CHRISTMAS, 2008, lesson #2

Matthew 2:1-12

Last Sunday near the end of the lesson I said that, “It is difficult to believe in Christmas without that star!” Today let us add to that. “And it is difficult to believe in that special star without thinking of those three Kings from the Orient, the wise men or Magi”.

Today we will focus on the Magi. If you don’t already know, “Magi” is the plural form of the Latin word, “Magus”. We use the plural form because legend has it that there were three of them (actually, no one knows how many there were). And, they are also sometimes referred to as kings, as in “We Three Kings”; but that too is wrong. We do know they weren’t kings, even though they were far from being ordinary. These particular Magi were probably from Persia, what is now Iran, and they were from a tribe called Medians. Media was a part of the Persian Empire, and at one time they had tried unsuccessfully to overthrow its leaders . Eventually, the whole tribe became priests, much as the tribe of Levi functioned for the Jews. According to scholar, William Barclay, they were, “skilled in philosophy, medicine and natural science”, the learn-ed men of Persia; and because of the Persian reverence for astrology, Medians eventually became known as holy men or Magi. That they were astrologists, as were many of the educated elite then, bears on our story because the Magi believed that the movement of stars was predictive of events of the future. So the story about a special star in the Jesus narrative has something to recommend its historicity, even though no one today knows the exact star to which the story refers. There are many theories concerning various planets and stars, but little agreement. Even non-believers admit, though, that this event could have happened in the context of that time and place.

Just a point of historical interest here before turning to Matthew 2:1-12. The birth stories from Matthew and Luke are the only birth stories we have. And since neither Matthew nor Luke was present at the birth event, their versions of the story must have come from someone who was, or from someone who heard it from someone who was. Now we know that both Matthew and Luke borrowed extensively from the earlier Gospel of Mark, 1) but Mark does not even mention the Christmas story. He starts his gospel with the adult Jesus and John the Baptist. 2) The Gospel of John, instead of a birth story, uses the majestic words of Greek rhetoric to describe Jesus’ appearance on the pages of history, 3) and strangely, nowhere does Paul mention Jesus’ birth.

So we know that both Matthew and Luke had a source other than Mark for this special story. But the versions of their stories are different in several details, so different sources are probable. At least some scholars think Joseph, Jesus’ father, was the original source for Matthew’s story and his mother, Mary, was Luke’s source. Without going into more detail, and there are other theories about this, let me add that the whole Matthew birth story gives evidence of being told by a man, while a woman, possibly Mary, could have been Luke’s source. With that in mind, let’s now read from Matthew 2: 1-12.

What a beautiful and interesting story. It’s a blessing in itself as evidenced by the fact that millions of Christians read it every year and never seem to grow tired of doing so. Still, its beauty notwithstanding, I contend there is more to it than meets the casual eye. In fact, I don’t even think this story, at its deepest level, is about Magi. It does, though, seem that God worked his will in these real historical people much as he does us today. He blessed their venturing out in ways we can recognize in our own lives. This story, don’t forget, was written by a Jew, and Jewish writers almost always built layered levels of meaning into their stories. So this one, on the surface, meant exactly what was written. But there is a layer beneath the surface, and a profound meaning can also be found there. This is usually a metaphorical meaning and in this one the Magi are us; consequently, their attributes are what we can recognize in ourselves.

Since we have read this story many times, and certainly appreciate its surface beauty, let’s explore what is hidden and maybe even just as profound, the layered meaning with which it is underwritten, and accessible only to those who search. Now keep in mind that doing this negates not even one word of the literal meaning of the story; but it does allow us to build on it, and, most importantly, find ourselves somewhere in God’s overarching narrative, as we are legitimized by the past (these stories) and assured of the future (its prophesies).

The Magi’s quest for knowledge reveals a willingness to venture out, and I hope each of us today will seek our own willingness to venture out by seeing our qualities in them. Their first quality was intelligence, something for which the Magi were known, and indeed, a requirement of their profession. But is that any different than us? Intelligence means one has the ability to absorb information and convert it into knowledge, a process called cognition. While cognitive ability is not the same for all people, it is most rare when combined with the innate ability to reason at a high level. These are qualities with which only a few are blessed; they are special gifts. One does not know why one possesses them, no more than does a great athlete or artist; we can only be thankful if we do. But it was the proper use of some of God’s most unique gifts that was the example set for us by the Magi. They did not rest in smug satisfaction; they did what God equipped them to do. We can do no less; in doing so we, like they, honor God just by embarking on the journey.

This leads into our second point of comparison. Actually, it is two points, curiosity and motivation, but let us consider them at the same time. What a wonderful quality is curiosity. I cannot imagine life without it, yet some people never test the limits of life’s possibilities. I went to pick up a friend at his apartment complex one day in Lubbock. As he got into my car I asked him how long he had lived there. “About three months”, he said. As we exited the complex there was a stop sign before entering the street. “Turn left here,” he said. “Where would we go if we turned right” I asked out of curiosity. “I don’t know” he said, “I’ve never turned right.” The Magi had never traveled this road before either. Yet they embarked on it, seeking someone they didn’t even know.

Contrary to most Christmas stories, plays and nativity scenes, most scholars believe that Jesus was at least six months of age or older when the Magi event took place. Even the text seems to affirm as much in verses nine and eleven where it refers to Jesus as a “child” rather than a baby in a manger. Interesting as that is, though, it isn’t even the point, for the story would stand either way. The real point for consideration here is that the curiosity of the Magi is so descriptive of us. For instance, almost everyone by his or her own station in life, has shown a fair amount of curiosity. But are you curious enough to turn right, when all you’ve done in life is turn left? The second step in acquiring something of value is enough curiosity to want to go to where it lies. I know many of you have done that—maybe all of you. And many times it wasn’t easy and the journey took much longer than the six months the journey of the Magi is estimated to have taken.

It is when one combines curiosity with motivation, though, that discoveries are made. Motivation is a sort of intellectual energy that propels us on quests. It was obviously abundant in the Magi to cause them to embark on such a journey. But that same abundance of motivation I see often in you. I know you as people who are not satisfied just to exist. But are you motivated, or were you? Have you remained motivated? If not, maybe you set the bar too low. What if God’s star, as it continues to move across the heavens, is calling you to follow? In our story the Magi, once they found Jesus, didn’t stop, for their journey was not complete. They still had another journey in them; they returned to their homeland bearing new gifts.

Third, the Magi, scholars surmise, had both wealth and honor among their peers. They were listened to; they were respected. So can you imagine how many people listened and received the joy they brought home, the news of the coming of God to earth? They could bring the good news (and have it heard) because of whom and what God had allowed them to be. But what if they had 1) rested on their laurels, 2) fed only themselves, 3) profited as the sole beneficiaries of their luxury, 4) as many with similar blessings do today? Staggering numbers of people have acquired wealth, yet, never accomplished anything else of note. But the Magi did, for they obviously made courageous, decisions to venture out that enabled them far past what they ever envisioned for themselves.

And herein is the first most important point of our lesson. The Magi did not know what would be at the end of their journey, but they trusted in the journey itself. They believed. And they combined that with 1) their intelligence, which we have; 2) their curiosity, which we have; 3) their motivation, which we have; 4) their power, which we have; 5) and their wealth, which we have.

And the second most important point: what really mattered, and the only thing that mattered, was not what they had, but what they did with what they had. What if this Christmas you receive a cell phone, but no battery with it? That never happens, for manufacturers know that the value of a cell phone correlates directly with a charged battery; so it is included. It is not that the gift is unimportant, just that it needs a catalyst to unlock its real value. God gives his gifts in the same way. He includes a catalyst in the package of gifts he gives us; it may be 1) intelligence, 2) curiosity, 3) motivation, 4) power, 5) or wealth—any or all of them. It’s only in incredible shortsightedness that we correlate the value of his gifts to us with our own personal desires and refuse to use them for what he intended.

The Magi were blessed; but no more than are we. But the blessing did not end with them; they listened to that still, small voice within, that catalyst, and reacted to what they heard; only then did they reach their highest calling in life. If we do that, our star too, will finally come to the place where Jesus is. For there is a star, no less of God’s making, beckoning each of us.

So I invite you, this year, to seek, find and follow your star. Your gifts, no less than those of the Magi, will enable you to bring spiritual and physical healing to the lives of countless people who are hurting and need you. Only then will you truly have a Merry Christmas.

CHRISTMAS, 2008, #1

CHRISTMAS, 2008, lesson #1
December 14, 2008

First I want to thank you for the Christmas gift. As I use it I’ll remember your love and forbearance over this past year—and for the many years. Not all gifts are so thoughtful, though. Back when I was a basketball coach, on one December morning in the late ‘60’s after losing a close basketball game, I went to my mail box and my principal had gift-wrapped a road map for me. He was the principal who—I think it was the next spring—called me in one day and said, “Phil, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the school board has voted to renew your contract. The bad news is that the vote was 4 to 3.” So again, thank you; it has been a blessing for me to be the teacher of this class, and I try to never take that privilege for granted.

