Saturday, February 26, 2011

Working for God or Doing God's Work(27Feb2011)

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus: M4 (11 02 27)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Working for God or Doing God’s Work?
Text: Luke 10:38-42
BIG IDEA: We are not called to work for God, but to do God’s work.
When I have traveled and spoken in poor countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain – like Romania, Slovakia, and Kazakhstan – I've been amazed at the sacrificial hospitality of the people. People who are truly impoverished have saved for months to prepare something special for me. When I've been there, I've often been served coffee which (at least at the time when I was there) was extremely expensive for the locals and considered something akin to liquid gold. When the cup was already poured for me and brought out to me, I would always be moved by the generosity of the people and would gratefully drink it. But, the truth is I don't drink coffee. I don't particularly like coffee. I prefer water. But the people of these countries simply assumed that because I am from North America, I must love coffee.
Sometimes as we relate to God, we assume that he wants something. We make an effort to give him “coffee.” But God may want something else. Today we are going to look at a story of two women who offer Jesus gifts. Both women love Jesus, both are sincere, but Jesus prefers first one gift rather than the other. This morning we are going to look at what Jesus wants and how we can go about discerning what he wants.
If you have your Bibles please turn the gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verse 38.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42
In this passage (v. 38) we read that Jesus and his disciples are on their way. Where are they going? Jesus and his disciples are on their way to the capital city of Jerusalem for the last time before his death. To get to Jerusalem they had to travel through the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, which is about 2 miles east of Jerusalem. It would be like your coming into Vancouver from the Fraser Valley and having to come through the suburb of Burnaby.
When Martha hears that Jesus and his disciples are coming to town, Martha, a good friend of Jesus, insists that Jesus and his students come to her home for dinner. She and her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus are close to Jesus and they have opened up their home to Jesus in the past. In fact there was probably no home where Jesus felt more at home than the home of Mary and Martha. Martha wants to show how much she loves Jesus and these men by preparing a lovely meal for them.
I am always amazed at people, like my wife and others, who prepare cold foods from out of the fridge, while preparing hot foods on the stove—and make it all come out at the right time, so that everyone has a good time. To me it seems like a kind of minor miracle.
Martha was that kind of person, but she was having a hard day in the kitchen. She had been working in the kitchen preparing the meal with Mary, but when Jesus and his disciples arrived, Mary left the kitchen and sat at Jesus’ feet to spend time with him and to learn from him. But Martha is getting stressed out in the kitchen. We don't know exactly why. This past summer, we had 20 people over to our house for dinner one evening. Sakiko prepared the whole dinner. All I had to do was barbecue the beef and chicken. Fairly simple--right? Well for some reason our barbecue – normally really reliable – wasn't giving off much-needed heat at all. For some reason it would not get much warmer than 200°. I was able to cook the beef. It ended up being medium rare but more rare than medium – that was fine. The chicken was taking forever to cook. Sakiko had the rest of the dinner completely ready, but I was taking forever to cook the chicken... and experiencing stress... Maybe Martha wasn't getting enough heat from her oven and for some reason the bread wasn't rising... Perhaps everything else was ready, but one thing wasn’t working properly and so the whole timing of the dinner was being thrown off…. She's frustrated and needs help – and she's irritated that her sister Mary has left her alone in the kitchen.
She storms into the living room and sees Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. Martha doesn’t talk to Mary but talks to Jesus and says, “Don’t you care that I have to get this meal all by myself? Tell Mary to come help me.” Martha was expecting that Jesus would come to her defense, and Jesus says, in effect, “Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. One dish would have been enough. Mary has chosen what is better.”
I know that preachers have often given Martha bad press, but I don’t think Martha was a bad person. Martha was a wonderful person. She generally served people. She would have been the person who if you were sick would have made lasagna and brought it over; she would be the kind of person who would help organize a special surprise birthday party for someone special in your life. Martha is not a bad person. Martha is a wonderful person, a giving person, someone you could count on.
In this story, Jesus is not suggesting that if, like Martha, you are a person of action, you are less valuable than a person who person who contemplates like Mary.
In the Scriptures and in the history of Christianity, both action and contemplation are important. Mother Teresa said we are contemplatives who act in the world. Both contemplation and action are valued by God. Ideally, like Mother Teresa, we are contemplatives who act in the world.
Contemplation and action are both important. They are not mutually exclusive. Part of the way we know that is because in the passage that immediately precedes this one, Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus through this parable teaches that when you see a person in need – in this case the person is someone who has been violently mugged and left on the side of the road to die – and are able to do something about it, and then do something to care for that person, you are truly acting as a neighbour to that person. My seminary professor Haddon Robinson has said your neighbour is anyone whose need you see and whose need you are in a position to meet. When you act and meet that person’s need, according to Jesus, you are acting as their neighbour. Jesus and the parable of the Good Samaritan – which immediately precedes the story of Mary and Martha –praises action.
