Dangerous

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 1:1-14; Nahum 1:2-7

December 7, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It’s a common scene, even in our own city. You’re walking along, minding your own business maybe talking to a friend, and suddenly there is someone holding a sign: “Homeless, need work, have kids, God bless you.” And a choice confronts us. Do we ignore them, pretend we didn’t see them? Do we acknowledge their presence and yet just go on? Do we engage them? Do we give to them? Believe me, I know all the cynical reasons why we don’t want to give, and I also know that many of those reasons are legitimate. There are agencies “those people” can go to. There are resources available. Very often, they are standing in front of places that have jobs available—maybe not glamorous jobs, but jobs nonetheless. What do we do? How do we respond?

The same dilemma confronts us in less threatening situations when we exit a store this time of year and hear the ringing of a bell. We might look over and see a red kettle with someone standing by it. The Salvation Army is out again; in fact, they were out mid-November this year, collecting donations for helping those in need. They collect the biggest part of their donations during these weeks. And some of you have stood by those kettles, as I have and will again at the end of the month, and you’ve watched as people just like you and me face that choice. Some walk by. Some pretend not to see you. Some drop in a few pennies. And some drop in dollars. The choice is ours every time we see a red kettle or something similar. What do we do? How do we respond?

I don’t know about you, but every time I face a choice like that, whether it involves a kettle or a homeless person, I’m haunted by words from the Bible. James, the brother of Jesus says that pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans (James 1:27). For him, “widows and orphans” was a way of saying what Jesus had said earlier, that we’re to care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). In fact, when Jesus talked about “the least,” he talked had a much broader definition: prisoners, those who are hungry, the stranger, the one who needs clothes, the one who is sick. Jesus went so far as to say, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45).

I realize these are not the most uplifting words for the second Sunday in Advent, but here’s the thing. This year, during this season, we are looking at the ways Jesus demonstrates the character of his heavenly Father. We’re thinking about how Jesus is God “under wraps,” and last week we talked about the joyful news that God is expectant, waiting and wanting to give us the very best gift or all. But another side of God’s character is that he is dangerous. He invades our lives and doesn’t leave us comfortable. He presents us with choices like these. Some have said this baby of Bethlehem has come to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He is dangerous because he comes to mess with our lives, to tear them up in order to put them back together.

Though I haven’t done so for a long time, I used to do some work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization that seeks to provide comfortable, affordable housing for those who are living at or below the poverty level. And I remember talking with some of those in the local Habitat leadership about the different projects they had going. Most of the time, Habitat prefers to build a brand new house, mainly because, as any contractor will probably also tell you, it’s easier to start fresh than to do a remodel. When you set out to remodel, no matter what you think you’re getting into, it’s almost always worse. We learn that every time we go to Red Bird Mission. The first time down there, we were to put in replacement windows in a trailer, and when the old windows came out, the wall beneath them literally disintegrated in front of us. So we had to build a new wall before we could put the windows in. When we pulled up the carpet to replace it with linoleum, we found we had to also replace the rotted floorboards. Remodeling is often more costly and a lot more work than rebuilding, and yet which does God choose to do with our lives? Rebuild? Does he just get rid of what he has and start over? I think there must be times when he is tempted to do that, but instead God sends Jesus to mess with our lives, to tear them up and remodel. Jesus comes to put us back together, to make our lives the way they ought to be, and when he starts his work, it’s messy. And the work is dangerous.

That truth is tucked into the midst of John’s nativity story which we read this morning. Now, if you missed the shepherds and wise men in the passage we read this morning, you’re not alone. John’s account of the nativity is much more cosmic in scale than either Matthew’s or Luke’s, as John reaches all the way back to Genesis to begin telling his story of Jesus. His first words, “in the beginning,” are, of course, the same way that book begins, and it would have tipped off his readers that John is about to tell a story that is about so much bigger than just a single rabbi teaching in a tiny little outpost of the Roman Empire. This story John is going to tell is all about God and the world and the new way God is going to work and act within his much-loved creation (cf. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 3). “In the beginning,” John says, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1).

At the risk of sounding like a politician, we have to think for a moment about what the word “word” means. John was, most likely, writing in Ephesus, which in those days was a cosmopolitan port city. Today, it’s located several miles inland as silt has, over the centuries, filled in the old harbor. It’s about a half hour from the port of Kusadasi, Turkey, and in its day Ephesus was an impressive city. We were there this fall, and got to walk on those ancient streets. We got to stand in the theater where Paul found his life threatened. And we got to see the famous Library of Celsus. Ephesus was a place of learning, of scholarship, of knowledge. In ancient times, this library was one of the top three in the world, and though it was built after both Paul’s and John’s time, it still tells us that this city had a history, a heritage of great learning, especially in philosophy. When John taught about this Word, the Ephesians would have understood it to refer to a universal law, the Word that governs everything (Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 31). And they weren’t far off, except John insists that the Word is a person. The Word is God, who does indeed govern everything. And that Word became flesh (1:14). In the person of Jesus, the Word came to live among us.