Before getting really Christmassy next Sunday, let’s look at how most latter day Christians have come to understand the Christmas story? We would like to think that for centuries and centuries the story was accepted just as first written. There have been disputes about parts of the Bible, though, since the first attempts to gather it into a canon. The ancient Christian fathers wrote much about this and had divided opinions themselves dating back to the first century. Then, in the eighteenth century came the Enlightenment era and progressively better tools for research into antiquity began to reveal inconsistencies in Bible translation. In fact, some of what we thought to be real stories of our faith turned out to be more myth than history. A true understanding, though, is more complicated than that, and usually recognizes that some of the Bible is literal/historical, portions of it are allegory, and a lot of it is somewhere in between. None of this, though, need reflect on the truth contained within. So our question for today is: should we think of Christmas as historical or allegorical?

To help us answer that let’s look at a well known passage of prophesy. In Isaiah 7:14 Isaiah tells King Ahaz, “Therefore (or behold) the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Taken literally, it was King Ahaz to whom God would give this sign; not to Mary and Joseph, nor to the shepherds or wise men. Yet most early Christian writers interpreted the verse as a historical prophesy about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who would be the Messiah. Such stories describing an important birth were common in those times. But did New Testament writers borrow from these stories? After all, none of them were there at Jesus’ birth. But Isaiah was a prophet and the gospel writers, looking back at his words, probably thought them a fitting way to describe the birth of Jesus; a “virgin” will conceive and bear a son. So did it really happen that way? Most Christians today believe it did.

But there are others who read this differently. First of all, let me say that there has arisen, especially since the enlightenment, a cadre of Christian scholars who adamantly oppose the traditional understanding of the Christmas story—and, indeed, other parts of the New Testament. I will ignore this concern for the time being, though, not because their scholarship is right or wrong, but because today I want to concentrate on some Jewish beliefs as put forth by an immanent Jewish scholar named James L. Kugel.

In Kugel's opinion, (now remember, he is a Jew) the passage we just read is not prophesy of a coming Messiah, but refers to a son to be born to King Ahaz of Judah. It seems, in Kugel's opinion that the reign of King Ahaz was less than stellar and, thus, his subjects looked forward to him having a son who would replace him and bring peace and prosperity to the kingdom. So the prophet Isaiah, Kugel’s theory goes, was brainstorming for ways for the king’s reign to be salvaged and put this forth as a possibility. But was it just that, only a muse to King Ahaz (Kugel's belief), as opposed to a prophetic vision shared with him which is the belief of most Christian exegetes.

For many, the answer hinges on the meaning of two words. The first word of the passage, reads “Therefore”, or “Behold”, as in, “Behold, the Lord himself will give you a sign…” If this is the correct rendering of the ancient Hebrew text, then it has to be a prophesy given by God and relayed by Isaiah to King Ahaz. “Behold” in biblical jargon means something is about to happen or already has, so for the gospel writers Isaiah’s fore-telling had to be from God—for did it not happen? God announced the messiah right then and there, some 500 years before the fact.

But there is controversy about whether the original Hebrew word means, “behold”, (the traditional Christian understanding), or as Kugel and others believe, the Hebrew word means “suppose”, as in, “Suppose the Lord himself [would] give you a sign…” If their understanding is correct Isaiah and King Ahaz would be contemplating a positive ending for Ahaz’s reign and Isaiah’s words would have a whole different meaning. An imperative from God, “Behold”, becomes humans casting about for answers; “Suppose…”

Now, here is the kicker: no one knows who’s right. Even James Kugel admits the ancient word could reasonably be rendered either way. So let’s look at another example. Respected exegetes from strong faith backgrounds also have genuine differences about this. The ancient word that we have always assumed meant “virgin” is challenged by others who say it means “young woman”. Was the Messiah to be born of a virgin or was Mary an ordinary young woman? Our text says: “The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son…” and I would hazard a guess that few of us think twice when we read that sentence. For the meaning of “virgin” is obvious, and it fits with one of the major components of the Christmas story; Jesus (a son) was born of Mary (a virgin).

But again, Kugel and others read this differently. Their contention, based on what they consider to be good evidence, is that the word “virgin” only crept into the scriptural text during the third century, B. C. when the Bible was first translated into Greek. Now the pagan Greeks had many superstitions and religious beliefs involving virgins, so it was natural for them to render “young woman” as “virgin”, believing it fit the meaning. Quite by accident this gave early Christian writers the key they needed; Isaiah’s prophesy became the Christmas story. There was no malice aforethought intended by the Greeks, mind you; remember that they did their part three hundred years before the birth of Jesus. Quoting Kugel, “…Isaiah’s “young woman” was translated as “parthenos”, which probably did mean “virgin” to the translators. (It seems unlikely, however, that in so translating they meant to imply an actual…virgin birth; more likely, they simply meant that a virgin would get married, become pregnant in the usual way, and then give birth.)”

So understandings of Isaiah 7:14 vary greatly. Mostly, they are shaped by scholars 1) who come from vastly different backgrounds, 2) many of whom were separated by hundreds, even thousands of years, 3) and undoubtedly had faith predispositions that were difficult to overcome, if, indeed, they had any desire to do so. And then there are what I call quasi-exegetes who try to attract attention by publishing headline grabbing opinions and advertise them widely as fact in order to sell books. And believe me, there are plenty of those. “But wait”, as television pitchman Billy Mays says so gratingly, “there’s more.” There is, in fact, another way to understand the Christmas story as we will hear it once again this year. We have the option to cast our adult reservations aside, allow ourselves to become vulnerable, and simply believe!

But maybe we’re just too wise for that. This past Wednesday night I spoke at the Refresh Service and made this statement: “I challenge each of you to find a time, hopefully soon … that you can slip away and be alone. Maybe it will be outside, alone in a star lit back yard … Look up toward heaven and pick out a star (Any star will do; God made them all.), and, for that one night each year, become as one with the wise men. Ponder that star as they must have; gaze at it with a believing heart, knowing it is a special sign God created just for you … the birth of Jesus the savior, can happen in the manger of your heart. That is the really good news … So be still and know that this is Christmas—a time like no other for of all who dare to claim their star.”

Later it dawned on me, there are many who, if they heard that, would think I was losing my grip on reality, wouldn’t they; speaking to adults as if they were children. They see this as another Santa Claus, or Easter bunny, or tooth fairy tale and probably cringe, a little embarrassed for me, an old teacher who is beginning to drift a little as he ages. A friend of mine once laughingly told me that his father, on his death bed, asked him, “Do you think there could be anything to that Jesus and Christianity stuff?” He hadn’t put any stock in such things in his life and he had taught his son well. But now, all the doors of his life were closing and, sadly, he knew it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from the prison in which he would be executed, “… [The world may have] surrendered on all secular problems, [but] there still remains the so-called ‘ultimate questions’—death [and] guilt—to which only ‘God’ can give an answer...” But to truly believe God can give an answer, or even that he has an answer to give, is difficult if you don’t believe in Christmas. And you can’t believe in Christmas without that star! Yes, it may sound unbelievable; it may even embarrass you to say you believe, maybe more to say what you believe, but that star seen by the wise men remains ever present. Maybe it was because they did see and follow that star that they were called “wise men” in the first place.

Actor and comedian, Woody Allen, once said, “The lion and the lamb shall lie down together, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.” Amusing as that is, I must disagree completely. And that brings me to the point of this lesson: the Bible is both history and allegory; so may be the Christmas story. But these words, we are taught, come from God’s Spirit to ours. So if I believe in a creator God, why would I have any problem believing in his holy star; and that special star would have no meaning at all without the Christmas story.

My proof of the veracity of Christmas is that it brings me peace—a “peace that passes understanding”. I have no need to verify that Jesus stuff; I choose to believe. Consequently, I have no problem with the lamb lying down with the lion. Neither, I believe, will the lamb.

WESLEY’S PRUDENTIAL MEANS OF GRACE
(Lesson #4)
December 7, 2008

We will end our series today on John Wesley’s “means of grace”, that part of his theology many consider his most important teaching. If you remember our last lesson, and I know that’s asking a lot, they were 1) prayer, 2) Bible study, 3) the Lord’s Supper, 4) fasting, 5) and group fellowship. Since Wesley deemed these practices to be ordained by God he called them the “instituted means of grace.” In addition, though, he added three precepts of his own. These he called the “prudential means of grace”; ways of living the Christian life that prudent Christians would follow.

The three prudential means of grace differ from the five institutional means of grace—by two. Another difference is, they are less specifically biblical (as you will soon see), yet are ways Christians logically would to put their beliefs into action. There is a good part of that and a bad part, in my opinion. But before we get into the good and the bad, let’s identify the prudential means of grace; they are: 1) do no harm, 2) do all the good you can, 3) and attend the private and public worship of God. As you can see, this closely follows biblical teaching such as 1 Peter 4:10 which says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.” So where do we receive these gifts we are to use? They are given to us because of God’s grace. And what are we to do with them? We are to serve others.

