sermons and notes posted on this blog are not necessarily what came out of my mouth during the services,
but they'll offer a sense my dance with the Holy Spirit while preparing to preach

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

We’re in this together, with faces like flint and hope for the future


[opening remarks as Campus Missioner to those gathered at St. James, Wichita - E.g., thanks for support, thank leadership, solicit interest for new campus peer ministers, etc.]


Now let us turn to this pivotal Wednesday in Holy Week.  Here we are gathered in an intimate scene with Jesus as he enjoys final Passover meal with his closest friends. 

Those gathered have been with him for years.  Their journeys have been difficult, and we know will become even more challenging in ways they have yet to imagine.  Tonight they’re hungry.  They’re hungry for the liberation and redemption that Jesus will bring.  Their hopes were amplified just days ago when they entered Jerusalem with him to cheers and the waving of palm branches.  Through him must come what their ancestors and prophets have longed for – kingdom restoration.  This is their new Lord, teacher, and messianic savior.  And, we can imagine that each of them is harboring a very personal hope and expectation about the benefits that are to come when their vision of kingdom is come.  At this last supper, consistent with what he’s been showing them all along, Jesus challenges them to see the kingdom anew, through God’s eyes, not their own.

At this Passover Seder, they are celebrating a great return from exile with God’s help...  and they are looking toward their future with equally hopeful expectations about a new kingdom to come.  Jesus has been trying for years, and will continue tonight, to provocatively shape their expectations about the kingdom of God and their roles in helping everyone reunite there.

What is each of us carrying in our hearts and minds tonight as we gather with Christ for this intimate meal?  The story we share during this supper is about God’s promises for our return, with God’s help, from exile. What are we privately hoping will be the benefits of following our Lord into the promised place?  When we look around and consider who is gathered with us, don’t we want to believe we’re all kinda aiming for the same sort of kingdom life together?  Isn’t it a little hard to believe that any of one of us would intentionally plot to betray the other?  Isn’t it a little hard to accept that following our Lord may well lead us through additional earthly hardship and suffering?

And, yet, here we are hearing about Satan entering one of the Jesus’ closest partners in ministry, Judas, the one so trusted that he kept the group’s collective financial resources.  We watch, confused, as this trusted disciple departs our common table to betray our leader and to betray us.  “It was night” says verse 30.  Even as they (we!) gather for this sacred meal with friends and our heavenly Lord, there is darkness all around them (all around us). 

If we’re honest tonight at this meal with Jesus, we each stand convicted of having chosen to betray Christ and each other, sometimes in smaller ways of neglect or denial and sometimes in more intentionally mean-spirited or selfish ways.

Jesus doesn’t draw attention to the darkness, though.  He doesn’t seem to admonish the one who he knows will betray him.  In fact, as we’ll consider in more depth tomorrow night, while gathered as the common table, their teacher and leader lowers himself to serve each of them, washing each of their feet, including the feet of the very person he knows will soon walk away to betray him and the entire ministry they have shared the past several years.  Despite any of our shortcomings, Jesus wants us all to be fed and to be reconciled in the heavenly family... and he’s willing to go to extraordinary lengths for this glorification.

How great is God’s mercy and compassion?  How extraordinarily gracious is Christ’s love for us, even when we’re possessed of evil desires and selfish intentions?

The days to come will be some of the most horrific and discouraging for those who love Jesus.  In the days, weeks, months, and years that follow, each person here gathered will be challenged to come to new terms with what Jesus has been teaching, demonstrating for us, and calling us to do in his Spirit.  Our expectations of God will likely be challenged just as our acceptance of God’s expectations of us will be challenging.  Jesus the messiah came to make things right, not to establish a kingdom in which any of us gain at anyone else’s expense. 

Following the examples and commandments of our Lord will not be easy. Though he tells us that his yoke is light for those who follow him, he also asks us to take up the cross as we follow him – calling us to realize that the world around us is not as ready to accept the good news that we’re all family and should care for each other as Jesus cares for us, with a particular preference for lifting up the lowly and the least among us.

The author of Hebrews says we are to run this race of life – this marathon that we’re in together – with faithful perseverance, looking ahead realizing that Jesus has already gone before us to courageously pave the way, enduring the worst hardships on our behalf to cut this path home to our reunion with God’s family.  “Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:3)

Through the prophet Isaiah, we are told that we are not to turn backward, even when moving forward in faithful perseverance and fidelity to God results in us being insulted, spit upon, and even struck.  Each day we are to let go of the guilt or fear that might weigh us down and to rise morning after morning remembering that we are teachers of God’s promises as we face the struggles ahead with faces like flint –strong and incisive.  Shame and disgrace from the powers that oppose us all sharing equally in the kingdom of God’s love shall not win the day.  God has the final say and will vindicate his servants who have suffered for the sake of justice, compassion, and mercy.  On Easter morning we will celebrate this good news – are we deeply convicted of that this really means in our globally interdependent lives today?

This journey, this race, if we’re following the examples of Jesus, will come with heartache and suffering – that’s guaranteed if we’re living and loving as Christ has shown us how to.  And, our Lord, who endured trials at least as great as any we face, has already won this race for us all.  We’re not having to compete to win – we’re being call to cooperate and support each other on this journey to a home already prepared for us.

As we enter the darkness tonight after departing from this meal, remember “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Those faithful who have gone before us, include Jesus himself as well as all those who were gathered at the last supper, pack the home stadium and cheer us on.  When the going gets tough – and it will – and the dark clouds of adversity surround you, remember that you are loved and supported not only by a great heavenly family, but also by sisters and brothers here and now who gather at this common table with you in Christ’s name. 

Each time we gather for this meal, particularly in the next three days ahead when we’ll come face to face with some of the darkest realities of human nature, remember that we’re to stay the course, focused on God through Christ, and that we’re in this together.  Whether sprinting or walking, we are to be side by side on our journey home and God is with us, Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. 

AMEN.

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