So why is it that Jesus commends Mary, and not Martha, for having done the right thing? If Jesus isn’t commending Mary for contemplation per se, if he is not condemning Martha for action per se, why does he favour Mary’s choice?
He approves Mary because Mary is doing what Jesus wants her to do. Jesus wants Mary, in this instance, to spend time with him, to learn from him. He would have preferred that Martha had chosen the same.
How do we know that Martha had chosen what was second or third best?
Obviously, at the end of the passage Jesus said, “Mary, and not Martha, has chosen a better way.” But we also have hints in the passage that Martha is acting outside of Jesus’ will for her. As we read in verse 40, Martha was distracted by all the preparations that she thought had to be made. She stormed into the living room, interrupted everyone and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to help me.” And Jesus responded, “Dear Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is essential.” One of the ways we know that Martha has chosen a path that is out of Jesus’ will for her is that she is worried and upset; she is all worked up.
Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation wrote that “unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear is never willed directly by God.”
Evelyn Underhill wrote, “Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism, and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry—these are signs of the self-made, self-acting soul.”
Part of the way we know that we may be out of the will of God is that we feel frantic, anxious, harried and hurried. When we are in alignment with Jesus’ will for us, even though his call may be demanding and hard, we will experience rest in our souls, a sense of energy and joy, gratitude and alignment with God. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light. As you follow me, you will find rest for your souls.”
As we discussed last Sunday, part of what God calls us to do is to prayerfully listen to Jesus and to discern how he is calling us.
So we are not simply “working for Jesus,” but doing “Jesus’ work.” Some of you may remember the Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Green, who led a retreat for Tenth several years ago. He was a wise and wonderful man. He died a little over a year ago. His writings and his counsel to me have been a great gift.
Tom Green served as a spiritual director and professor of theology at Ateneo University in Manila. Tom gives this example that may help shed light on this passage.
He says, “Imagine that my birthday is approaching and a friend wishes to give me a gift. There are two ways she can go about it. Here’s one way. She can first try to decide what I would like and what she would like to give me, and then shop for the gift of her choice. Or she can ask me what I would like and give me what I request, provided she can afford it. Suppose she does it the second way. And suppose when she asks me what I would like, I say, ‘Blue cheese,’ since in my family I am known as a blue cheese addict, and since blue cheese is rare in the Philippines, the example is not at all farfetched. But for my Filipino friend it does present some problems. Blue cheese is scarce and it has an odour which Filipinos find repugnant, and those who have tried blue cheese in the Philippines generally don’t like it! So my friend might reply, ‘O-o-o-o-h, blue cheese! I could never that to anyone as a gift!’ So she finds herself with a problem. She knows what I would like, but she has no desire to give it to me. What will she do? It all depends on whether she really wants to give me a gift of her choice, or give me what I would like, however repugnant it might be to her.
Here is the main point. In our life with God, we can either ‘work for Jesus,’ that is, we can choose what we want to give him or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
If we decide what we want to give Jesus and he will surely be grateful and pleased by the love symbolized by our gift. It may not be what he really wants and what he can really use.”
This is what Martha seems to be doing in her busyness with all the cooking and cleaning and setting up. She is motivated out of her love for Christ, which he appreciates, but this is not what he wants. He would have preferred her to make a simple meal, and like Mary to have sat at his feet and listened to him.
At this point I am going to invite Meg Johnstone, a member of our community, to come and share the time where she discerned a time God was calling her, not to work for the Lord, but when he was calling her to do his work.
MEG’S TESTIMONY:
Over the last year, it became increasingly evident that, for a number of reasons, I needed to change my job. I have been actively pursuing new work for more than a year. I have had a number of interviews and referrals, one of which had led to a good contract, but had not yet found a permanent position. However, in early January, I suddenly found myself in the happy place of having two possible job options to choose between.

One of these options was the job I felt I wanted and that felt like my next logical step in the area of media to which I feel called. However, it had the distinct downside of being a temporary contract that only might work into something longer-term – no guarantees. The pay was initially better, but the position offered fewer hours and no long-term security.
The other job option felt like a step backward in some ways. While it was an opportunity to take on an increased leadership role, it was in a realm of media in which I already had experience, and from which I had felt called to move on. While I sensed this position would have less conflict and therefore less stress associated with it, it represented a step back into a sort of Christian subculture – an area I had specifically felt God was moving me out of a number of years earlier.
