Cliche to Salvation

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Jesus and Satan were having an argument as to who was the better programmer.

This went on for a few hours until they agreed to hold a contest with God 

as the judge.   

They sat at their computers and began.

They typed furiously for several hours, lines of code streaming up on the 

screen.  

Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning struck, 

taking out the electricity.  Moments later, the power was restored, and 

God announced that the contest was over.  He asked Satan to show what he 

had come up with. 

Satan was visibly upset, and cried, "I have nothing!  I lost it all when 

the power went out."

"Very well, then," God said, "Let us see if Jesus did any better."

Jesus entered a command, and the screen came to life in vivid display, 

the voices of an angelic choir poured forth from the speakers. 

Satan was astonished.  He stuttered, "But how?!  I lost everything, 

yet Jesus's program is intact!  How did he do it?"

God chuckled, "Jesus saves"

“Jesus Saves” is, to put it mildly, an abused phrase in the English language. You can buy a t-shirt that says “Jesus Saves: he passes to Moses who shoots and scores!” in four or five different versions. My favorite refers to nerdy role-playing games: “Jesus saves; everyone else takes full damage.”

The problem when a phrase is overused and “tired” is that it loses meaning. If you repeat a word or a phrase long enough you reach “semantic satiation”; all meaning disappears and all you’re left with is the sound.

Not that the sound of Jesus is unimportant. There’s a delightful hymn about “something about that name” and we sang this morning with the praise band “call upon the name of the Lord.”

But when we reach “semantic satiation” as a culture, well, we’ve got to see things in a new light.

Jesus, of course, was The Light. Perhaps he was curing a bit of “semantic satiation” when he responded to that “teacher of the law.” The first part of Jesus’s summary of the Law is known as the “S’hma Yisrael” – in Deut. chap. 6 -- It’s the most important prayer in Judaism: “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One!” Observant Jews say it when they rise and when they go to bed. It’s called out in service.

We should try that. Let’s say it together.

Let’s try it again.

Once more.

Perhaps if we did this all the time, we’d reach semantic satiation. I can tell you, as a former Episcopalian, that “the Lord be with you and also with you let us give thanks it is right to give thanks and praise it is a right and joyful thing at all times to give thanks and praise” can pretty easily turn in to background noise. So much so that we’d open our mouths silently with the clear and lovely bells.

My teenage friends and I even stopped saying “and also with you.” We said “right back at ya!” Of course some folks were a bit taken aback, but it did a good job of reminding them why we were saying those words.

So how does Jesus play with semantic satiation here?

He takes the first part of the S’hma. Jesus says: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

What he doesn’t say is the rest of the S’hma: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

Why?

Two good reasons, I think. The first is that he was talking to a crowd full of Jews. Everyone knew the rest of the S’hma as surely as if I said “I pledge allegiance” or “who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” in a classroom of first graders.

The second is our more important reason. Jesus was not summarizing the law; Jesus was prioritizing the law. This is something that happens throughout the New Testament. The prioritizing over summarizing speaks to the nature of why Jesus came – the ol’ “spirit of the law vs. letter of the law” only without ambiguity. Jesus came because we were getting it wrong. We were focusing on the law without understanding the law.

So Jesus does not say the rest of the S’hma because the part he leaves out is about following the commandments that the Jews are about to receive. Jesus doesn’t want his audience then or now to think about those 613 mitzvot. And continuing to quote the S’hma is going to put us in that mind-set.

No, what Jesus wants us to think about is the commandment that he is about to give. I think you can argue that Jesus tells us to do three things: forgive each other, sin no more, and this commandment that He sets only below (and directly parallel to) loving God.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you’re reading along, you’ll notice that Jesus is quoting here, from Leviticus 19:18.

Jesus then says that no commandment is greater than these. That is, if you’re doing what Jesus has just said, you’re doing what God wants you to be doing.

Even knowing this puts you, like the teacher of the law “not far from the Kingdom of God.”

Now folks who are caught up in the idea of sola fide might get a little uncomfortable here. Sola fide, for those of you who don’t know is “by faith alone,” the idea that we are justified and saved solely through faith. The ol “faith not works” argument.

‘Course I think it’s hogwash. Because first and foremost, we’re not saved by anything WE do. Thinking that we are responsible for our salvation is hubris which is like arrogance but worse and it discounts the purpose of Jesus’ life and sacrifice. No, we’re not saved by anything we can do. We’re saved by God’s grace shown to us through His Son’s sacrifice. That’s why we’re saved.

