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Sunday After Pentecost – July 6, 2003
Steve Nash was in the office the other day when he heard someone knocking on the front door of the church. Steve got up and went to check it out, and lo and behold, it was Jesus! White robe, long flowing beard, the whole get up. Well, Steve sort of panicked and came running to me. “Jesus is knocking at the door. What should we do?”
Well, I did the only thing I could think of. I called Bob Puckett. After all, Bob has been around since the days of Noah, and if anyone would know what to do in a situation like this, it’d be Bob. So I got him on the phone and said, “Puck, we’ve got a situation down here at the church. Jesus is knocking at the door. What should we do?”
And without even a moment’s
pause, Bob said, “Look busy!”
That didn’t really happen!
But I’ve been thinking this week, what if it did happen? What if Jesus actually showed up here today at the Community Church? What do you think would happen? Would there be miracles? Healings? Exorcisms? I can think of a few people who could use one of those!
Well, that’s the underlying premise of today’s Scripture reading from Mark 6. Jesus shows up one day at church! But what happens is not quite what you might think. Nothing happens! Did you catch how the Bible describes it?
“He could not do any miracles there…and he was amazed at their lack of faith.”
No miracles? Lack of faith? In the CHURCH?????
I’m not sure what your experience is, but it seems to me that what happened – or didn’t happen – that day in the synagogue in Nazareth is pretty much what happens – or doesn’t happen – in most of our churches today. We don’t encounter all that many miracles, healings and exorcisms here at the Community Church, and if we did, what would the Presbyterians say? I’m only kidding the Presbyterians. But really, in most churches today sick people come, but find no real relief. Addicted people come, but find no deliverance. Selfish people come, but find no transformation. Lost people come, but find no true direction. There seems to me to be a great shortage of miracles, healings and exorcisms in the Christian church today despite the fact that our world and our lives are filled with so much brokenness, pain and oppression.
So maybe the words of our reading
are meant for us today: “He could not do any miracles there…and he was
amazed at their lack of faith.”
Now, Mark is not one to leave us under the weight of an observation like that. The Gospel of Mark, after all, is a Gospel of hope! So Mark very cleverly continues this story by pointing us in the direction of a better way. Jesus leaves the synagogue and gathers his disciples. He sends them out to the villages of Galilee. And in verse 12 we read, “They went out and preached that people should turn around. And they drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”
Do you get the picture? No miracles in the church, but lots of miracles in the villages! No mighty works on the one hand – many mighty works of God on the other! And we are left to ask the question, “Why?”
What do you suppose is the difference?
Well, I’d describe it this way:
this scripture story is about a crucial turning point in the life of
faith. On one side of this turning point, faith is listless and dull and
powerless to affect life as it really is. But on the other side of the turning
point, faith becomes active and alive and exciting and powerful! And at the
center of the message the disciples preached is the invitation for people to turn
around!
Where have we heard that before?
Well, way back at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we read, “After John was put in prison, Jesus went
into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come! The kingdom
of God is at hand! TURN AROUND and believe the good news!’”
Turn around! That’s the message of the Gospel! That’s what it means to accept Christ! That’s what makes the difference! That’s what makes faith come alive!
So let’s let Jesus teach us today about what it means to turn around!
First of all, to turn around means to change the way we think about heaven!
Back in the days when I was a very young Christian, I thought that heaven was a place you go to when you die. That was before I read the newspapers.
Did you see today’s headlines? Two young Chechnyan women strapped explosives to themselves and then blew themselves up in a crowd of concert goers in Moscow. Sixteen people were killed, many more injured.
We live in a world today where religiously motivated suicide bombings occur almost daily. And what lies at the center of the psyche of those who are willing to sacrifice themselves in such ways?
A conviction that they’ll go to heaven when they die.
Oh, if you have a religion that’s focused on heaven as a better place that’s out there in the distance without any connection to life right here and today, that religion is dangerous!