I mentioned that there could be a bad element in interpreting Wesley’s prudential means of grace, and let’s look at that first in something Wesley may have had in mind. According to Steve Harper, who, if you remember, is one of Wesley’s biographers, “He used these means (that is, the prudential means of grace) as conditions for continuing membership in the Methodist societies, and members were regularly examined to see how they were living up to such standards.” In other words, if you didn’t practice the prudential means of grace, you were dismissed from the Methodist Societies. And of the three, only one of them was objective, or measurable: “attending the private and public worship of God”. So one had to attend; and there were examinations to determine this. Needless to say, for most United Methodists today that would be a deal breaker. But in all honesty should we not admit that most people do better when they are accountable to someone other than themselves? But this is far too complicated to get into today, so I will leave it for another time. Still, it’s a pretty fascinating part of our history, to consider how far we’ve come from that, and if that had been good or bad.

Now let’s look at some of what is good about the three prudential means of grace. When I think of 1) doing no harm, 2) doing all the good you can, 3) and attending the private and public worship of God I immediately see that each of them involves two entities, and one of them isn’t God. They each involve me and somebody else. Whereas, of the instituted means of grace, only the last one, group fellowship, involves anyone other than God and me, the prudential means of grace involve a relationship between me and those with whom I share God’s creation. To put it another way, John Wesley believed that we receive grace directly from God, but we also receive it person to person. That implies two things: 1) we said before that grace is most akin to the idea of mercy. So God makes what we do for others an act of mercy—for us! 2) And to place it in the proper perspective, Wesley didn’t mean that we should depend on someone else to give grace to us, because God has already done that. The important idea here is that I will CONTINUE to receive God’s grace (his mercy) through what I do for others. But gosh; wouldn’t it be easier just to ask for it? Must I really do all of that—for them? I have a friend who worked his way from nothing to being very wealthy. He told me one time, everyone wants to be a millionaire—but few are willing to work hard enough to be one. Could that be the same as saying, “Everyone will admit they need continuing grace; but few are willing to do what it takes to receive it.”

There is ample precedent for this, not only over and over in scripture, where we read of people (including the prophets, Jesus and the disciples) ministering selflessly to others, but also from scholars who study the deeper meanings of our faith, and, thus, its wider implications. Let me give you three examples. First, writer and pastor, James L. Mayfield tells us, “The primary instrument God uses to give us grace is other people…People [also] are the primary instruments God uses to deliver us from our distress.” Think about that. Who put his or her arm around you as you hurt with pain, or were paralyzed by fear, or ravaged by grief? Who promised to pray for you? It is always someone who loved you enough to take, not send God’s grace to you. And this doesn’t imply, for instance, that sending our money to those in need, wherever they are in the world, isn’t good. It is! But there is more to it than that. We must take God’s grace to the ones right here in our community who are desperately in need of it.

The second example is suggested by one of my favorite twentieth century theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, “…the most potent form of divine grace is that which is mediated by human love.” I must confess that I struggled as I pondered Niebuhr's words here. I was shamed because of how seldom I’ve visited Gene Faires or Bill Lee or Grace Riggs. I’ve probably fallen short for many of you as well. Speaking for myself, it is just so easy to be too busy. Current writer, Barbara Brown Taylor, really nailed me when she wrote, “…the fraudulent virtue that has come up more than any other has been—talk about what comes naturally—busyness.” Can busyness really be a fraudulent virtue? I have on my desk the name of a former inmate at the Stiles Prison with whom I’ve prayed and shared God’s grace and many good times in Kairos. And now he’s out and working here in Beaumont; and I know where he’s working, but I still haven’t visited him. Yes, busyness is truly one of my fraudulent virtues!

And finally, current theologian, Miroslav Volf sort of sums up this idea of the prudential means of grace as he writes, “Inscribed on the very heart of God’s grace is the rule that we can be its recipients only if we do not resist being made into its agents; what happens to us must be done by us.” Would any of us sit here today and say, “Well if that’s what it takes to receive God’s grace, then count me out”? No, we don’t say that, but, you know, “the proof is in the pudding”; do we change anything? This is what God’s grace is all about. He does for us what he wants us to do for others. And he shows us how to do it, to be the agents of his grace. I suspect that most of us have forgotten what a blessing that is. If so, let me pose to you three questions.

1) Everyone wants to be loved—right? 2) And everyone, deep down, wants to be the hero, don’t we? 3) And do we not all like to be the one who turns on the light in someone’s eyes? Well God has given us the means to be and do all of those things—1) by taking his grace to those who need him; 2) to those who may have forgotten him; 3) and to those who may not know him. These people need a friend. I am reminded of something I read some time ago: “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” There are a lot of people out there who have forgotten the words, and we all know some of them. Let’s sing back to them the song in their hearts—as we place healing arms around them and say, “You matter to me”. To forget or neglect them is sinful if we really believe the tenets of our faith. And remember, God, knowing we are sincere in wanting to learn to love him, gives us each other on whom to practice. It’s what we do with that opportunity that tells us (and God) how sincere we are.

The more I study, the more I observe God working in my life and others, the more I understand how necessary it is to practice Wesley’s means of grace on a continuing basis. For the passing of God’s grace is primarily 1) a transfer of spiritual sustenance, the very food our souls need for us to survive. 2) It is an act of mercy, the very sustenance others need to survive, as well. But this is not a one-time occurrence; a real relationship with him doesn’t end in time, nor is it bound by the perimeter of our souls. God never intended for our spiritual lives to involve communion only with him. The most acclaimed theologian of the last century, Karl Barth, said, “…there is no private Christianity.” What God intended was for our relationship with him to be first; but that is the beginning, not the end, of spiritual completeness. It is to be followed closely by giving relationships—with all others. This is the heart of the two commandments on which Jesus said all the rest depended. In Matthew 22:36-40 Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

It’s hardly a stretch, then, to say that Wesley’s first five means of grace follow that first commandment in which we present ourselves to God. Wesley’s second three means of grace reflect the second part of Jesus’ teaching which was to present ourselves to each other. I think John Wesley might end this series by quoting Jesus’ from Matthew 25:40: “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

WESLEY'S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #3

WESLEY’S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #3
November 30, 2008

Last week we established that grace is “unmerited love”, and even though it’s not spelled out in precise words, such an understanding comes mostly from study of the New Testament. Now let’s proceed to the means of grace as taught by John Wesley. Or, to put it more simply, how do we receive God’s grace?

Grace, as we have it in both in the Old and the New Testaments, is most akin to the idea of mercy. Reasonable as that statement sounds, I am convinced that contained within it is the primary reason most people, both outside and inside the church, find Christianity difficult. Deep down, the idea of needing mercy—from anyone, God included—is difficult for us to accept; in fact, most find it downright repugnant. I mean, look at us; who needs grace? 1) We have more than enough to eat, 2) our closets are full of expensive clothes, 3) our pets are better off than many people, 4) and our smallest home is a mansion compared to most homes throughout the world.

Religiously correct disclaimers giving the glory to God to the contrary, this “I made it on my own” attitude is a classic example of pride—false pride, and is a congenital flaw in humanity. That’s why the New Testament canon devotes considerable space to documenting why we, all of us, are sorely in need of the mercy that flows from God’s grace. In 1 John 2:16 we read, “For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world.” (Or, from the NASB, “the pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world.”). So we are not saved 1) because we are educated or clever 2) or because we are rich 3) or do good things for people, 4) and not because we have achieved a status in our church by which some assume they are exempt from other Christian mandates. If we have been saved, it is because of God’s grace, from which flows his mercy, and then only if we humble ourselves. (And even this isn’t something we can do on our own, but only through the enablement of his prevenient grace). Yet like the “rich young man” from the Gospel of Mark (10:17-22), we, much too often, turn away sadly, refusing to offer what we deem to be ours and ours alone.

So the dichotomy is this: when we feel we are doing well, we are confusing our earthly accoutrements with our spiritual well-being. But Paul says that despite how we may feel, we are spiritually dead. Only God’s offer of unconditional grace through Jesus Christ, and our acceptance of it will change that. But after we have done that, if choose to do that, God’s grace continues. He continues to have mercy on us all our lives and how that happens is the subject of this lesson: the five means of grace, how we receive the grace that keeps us spiritually alive rather than dying spiritually again.

Wesley organized what would become Methodism in order to facilitate receiving the means of grace. He had three basic kinds of groups into which he placed his followers: 1) the first and smallest were called bands. Bands had four to eight people and shared their joys and sorrows with each other in meetings similar to our prayer groups; they knew what they said was heard in confidence and deeply cared about. 2) The second group was called classes. Classes typically contained about a dozen persons and they were careful to place in them mixed genders and with varying amounts of Christian experience. Their teaching mission was led by the laity. According to Steve Harper, these classes would eventually become the “core of Methodist nurture”. 3) And the largest of the three groups were called societies. They usually numbered more than forty and as the smaller groups, were led by lay people who preached, taught and were responsible for the spiritual growth and nurture of the members. Together, these groups were sort of a church within the Anglican Church and were called the United Societies.

