s a long time for an adult to be still, and for a baby, that’s impossible. And the test hurt, which didn’t make it any better, so I had to physically put myself in a position to keep her immobile. Cathy and I held her down, one on each side, and she screamed like she never had before or since. For forty-five minutes, she screamed, and with every cry, it was like, “Why are you doing this to me?” She screamed loud enough my mom and dad, who were in the waiting room down the hall, could hear her. She finally wore out about two or three minutes before the test was over. And even though it was painful for all of us, I would do it again, because it was what she needed to get better. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my children.

And so I understand the desperation of the father in this morning’s Gospel lesson. Jesus has been up on the mountain with three of his disciples for some time now. We don’t know really how long they were up there, but they’ve been having church (cf. 17:1-13). They’ve been in worship as the three disciples have seen Jesus’ glory and Jesus spent time talking with Moses and Elijah. It’s the ultimate “mountain top” experience. And while they’ve been up there, down below, with a crowd and the other nine disciples, a father has presented a request. His son is sick. In fact, Matthew indicates the boy is possessed by a demon. “He often falls into the fire or into the water,” the father explains” (17:15). Of course, today, the seizures the father describes sound a lot like epilepsy, and many scholars think that’s what’s going on. But the larger point is this: the boy is sick. The boy is in danger. In fact, he’s a danger to himself and everyone else (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, pg. 166). And there isn’t anything this father wouldn’t do to help his son, including begging Jesus’ disciples to cast out the demon or heal the sickness or do whatever it takes to make his son well.

I sort of picture the disciples thinking, “We got this,” because earlier they’d been sent out through the country to heal and cast out demons (cf. Matthew 10:8; Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 21). But when they try it here at the foot of the mountain, they’re not able to. We’re not told how many times they tried, but they fail, and so the father is overjoyed to see Jesus coming down the mountain. “Lord,” he calls out, “have mercy on my son” (17:15). In spite of the failure of the disciples, this father hasn’t lost faith in Jesus (cf. Barclay 166). “Bring the boy to me,” Jesus says, and when they do, he casts out the demon. He heals the boy, in an instant (17:17-18). And, though we’re not told, I imagine the father and the son went home, overjoyed, and probably told not a few people about what Jesus had done.

It’s quite a dramatic scene, and often we focus on the healing or on the failure of the disciples. What we also have here, though, is a picture of what William Barclay calls “real religion” (167). We get confused on what that is sometimes. We think of “real religion” as what happens here on Sunday mornings, or in our Bible studies, or on our couch as we read our brief devotional. Real religion, we have been led to believe, is all about our devotion and worship of God. And that’s part of it, but worship is really where things start, not where they end. Worship is only the beginning of real religion. Peter, James and John had spent time in worship at the top of the mountain. It was such a worshipful setting that Peter even suggested they build some buildings to either worship in or commemorate the moment. If you go to the Holy Land today, you’ll find that people since Peter’s time have taken him up on his suggestion. Any place that might be near a significant event, they’ve built a building or a church. Even over Peter’s house stands a church today. But Jesus didn’t want them to stay there on the mountaintop because he knew the real practice of their faith would come as they went down the mountain among the people.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at a wide variety of connections—practices that help us better connect with our heavenly father. We’ve talked about prayer and holy conferencing, about the presence of the Holy Spirit and fasting. But this morning we want to look at one more avenue of connection with God: service. Not a worship service, though I hope that is a time when you connect with God. But the service that comes after the service. This time of worship, the music and prayers and spoken word and, this morning, communion, are all meant as a beginning point, not an ending point. From this place, filled up with Christ’s love, we go to love and serve others.

That’s what happens at the foot of the mountain in our Gospel lesson this morning. These disciples, along with Jesus, have been to worship, and when they come down, they’re immediately thrust back into the cares of the world, the worries of the day, and most especially they are confronted with this father and his sick son. And they’re confronted with the disciples’ failure. Jesus deals with the sickness first, and then later, when they are alone, he deals with the disciples. They actually come to him and ask why they failed. “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” they ask, implying that since they’ve done this before, why did they fail now? Jesus says, “Because you have so little faith” (17:19-20). That’s an unfortunate translation, because Jesus goes on to say that even little faith can move mountains. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (17:20). A better translation of his first statement would be this: “Because you have such poor faith.” Small faith can do great things, because our trust is not in our faith but in our God (cf. Wright 22). What Jesus actually says there is that their faith is impoverished. It’s poor; that’s why they couldn’t do what they thought they could. They had failed to connect with God. They had, perhaps, become confident in their own abilities, forgetting that the only reason they were able to do anything at all was because of God. And so, they failed. If they had only a grain of trust in their great God, they could move mountains (cf. Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 391).

