B, Post Pentecost 18 Proper 20 - Mark 9:35 "Wisdom in the Wind"

Mark 9:35 (ESV) “And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, ‘If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’ ”

Imagine you are walking in the dark.  Your light is fragile, a candlelight, a burning wick, that’s easily snuffed out.  It’s not a battery-driven, weather-proof torch that continues to burn after taking a beating, dropped in the mud, submerged in water.  No! It’s a flame that requires three things in perfect balance to exist: oxygen, heat, and fuel.

The fuel is the wax of the candle, or the oil in the reservoir.  Oxygen too is needed, but not too much, especially with such a small flame!  And heat is the third.  But because the flame is so small and its heating qualities are limited, too much oxygen, too much air, will take the heat away in an instant and the flame is out, and the light is gone.

Now imagine you are walking in the dark, in a raging windstorm, just before the rain comes pouring down, or perhaps near the ocean where the waves are whipped up by the winds and freezing salt spray is soaking everything.  How do you keep your wick burning.  You have oil in your lamp; to light the way, how do you keep it burning?

In ages past various devices have been designed to protect the wick from the wind.  Glass was typical, or a metal mesh scrim was used to diffuse the air and protect the flame.  How fortunate we are today to have torches that recharge with electronic light sources such as bulbs or LEDs (light emitting diodes)! 

Nevertheless, a fragile flame in the wind is a good picture for understanding ourselves and our faith.  Our faith flickers in fragile vessels as we face furores along the way of life.  What sustains the flame of faith within, so we might withstand the day of judgement, and not be blown away like chaff in a windstorm?

You all know the answer is Jesus Christ!  He sustains the flame of faith within, so we might not be blown away in the wild storms of life and death.  But to our continual surprise, how Jesus sustains the flame of faith is contrary to human thinking, it’s opposite to human modes of operation, what we do and how we react, and Jesus’ way is the reverse of what we’re taught by the world.

Jesus was born into the fragile frame of humanity.  And within that frame he bore the same fragile flame, as do we all. 

James speaks of the qualities with which we should operate.  These are ultimately the qualities of Christ.  James asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.” (James 3:13 ESV)

Meekness of wisdom or wisdom born in meekness is a quality misunderstood by most.  Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5 ESV) The modus operandi of the world is to put meekness aside in favour of assertiveness, self-confidence, and boldness as individuals and collectively with mob mentality!

But the structure with which the world operates is contrary to what Christ Jesus brought on behalf of God the Father, and how it was enacted and empowered, when he put aside the privilege of his divinity, humbled his spirit, was compelled by the Holy Spirit, and ultimately gave up his human spirit on the cross.  Within Jesus’ meekness was a wisdom far above the works of any other person.

When James asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” The answer is Jesus, and not me!

Yet what we find when the storms of life threaten the fragile flame within, our worldly way turns on the gas of the old Adam within, and the pilot light of Christ gives way to the heat of our fiery passions and pride.  And rather than being protected from the storms we face, we engage with frenzied force adding to the faithless fracases of the world.

We hear from James, “if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.”  (James 3:14–15 ESV)

Our jealousy and selfish ambitions are no match against God, since “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? (James 4:5 ESV)

So jealous is God our Father over you, he sent Jesus to be the “blessed one”.  Jesus is the blessed one of the Psalms and is the blessed man introduced to us in Psalm one.  He is blessed or balanced in a way fulfilled by no other person.  His way is the blessed way, he does not walk with the wicked, he does not stand in the ways of sinners, nor does he sit to join with the scoffers.

However, Jesus who delights in the law of God, sits with sinners to teach them God’s way, he does not stand in the way of sinners, but he stood for all sinners on the cross, having walked the way of the cross. 

In meekness and humility, he took what was earthly, unspiritual, demonic, on himself on the cross and gives you what the world cannot.  He allowed his separation from the Father and the Holy Spirit and descended into hell, so we no longer have to go there, or be separated from God.  But in the wisdom of his meekness, he won victory over death. 