Now, we’ve got to accept that. And that’s where the sola fide folks stop. But that’s not where Jesus wants us to stop. If we’ve accepted that God has saved us from death, brought us into a new life, birthed us again we cannot go around acting like we used to.

It’s not faith versus works, brothers and sisters. It’s that without works how do you know that you have been saved and how can you tell others?

We should never be secure enough in our righteousness that we feel we can leave the works Jesus has called us to alone. Because any righteousness we have is a gift from God. We’re broken, we’re sinners, all we deserve is to be flung like trash on the fires of Gehenna. Everything we have is a gift from God and what we ought to do is the work God asks us to do?

And what is that?

Well Jesus says it clearly don’t you think?

God is one. Love God with all you have. Love your neighbor as yourself.

If you rewrote the testimony of the Gospels as a powerpoint presentation with bulleted lists I think that would be a good first slide. You can understand all of what Jesus says and does with those two equally important commandments – now we know they’re equal because Jesus says none of the other commandments are as important as they are. The second comes from the first but they’re both important – just like the Father and the Son.

So what’s the next question we should ask ourselves, as followers of Jesus who thank God every day that the darkness was lifted long enough from our eyes that we called upon the name of the Lord and were made free?

We know we’re supposed to love our neighbor – but how do we do that?

Well like I said, the Greatest Commandment is a good way to understand scripture, especially the New Testament. And Jesus happens to have a nice parable about what it’s like to be a good neighbor.

That’s another cliché we all know, right?

“Like a Good Neighbor. . .”

(you’re humming it even if you aren’t singing it).

And in chapter 10 of Luke’s account – just after Jesus gives the Great Commandment, the teacher of the law asks “who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus replies with the parable of the Good Samaritan:

A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

I’m not sure how many of you know this but “despised Samaritan” doesn’t really come close. This is worse than if a Gator fan were stranded on the side of the road and a Bulldogs fan helped him out (you thought I wouldn’t talk about football, didn’t you?). The Jews and the Samaritans loathed each other. They each accused the other of blasphemy and false religion. They had been hating each other for the better part of 7 centuries at that point. They were so foul and low in the eyes of the Jews that when the teacher responds to Jesus, the teacher of the law can’t even say “Samaritan.”

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

So, a neighbor is not someone you like or who looks like you or who you agree with. A neighbor is someone whom you help and love because God has created you to do so.

Were we perfect our neighbors would be the whole of the people in the world.

We aren’t perfect, though, and so we can, with God’s help, make neighbors of all we meet.

Now some of you may be uncomfortable at the thought of helping that beat-up looking bum in the street who happens to be of an ethnic or religious group you and your whole family hates. It may terrify you to reach out and touch that man, pull him up close to you, clean his wounds, take him in your car and drive him where he needs to be.

So you might plunk an extra dollar in the offering plate.

Nope.

What God wants us to do – what Jesus is asking us to do when we are neighborly is to have some faith and to have some follow-through.

Pregnancy counseling clinics get a bad name. Do you know why? Because most of them employ a sonogram tech and they show the mom a picture of her baby and get her all teary-eyed and she decides not to have an abortion and she goes out the door and then what?

Nothing. Nothing but a baby born in poverty to a mother who doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into.

If you’ve seen the movie Charlie Wilson’s War or if you just paid some attention in the early 1980s, you’ll know that the US armed and trained all those mujahadeen in Afghanistan that first Bush and now Obama are so diligently trying to kill.

Why? We trained ‘em to fight the Commies of course. And when they won that war – when they drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan and won back what had become a bombed-out shell of a nation, what did we do?

We left them out to dry. Packed up our money and our muscle and left.

If we give a man the tools to make his own life he will. If we give him a burger and our pocket change we’ve proven to him that begging works.

Charity – caritas – dearness – should be the word “agape” – unconditional love and kindness is not giving out trinkets. Loving our neighbor as ourself means we treat our neighbor as we would be treated – as we would have Jesus treat us.

This is why it’s at once easy and impossible to follow Jesus, brothers and sisters. The next time your heart is moved to help your neighbor, remember the Good Samaritan. To be a neighbor you must show mercy – and you must discover and give what is needed for healing, not just immediate succor but for new birth. It’s hard. It’s impossible to do on your own. But it’s easy with God – and with God you’ll know what to do.

This “easy way” brings us back to sola fide. Those people who think that faith is “enough” – they just don’t want to work.

Jesus may have said “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” – but, people, it’s still a burden. Belief is a burden. It’s also a blessing. The Army isn’t “the toughest job you’ll ever love” unless it’s the Lord’s Army.