I used to think that heaven was a place you go to when you die. That was before I read the newspapers. And before I moved to the Bible Belt.
All around us, you know, are people who’ve responded to the appeal to give their lives to Christ so that, when they die, they’ll go to heaven. Trouble is, while all that belief in heaven percolates all around us, we live in a part of the country where suicide rates are high, spousal and child abuse are rampant, drug and alcohol abuse are widespread, divorce is common. The social dysfunction among Bible Belt Christians is often higher than even among non-Christians!
Oh, if you have a religion that’s focused on heaven as a better place that’s out there in the distance without any connection to living responsibly in the present, that religion is dangerous!
I used to believe that heaven was a place to go to when you die. Before I read the newspapers. Before I moved to the Bible Belt.
And before I met Dan.
Dan was 19 or 20 years old. Brilliant athlete who went off to college on an athletic scholarship. Great intellect. Had such a bright future. One day, Dan came home from college on vacation and got together with some old high school friends at the town park. They popped a few beers, told a few jokes, and about midnight decided to go swimming in the town pool. Dan was the first to dive in.
But in the darkness, he couldn’t see that there wasn’t any water in the pool. In one instant, Dan’s life was changed forever. When I met him, he was a bitter, distraught, wheelchair-bound quadriplegic struggling to make it through each day. On the one hand, he feared that he might die, and on the other hand, he feared he might have to live this way forever. How sad it was to watch Dan blow into a tube to make his wheelchair move left or right or start or stop.
Dan’s tragic circumstances made me re-think my views about heaven.
You see, it’s all well and good that some day, when Dan dies, he can experience the freedom and new life of heaven. And what a beautiful day that will be!
But what about in the meantime?
You see, Dan does not only need heaven tomorrow! Dan needs the kingdom
of heaven in his life today!
And when I understood that about Dan, for the first time I heard the Gospel of Jesus in a different light. Jesus did NOT come into Galilee preaching to all these sick, broken and demon-possessed people a Gospel that said, “The kingdom of heaven will come to you some day out in the future when you die!” No, Jesus came preaching, “The time is NOW! The kingdom of heaven is AT HAND! Turn around and believe the Good News!”
Heaven begins TODAY when you place your trust in Jesus Christ. There are new resources, new powers, new strengths, new ideas, new attitudes, new possibilities available now! You may face the restrictive realities of your illness or injury, but you don’t have to be owned by it anymore! There is a new King on the throne of your life, and he will bring you life even in the face of disability! You may notice that in the bible healing and exorcism are almost always talked about in the same breath. I believe this is because not everyone can be healed, but everyone CAN be set free of the oppressive power of the limitations life imposes upon us.
Heaven is not for
tomorrow. Heaven is for today, and its LASTS forever!!
The people of Israel longed for the kingdom to come. Beaten, enslaved, broken, oppressed, they dreamed of the day when the Messiah would come and help them stand up to their enemies, and overcome their oppressors, and lead them to new life and joy!
And when Jesus came into Galilee, he said, “The time has come! Turn around and believe the Good News!”
Now I’m going to guess that there are many of us here today who need heaven to come and grip our lives right now rather than later! And I want you to know that God wants that for you, too. It is time to be set free from your addiction, and God has the power to help you. It is time to do something about poverty in our world, and God has the power to help us. It is time to reconcile that broken relationship, and God has the power to help. It is time to put away that self-centeredness that keeps you from being able to truly love others, and God has the power to show you how.
The kingdom of heaven is within striking distance of your life, and you can have its power, its hope, its energy, its wisdom, its joy for facing and overcoming life as it really is – NOW!
This is an amazingly powerful discovery if you’ll receive it. You know, I was watching the 4th of July celebration from Washington, D.C. the other night. What a beautiful and inspiring show it was. I loved two things about it. One was listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture accompanied by fireworks. The second was Dolly Parton dressed up like an American flag! Wow! Three cheers for the red, white and blue!