When Jesus sat down with the twelve disciples, he sat down with sinners, not to join them in their sin but to teach them the way of the cross.  Their lesson was a bitter lesson learnt.  They were the first to learn through their bitterness when they deserted Jesus at the cross.  Yet eleven of them were reinstated in the forgiveness they received, and the blessing Jesus bestowed on them when he breathed the Holy Spirit on them.

They were the first to learn the lesson, and the lesson continues for us, through the bitter experience of sins exposed by God’s Word of Law.  But the blessed reinstatement continues too, with the breath of the Holy Spirit keeping the flame of faith burning, so we receive and believe the forgiveness of our sins.

Jesus sat down to serve sinners, to balance us with his blessedness, to straighten our crooked ways with his blessedness.  He took his stand and hung on the cross for the forgiveness of your sin, and he walked the way of the cross for your salvation.  Jesus’ meekness led him through death to the resurrection. This was a meekness that allowed his flame to be snuffed out.  But the wisdom in his meekness meant death had no control over him.  He could not stay dead!  This wisdom is meek, but it’s servanthood contrary to the ways of the world, you and me, who daily struggle to allow the Holy Spirit deal with the pride and passions of the old sinful spiritual self. 

The world does not understand what Jesus teaches you and me.  That, “if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”  In fact, Jesus is the only one who understands this in a practical way, having willingly experienced not just meekness, but the weakness of death, to be last of all and servant of all.  Having done so, he is the firstborn of the dead, the glorified head of the church.  Even so, he continues to serve us now, interceding for us before our Father in heaven.

Unlike the world, the church lives under a servanthood structure.  Where structures in the world are triangular with the base at the bottom, where servants serve the person at the pinnacle, the pinnacle of the church is on the bottom and serves the base at the top. 

Undergirding this upside-down triangle is the Trinity that bears the church.  The upside-down pinnacle of the church is balanced on the cross of Jesus’ death and resurrection that connects it with the Triune God.

This balance defies all human pride and passions that struggles under the folly of the world’s frenzied faithlessness.  This balance and level in the church comes from Christ who balances our frailty and fragility with his wisdom won through being the eternally begotten firstborn of creation. But also, because he is the Servant Head of the church, the firstborn of the dead (Colossians 1:15-20).

You now have this wisdom within.  Despite the fragility of your frame, within is Jesus’ faithful flame, that has not only weathered the storm but has conquered the raging storm of death so you can take you stand, straight and balanced in Christ, anchored in his blessed wisdom in the wild windstorms of life and death.  Amen.     

C, Post-Pentecost 12 Proper 17 - Psalm 112 "Blessed"

Psalm 112:1–10 (ESV) Praise the LORD!  Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!  His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.  Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.  Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.  It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice.  For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever.  He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.  His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.  He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn is exalted in honour.  The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish!

The readings for this Sunday all dwell on the biblical theme of blessedness; that is, to be blessed as a state of being, to be blessed by someone, or to bless.  What does it mean to bless someone, to be blessed by someone, and the state of blessedness?

To be blessed in its simplest form is to be happy or fortunate.  But if a person seeks to bless themselves or deem themselves as blessed, it’s actually one of the quickest ways to become angry with everyone around them as well as themselves.  So, to be blessed and to bless is much more than being happy, being fortunate, being pleased or pleasing someone else.

At the end of the gospel reading today, when dining in the house of a Pharisee ruler, Jesus says, “when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,  and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. ” (Luke 14:13-14a)

Straight away in this text, we see being blessed when one gives a feast to those who cannot repay, is not about being happy.  One may be happy to do this but more is going on.

The biblical definition of “blessedness” has a much deeper function than just happiness and being fortunate.  In Psalm 112 we hear, “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!” (Psalm 112:1 ESV)

The person who is blessed here can be happy or pleased.  But the question one must ask, “Is why can they be pleased or happy?” 