Now, I don’t think Jesus literally meant we would move physical mountains. If he had, why didn’t he demonstrate? Why didn’t he move a mountain or two himself? I don’t know anyone who would have more faith than Jesus. Rather, “moving mountains” was a proverbial way—in that day, and still in ours—of facing a difficulty, of overcoming a great challenge. Among the rabbis, a person who could explain a difficult text or interpret a hard scripture would be called an uprooter or even a pulverizer of mountains. What a cool nickname—Mountain Pulverizer! So Jesus is telling his disciples that with even a small amount of faith, difficulties can be solved and hard tasks can be accomplished (Barclay 167). In other words, Jesus is taking away the disciples’ excuses. They can’t come to him and say, “Well, this was an especially difficult demon to cast out. This was a hard disease to fight. There were other demands on our time. And quite honestly, Jesus, we were afraid!” Nope, Jesus says, none of those excuses works, because the real issue here is whether or not you’re going to put your trust in a God who is more powerful than it all, a God for whom nothing is impossible. It doesn’t matter how big the need is, disciples. The bigger question: how big is your God? It only takes a small amount of faith, placed in a big, big God to accomplish amazing things.

Jesus, Peter, James and John came down from the mountain. Having been in the presence of the glory of God, they came down to engage with the world. They didn’t come down “holier than thou.” They didn’t assume they were better than others because they had been in worship. Instead, they came down the mountain, out of worship, and began to serve. Jesus’ first act was to bring healing to a son and peace to a father. That’s a picture of “real religion,” faith that doesn’t just stay in the sanctuary but instead makes a real difference in a real world. Faith that isn’t intimidated or scared by the enormity of the need. James, the half-brother of Jesus, said that service connects us with God. In fact, he said, it’s the sort of thing God is looking for in us: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). Pure and faultless…and a way to connect with God our Father…serving other people. Worship is where we begin; it’s a “launch pad” of sorts, a place from which we rise to go serve others. From this place and time, we go to become people who bring healing, who bring hope, and who push back the darkness of this world. Service is, as always, our response to God’s amazing grace, and we refuse to be scared off because the need is great.

And there are great needs, all around us. One of the largest in our community is for food. We have many in our community who are hungry, as is evidenced by the huge need for the “Feed My Lambs” ministry that we are just finishing three years with. “Feed My Lambs,” if you’re not familiar with it, gives kids in food-insufficient households a box of food for the weekend every week during the school year. But school is just about done for the year. What then? Well, there is the USDA feeding program, and some kids benefit from that, but too many can’t get to the feeding sites. And so some folks decided to try to tackle that need. The end result is that there are some food boxes being put together for the summer, and we have been asked to provide peanut butter and jelly for those boxes. We’d love to be able to help with hundreds of boxes which would help hundreds of homes this summer. Are you able to serve? Can you bring in some peanut butter and jelly? Could you help pack the boxes? Would you be willing to serve those in need this summer?

Another area of need in these economically challenging times are single-parent families—a demographic that is on the rise in our community. There are families that, whether through death or divorce or separation, are experiencing a very difficult time making ends meet. Some find assistance through the various community agencies, but money isn’t the only need. What about those homes with single moms or dads? Who will be a helper to them? Could you give that weary mom a night of free babysitting so she can go out with some friends? Can you help a child with their studying or help with transportation? James tells us to serve those who are widows and orphans—and I think today he would add all those who are single for other reasons, sometimes against their choice. I’m sure there are folks who are struggling like that in your neighborhoods. How can you serve them?