Mark 12 and Luke 10 are about Jesus talking to teachers of the Law. Some try to trap Him with logical puzzles. But this one teacher – he doesn’t want to make himself look good, he wants to know what it is to be good.

So Jesus gives him a straight answer. No parable, no hidden meaning. Nothing to puzzle over.

Yet we have puzzled. We have fought against this clearest commandment. We have cursed our brothers’ shortcomings while ignoring our massive failures. We have behaved, not like the filthy, ignorant, hated Samaritan, but like the priest – either the one who walks by or the one who gives his tithe with fanfare and a sense that the size of ones donation to the church equals the size of ones influence; we have assumed that the single, jobless mother would magically be able to feed that baby – that the Afghans would magically rebuild their country from rubble and ash – that the broken man on the street would be healed because we dropped a dollar in his hat.

In short, we have not loved. We have not loved fully and unconditionally. We have not cared enough to answer the needs of our neighbors and instead we answer the calling of our own selfish desires. So we have no neighbors.

And yet we are ignorant and arrogant enough to wonder why we are all alone in this world. To wonder why churches decline and babies are murdered and wars increase.

When the answer is simple. We refuse to be neighbors. We refuse to follow the most important commandment of them all. The pillar and ground of the law – we refuse to follow.

And so we are refuse.

And so we pray,

Lord, we know we are worthy only of fire;

if we must be trash

let us warm the hands of the homeless

let us fill the hearts of the needy

and employ the hands of the idle.

You have shown us how to be neighbors, Lord.

Melt our hearts that

our fears

our desires

our stumbling blocks

may be removed

that we may be a neighbor to those in need

and to all the world.

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen.

Asking For It

They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.

They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"

"We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."

When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Jesus praying (Mark 14:36 + 11:22-5; Luke 11:2-4; Matthew 9:9-14)

A rich man was near death, and was saddened because he had worked so hard for his money, and he wanted to take it with him to heaven. So, he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth along. An angel heard his plea and appeared to him. "Sorry," the angel said, "but you can't take your wealth with you."

The man implored the angel to speak to God to see if He might make an allowance. The man continued to pray that his wealth could follow him.

The angel reappeared and informed the man that God had decided to allow him to take one small case with him. Overjoyed, the man fetched his small executive attache case, filled it with pure gold bars, and placed it beside his bed. Soon afterward he died and showed up at the gates of heaven to be greeted by St. Peter.

But St. Peter, seeing the attache case, said, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!"

The man explained to St. Peter that he had permission, and asked him to verify his story with God.

St. Peter checked and came back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one item of hand-luggage, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."

He opened the attache case and stared at the amount of gold bars in shock. After a moment, St. Peter looked up and said,

"Of all the things you had to bring ...why did you bring pavement?

When Jesus tells us to pray, He says things like “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” and “when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

We say the Lord’s Prayer in church every week. The girls and I pray it at night. The other “famous” prayers of Jesus are in the Garden – “not my will but thine be done” and on the cross – “Father forgive them.”

When Jesus tells us about prayer, He tells us about humility, faith, and forgiveness. What he doesn’t tell us is to go asking for a seat of honor in Heaven.

For that, we’ve got the disciples. Like I said a few weeks ago, I’m convinced that the disciples are there to show us the wealth of poor choices we can make as followers of Jesus – and still be loved by Him.

So the dunderheads – I mean the Sons of Thunder – come up to Jesus with the most classic of questions. As a father and as a teacher, I hear this question all the time.

“I’m going to ask something, and I want you to say yes – will you say yes?”

What follows is never a reasonable question. James and John are no exception.

Jesus, however, like the fantastic teacher he was says, not yes, but “what’s the question?”

This is a point not to miss. The disciples show us how we live in ignorance – how to make the wrong decisions; Jesus shows us how to live in wisdom, how to make the right decisions. Our response to impetuousness and impropriety should not be anger, annoyance, or even a simple “no,” but love.

The Thunderheads miss this, naturally, and plow on ahead with their little plan: They want Jesus to "Let one of them sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."

Jesus ponders this for a moment and, I’d like to imagine, either drops his jaw or guffaws – “naw, you guys don’t mean that, do you? Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying? Do you know what I’m in for? Are you sure you want to ask for this?”

James and John kind of buddy up, give each other a look and go “uh-huh, you bet, Lord!”

At this point Jesus knows the disciples haven’t been listening to him. He’s told them three times he’s bound to die when they reach Jerusalem, but no. . . the disciples have been figuring Jesus is just joshin’ and so they argue about who rocks the hardest.