The Hebrew word for blessed has at its root the meaning to be straight or level.  When one is on the straight and narrow, they move forward with confidence, with honesty, in the right way, on a level path.  Or, if one is “on the level” they are honest and are being truthful. 

When a person is level or blessed, they are balanced.   A good way of understanding blessed as balanced is like that of a level set of scales.  Neither leaning to the left nor the right, but evenly balanced.

The straightness of being blessed also means, straight up and down too.  That is to be upright.  It is no accident therefore, in Psalm 112 that after it says, “Blessed the man who fears the Lord”, it continues in verse two, “His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.  Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.  Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.”  (Psalm 112:2–4 ESV)

Twice the Psalmist says “upright” in these verses.  So, one who is blessed, balanced, level or upright, can endure forever in righteousness.  This person can move forward on a level plain in the face of the ups and downs of trials and tribulations.

In these verses it says, “the generation of the upright will be blessed.”  The Hebrew literally says, “the blessed will be blessed”, when it says “the upright will be blessed.”  But these two Hebrew words have different meanings.

Whereas the first “blessed” we’ve looked at, means “upright or balanced”.  Here the second “blessed” means, “to kneel or bend oneself in adoration or to curse”.  This adoration or cursing is what one does in worship when they’re in awe of someone, or if they hate and curse them because they’re believed to be awful. 

Blessing here is about praise and its opposite; what one says about someone else.  So when it says, “The blessed will be blessed” it means, “the upright or the balanced will be bowed down to, praised and spoken well of”!

Notice these two forms of blessedness are pictures of body language.  One is straight up and down, or balanced and level, while the other is bent bowing, honouring, and saying good to others about them.  This is not surprising as the Hebrew language was originally a spoken language of oral tradition, an unwritten picture language, whereas the Greek of the New Testament is an academic written language.

In the New Testament, the most well-known verses on blessings are the Beatitudes where Jesus teaches the crowd and the disciples at the Sermon on the Mount.

The other word for bless in the New Testament is a Greek word familiar to us in English, eulogy, which means to speak good words about someone.

The readings today all deal with the theme of “blessedness”.  If one seeks to be blessed in one’s own sight and takes the seat of honour, the writer of Proverbs tells us, this can lead to being humiliated.

“Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great,  for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”   (Proverbs 25:6–7 ESV)

Jesus heals a man at the house of a Pharisee ruler.  His fellow diners could not answer Jesus’ logic for healing this fellow on the Sabbath.  Jesus then tells a parable about those who took the honoured positions at a wedding feast. 

Put yourselves in the place of the guest?  What happens when you take the positions of honour?  Will you bless the host, or expect to be blessed?  How level-headed or balanced are you if you take the honoured position, especially when someone of greater honour arrives?  Not only is blessedness about body language.   It’s also about one’s prominence, status, or social standing in society. 

Blessedness not only deals with body language but also reputation.  What is your reputation like with God?  Are you blessed by God?  What does that actually mean?  It means, when Jesus returns in his glory to separate the sheep from the goats, will you be one of the goats who have blessed oneself or one of the sheep blessed by God?  What type of reputation do you have with God?

Jesus says, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Luke 14:11 ESV)

I cannot imagine a worse thought than the humiliation of being labelled by God “a goat” or a person of ill-repute on judgement day.   Do you want to be treated by the Eternal Host of heaven the same way you have hosted those God puts before you here on earth? 

What makes us good blokes, good sheilas, good people in God’s eyes?

Let Psalm 112 be the text that judges you.  It starts out with the command to “Praise the Lord!”  Do you praise God as Lord all the time or do you Lord it over others, or do you busy yourself, so others praise you?

Do you fear the Lord, do you delight in his commandments.  What makes your offspring mighty?  When others bless you does it turn people to God or away from God?  Does your wealth and riches fuel righteousness that endures… forever!  Are you gracious, merciful, and righteous?  By whose justice do you conduct your affairs?  Will you be remembered forever?  Is your heart firm in the face of death, or even as you hear these questions?  Are you considering the poor when you leave here today?  Or perhaps, this line of questioning irks you and makes you get angry?