And then John goes on to describe that “Word made flesh.” This Son, he says, came from the Father, “full of grace and truth” (1:14). We love to read those words on Christmas Eve, or any most any other time for that matter, but do we often think about what they mean? What does it mean that Jesus comes “full of grace and truth”? I mean, obviously, it means that what “grace” and “truth” are, he is. Jesus is completely filled with those things. “Grace” and “truth” are who he is. I’ve shared before that behind our word “grace” is the Hebrew word hesed, which John would have known from his study of the Old Testament. Hesed is a dangerous word, and it’s very difficult to translate into one English word. In fact, the King James Version translates it fourteen different ways, and those translators even made up a word in order to try to convey what it means: “lovingkindness.” Perhaps the best attempt at a translation of hesed is this: “when the one who owes you nothing gives you everything” (cf. Card 36). It is the defining characteristic of God. He owes us nothing, even though we often act and think like he does. He is the creator; he owes us nothing, and yet he chooses to give us everything. He chose to come as a baby in a manger, to live and die to show us the way to life. He offers us eternal life, resurrection life. He owes us nothing, but gives us everything. And when we really think about what that mean, it sounds a bit—you guessed it—dangerous. God’s taking a huge risk—what might he have in mind for us? What does he want from us?

The Word became flesh and came full of grace and truth. Truth stops being a philosophical idea when Jesus comes. Truth ceases being about having the right doctrine or all the right answers. We Christians fight with each other and with other people of other faiths about correct answers and interpretations of Scripture and right ways of doing things and whether or not we can get along. Our own denomination is in the midst of several such fights right now, and all sides claim to have the truth, to be on the side which has figured it out. But, Jesus is not an idea. Jesus is not a correct answer. Truth is a person—“living, breathing and eventually bleeding and dying…[After the coming of Jesus,] knowing the truth will no longer mean knowing the answers but only knowing Jesus Christ” (Card 36). Truth is a person. It’s not about having all the right answers. It’s knowing the only answer is him. When Pilate, the Roman governor, looked Jesus in the eye and asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), he didn’t realize what John has already told us: truth is a person. Jesus is truth, and so being “in the truth” is not about having all the right answers so much as it is about being faithful to and following this one who is full of grace and truth.

“The Word became flesh,” John says, “and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). Behind this idea of “the Word” would be the Hebrew word dabar, which isn’t just about speaking. When we think of a “word,” we think speech only. Words are those things that come out of my mouth, hopefully after I’ve thought them through (but not always!). Dabar, however, refers to both “word” and “deed.” In other words, what God says he will do. Unlike us sometimes, he will always follow through on what he promises. And we like to think about God’s promises. We like to buy little books with positive promises that we want to believe apply directly to our lives just as much if not more than they did to the ones who first heard those promises. We like promises like these words from Isaiah: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles…” (40:31). Or this promise from Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” (29:11). I find myself in difficult days often clinging to the words of Psalm 27: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (27:13). And everyone wants to hear the words of Psalm 23 at a funeral: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (23:4). And when we’re tired, who doesn’t love to hear these words from Jesus himself: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

But there are other promises God makes as well, promises we usually ignore, promises like those spoken through the prophet Nahum: “The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished…Who can endure his fierce anger?” (1:3, 6). Malachi echoes a similar theme: “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap…I will come to put you on trial” (Malachi 3:2, 5). God keeps those promises, too. In the Old Testament, God promised over and over again that if Israel did not repent, enemies from other lands would come and destroy them. And that’s exactly what happened. And God even keeps promises we don’t want him to keep on behalf of others. Look at the story of Jonah. He only preached to the Ninevites, one of Israel’s enemies, because when he tried to run away, God had him swallowed up by a big fish and redirected. And when he preached, and they repented, he still hoped God would destroy them, just because he didn’t like them. When that destruction didn’t come, Jonah was mad at God. If anyone knew the dangerous side of God, Jonah did.

You see, here’s the dangerous truth about God: he doesn’t follow our plan. God only follows his plan, and that means we very likely will be “called to tasks we never imagined ourselves undertaking, to challenges we feel ill equipped to handle, and to unknown territory where we may not want to go” (Robb, Under Wraps, pg. 33). Think about the story we remember this time of year. Mary was minding her own business, trying to be a good, faithful Jewish girl, engaged to a righteous man and waiting on her wedding when God stepped in and completely disrupted her life. She was going to become a mother, pregnant before she and Joseph got married. Regardless of how it happened, it was a dangerous thing to undergo in that time and place. She could be stoned—killed as an adulterer. That would have been within Joseph’s right to order. God called Mary to walk a dangerous path, and yet, knowing full well the risk, Mary said, “May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38). And what about Joseph? A carpenter from Bethlehem, engaged to this young maiden. When he finds out she is pregnant, he decides he has to divorce her, break off the engagement. He won’t ask for her death, but it’s too risky for him to marry her. He knows the child is not his, and he also knows that, in small towns, people talk. A lot. It would be damaging to his reputation and it could be damaging to his business as a carpenter if he stayed with her. And, at that moment, when he’s made up his mind, God speaks to him through a dream and tells him, as God often has to tell people in similar situations, “Don’t be afraid.” Joseph learns, as he takes Mary to be his wife, that God and God’s call are dangerous.