But as I watched the celebration and reflected on how blessed we are to live in this great land, it struck me that our forbears had a faith that was not content to find liberty only someday in the future when they died. Our American ideals – life, liberty, equality, justice – are the very ideals of the kingdom of heaven. But the mothers and fathers of our nation would not leave them for the future. Instead, they claimed and fought for those ideals in the present! And as a result, you and I experience heaven’s presence in our lives every day
The kingdom of heaven is at hand!
So the first part of turning around is to change your understanding of heaven from the future to the present. God wants to establish heaven in your life TODAY!
And then there’s a second part of turning around.
You may have noticed that the church people of Nazareth were so obsessed with the humanity of Jesus that they were unable to experience his divinity. They were put off by the fact that Jesus was just a guy who’d grown up among them. He was Mary’s son - the brother of James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and a bunch of sisters who are not even named. To the people of Nazareth, Jesus was just the freckle-faced little kid who grew up among them like any other freckle-faced little kid – playing right field on the local Little League team, selling greeting cards door to door with the Junior Sales Club of America, playing a squeaky third clarinet in the high school band, being not smart enough to take the honors courses but very gifted in the vocational shop - especially in woodworking. And now, all grown up, Jesus was – in their view - just another carpenter.
You see, they saw Jesus so fully in his human circumstances that they could not see the divinity at work in his life.
This is one of the most serious symptoms of the condition of human sin – our inability to see God present and at work in ourselves, in others and in the world. You made a big mistake at one time in your own life, and now – even years later - you still beat yourself up over it and live your whole life in the shadow of that mistake. You have a friend who is an alcoholic and all you see is an alcoholic. You have a child who has made a series of bad decisions, and all you see is the debris and the pain she’s caused. You pull off the Interstate and stop at the end of the off ramp. There he is - the greasy guy with the sign that falsely says, “Will work for food.” And all you see behind the scam is a despicable loser.
How easy it is to look at ourselves or others in terms of what’s wrong. And in a society like ours, where we have the freedom to make our own choices and decisions, and where we value individual responsibility, we often define people in terms of the decisions they make. And there are a lot of people in the world who’ve made bad decisions.
But our faith calls us to turn around in the way we look at others. It may be true that our choices determine to a large extent where we end up in life, but none of our choices define who we really are. You who made the mistake – him, the alcoholic – her, the rebellious child – him, the scam artist by the highway – are each and every one made in the image of God! We are God’s children, and God’s love for his children is greater than even our worst choices!
I think one of the hardest things about being a Christian is giving other people the dignity of their true identity as children of God. Learning to treat others with that dignity and respect, becoming hopeful even for those the world sees as hopeless, sticking up for those who everyone else has given up on, trying to be like Christ in the way you speak to and treat others is the greatest challenge of Christian living.
Yet seeing and treating yourself and others as people within whom God is at work is a powerful way of living. You will see miracles and transformations take place before your very eyes - just like Jesus and the disciples did!
And then one final step in turning around.
Changing your understanding of
Jesus.
This is the most basic turning point of all, you know – deciding who Jesus really is. Is he just another carpenter, a figure from the past, a religious teacher like every other religious teacher ever to come down the pike? You see, if that’s what Jesus is to you, you will confine him to a place in your life where his divine nature cannot touch you and bring to your life the very power of God you so desperately want and need.
But you can turn around! There is a turning point in faith where you are invited to adjust your way of looking at Jesus. Come and meet Him now as the divine Son of God, as the loving Savior who forgives you and offers you a new beginning, as your powerful Liberator who will help you overcome the things that oppress you, as the Great Physician who will minister to you in the face of your illnesses, as the faithful Guide who will show you the way through life’s confusing moments, as the Prince of Peace who reconciles people, families and nations!
The thing about turning to Jesus as the divine Son of God is that you open yourself to the most powerful source of healing and love in the world. And once you’ve experience that, you can never go back to the deadness and irrelevance of “religion” on the other side of the turning point.
So here we are at one of faith’s most important places.
It’s time to turn around!