We realise very quickly that our blessedness, when built on ourselves, makes us no better than a ruling Pharisee or his guests, angry because we’re not getting the honour, we believe we deserve.

Yet we praise the Lord!  How can that be, since God clearly shows us through Jesus’ parable, we present ourselves as honoured guests but are quickly humiliated by the Word of God? 

It’s here we’re called to see that God is the one who is inviting us to his banquet.   He invites us, his church, as the bride of the Bridegroom.  You and I are the poor, crippled, the lame, and the blind.  Now married to Jesus Christ the Head of the heavenly house, we can be compassionate to those who like us are poor, crippled, lame, and blind.  Like us who have been made friends in the wedding feast of the Lamb, we can befriend our enemies, just as Jesus has done with us.

So, praise the LORD, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Why? 

Because Jesus is the man who fears the LORD, and delights in his commandments.  We are his offspring, mighty in the land, we are the generation of the balanced, blessedly helpless forgiven sinners to whom God bows and blesses, because we confess our sin and forgive those who sin against us!  The light of God has dawned in the darkness of our hearts, showing us sin to confess. 

Why do we do this?  Because God deals generously with you.  He lends you his Son and the Holy Spirit.  He is justifying you with the justice of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  You won’t be moved while you allow the Holy Spirit to remain.  You are not afraid of bad news; you are firm, trusting in the Good News.  God has won the victory over your sinful self!  You can now distribute freely; Christ has exalted you and in him your righteousness endures forever.

Your old Adam will be angry!  But that is a good sign of your salvation too.  He is angry because he is dying, he might gnash his teeth, but he is melting away, he and all his desires are dying, leaving Jesus the Bridegroom of heaven to take you as his bride, the church.  He forgives and feeds you and me, in his eternal wedding feast! 

Praise the LORD!  Jesus has balanced your scales!  God blesses you; you are blessed!  Amen.

C, Lent 2 - Genesis 15:1-15,17-18, Psalm 27, Phillippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35, "Forsaken House - Forgiven House"

Luke 13:31–35 (ESV) At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  Behold, your house is forsaken.  And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

Two of the readings today speak about a house. 

First there is Abram.  He saw his house would be inherited by a servant of his household and not a born heir.  Then, in the Gospel reading, Jesus speaks about Jerusalem and its house being forsaken.

Saint Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, speaks of the body of a person being transformed into a glorious body by Jesus, to be like Jesus.  He teaches the listener to imitate him and others who set an example, as those who have been made Christ’s own (Phil 3:12) through the righteousness of faith (Phil 3:9).

There is no mention of a house in this text per se,  but the body of a person houses one’s understanding, feelings, and desires.  Paul laments over those who have let their bodies become houses of unrighteousness, just as Jesus laments over Jerusalem becoming a forsaken house, that no longer was willing to allow God to gather its people from danger.

These two examples of unwillingness and rejection to follow God’s will, are warnings for us as individuals and church who wish to be of the house of God.  Do we above all else seek God, and want to be with God?

In Psalm twenty-seven it reads, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 ESV)

Is your ultimate goal to do as the Psalmist does?  To dwell in the house of the Lord, ALL the days of your life!  Is God the most beautiful of all beauty to you?  Do you wait for the Lord?  Or rather, do you trust in your own efforts? 

Those Paul speaks of as putting their understanding, minds, or feelings in earthly things, will be misguided, and will not be transformed from our lowliness into the glory God wants for us.  He says their end is destruction.  They’re unwilling to stand firm in the Lord, and therefore, are enemies of Christ.

Jerusalem is the centre of Jesus’ attention, and he says of those who should be the children of God, but have rejected the prophets, “your house is forsaken”.  If God’s house in Jerusalem can be forsaken, then so too can the house of your body, if you or I push away God’s protection and the transformation, he seeks to perform in all of us. 