And the danger didn’t stop when Jesus was born. Herod, the puppet king of the region, gets wind that a “newborn king” is in Bethlehem, and so he sends soldiers to get rid of all the baby boys under the age of two in that tiny village. Herod was one of the greatest builders of the ancient world. He was known as “Herod the Great” because of his many ambitious building projects, not because of his kindness, because behind this successful politician was a terrified man. He was extremely paranoid, so much so that he had his wife and two of his sons put to death because he thought they were trying to take his throne. Ordering the death of baby boys in Bethlehem was nothing to him if it would guarantee his continued rule. Now, we often picture a huge massacre, but in reality, in a village the size of Bethlehem, we’re probably talking about a dozen or so baby boys—still too many. Jesus came to overturn and challenge the power structures of his day, and that challenge, that danger, began when he was born. It’s only a warning Joseph receives in a dream that saves the family by sending them on their way to Egypt (cf. Robb 37; Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 125). Jesus’ presence is dangerous. God’s call is dangerous. He might call us to do something or go somewhere we’ve never been before, to our own personal “Egypt.”

But the good news is this: when God calls us, he also equips us. A few weeks ago, we looked at that truth in the life of Moses. When you read the prophets, you see how many of them complained about God’s call on their lives, and said they didn’t have what it takes. God reassured every one of them he would be with them if they would be faithful. Over Christmas break 1987, Cathy and I attended a missions conference in Urbana, Illinois, and when at the end of the Conference Tony Campolo asked everyone who was called to respond in some way to stand up, I found myself getting to my feet. Now, the whole conference had been about urban ministry, inner city missions. I was from Sedalia, Indiana. Population 150. The closest thing to inner city we had was the grain elevator. But that next spring break, I found myself working with a team from Ball State on the north side of Chicago. And that summer, when I could have been working a job and earning money, I answered God’s call to go work on the west side of Chicago in a day camp outreach ministry. I was the woodworking teacher. I had and have very few skills in woodworking. More than once, I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. It was an unfamiliar path, and yet, God gave me what I needed. I didn’t get great woodworking skills, but God equipped me just enough to barely stay ahead of the kids, and more importantly to answer his call. While we were there that summer, there were multiple murders about a block from where we lived and drug deals going down daily. Yet God provided and equipped all of us. Are you willing to be called by the dangerous God?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was generally a quiet man, and he wanted to be a scholar, or even just an “ordinary” pastor. But the circumstances of history forced him to be more, as he lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. Bonhoeffer’s heart broke when he saw his beloved church co-opted by the Nazi government, and so he set out to do something about it, to purify and renew the church. He was outspoken in his criticism of Hitler, and even participated in a plot to kill the Fuhrer. Because of that involvement, Bonhoeffer found himself arrested and imprisoned near the end of the war. This was not the life he would have chosen, but he believed that his call from God was not to remain safe, but to follow the dangerous God into peacemaking. Bonhoeffer did not survive the war, as he was executed just a few weeks before its end by the Nazis, but during his last Advent, he was able to write to his fiancé, Maria. He wrote these words: “I live in a great unseen realm of whose real existence I’m in no doubt…So you mustn’t think I’m unhappy. Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us” (Robertson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, pg. 179). Bonhoeffer had a strong sense of God’s goodness in the midst of horrible human cruelty. Surrounded by hostile forces, Bonhoeffer wrote these words, among his last written: “By kindly powers protected wonderfully, confident, we wait for come what may. Night and morning, God is by us, faithfully and surely at each new born day” (Robertson 180). Bonhoeffer knew God is dangerous, and will often call us into dangerous places, but he will go with us.

It reminds me of that famous scene from C. S. Lewis’ children’s book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when the children learn that the hero, Aslan, is a lion. Susan asks, “Is he quite safe?” To which Mr. Beaver responds adamantly, “Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you” (Lewis 64).

To walk with God is not safe, but in that walking we learn so very well that God is good. We learn, too, that even in the beginning of the story it’s evident Jesus is not just an ordinary baby. He came to do the will of his father (John 6:38). He was born to die, to give his life for the salvation of the world. That’s what we celebrate every time we come to this communion table, as we’re going to do in just a few moments today. This bread and this cup reminds us that this God we worship is expectant, but more than that he is dangerous. He calls us to follow him wherever he may lead, to trust him with all that we are and all that we have. This baby would grow up and remind those who follow him, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Are you willing to follow this dangerous God whom we find in the manger? Are you ready to follow him wherever he leads? Let’s declare our commitment to him this morning by coming to the communion table.