In addition, the first potential employer seemed in no hurry to start me in the new position and was slow to respond to requests for the basic details of the job. He also seemed reluctant to commit to the key terms like length of contract and a job description. At first, I assumed this was because he hadn’t actually advertised the job, as I had been referred to him, and needed to sort the details out. But as weeks turned into more than a month and threatened to turn into two months, the stress of not knowing was beginning to take a toll on me, and I was beginning to feel distinctly strung along. There was also the complicating factor of my current employer being in competition with me for the position.
I had spent hours praying, listening, asking for direction, looking for guidance, and truthfully at times, angsting about what I should do. I came to church one Sunday in the throes of this decision and at a breaking point. As I began talking with two friends of mine about how this was still dragging on, they both looked at me and said, “Wow, you don’t seem normal.” Though I wasn’t aware of it, I was speaking a mile a minute and they could see that I had lost my internal peace.
It’s funny how stress and anxiety can lead to a lack of peace where you can no longer hear God’s heart for you.
As they prayed for me, I could feel peace and perspective return – but the problem was still unresolved. Later that day, a friend gave me a tool that I found incredibly helpful. She asked me to look at the various options and potential next steps, and sense where I could feel God’s peace “resting.” This meant that no matter how challenging a step might appear to be, if I imagined myself walking it out, no matter the outcome, that end result felt peaceful.
As I calmed myself in Jesus’ presence and turned the eyes and ears of my heart to him, I realized that He was calling me first of all to honor myself. For me, this meant that in my current life circumstances, I have needs for a certain amount of pay and security. I recognized that if I didn’t have that, I would be constantly feeling stress and wouldn’t be any benefit to myself, my son, my friends and, ultimately, to the work to which I felt called. I realized that loving Jesus in this circumstance meant honoring myself as Jesus values me and believing that God’s plans for me are good. Jesus was calling me to love Him and love to others as I loved myself.

As I realized this, clarity about what I needed to do began to come. I was able to formulate an email to the potential employer saying, “This is the information I need, by such and such a time, because I do have other options available to me.” This felt like a bit of a gamble, because if he didn’t come through, I knew I had to honor myself and walk away. But I felt strangely free as I sent the email that night.
And guess what? He didn’t come through as I had hoped. But his response to me, which was quite dismissive, revealed his heart and brought me to the realization that this was not the kind of place I wanted to work, no matter how much it seemed to be the arena into which I believed I was called.
To be honest, I initially felt huge disappointment. But I also felt a surprising strength. I said to God, “Ok, if wanting me to serve in this other area and are placing me there, even for a time, then I accept. I will be faithful in whatever area You want to place me.”
I immediately felt peace and relief wash over me. And most surprising of all, I suddenly began to get ideas and vision for the position that had previously seemed like a step backwards. I began to see what Jesus’ desires might be in placing me there. I began to see how I could serve him. I also began to see that the important thing is not my expectation of how I think serving Him should look, or even about my advancement in my area of calling. It’s about being obedient to Jesus, about saying yes to what I see Him doing, even if it’s not what I imagined. And it’s about serving faithfully in that place, knowing that he who is faithful in little can be entrusted with much. In the parable of the talents Jesus told, the servants who were faithful in little were entrusted with entire cities and were told to “enter into the joy of the Father.”
Like Martha, I had thought God wanted me to pursue a certain calling, almost without regard to the personal cost to myself. But what I discovered was that in His great love for me, He has an easy yoke and a light burden, and that He takes us by the hand and gently leads us to the areas of responsibility He has for us. In that, there is great joy.
Thank you, Meg. Meg’s story is still very much in process. But I want to make this one observation about it. Meg apparently is being led by Jesus in a way that she did not anticipate. Sometimes, as Tom Green’s and Meg’s stories illustrate, Jesus will lead us in a way that we don't anticipate – even in a way that may surprise us. We see this in the story of Mary.
Jesus’ desire for Mary to sit at his feet was for that culture really surprising—radical even. Jesus was calling Mary into a role that was in the culture reserved only for men. In Jesus’ culture, as is true in some parts of the world today, houses were divided into male spaces and female spaces. The boundaries were strictly demarcated. Jesus had wanted Mary to cross that invisible, but very important boundary in the house. The living room was where men would meet. The kitchen belonged to the women. For a woman to be seated comfortably among the men would have bordered on scandalous in Jesus’ day. When we read in the passage that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, it may seem like an innocuous posture. But sitting at someone’s feet in this kind of context in Jesus’ day didn’t mean that a person was looking up at a person adoringly as though he were a rock star. To sit at someone’s feet was an expression which meant that a person was a rabbi’s student. If you were a rabbi’s student, it meant that you wanted to a rabbi yourself.