I think here we should remember that bit in It’s a Wonderful Life, right after George saves Clarence from drowning in the river. They’re in the bridgehouse and George says he wishes he’d never been born. Clarence Oddbody, Angel Second Class (they’ve got their angelology a bit off, but what do you want from Hollywood?) – he looks up to heaven and talks it over a bit with Joseph – maybe a dose of what George wants will do him some good.

It reminds me a lot of Jesus’ first miracle at Cana. At first he says – “are you crazy” but then – wait – “okay, I’ll do that for you.” I think, perhaps, there was a little communication between Jesus and the Father when the Thunderheads said – “yes, Lord, we can follow you wherever you go – we can drink that cup.”

So Jesus said – well, yes you will follow me. “You’ll drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.”

Well, they sure did. James was the first disciple to be martyred – slain at the sword of Agrippa I. John fared better – he died an old man exiled on an island after surviving being boiled in oil.

They got what they asked for.

Of course, Jesus isn’t done teaching them – or us. First he tells the disciples that they’ll follow him and meet his fate. Then he tells them that it’s not Jesus’ place to give out awards. The Father determines who sits where in glory, not Jesus.

It’s advice reminiscent of the passage in Luke where he tells us not to sit at an honored place at a table – because that’s for the master of the feast to decide.

I think that bit of advice, coupled with today’s verse, is important to our understanding of where we are as a church. No matter what we want, it is God’s prerogative to place us in position here on Earth. We’re not in Murray Hill because it’s the best location – we can complain all day about “what’s wrong” with this or that. We’re here in Murray Hill because that’s where God needs us to be – that’s where we’ve been planted. We’ve got God-given roots – there’s no point in chopping them up because we don’t like this soil.

Like Rev. Jim preached about last week, we’ve got to be the fertile soil. If we’re all dirt, and we are, the point of the message about seeds and soil is that the unsuccessful seeds are planted where there’s not enough good dirt – there aren’t enough good believers – or the believers are all shallow.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t see any shallow believers here today, but you know I don’t see any depth of field either. The Gators won last night without their star defensive player because they had at least two seasoned vets ready to take his place. Look at yourself, your hands, your feet. Can anyone here take your place? Do we have a bench so deep that we can take a solid hit from the enemy and recover? Or are we in a permanent state of recovery?

How do we get out of it? I think we need to return to today’s verse.

This reiteration of advice, of humility, “you can follow me, but your reward is not mine to give,” is not just for James and John – it’s for all the disciples.

Because, of course, the ten wonder what the Thunderbrothers are asking for – and when they find out, well, the bickering starts in earnest. And when you’ve only got a dozen folks in your circle you can’t afford to have any bickering. Jesus has to fix this and fast.

And so knowing that he won’t be with them much longer, Jesus reminds them of his most basic teaching:

That “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.”

That, not only is our shining place at the table not guaranteed, but our only job is to be servants. And we had better be servants of each other (and that’s to say, the Lord, as we read a few weeks ago). We had better be servants of each other than servants of ourselves. Because we don’t know what we need anyway. Left to our own devices, we ask to follow Jesus wherever he goes, not remembering that His journey includes the cross.

But when we serve Jesus, we are following him in the easiest way possible – by following his example. Perhaps he will ask us to follow him on to the cross – indeed, he says that those who give up their families, possessions, and livelihoods will be rewarded – but also persecuted.

But we cannot know our place in the will of God until we become servants of God’s creation – that is, of each other.

And let’s not kid ourselves. Jesus isn’t asking us to do “community service” for “brownie points.” He is telling us to be slaves – and if there’s one thing that slaves in the ancient world were – it’s efficient and silent and unobtrusive. Imagine, Jesus is contrasting God’s ideal of service – that of a slave, with the two worldly ideals – both the wealthy hypocrite in the temple and the Emperor of Rome himself, the Princeps – the “first among equals.” Jesus tells us if we would be, not a figurehead, a possessor of earthly wealth and spiritual emptiness, but truly the first, the best, the greatest – that we must become the least. We must serve everyone.

What service is this church giving? How are we serving our neighbors? How can we dare to ask God to fill this church if we are not filling the needs of those around us? How can we be the first if we are unwilling to serve?

Please pray with me and for our church,

Lord, we come to you knowing we have failed.
We are broken and fallen without you, Lord.
And even with your presence
and salvation through your son,
we still cannot know your will
except that it is your will we serve.
Give us hands and hearts and minds for service, Lord.
Show us today where we can serve you.
And let us serve you, not to be first,
but to be last,
and the servants of all.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.