Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

The Worship of God · February 14, 2010

Litany of Praise and Invocation

From Psalm 1

Happy are those who do not follow evil doers, join in the chorus of the negative, or walk the path that leads to destruction.

Real delight comes with walking in the way of God, meditating on it day     and night.

Such people are like well-watered trees that bear much fruit.

            There is a difference between talking about faith and practicing it;

            one doesn’t work without the other.

Let us pray:

            Lead us toward the way of peace, justice, and love,

            and when we are tempted to abandon the path,

            draw us back by the power of your tender mercy.  Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Jacob Thorne

Gracious God and loving God, this morning, we open our hearts to you. We give thanks for our Stephen Ministers. We know that you desire wholeness for all of us. We give thanks for your love that excludes no one and for your touch that heals. For you, O God, stretch out your hand and mend what is broken. You reach beyond all boundaries to welcome all. You come among us in the most ordinary of ways: in each touch of kindness, each gift of love, each welcoming embrace, each joyful laugh, and each loving hug.

We know, O God, that as we share your love with one another, your Spirit moves among us. Help us to become the people you call us to be. Give us the courage to live life fully. Stir within us the love that knows no end.

Hear us now as we say together the prayer that your Son taught us…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

New Testament Lesson

Luke 6:17-26

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

Message

Blessing and … Curse?

Tim Carson

When Forrest Gump sat by his Mama’s deathbed, asking her all the “why” questions, she really left him with a paradox. On the one hand she told him that “life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” We get that, don’t we? You never know what cards are going to be dealt. There are some we might expect and others not. You never know what you’re going to get.

But then she says something that seems to contradict this. When she starts talking about her destiny, Forrest asks about his. She says that he’ll have to find that for himself. But then she says that she thinks we pretty much make our own destiny.

Isn’t that an interesting contrast of statements? So what is it? A box of chocolates we get with life presented to us, not knowing what is going to be inside. It could be good. It could be bad. It could be tragedy. It could be joyful. You pick it; you bite; and it could be bitter or sweet. That is like life. We know that. That is what we get sometimes. The question is, “What do we do with it after we get it?” Then there is the other side of that. We do create our own destiny by a thousand choices and decisions we make. You create a destiny. So, which one is it? Predetermined or not? If it is predetermined, then how much and how much freedom remains? Is it all just random, or does it have some kind of design? Do we create our own, or is it handed to us like a box of chocolates? On the one hand, what we get seems beyond our control, planning, and expectation. On the other hand, there is a great deal we can choose, if only in the way we deal with the surprise chocolates we draw out of the box.

I want to suggest that there is something very biblical here today.

Most surely, we mortals both receive what has not been given, and we do create our lives by how we choose. Like Jesus said, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” Life just happens and happens to all of us. It really doesn’t matter if you think it’s predestined or random. And as Jesus said, things happen that are quite unrelated to reward for virtue and punishment for unrighteousness. Good and bad comes to everyone. So in the end, what matters is not figuring out why it’s happened (though I have a very long list of things I want to ask God about later!) the way we receive the unearned, undeserved, and unexpected. (Haiti did not deserve the earthquake.) How we respond to whatever comes says a great deal about our character. We have the human freedom and agency to choose how we respond to every mysterious chocolate that comes out of the box.

But there is also that big zone in which we make critical decisions based on our values, our spiritual convictions, our sense of obedience to God, our love for others, and our sense of justice. We have lots of freedom there. And in that sense, Forrest’s Mama is right again: We make a lot of our destiny according to the spiritual choices we make. In fact, a good portion of the life canvas is painted with our own paint and own brushstrokes. The question is why we paint in such a way and for whose sake. To what spirit do we surrender in the painting?

When Moses spoke to the children of Israel before they went into the promise land, he presented them with an enormous choice. He said that the ways of life or death, blessing or curse had been presented before them. They may choose between life with God or go their own way. But the result, the consequence of that choice will have high impact, a lasting impact that will even reach down to the lives of the next generation, their children. Listen:

“I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life – if you and your offspring would live – by loving the Lord your God, heeding God’s commands, and holding fast to God” (Deut. 30:19-20).

It’s an interesting spiritual principle; isn’t it? That you experience either blessing or curse based on the choice you make about faithfulness to God. The same thing holds true for blessing and cursing others – the choices we make about loving, being faithful, doing justice – either blesses or curses others. Are we a church of blessing; am I a parent of blessing; am I a Christian of blessing; am I a boss of blessing; am I a spouse of blessing? And this, in Mama’s scheme of things, isn’t the box of chocolates, it’s the choosing your destiny part of it.

And that takes us straight to the beatitudes before us in the Gospel lesson. We are mostly familiar with the version in Matthew’s gospel. Luke differs from Matthew in a few regards. In Matthew’s setting, Jesus is on the mount. Matthew is the most Jewish of all the gospels. So, Jesus is presented as the new Moses bringing down the law from Sinai, the mount. Luke’s gospel is different. Jesus is down on the plain. He has come down into the people and he starts by healing. Luke, the physician, has Jesus the healer at the beginning of the Beatitudes.  Matthew tends to spiritualize things – “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (something we have internally) whereas Luke is more concrete, “Blessed are you poor.”  In Greek, it is more like “Blessed are you poor folk.”  These are poor folk, not just those feeling their spiritual poverty.

But where Luke departs from Matthew the most, and the thing we either avoid or don’t know about, is where Luke adds on the “woes” after the blessings (This isn’t whoa stop the horse, but rather woe is me). So at the tail end of the blessings Luke adds their opposites:

Blessed are you poor, but … woe to you who are rich; you’ve already received your consolation.

Blessed are the hungry, but … woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Blessed are those who mourn, but … woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

Blessed are the persecuted, but … woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Tough stuff here. Luke doesn’t let us off the hook at all.