Mary isn’t just sitting at Jesus’ feet for personal enrichment. It is not like she is auditing a class at Regent College summer school. They didn’t have that luxury. In Jesus’ day when a person sat at someone’s feet, it was a sign that they were that person’s student and that they too would one day become a teacher.
Jesus sometimes calls us into a place, like Meg and Mary, that may surprise us and others too.
So like Martha we can “work for Jesus”; that is, we can choose what we want to give him or, like Mary, we can ask him what he would like and do what he wishes.
And now I want to transition and discuss how we discern what Jesus wishes.
Like, Mary how do we discern what Jesus wishes? As I shared last Sunday, I shared about how part of the way we discern Jesus’ voice is by spending time praying in solitude. Last Sunday I spoke about how I used an ancient prayer method called the Ignatian examen, how I meditate on the Gospels, and attend to Jesus' voice in the circumstances of my life and in the significant choices of my life (if you were here you can download the MP3 off our website).
As I also said last Sunday, and I want to expand on it a little bit more this morning, we can also discern the desire of Jesus through community.
One of the ways that we discover what Jesus would like is by talking to people who know him well. In a way it’s not that different from how we discern what another person would like.
When I was getting ready to propose to Sakiko, I was very attracted to her, and I also had an intuitive sense and peace that she was the right person for me in a way that I never had with any of my previous dating relationships. But, honestly I did not know her that well. And she didn’t know me that well either. She assumed that as a Christian minister I would be so anti-materialistic and would have so embraced a simple lifestyle that there would no way I would be buying her an engagement or a wedding ring. She honestly thought that. I had something else in mind. I wanted to surprise her, but I did not know what kind of ring she might like. So I contacted my younger sister who was pursuing graduate studies in Tokyo and had her arrange a visit with Sakiko, and then when Sakiko wasn’t looking, to try to raid her jewelry box to find out what kind of jewelry she liked. I also asked my sister to contact Sakiko’s sister to find out whether she would prefer a gold, white gold, silver, or platinum ring. I made an effort to discover what kind of ring she would like…and surprised her.
So it is with us. In order to find what Jesus would like, sometimes it can be really helpful to talk to other people who know him well.
For example, if we want to do what Jesus desires in a big decision, it can be helpful to talk to people who know Jesus well about the decision we need to make.
For example, Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak describes how he had decided to accept the presidency of a college, but wanted to give his decision an air of respectability by vetting it past a Quaker clearness committee, a small circle of several trusted friends who help you discern God’s call by asking series of honest questions.
Parker was certain the job was for him, until someone in the circle simply asked, "What would you like most about being president?" Parker responded "Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and my teaching…. I would not like the politics of the presidency, never knowing who your real friends are…. I would not like having to glad hand people I do not respect simply because they have money…. "
Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted him: “I asked what you would most like?" "Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then he resumed his litany of complaints. … Once again the questioner called him back to the original question. But this time he felt compelled to give the only honest answer he possessed, an answer that appalled even him as he spoke it. "Well…I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word president under it." After some respectful silence… Finally the questioner asked, "Parker, can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?"
Palmer reflects, “By then it was obvious, even to me, that my desire to be president had much more to do with my ego than with the ecology of my life.” Palmer later conceded had he taken the job it would have been bad for him and a disaster for the school.
Though less glamorous than the presidency of a college, Palmer decided to continue to work in relative obscurity as a teaching fellow in a rural, wooded community in Maryland. The exercise of prayerful discernment with trusted friends enabled him to discover and embrace how God was leading him to stay.
We can either “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
We discern what he wants as we seek him in solitude and prayer and in community.
And Mary did this. According to verse 39, she sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. In John, Chapter 12, just days before Jesus' death on the cross, Jesus had another dinner in Bethany and Mary was again present. Mary took some extremely expensive perfume – perfume that was valued at a year's wages so the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars– and she poured out this perfume on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of this perfume. Then one of the disciples objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." Jesus responded, "She has chosen the right thing. She has anointed me with this perfume to prepare me for the day of my burial."
Mary again had done what Jesus wanted. It seemed that at this point in Jesus’ life – even though he had been predicting his death, even though he had been saying things like “I will lay down my life for the sheep”... none of his disciples seemed to anticipate his actual death. As far we can tell, Mary seems to intuit his impending death and therefore pours out this perfume over his feet and prepares them for his burial. How does Mary know? How does Mary sense what Jesus wants? According to the story of Mary and Martha, we see that she sits at his feet as she listens to him.