Wesley’s first means of grace, experienced in these groups, is prayer. As Wesley he understood it, prayer was communication with God. Do you think of prayer in this way? Answer these questions. 1) Would you have little or no communication with someone who is the most important person in your life? 2) How many times have you heard someone say they divorced because of a breakdown in communication? 3) Or the reason for a war was a failure of the two sides to communicate? Prayer works the same way. If we genuinely exalt God as the most important presence in our lives—why would we not communicate with him? Now I didn’t say “communicate to him”, but “communicate with him”. 1) Of course when disaster strikes, 2) but also in the experience of joy, 3) or when momentous decisions must be made.

Do we actually discuss with him the heavy loads we must sometimes carry? Do we ask for his help? Yes? But do we listen for his reply? How does one do that? Here’s one way: go into your closet and unburden yourself to him, literally. Then be silent, not mentally plotting what you will do, but listening in the humble knowledge that he is speaking to your soul—right then—because you are finally listening. And this is crucial; because you trust that his will has now become your own you have the confidence to walk out that door and right back into life confidently, knowing that whatever comes, you can and will deal with it. But you must be aware that it isn’t you doing the dealing; it is God. And then, later when it’s all over, no matter if his answer is “good” or “bad” in our terms, you can go back into your closet, smile (and it may be through your tears), shake your head in amazement, and say, “How did you do that? How did this happen so perfectly? I’m sorry I ever doubted. Thank you, Father.” But say it your way—sing if you want to. Go ahead; it’s your closet! And be patient; that prayer may come much later. You know, prayer does change things, but not before it changes people; then people change things. Allow-your-prayer-to-change-you. That is God’s answer. This was Wesley’s first means of grace because it works with all the others.

The second instituted means of grace is Bible study. I can honestly say that to my knowledge I have never read my Bible that I haven’t found something special there—a “pearl of great price”, so to speak. We’ve talked many times in this class about Bible study—not just reading, but study. Some people, though, do more than read the Bible; they focus on the words allowing God to speak to them. So, in essence, they don’t read the Bible so much as it reads them. The great Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, was much taken that the rabbis called reading scripture a … ‘calling out’. My question, then, is when we read scripture do we allow it to call us out? Or do we strain it through a colander of self pride that refuses to allow criticism or correction. But criticism hurts, doesn’t it! Yes, it does—but what does it hurt? It hurts our pride. Thus Paul warned us about “hardening our hearts.” Reading the Bible should correct us; when we are falling short it “calls us out”. And its motive is far beyond question.

The third means of grace is the Lord’s Supper. This is a well known practice; but is it known as a way to receive God’s grace? The Lord’s Supper (or Communion, or the Eucharist), is one of the two sacraments of the United Methodist Church, the other being Baptism. We have the opportunity to partake of the Eucharist every week on Wednesday nights and on the first Sunday of every month. Let’s look more closely at that word, “partake”. The best definition I’ve found is this: “to partake is to have, to assume, to envelop ourselves in some of the properties, qualities, or attributes of something.” In other words, when we take into ourselves, partake of the bread and wine representing Christ’s body and blood, we are committing ourselves to put on Christ, to assume his identity in our world, and to envelop ourselves in his attributes. For me, this is both tragic and hopeful. It remembers both his sacrifice and my salvation. It makes me remember that I once had Jesus’ blood on my hands, but now he has washed my hands, made me, as the Psalmist said (51:7), “whiter than snow”. His blood must not disappear, though, for the deadliness of sin remains to haunt us. Taking his blood into my body, his spiritual essence into my own, is one of the ways I inoculate myself against what Paul referred to as, “the wages of sin”, which he added, “is death”. (Romans 6:23)

The fourth means of grace is fasting. And now let’s move on to the fifth…Seriously, most Christians used to fast. It’s was common in Biblical times and John Wesley fasted on Wednesday’s and Fridays as one of the means by which he received God’s grace. Later in his ministry he dropped Wednesdays so as to have strength left for choir practice (just kidding, singers). But he continued to fast on Fridays. And if he did it, you can bet the early Methodists did too. But what about Methodists today? Have any of you ever fasted? I got in my wife's dog house one time and ended up fasting for a week! Wesley understood fasting as a time set aside for his bodily need to remind him of his need for God’s grace, a reminder that the day was set aside for God to speak to him in special ways.

And Wesley’s final instituted means of grace is group fellowship. He was a man after my own heart. He loved being together with other Christians. In fact, his concept of church took on a decidedly social dimension. One time he said, “…refuse no pleasure but what is a hindrance to some greater good, or has a tendency to some evil.” In a way that reminds me of us. For many years, in fact as long as I can remember, this class has loved to socialize together. Now that in itself isn’t unusual, for many people like to party. But what so impresses me is that so many of you obviously want to hear the gospel taught as well. To John Wesley, the gospel always came first, but he loved practicing the means of grace together.

John Wesley had great enthusiasm for his ministry. It was literally his life; nothing stopped him. He believed passionately in what God had placed before him and he pursued its rigors tirelessly without apology or whining. We can do that too, by believing as he did that we are truly serving, not man, but God. We may not birth a new denomination, but each of us can do his or her little part to make what we are associated with the very best it can be; and who knows what may come of that. Wesley had no idea what Methodism would become. He only knew what he had to do; he did it faithfully and the results were just as God said they would be in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

I will end this lesson with my favorite Wesley quotation: “Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”

WESLEY'S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #2

WESLEY’S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #2
November 23, 2008

Last week we launched into a lesson on John Wesley’s five “Means of Grace” as he perceived them to be instituted in the Bible. That lesson has now morphed into a short series that I hope will eventually lead us to Wesley’s five means of grace. We said, too, that he put forth three “Prudential Means of Grace” that he felt were incumbent on prudent Christians. We will identify them as well, as the final lesson of this series.

But first, as best we can, let’s define grace. Probably most of us have a pretty good idea of what it means. I’ll bet most of you have heard this definition: “Grace is unmerited love.” But from where did that familiar definition come, for it isn’t literally spelled out. Now if someone asked us to define “faith” it would be easier because we could refer to Hebrews 11:1 which says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Or, from the King James Bible as it was actually said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” With grace, though, as with faith, there is a great deal more to understand than can be explained in one verse.

For example, did you know grace was perceived differently in the Old Testament than in the New? Let’s read, without context, some verses from the Old Testament that reference grace. See if you can locate a common thread just from these brief passages.

Genesis 6:8: Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Exodus 33:17: And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight…

1 Samuel 1:18: And (Hannah) said (to the high priest, Eli), ‘Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight.’

Jonah 2:8: Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

These passages are representative of how most Old Testament writers presented grace, when they mentioned it at all. And I know you are way ahead of me in finding our answer; in each of these passages, grace was “found” or “given” by doing something that would please someone, usually God—as the phrase, “in thy sight”, signifies.

But then, near the end of the Old Testament, something different and interesting starts to appear. Some of the prophets, including Zechariah, begin to speak of grace in a different way. Let me read Zechariah 12:1 to you and let’s see if it treats the concept of grace differently than the Old Testament formula of seeking God’s favor through good deeds that we just sampled—. “And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace…” Now try to focus on that image, “…I will pour…the spirit of grace…” Instead of us seeking God’s grace by what we do, Zachariah has God saying he will “pour” grace upon us. That seems more than a subtle change to me. For instance, why would we seek what is being poured upon us? The prophet’s wording, not “you will seek”, but “I will pour …” should create 1) a collective sigh of relief—for both them and for us—for it implies that we no longer must work for or earn what will be given, what God will now pour upon us. What if you had worked hard all your life, just barely getting by, following all the rules, and, yet, life continued to be an economic nightmare? And then your rich Uncle Max died and left you the inheritance! Could that not be analogous to having blessings “poured” on you? You would have received something you didn’t have to work for. And despite your profound sorrow at losing Uncle Max, would you not feel relief? I mean, now neither you nor Uncle Max has to suffer any more! Let’s take a different analogy. You may remember the dramatic scene from the movie, “Giant” when the n’er do well scoundrel, Jett Rink’s, first oil well gushes in? He is on both knees looking up, his hands raised toward heaven, oil from the gusher beginning to cover his face, and laughing uncontrollably? I’ll never forget that scene; for Jett Rink it represented freedom from the pain of a life that had always fallen short. This is what the pouring of God’s free grace meant to those who had had to work for it all their lives—relief, freedom, joy. 2) But you would also get the idea that grace is a gift for everyone, for God says he will pour it on all of “…the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem…”; there is grace for everyone! 3) And if that is true, then grace must be abundant, not elusive as it seemed to be. We can forget about the dry holes we drilled when the oil is gushing freely. Why, it’s so abundant that God even wastes some, for we all know of those who have access to grace but decide not to partake. Anyway, the idea of grace being poured freely by God 1) brings relief, 2) is for everyone, and 3) is super abundant.

But back to our passage…I was still searching for the origin of the definition, “Grace is unmerited love”, when, “what to my surprise”, God placed my finger on the key that opened a different translation—the Amplified Bible. I went right to that same Zechariah 12:10 and guess what happened—the Amplified Bible amplified that verse! (Well duh!) Now let’s read Zechariah 12:10 amplified: “And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace OR UNMERITED FAVOR…” I found it! Now I know I could be accused of “verse, or version shopping” here, but I don’t see it that way. I think this is just a matter of how one interpreter sees the ancient text and its translation into the modern vernacular.