As you can tell, Luke is speaking prophetically, sharing a word about those who are suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God and those who most likely a part of the oppressive system. There are those who suffer deprivations because of their faith and experience blessing, and those who are fat and sassy but far, far from God. Imagine the vast inequalities in the Roman empire of Luke’s time. Think about our own time.

Strangely enough, these words hearken back to Moses and the big choice he offers Israel on the way into the land: You can take this road or that road, stay close to God and do what is necessary because of it, or go your own way, the easy way, but not the best way. And you will realize the consequences of either way you choose because consequences sleep inside every choice we make. As Mama said, we’re given the choice to make our own destiny as well as having it handed to us. Choose life, choose blessing, Moses said.

And Luke said it too: Blessed are you or woe are you, depending. So what’s it going to be?

Do you remember that scene in the Indiana Jones movie where there is a desperate quest for the Holy Grail that they believe carries healing properties and eternal life? The crypt is guarded by one of the Templar Knights. When the unrighteous person picked up the wrong chalice, he became toast in a few moments. The Knight replied, “He chose poorly.” But when our hero chooses the real grail and drinks, there is healing. The Knight replies, “You chose wisely.”

He chose poorly; he chose wisely. Choose this day, blessing or curse. Are we hearing “Blessed are you,” or “Woe is you?”

The thing about the spiritual journey is that neutral is not one of our options. By that, I mean that as we move from the present to the future, we’re making choices all along the way and those choices are transforming us one way or the other. As C.S. Lewis put it one time, we’re always becoming either a more heavenly or a more hellish creature.

There was a New Yorker cartoon in which a man is standing in the middle of an elevator that has its doors open. An elevator operator stands near the control panel poised to select a floor and he looks questioningly at the man. But the man says only, “Neither up nor down. I’m good here.”

We’d like it that way, but it’s not. In every moment, we are poised at the edge of a decision, needing to make a decision for life or death, blessing or curse, good or evil, building up or tearing down, loving or hating.

Am I going to be a praying person or not? Am I going to give of my time, talent, and money for the sake of God’s purposes or not? Am I going to lead my children up in faith or not? Am I going to devote myself to studying Scripture, being a part of a discipleship group, and attending worship, or not? Am I going to mentor the young persons in my midst or not? Am I going to finally act on the gifts I’ve suspected that God has wanted me to use all my life but I haven’t gotten around to it? Am I going to make a deeper commitment, or am I going to wait, to postpone some decision again, stay where I’m at, play it safe, stay the same, and mark off the days on the calendar, every one pretty much the same as the one before?

Churches have to ask the same questions: Will we act on our vision or not? Are we going to take the faithful risk to go where God is leading us or not? Will we challenge people to aspire to their highest spiritual selves or not? Will we expect nothing less than excellence in all our ministries because God deserves the very best? Will we say, “Of course we can” more than we say “I doubt if we can.”

Churches, like individuals, have to decide, have to choose whether it will be life or death, blessing or curse, a Spirit-driven destiny or a safe and much less risky one. Unlike the man in the elevator, we’re not good here. It’s either up or down, one direction or the other.

The good news is that God’s grace empowers us to choose wisely, and when we don’t, which is often enough, it holds us up until we can again. That’s the sweetness of forgiveness, of grace, of picking up and starting again. And once you’ve done that several times you start to recognize how God carries you through it all.

One day the rabbi entered into the house of study at a time when he was not expected and found his students playing checkers. When they saw the teacher, they were embarrassed and stopped playing. But he gave them a kindly nod and asked, “Do you know the rules of the game of checkers?” When they did not reply he said, “Then let me tell you.”

“The first is that you must not make two moves at once. The second is that you may only move forward, not backward. And the third is that it is only after you have reached the last row that you have the freedom to move anywhere you like” (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim).

Of course, in true rabbinic fashion, the teacher was talking as much about life as about checkers.

We must live in a single-minded way – not two moves at once, only moving forward without retreating to the past. You can revere the past, but don’t live there. Only after you have gone the distance can you realize the true freedom that comes as the result of how we have moved over the course of the game.

To grow a deep and resilient faith, one must bring the same degree of single-mindedness to our spiritual practices, ethical choices, commitments, and action in the world. The lure of God’s love and grace pulls us forward, not backward, and creates a new future. And real spiritual freedom only comes as the result of engaging with spiritual practices over a long period of time.

This is the description of blessedness, of moving in the currents of God in this kind of way, and whether the agenda is presented to us or it comes because of the choices we’ve made, the path we follow, the way we play the game, creates the outcomes we will receive. 

There is a direct relationship between the path of discipleship we practice and the end results. We ignore that at our peril. “Cast your bread upon the water and it shall come back to you.” “We will reap what we sow.” It can only happen through the outpouring of God’s grace, but I also requires spiritual work on our behalf. We should not be naïve. We don’t get something for nothing. We have to be willing and active participants in the story of God.

And so Mama was right, that we don’t know what’s in the chocolate box a lot of the time. What matters is what we do with it. And Mama is also right that to a great degree we create our own destiny. The Bible would put it more in terms of choosing this day the way of life or death, of blessing or curse, decisions and choices that directly affect our children.

Now is the time to become agents of blessing, to offer the love that draws people to their highest selves and their most profound relationship with God. Now is the time not to wait, not to postpone, but to choose this day whom we will serve and what we will become. We can’t stay put in the elevator between floors forever. It’s either move toward God or away from God, one or the other.

Choose this day, one move at a time, forward and not backward, until we find the freedom of Christ that overcomes ourselves and overcomes the world. Now that’s sweet!

And the people of God said… Amen. 

Benediction

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.