There’s another, broader category of hurting people that also long to be served, to know that someone cares. For the last five or six years, we’ve had Stephen Ministry in place, helping to meet a need for one-on-one caregivers to walk with people through difficult places in life. However, as I’ve shared before, over the last year we began to feel more than a bit constrained by the structure of Stephen Ministry. It’s a great program, a great ministry, and it has served us well. But we’ve begun to hear a call to expand our caregiving ministries so that it doesn’t just become about us, but rather it becomes a way for us as a church to serve not only ourselves but also our larger community. And so, this summer you’re going to hear us begin to talk about Congregational Care Ministry, or CCM. Congregational Care is going to encompass four primary areas of care, and those are prayer, hospital visitation, shut-in ministry and grief ministry. The hope, or the goal, is to reach out and be more proactive than we’ve been able to be in meeting needs, caring for others and serving humanity. This might be a place where you feel called to serve, and my dream, my goal, my hope is that we’ll have at least 50 Congregational Care Ministers deployed by the end of this year. You might be one of them—caring in a particular area and serving in places where the need is great. Now, I recognize that we have a hurdle here to overcome, and that’s the mindset that the pastors are supposed to do all of that. Even if that were true, it’s numerically impossible. Pastor Deb and I cannot be everywhere there are needs. Besides that, the Biblical picture is that all of God’s people are in ministry; we even say that every week in our bulletin, that the ministers are every person in here. Pastors have a specific ministry role to fulfill, but we’re all called to be in ministry to one another, to serve one another. CCM is a huge part of fulfilling our calling to love God, love others and offer Jesus. Those who have been working in Stephen Ministry will tell you that serving others in this way has strengthened their faith and drawn them closer to God, because service does that. Congregational Care is an exciting way to serve, to get connected to God, so be listening for more information in the coming weeks.

There are many ways—too many to count—to serve, to stretch your faith, to engage in what we call risk-taking mission and service, but I want to mention just one more this morning, and it’s big. It’s to speak up for those who have no voice. The Bible, from cover to cover, calls us to defend those who are on the underside of life. Do we give serious thought to what we can do and how we can respond from a Biblical worldview when there is injustice confronting us? How do we respond to a culture that continues to find ways to deny adequate health care to people? How do we respond when confronted with a system that forces people to stay in poverty and penalizes them when they try to get out of that life? What do we do when a company continues to engage in practices that are harmful to others, that dehumanize others? Are we willing to speak for those who have no voice? I love the story of Jesus when he had dinner at Simon the Pharisee’s house in Luke 7. While he’s there, a disreputable woman comes in and anoints Jesus’ feet, washes them with her tears, and all Simon can think about is how awful it is that this horrible woman has come into his house. Then there’s this very poignant moment when Jesus asks, “Do you see this woman?” (Luke 7:44). Well, of course Simon could see her. That’s why he was upset. She was right there, in his house! But Jesus’ question was deeper than physical sight. Do you see her? Do you realize she is a human being, just like you, Simon? Are you willing to serve others like her, to speak up for those who have no voice, no mater how big the need? When we do, we serve our big God and we become more like Jesus. Do you see those around you who need you to be on their side?

Service is a practice which connects us to the God who calls us to serve, to the savior who gave up all the rank and privilege of being God and came among us to serve (cf. Philippians 2:1-11). As we’ve honored graduates today, it takes me back in my own memory...not to high school graduation (I only barely remember that!) or to college graduation (I remember that a little bit better) but to seminary graduation. Twenty years ago this last month, I finished my formal education, received my last diploma and then returned to Indiana to serve as a pastor for the first time. And I remember all the energy, the excitement, and even the fear that filled that moment. I wrote in the newsletter this month that I’ve realized I’m at somewhat of a midpoint. I’ve been a pastor now for twenty years, and I probably have somewhere around twenty years until I retire, which is enough to cause one to stop and think. Maybe our graduates aren’t thinking this way yet, but the question we should always be asking is this: what are we doing that will matter? What are any of us doing that will last? When twenty years goes by quickly, what will you have done to serve others in Jesus’ name? What will you have done to draw nearer to God and to make a difference in your community? It’s not enough to just come to worship for an hour a week (or less); God calls us to so much more. As we share in the bread and the cup this morning, he calls us to receive his grace, to be filled with his spirit, and then to rise from the table to go and serve. What need will you need this week? William Barclay put it this way: “Real religion is to rise from our knees before God to meet…the problems of the human situation. Real religion is to draw strength from God in order to give it to others. Real religion involves both meeting God in the secret place and men [and women] in the market place. Real religion means taking our own needs to God, not that we may have peace and quiet and undisturbed comfort, but that we may be enabled graciously, effectively and powerfully to meet the needs of others” (167). True religion is this: to rise from the table energized to meet the needs of those who most matter to God. And all of God’s people said…Amen.