Anyway, in the Amplified New Testament the idea of grace is always followed parenthetically with a descriptive phrase like, “God’s unmerited favor” or “God’s unmerited mercy and pardon”. So the idea of grace, while not specifically defined in the Bible (as is faith), nevertheless assumes we understand that grace is a free gift, something given to us by God, of which we are undeserving. Let’s read, without context again, some passages from the New Testament that mention grace and see if we can ascertain a difference in emphasis from the Old Testament.

Romans 5:15: For if the many died by the trespass of the one man (Adam), how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

1 Cor. 15:10: But by the grace of God I am what I am…Notice Paul doesn’t say, “by the grace of God that I have earned”.

Ephesians 1:6-8: In him (Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.

At the risk of wasting your time and insulting your intelligence, allow me to further spell this out for the engineers and architects in the class, those who have so much trouble with words. 1) The verse from 1 Corinthians, says that all we are, however accomplished, is not our doing, but a gift called “the grace of God.” 2) The passage from Romans tells us that grace is a gift that abundantly “overflows to the many”. 3) And the verse from Ephesians says, “we have redemption”, not that we are trying to earn it.

Now there is another point about grace that we don’t often hear. Yes, grace is a gift, and yes, gifts, by definition, are free. But let’s be careful here that we don’t take that too lightly, for as writer, Philip Yancey said, “Grace is free only because the giver himself has borne the cost.” Now I know some of you are probably into re-gifting—giving something that was first given to you. In fact, the last two Christmas presents I got from my brother were ties with his initials on them! He claimed it was a misprint! But grace isn’t a second hand gift. What Yancey is saying is that grace is free—to us, but it sure wasn’t free for God. The point is that grace was as expensive to God as giving up a child would be for one of us. However one may interpret that, it comes down to saying just how important each of us is to God. Grace, then, is a “pearl of great price”. It isn’t something God conjured up as an afterthought and dropped on the world. Grace has been likened to the life sustaining manna that fell daily on the Israelites while making their pilgrimage through the desert. So something as unassuming as manna could and has been understood as a pre-figuration of God’s free grace. Maybe God was remembering the adequacy of the manna when he said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you…” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Now why and how God had to buy grace with a price in order to make it freely available to us is a difficult theological concept. It is delved into by theologian Jurgen Moltmann in his book, The Crucified God, but we won’t attempt that mountain today. Suffice it to say that in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 we are told by Paul, “You are not your own; you were bought [with] a price.”

Probably more than any other single thing, a church-wide misunderstanding of grace was what drove John Wesley. Notice I said a “church-wide” misunderstanding; not a misunderstanding among the unsaved; for they know little or nothing about grace. It was the church that was in error here. Churches can be wrong, you know, and often have been. As we said last week, Wesley was educated by, and a priest in, the Anglican Church, which is the Church of England, and he never left. His goal was not to form a new denomination, but to stay and correct the teaching of his church that salvation was, for all intents and purposes, bestowed by the church. In other words, they had almost an Old Testament understanding of grace.

They should have remembered Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…”

JOHN WESLEY'S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #1

JOHN WESLEY’S FIVE MEANS OF GRACE, lesson #1
November 16, 2008

Ephesians 2:4-9

4) But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6) And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7) in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it [too] is the gift of God, 9) not by works, so that no one can boast.

Let’s look at some facts about our founder, John Wesley. In doing so I want to thank Steve Harper for his help via the second edition of The Way to Heaven, the Gospel According to John Wesley. Wesley was born in 1703 and lived for an astounding 87 years. I say astounding because the average lifespan in those days was about 40 to 50 years. It is astounding too because of how hard he pushed himself. It is a reliable estimate that Wesley rode 250,000 miles, mostly on horseback, and preached more than 44,000 times, mostly outdoors and sometimes to hostile crowds. (I know something about that!). He also wrote vociferously, mostly letters, sermons, tracts and commentaries on the Bible for those in his charge. For this reason we have a wealth of information that has survived 1) from the beginning of his ministry in England as a priest and pastor in the Anglican Church, 2) to his time in America where he planted the seeds from which we grew, 3) and the latter part of his ministry back in his native England until his death in 1791.

John Wesley never left the Anglican, or Church of England, and all so-called Methodists remained Anglicans too, if they belonged to any church. Only after he died did Methodism become a separate denomination. His mission was never to weaken or destroy the Anglican Church, but to renew its vitality. There are several groups trying to do the same thing within United Methodism today and they, too, are meeting the same kind of resistance from church leaders as did Wesley. And this despite many studies similar to that of Thomas Reeve (from his book, The Empty Church) that found shocking facts such as:

· In 1985 1/3 of Methodist churches performed no baptisms
· A 1995 study found that the United Methodist Churches had been losing one thousand members a week for the past thirty years.

Current writer, Tony Jones, said, “… a bureaucracy is never satisfied in a merely supportive role…bureaucracies are bent on one thing: their own self-preservation.” When I look at our pathetic decline over the past forty years I wonder if our own United Methodist bureaucracy should not be questioned—but it seldom is. If you remember and most of you won’t, way back in the mid eighties we spent several classes studying United Methodist Bishop Richard Wilke’s 1986 book entitled, And Are We Yet Alive. Lovingly but pointedly critical of his own denomination, Wilke’s book was widely read and supported by many United Methodist luminaries such as Albert Outler, Will Willimon and Bill Hinson (of Houston First Methodist). Wesley spent his life battling that same apathy in the Anglican Church. In the end, he lost; but his efforts gave birth to a brand new, robust, missional church that would set the religious world on fire for many years to come.

Today, in seeking to re-ignite that Methodist fire, let’s concentrate on one of the most recognizable aspects of Wesleyan theology, his teaching about grace—God’s grace. I was taken while researching this at how often the apostle Paul says something like, “By the grace given me…” or reminds his listeners of the grace God has bestowed on them. No doubt he and later John Wesley had uppermost in their minds their debt to God, a debt neither thought they deserved nor could ever repay. And before we begin, let’s not confuse the means of grace with Wesley’s four kinds of grace: 1) prevenient grace, 2) saving or converting grace, 3) sanctifying or transforming grace, and 4) glorifying or perfecting grace. This lesson is about Wesley’s “Instituted Means of Grace,” meaning they were instituted by teachings from the Bible. He later added what he called the “Prudential Means of Grace”, which were three additional common sense activities for prudent Christians.

CONSEQUENCES AND GRACE

CONSEQUENCES AND GRACE
Genesis 4:13-16
July 13, 2008

If you’ve noticed, throughout this five lesson series on the story of Cain and Abel we’ve make this statement over and over: “But there would be consequences”—and there were. Sometimes, though, consequences have a way of becoming blessings; so I’ve entitled this last lesson, “Consequences and Grace.”

I want us to read and tie in with our story three teachings I think are applicable; 1) a teaching from the old Hebrew law in Deuteronomy; 2) a teaching of Jesus; 3) and a later teaching from the Epistle, 1 John.

In Deuteronomy 30:11-20 we read: 11) Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12) It is not up in heaven…13) Nor is it beyond the sea…14) No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you [are able to obey it]. {Remember Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”} … 16) [So] I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands…then you will live and increase…17) But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them {such as the ones Cain refused to master}, 18) I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed… 19) This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20) and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…

Then in Luke 5:37-38 Jesus spoke this parable to the Pharisees to contrast the old order, personified by John the Baptist, with the coming new one in Jesus. 37) “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38) No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” I want to borrow Jesus’ reasoning here and use it metaphorically to remember the old Cain (murderer, self-absorbed, and dishonest) and use that memory as the catalyst for him becoming the new Cain. This transformation must happen (if it is to happen) in a new place, with opportunities to repent and be redeemed, his past now behind him. Cain, due to both his geographical location (the place of the murder) and the state of his soul (in disobedience to God) would be unable to survive otherwise. The external and internal fallout from his guilt would be too great. So the situation calls for new wineskins, a new place, this time with God, if Cain chose to obey this time.

And we’ve all had times when we needed a fresh start, have we not? Some might say this is running away, but that would be true only if we leave things undone that we can make right. But there are times when events happen that can’t be made right. This was Cain’s situation. He was, as Jesus said, “…without honor…in his own country, and his own house.” Cain’s honor had been lost in his own country and couldn’t be regained. He had to leave to survive so God gave him a second chance.