This makes us more like King Herod than King David.  Have we become sly cunning foxes, parading  as people of God, justifying ourselves in a princely lifestyle and seeking Jesus for our entertainment only as Herod did? 

Should we be more like King David who trusted in the Lord, even though he was the highest in the land?  Who allowed God to confront his sin as an adulterer, and murderer, and confessed his sin to the Lord?  Who despite being king of Israel, allowed God to make him increasingly aware that his greatest enemy, was not the foreign countries around him, but rather the very core of his own sinful being?

If all this makes you feel uncomfortable and uneasy, good, it should!  If you feel like a fox that has been caught in the spotlight of God’s glory, and your life has been one of secret doubling back on yourself to hide your tracks in the darkness, this too is good.  If you feel, understand, and realise your situation as caught out, with impending doom as a result of your activities, it’s not a bad thing.  And if this hasn’t happened in your life as of  yet, it will.

When your death is put on your agenda, when the end of your life is imminent, if you haven’t beforehand realised what the consequence of sin is, death will show you.  How does the thought of death make you feel?

Abram saw his house was dead, because he had no heir onto which he could pass on his inheritance.  In his old age he was as good as dead, and an heir seemed impossible.  But it’s when we are as good as dead, that the power of God can be realised, and we’re called to put all our understanding, feelings (good and bad), and trust in him.

With Abram God first takes him outside and shows him the stars, then after this he makes a covenant with him.  But this is a covenant like no other in the Old Testament.  Covenants require both sides to make a promise.  Here though there is only a promise made by God.  Abram was in the state of deep sleep, a stunned, or deathly state, and is solely the recipient of God’s covenant.

When the severity of God’s law comes upon us, it causes death within us, and although it makes us feel woeful and as though we are dead, it’s a good thing.   We need to see what the house looks like if God vacates and leaves the house empty.  Here I am speaking specifically of the house of your body.

Jesus declares Jerusalem forsaken, dead, rotten, and off.  Like a piece of rancid meat, he rejects its house.  Yet Jesus returns to Jerusalem to die and be cast out, as if he was the cunning and sly fox that we have become in our sinfulness.  He becomes our rottenness and is cast out!  He dies because of the deadliness we bear.  That which he wishes to expose in us, he covers with forgiveness.  He also casts out feelings of guilt and gives us his blessing.  We are blest because he comes to us in the name of the Lord!

When we allow the Holy Spirit to expose our sin, so we can confess it, it gets covered by Jesus’ death.  When we allow the Spirit to invoke the death of our sin, we allow him to raise us with Jesus Christ to life eternal. 

When God does this, he out foxes the fox within us, he out cunnings the cunning within us, he shrewdly uses fear of eternal death to save us from our second death.  We are reminded in baptism eternal death is now deceased in those who hold onto faith in God and reject faith in oneself.

We also know of the deadliness of our house and the life Christ brings to it, and in this we continue in hope for those who have become dead to God’s church, and to be restored in love.  So we pray, doing the work of God, asking they be once again given the desire to be in God’s presence, and receiving his gifts of life, that will take all who seek God to death and through it into God’s eternal presence.

Saint Paul holds out hope for the Jewish people, despite their unbelief.  He knows, he was made dead by Christ but was graciously grafted into him through his death on the cross.

We too, stand before God with the same hope as Paul, having been grafted into Christ, despite being as good as dead…

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.  (Romans 11:22–24 ESV)

If God can sever his chosen people, the Jews, and graft them back in, he can also revive the faith of those who have become dead in the faith.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,  despite the deadliness within.  In fact, we can thank God for showing us our deadliness, in just the same way Jesus knew Jerusalem was the place where others died and he would die, yet declared, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Let us pray.  Heavenly Father let us die to self, pick up our cross and resolutely walk with Jesus.  Protect us from all that can sever us from eternal life, and hear our prayers for those whose faith has died, so they might be grafted back into the life-giving blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.