And finally, a hundred or so years after Jesus, an inspired writer, historically thought to be the apostle John, but probably someone else using his name, wrote in 1 John 3:11-18: 11) “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12) Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one… {Remember God telling him, “sin is crouching at your door and it desires to have you”—well it did!} Cain murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his…actions were evil and his brother's were righteous… 15) Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. {Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “…it was said to our people long ago, 'You must not murder anyone…if you murder you will be liable to judgment. But I tell you, if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be judged…” That means angry to the point of hating or harming the other, or of returning wrong for wrong.} 16) [So, John continues] this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. {We must die? No…} 17) If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” Later Jesus would add, in Matthew 25:39-40, “…as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

So there it is, the gospel, the good news from God’s earliest attempts to reach us, the essence of his word, what it means at its core. Jesus said it would live forever. WE know it as the law of love—to love God AND our brother. Our tendency to let love for our brother be suffocated by the world’s trinkets we allow to seduce us prompted Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, to write the following: “The daily estrangement of brother and brother has come to seem ordinary, routine, and accepted. Estrangement seems to be ‘our common lot.’ (Is it? Are any of us are estranged from someone?) … But (he continues) that [very]… estrangement is turned into the ultimate issue of life and death in the context of the [story we are studying]… By linking [hatred of one’s brother] to death, the issue of the brother is made the ultimate theological crisis…” Is hatred (and some may parse it to “intense dislike”), the burden you carry? Then that is your ultimate theological crisis? Do you hold one, or many, in unforgiveness? Then that becomes your ultimate theological challenge. If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you are playing out a modern day sequel to Cain and Abel in your own life. And if their story was God’s revealed truth, then your story will be no less so.

And finally, God placed a mark on Cain, not to brand him as a perpetrator, but to protect him from those who would harm him in retaliation for the sin of which they, in their own hearts, were just as guilty. No one knows what that mark was, any more than they know what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was, but whatever it was, it carries an ageless warning: “Beware! Before you is my child who killed your brother. You may kill him, but if you do, you become just like him and will experience my wrath no less than he.” For guilty or not, he remains my child! You would react no differently if he were yours.

And one other point: it is to their everlasting shame that some in the church, including ordained ministers, have, in the past appropriated the meaning of the mark of Cain as a literal symbol supporting their hateful, unloving views regarding race. Such justification was not confined to the “old South”, but was a far-reaching evil engaged in by some elements of Christianity as a “run for cover” to be under the protective wing of a powerful but godless sentiment. In so doing, though, they willingly sacrificed the law of love. Sadly, this has not been uncommon over the entire life of the church. In Constantine’s Sword, a best selling book of a few years ago, James Carroll wrote, “That the first followers of Jesus violated his message by slandering their rivals, even demonizing them, establishes better than anything else that the Church, at its core, is as sinful as any other institution.” To the extent that any church teaches, even if subtly, 1) that we are better than they, whomever “they” happen to be; 2) that to be inside the church exempts us from the mark of Cain; 3) that only some rather than all are sinners; 4) that God is satisfied as long as we give our money and follow church dogma rather than what he generously wrote on our hearts, that church, too, bears the mark of Cain and lives in a foreign land.

Thankfully, the mark of Cain conveys a truth much brighter, though. For it was placed on one who deserved death, yet was allowed to live. The scars both we and Cain carry are a substitute for the death we so deserve. Notice, though, I said the mark was a substitute, not punishment. Archbishop Rowan Williams tells us that Jesus, while triumphant over the cross, still bears the scars. “Doubting Thomas” is a witness to that. We, too, like Cain will always bear our scars, though they aren’t intended as punishment. Their presence reminds us that “God’s grace will remake but not undo.”

And Cain’s future, even in a barren land, tells us that we too have hope. And if God commissions us to carry his love into a wounded world, and the hope that embodies, surely he intended for us to be the bearers of his mercy as well. The story of Cain and Abel tells us that mercy finally triumphs over justice, even if that mercy carries with it limitations brought about by the sin that has scarred us. The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton wrote, “He is now the risen Christ. He [now] knows no suffering. He ‘dieth now no more.’ But He has wounds. Even though they be glorious, they are wounds.” Our wounds, too, can be glorious, for they can be the path to redemption—for us and our brother. God wanted as much for his child, Cain.

So it isn’t easy. The Cain and Abel story tells us that as Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “punishment isn’t paramount; the restoration of relationships is.” And we can’t restore our relationship with God without first restoring the relationship that binds us to our brother.

Let me close our series with something Theologian, Ray Anderson wrote: “…The sin of [my brother] against God and … against me, is the obstacle over which I must leap…”

HATRED AND ITS CURSE

HATRED AND ITS CURSE
Genesis 4:10-12
July 6, 2008

The curse of Cain was not that he killed his brother, but that he couldn’t kill him. Cain thought by killing his brother Abel his problems would be solved. He found instead that Abel wasn’t the source of his problems; he himself was. So for Cain, killing Abel became just another failure to come to grips with the self-centeredness that was causing his anger. Maybe it began as no more than a character flaw, but nourished well over the years, became life-altering, as often happens when we refuse to master our more pernicious urges. This was Cain, who ends up killing his brother. But it didn’t end his problems; it only intensified them. This murderous act of self-will is a dramatic re-creation of the moment in time when we finally and fully usurp lordship from God. No longer his, we become our own creation. But there are consequences.

So, paradoxically, killing Abel became Cain’s curse, not only because he couldn’t resist the temptation to act out his hatred, what he thought would put an end to his dilemma, but also because Abel’s blood continued to cry out to God, even as it disappeared into the ground. For as his brother’s blood became part of the earth on which Cain had to live, that very earth, now soiled, is no longer hospitable to Cain. Even a dog instinctively knows not to foul its living space! But not Cain, at least not in the throes of the crouching hatred that he allowed to have him! (Remember? “Sin is always crouching at your door”; “It desires to have you.”) So now he must stand before God who says in effect, “Your brother, now gone from your presence, remains in mine. He calls to me from my earth which has reclaimed his body. His cries for justice invoke my very Lordship, and now I must administer justice, somehow without sacrificing mercy?"

Can God do that? For his own purposes God creates us to be strikingly different from each other and exist in vastly different circumstances through no effort or fault of our own. This perfectly describes Cain and Abel. And just as in their story, 1) if we murder our brother, 2) or seal his death by inactivity, 3) or by negligence, 4) or even remove him from our consciousness so we won’t be aware of his plight, we still don’t sever his connection to God, and because of that, to us. Rather, we expand it, by failing, just as did Cain, to come to grips with our self-centeredness, our “me first” attitude. That’s how Cain allowed sin to own him. By giving in to his desire to erase Abel from his presence, Cain not only robbed himself of the opportunity to be a blessing to Abel, but also to receive the blessing of the God he failed to trust. We, no less than Cain, pander to our urges, bringing on major life-changing consequences, not only for the ones who need us, but also for we who are needed, yet choose not to respond.

There is something else interesting here. By his crying out to God, Abel acknowledges him. “There are no atheists in foxholes!” But that’s redundant, for Abel’s sacrifice was ample evidence of his relationship with God. Little wonder he felt free to cry out to him when trouble came; for undoubtedly he and God weren’t strangers. So even in death Abel’s life continued. And though Cain had eliminated him physically, he couldn’t remove Abel from his life emotionally—or spiritually—surely haunting for Cain who so wanted Abel out of his life.

It will be in our final lesson next week before we can determine whether this was truly a curse for Cain. What if it turns out to be a blessing in disguise? But either way, it’s a painful time in his life. Sometimes blessings are like that. Theologian, Luke Timothy Johnson, wrote, “In none of the…gospels is the scandal of the cross removed [and replaced by] divine glory. In each, the path to glory passes through real suffering.” But we, like Cain, can know God’s will only in hindsight. Otherwise, faith has no meaning.

The vagaries of life often call on us to accept by faith things we can’t understand, and which we may find bewildering, even frightening. The very reason my wife and I are in Beaumont today is due to my taking a job in Central Texas that turned out to be a graveyard for coaches. I lasted three years, getting out as soon as viably possible. But I coached a very intelligent and highly motivated boy there who inexplicably was to become my employer, my professional mentor, and, in many ways, my benefactor. Even today, though, he credits me for much more than I ever did for him, and takes credit for so much less than he has given me. Nevertheless, here we are, and the blessings that have ensued, including this class and church, we count often. It took thirteen years before God’s plan began to blossom, but eventually its unfolding enabled us to handle crisis’ that would wound our family in ways we never could have anticipated, or, I suppose, survived. Only by looking back can I now see God’s involvement, how he used others to rescue us, and it helps me to understand and accept his declaration that, “My ways are not your ways.” I can only shake my head in humility and echo, “No they aren’t, not even close!”

So when God in effect said to Cain, “You may no longer inhabit the ground now saturated with the blood of your brother”, meaning God commanded Cain to leave, I see in hindsight, the truth in what Archbishop Oscar Romero once wrote, “Blood soaked fields will never be fertile…” If he obeyed God this time, Cain would leave so the ground could heal; but he also would leave so he could heal. No “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” here. God didn’t abandon Cain; he doesn’t abandon us either.

That leads into the last sentence, where God says to Cain, “When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.” There is a lot there, but let’s pursue an idea I want to ask in the form of a question. Did God have to go that far; did he have to curse Cain and remove him from his life of luxury to make the story end right? As far as we can tell, Cain’s descendants (Cainites, sometimes known as Kenites), did make some outstanding contributions to civilization including advancements in metallurgy and music. Still, though, Cain’s descendents continued to wrestle with the curse of murder, mostly through his sixth generation later grandson, Lamech. This is why choir members always make me nervous. Anyway, this particular lineage ends with the Flood story and we can follow it no further.

But back to our question, “Did God have to go that far?” let’s tap the wisdom of philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote, “[God] had it in His power to remove the possibility of…[sin] by altering Himself a little, [as he could have with] His beloved disciples, by withholding suffering from them—but then He is no longer the object of faith…” We could expect God to adjust himself to us, I guess, to our propensity to sin against him and our neighbor, but if he’ll do that, why do we need faith? It would have no meaning. We could do as we wish knowing God would make it right. Would our faith, then, be focused on God or on us?

And finally, what is God to do about the cries of Abel as they come to him from the blood soaked earth, the place of so many murders? Does he make things right for Abel—or for Cain? If God makes it right for Cain, he shows mercy. But for Abel it is justice that is required. I think this dilemma points to a basic truth; as human beings we, whether Cain or Abel, are unable to choose honestly. Why? Because when choosing is involved, we are prisoners of our own self interest. My guess is, only if we are the victim of an egregious crime can we truly grasp the burning desire for revenge that consumes us. As theologian, Miroslav Volf wrote, “In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, [the belief that God is mercy and not justice] will invariably die.” Conversely, if our hands are red with guilt, as were Cain’s, God’s justice pales in comparison to the equally plaintive cries for his mercy. In either case, though, our trust in God must be so complete that as Richard Niebuhr says, “Death (justice) no less than life (mercy) appears to us [an] act of mercy.”

So, as humans we are juxtaposed between two truths. God is mercy and God is justice; only God can achieve both. That leaves us, hopefully with the will we have cultivated to trust him; to know we can cry out to God either request with the confidence that he will honor divinely his promise “to repay”; that “after the dealing’s done”, God will have blessed not only my murderous brother, but also the murderous me. Only such faith keeps me from becoming Cain. Or, as writer, Ben Stein said, “Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.”















GOD BLESS AMERICA
July 6, 2008
In the mid 1700’s the great French writer, Voltaire, wrote, “Man was born free, but is everywhere in chains.”
Such was to be our fate—yet we are free. So on this Independence Day, dare we not honor the sacrifice it took to bring us here, the precious sons and daughters who spent their lives and shed their blood so we could know the joy of being independent and free from tyranny?
As Christians, we believe freedom is the inalienable gift of God, yet godless men did often wrest it away, as still they do today. But countless patriots have, for 232 years, stepped up in our stead and with their blood spilled on fields of combat, claimed for us the freedom God intended for his children. Their lives and their deaths are to be treasured, honored by us who, not bearing the scars of the battlefield, so often take for granted the freedoms they bought us and under which we live and worship.
The flag beside me and to your left, is the national symbol of the country we proclaim to be “under God”, so I think it not inconsistent that we, children of that same holy God, should honor the means by which he has allowed us this very day to re-claim and re-state our legacy as his children. By our lives as in our churches we worship only God, but to honor this flag, this symbol of freedom immortalized by the blood of patriots, is but to be grateful for what God has given us through them.
So continuing to work diligently to correct the many mistakes we’ve made along the way, with the faith that one day we will succeed and become fully “one nation under God”, we proudly sing our prayer, “God Bless America!”

OCCUPATIONS, OFFERINGS and GOD

OCCUPATIONS, OFFERINGS and GOD
Genesis 4:2b-7
June 22, 2008

Last Sunday I told you that “most theologians, by carefully vetting the story of Cain and Abel believe it implies Cain to have become a successful, wealthy land owner while Abel was probably a lowly sheepherder…” I confess that there is little hard evidence to support these assumptions, for all the narrative tells us directly is, “Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.” So before we proceed into this lesson we need to establish, at least within reasonable probability, that Cain was indeed wealthy and Abel much less so. The easiest method of doing this is by understanding the inherent advantages at that time of being the firstborn son. Not only were Adam and Eve 1) more joyous when Cain was born (as the narrative leads us to believe), but 2) customarily, such, a difference in stature would have remained intact throughout their lives. 3) Hence, Cain would have had more opportunities, 4) been granted more responsibility and 5) been the main benefactor of all that belonged to his parents. This, then, would have been the source of Cain’s dominance over Abel “in all things measurable”. But faith isn’t measurable.

For Cain, God fearing and religious to a fault, dutifully brings his sacrifice; only the word “sacrifice” may be too generous in this case, for the narrative describes Cain’s gift reductively as “some of the fruits of the soil”. In light of his assumed wealth this smacks suspiciously of being merely a token sacrifice given only to satisfy his obligation to God. On the other hand, we are subtly led to believe that Abel offers a better sacrifice, described more expansively as, “BUT Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.” I can’t help but wonder if this ancient story came to Jesus’ mind in Luke 21 where we read, 1) "As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2) He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins …4) All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth [he said]; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

So maybe God was perfectly justified in being incensed at Cain; but what did God expect? Cain was the offspring of Adam and Eve who had long since proved they were takers, not givers. In fact, the garden story, which tells us of God’s prohibition against eating “fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden”, and Adam and Eve’s eating it anyway, is our initial indication of the fallen-ness of humankind. So was Cain culpable, not because he inherited the family fortune, but because he inherited the family weakness? Evidently God thought so. But let’s look at the possibility that Cain wasn’t responsible for his decision to cheat God.

I preached last Wednesday night at the Refresh Service, (a thirty minute service here at Trinity most of you apparently aren’t aware of); and during my sermonette I elaborated on something I had read recently by theologian, Miroslav Volf: “Moral responsibility cannot be transferred.” It’s a hard principle, that we can’t transfer responsibility, and transferring it to his parents could have vindicated Cain; for doing so is especially tempting to those who are able to trace their destructive lifestyles 1) to inherited traits, 2) or social tendencies, 3) or even environment. We must deal with this repeatedly in prison ministry and when Cain was placed in his own prison, far away from his family, I’m sure his moral failure before God was an issue he had to confront—alone. And dare we say there were other issues? For who is not tempted to blame others when we fail; Cain was no exception. After all, in cheating God he was only protecting what he thought to be rightfully his; and it helps to remember that Cain had a lot to lose. So is it possible for you, like me, to see a little glimmer of yourself in Cain? Or maybe more than a glimmer? Put another way, would you, with this story as a backdrop, risk giving back to God’s only a pittance if you knew that in so doing he would banish you from your family and friends? And let’s not fool ourselves by being overly literal; banishment can take many different paths.
“Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted [by me]?” “If you do what is right…!” I know that! Everyone knows that! But doing what is right is not that easy, is it? It often goes against our nature to do what’s right, especially if what we see as ours is on the line. There is a story of a woman who went to observe Mother Teresa in the teeming slums of Calcutta. Observing Teresa reaching out to those wretched, forgotten people in selfless love, the woman became convicted by her own moral barrenness. So she asked, “What can I do to be like you?” To which Teresa replied, “Find your own Calcutta.” Implicit in the answer by this saint of a woman is this: there is a personalized Calcutta for everyone; all we have to do to find it is look. So failure to find our Calcutta is a function of not looking for it. What made Mother Teresa so special was that she answered God’s call.

Let me give you another example from my ministry in prisons; not because my ministry there is any more important than any other ministry, but only because that’s the one I know best. On days I go to Stiles Prison, 1) I must get up earlier than usual, 2) restrict the time I normally allot for reading something challenging, 3) then quickly scan the newspaper, 4) put on long pants, shoes and socks instead of shorts and flip flops, 5) drive fifteen miles at $4.00 per gallon of gasoline, 6) walk a sweaty quarter of a mile in the heat and humidity, presenting my ID twice, 7) remove all metal from my person, including my belt, 8) pass through a metal detector and 9) then replace what I removed before finally proceeding to the Chapel of Hope. When finished there I must reverse the process.

The other option I have on those mornings is 1) to sleep as late as I want, 2) read as long as I want, 3) digest the newspaper, 4) flop down on my nice easy chair, in my nice comfortable den, dressed in my stay-at-home clothes, 5) and turn on the television set. Now which do you think I would like to do if I were the only consideration? But I’m not! Neither are you! So we search for our own Calcutta’s, where we are needed, and in finding them receive God’s blessings, one of which turns out to be the will to “do what is right”. To shortchange God is to violate someone who depends on us, and ultimately, we violate ourselves. So while the short term investment may sometimes be energy intensive, the long term return is even more energy infusive.
Continuing with the narrative: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Let’s take that first part, “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you…” This is apparently life’s longest continuous stumbling block, the sin of Cain no more than us. It is so difficult to believe that “sin is crouching at our door”; that it desires to have us. It sounds so, well, old fashioned. But old fashioned or not, sin is a basic element of our faith. The Bible not only tells us about the fact of sin, but it also gives us stories about those who have fallen prey to it, proving that sin is sin whether one believes in it or not. And there are consequences.

And let’s acknowledge that it is possible that Cain may have believed his sacrifice to be good enough. Duke Professor of Theology, Stanley Hauerwas, writes this: “…sin is not something we do, but rather it is a power that holds us captive.” Despite Cain’s belief, which was rooted in the captivity he apparently had never overcome, we see that his sacrifice was insufficient. So to deny the fact, or the power of sin, especially after reading these ancient Bible stories, is ostrich-like at best, or a flat out statement of disbelief at worst. To quote writer, Alister McGrath, “This act of denial may save your face, but it won’t save your life.” Sin is our conscious decision to do what we will, as we please, God’s will notwithstanding! And like Cain, God allows us to make those decisions. But there are consequences—just ask Cain!

And I can’t help but notice that God didn’t force Cain to give back to him appropriately. Rather, God addresses Cain’s corrupted will, his inclination to think only, or primarily, of himself. Of this, God said, “but YOU must master it.” “What? How about some divine healing here, Lord?” That would be much easier, wouldn’t it—just let God heal us. I’ll bet everyone would believe in God then, wouldn’t they. But not nearly everyone believes, because this, unfortunately, is about the hard stuff; 1) it’s about taking responsibility for our own woeful shortcomings, 2) for our deliberate failures to act, 3) and not sloughing responsibility for our sins onto someone else.

The great pastor, William Sloan Coffin, once said, “Beware of ministers (and I would add, of teachers too) who offer you the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” By that, he meant 1) that despite comfortable words to the contrary, “sin is (uncomfortably) crouching at our door…”, 2) that the power of sin is ever present, 3) that we are always susceptible to it. Those who don’t teach or preach that aren’t doing you any favors. For life is not “just a bowl of cherries”, a journey toward some humanistic destination requiring no more than a warm hug a kind word and a pat on the back from time to time. Life, at least godly life, is more complicated than that, and it demands far more than submission to the pew for an hour each Sunday followed by six days of carefree nihilism. In fact, life, godly life, demands a lot more from us, for we begin it in negative territory. The epic sagas we are studying tell us about that, God almost begging us to listen and think. Quoting Miroslav Volf again: “Adam and Eve (and Cain and Abel) are not prehistoric forebears. We have met them, and they are us. Their story is our story, projected back into mythic time.”

MURDER AND THE ETERNAL QUESTION

MURDER AND THE ETERNAL QUESTION
Genesis 4:8-9
June 29, 2008

Let’s begin today’s lesson by re-reading God’s previous words. “…sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." There’s a reason all of this must be kept closely connected; it helps us to see how the narrative sets the stage for the dramatic events that will follow. First of all Cain probably feels abandoned by God’s challenge that not only says, “YOU must master it”; but also implies, “Because it is your responsibility.” God doesn’t say “We must master your sin, Cain”; but “You must master it.”

Have you ever been there? You thought you could depend on someone for help, but when the time came they said, “Sorry; I can’t help you; that’s something you’ll have to do by yourself.” You feel betrayed, do you not? Suddenly alone? Yet God says exactly that to Cain: “Mastering the sin that crouches at your door is up to you, not me. For I have already done my part; I have empowered you to make right choices, but I’m not going to make those choices for you.”
“…sin is crouching at your door…" I don’t know about you, but when I think about sin crouching at MY door I think of the addictions that seem always ready to consume me. And there are so many, a simple definition being, “anything growing into an interruption of one’s life, or in the process of becoming one’s master.” The most common addictions are to alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, sex, but there are others. These pursuits have a way of sometimes taking over one’s life (or large portions of it), to the extent they gradually become compulsions rather than just entertaining diversions. When that happens they corrupt our inter-relationships, not to mention our sensitivity to a real God-moment in life like happened to Cain. Addictions, in other words, replace God as our “ultimate concern”, and when the inevitable confrontation happens, the addiction wins out.

Little imagination is needed to see this happening to Cain. Maybe he was addicted to 1) a lust for power, 2) or to a need for recognition, 3) or to amassing private wealth. Whatever it was, he probably perceived himself to be in danger of losing his “ultimate concern”, what had replaced his God. But here the story takes a sudden and dramatic turn. After hearing God’s warning which I would paraphrase as, “If you will just listen to me, and then do what you know is right, you will be fine. But if you don’t, you’re going to make a mess of your life and you, my child, are going to have to clean up that mess." But we can only assume God’s warning didn’t assuage Cain’s anger, for instead of responding to God, who had gently confronted him, Cain reacts by confronting Abel, not so gently, suggesting they go, “…out into the field…” Cain’s plan has already been decided on and he’s not changing it.

Does that not sound familiar to you? Cain heard that still small voice saying 1) he needed to change his pursuits, 2) or he should be more generous, 3) or maybe re-think the kind of gift he was giving…4) but Cain ignored it and did what we had decided to do in the first place. It’s by remembering my own similar encounters with God that I know Cain’s mind was already made up. It gives me an eerie feeling of déjà vu when I read this—that, as we said last Sunday, Cain’s story is my story. For I, too, have been there (called onto God’s carpet), and done that (continued in disobedience)—and there were always consequences! Surely this is endemic to humankind, for the same thing that has happened to me happened to Cain before me.

But I’ll bet we’ve all be there, haven’t we? We know God’s will, but we rationalize it as being impossible or irrational or, most often, just not realistic. What we really mean, though, at least in most cases, is that God’s will doesn’t jibe with our will. Isn’t that exactly what Cain was saying? “No disrespect intended, Lord, but as far as I can see, I’ll be better off doing what I want, rather than doing what you want." I actually believe that if God came to you and me today, after catching us “with our hand in the cookie jar” so to speak, he would look directly at us and say, “This has now become a problem, and you must overcome it. I’m not going to stop you; you must stop yourself. But remember that I have empowered you to choose rightly.” How do you react to such confrontations—to such God-moments? Must it take a Cain-like disaster to make us re-think our self-centeredness?

One of the truly outstanding Christian writers today on the subject of addictions is one of our own, a United Methodist Minister named Gerald May. With regard to our propensity to willfully ignore God as we make our choices in life, he writes in his book, Addiction and Grace, “…full love for God means we must turn to God over and against other things. If our choice of God is to be made with integrity, we must first have felt other attractions and chosen, painfully, not to make them our gods.” May goes on to say that, “God creates us with our vulnerabilities. And then as we grow through life we are tempted and seduced … and forced to struggle with ourselves, [being] thrust repeatedly back upon our own weaknesses…” This very dance we perform with the God who never seeks another partner turns out to be the “perfect expression of love.” It is God’s gift of “grace, [that] empowers us to choose rightly…but it does not, and will not, determine that choice.” So Cain fell victim to, not what he couldn’t master, but to what he refused to master, not to an innocent tendency to make wrong choices, but to an evil power “lurking at his door.”

Now let’s look at the second part of our story. “And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" That, my friends, the cynical, "Am I my brother's keeper?", if not THE eternal question, is certainly AN eternal question. We can easily hear the cynicism in Cain’s query, but we, too, ask it, 1) when we turn a blind eye to suffering, 2) every time we take from those who are too powerless to resist, 3) by turning a deaf ear to pleas for help from the “weary and heavy laden,” the ones Jesus invited to “come to [him]”, 4) and each time we choose to keep our abundance, claiming we actually need it to maintain our standing of living, thus robbing those who, unlike us, actually need it for survival. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, unequivocally and resoundingly, says, “YES!”

God’s question, “Where is your brother Abel?” is, in itself, most revealing. For if ever there was a question about whether God’s eye is truly on the sparrow, this exchange between God and Cain should provide the answer. Able was missing and God knew it. Yes, our Abel, the forgotten one in the family, Abel the humble laborer, the poor man who failed to “make it” as had his brother. Evidently, the descriptive adjectives, humble, poor and forgotten aren’t the screening tools God uses to separate the “wheat from the chaff”, the valuable from the undesirable, if, indeed that is ever one of God’s objectives. Rather, God actively sought the missing Abel and the fact that he even questioned Cain as to Abel’s whereabouts implies that Abel was not only God’s responsibility, but Cain’s as well. Maybe that means that if we expect to share in God’s glory, we are expected to share in his responsibilities.

Will Willimon, the former Dean of the Duke University Chapel and current Bishop of our own Alabama Conference, recently wrote that, “Any truly Wesleyan vision of the Christian life includes direct, personal, sacrificial encounter with suffering persons—simply collecting money for someone else to work with the poor is not enough.” So let us not fail to notice that God was always aware of Abel, just as he was Cain, and when Abel went missing, God began to search for him. And Abel’s brother was the one God held accountable. By implication, does this not include us, when we suffer, when we fall below the poverty line, when we have crisis’s in our lives, but no less when we are the brother or sister of one who does?
But Cain’s response was to cynically pose a question disparaging God for even daring to ask about his brother’s fate. Haven’t you seen that, someone explodes in anger or cynicism if you even dare to bring up a subject about which they already feel guilty? There are several messages here, but let me pursue this one in closing. Cain wantonly took the life of his brother. But this story is not so much about murder as it is 1) about distancing ourselves from God, 2) about refusing to humble ourselves and listen obediently during the God moments I mentioned earlier, 3) and about giving in to what Gerald May called “other attractions”, the activities that will always be there to pull us away from God as far as possible. Sin truly is, then, 1) more a power than a devil, 2) more the spirit of evil than an evil spirit. But even so, “he has empowered us to make right choices.” For, 1 John 4:4 tells us, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”