If we want to become people who do not “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, but like Mary would rather do what he would like, we will become people who take time to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to him.
For many of us it will mean we will need to simplify our lives in some way to make this happen. Mary left the kitchen to sit at Jesus’ feet. She simplified her life. No, there’s nothing wrong with making a seven-course meal when we are entertaining, if we do that in a way that doesn't ruffle our spirit and in a way that doesn't take away our time with Jesus. But in this story Jesus seems to be saying to Martha, at least in this instance, something simpler would have been better if it meant that she could spend time with him.
For some of us, the call to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him is also a call to simplify our lives--so that we can listen to him--and so that we can receive his Spirit… so instead of “working for Jesus,” we do “Jesus’ work”—so that like Mary we do what he would like us to do.
Pray:

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus(20Feb2011)

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus: M3 (11 02 20)
Title: Listening to the Real Jesus
Text: Luke 9:28-36
BIG IDEA: We love God as we listen to Jesus.
When I was in high school, I was easily distracted in class. I would drift off in my mind and replay the scene from a recent basketball game – usually experiencing remorse over having muffed an easy shot... Or I'd be daydreaming about a girl that I had a crush on... Wondering if I would bump into her in the hallway later that day... Wondering if she knows who I am? And then the teacher would say something that would grab my attention. She would say, “This is important. This is going to be on the final exam." My head would snap to attention and I would actually listen.
A little more recently, when I've been in the “classroom” with my sailing instructor and he's been explaining something on the whiteboard, I found myself restless, wanting to just get out on the water and start sailing. But then he'll say something like this: "Something really important.... If you don't learn to do this properly with the sail... Your boat may actually capsize and people might die.” My head snaps to attention as I think I don't want to be party to another person's death, especially as a pastor. That would be bad (the Board of Elders would not approve). I better listen.
Have you ever been in the circumstance when you felt that it was really important to listen to someone?
What if God were to tell you it was really important for you to listen to someone?
In the passage that we are going to look at today we will see great spiritual leaders featured, but God specifically singles one out and says, “Listen to him.”
Today as we continue our series, "Following the Way of Jesus,” we're going to look at why God calls us to listen to this particular spiritual leader and how we can listen to him. So why listen to the spiritual leader? And how do we listen to him?
If you have your Bibles please turn to Luke, Chapter 9, vs. 28:


In Luke 9:28-36, we read:
28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. 29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, 31 appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure,[a] which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. 32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)
34 While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” 36 When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
Verse 28 from the text begins with these words,
28 About eight days after Jesus said this…
Eight days after Jesus said what? We read in the preceding text that Jesus was praying in private with his disciples. As he was praying, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” His disciples replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah. And still others, one of the prophets of long ago that has come back to life.” “And what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ. God. The Messiah. The Saviour of the world.”
Eight days later now, we read that as Jesus was praying on this mountain, likely Mt.Tabor, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. We also read that two men, Moses, who lived about 1400 years before Christ, and Elijah, who lived about 900 years before Christ, appeared in glorious splendour on the mountain and began talking with Jesus.
We read that a cloud appeared and enveloped them.
So, on Mt. Tabor we see that there was a flash of lightning. There is a bright light. There is fire. We also read that on the mountain a cloud appeared and enveloped Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.
The images of fire, lightning, and cloud in Scripture represent the special presence and glory of God. When Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, we read that on the mountain God met Moses and manifested his presence through lightning, thunder, fire and a cloud. We also read that, as God led his people, the Hebrew people, out of Egypt across the wilderness toward the promised land. He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. So, the images of lightning and cloud on Mt. Tabor are manifestations of the special presence of God.
God is everywhere, but God’s presence as we see in the lightning, the fire and the cloud are signs of his special presence with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.
Now in the early history of the Christian church, before what we call the New Testament was formed, there was a debate as to who was the greatest spiritual authority for the church. Was it Moses, to whom God gave the Ten Commandments and the law? Or was it Elijah, who was considered by many to be the greatest of the prophets? Or was it Jesus? They had Jesus’ sayings through their oral tradition, but at the time they didn’t have his words written down in the Gospels or compiled in what we have now--the New Testament.
In this passage, and as we read the Scripture as a whole, we have clues as to who among these three greats was the greatest. When Moses met God on Mt. Sinai, as I said there was lightning, thunder and the cloud, all which were manifestations of God’s special presence. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, his face was radiant. It glowed like the moon. It glowed like something glorious had shone down upon him, and God had shone down upon him. But, according to Matthew’s account of this experience on Mt. Tabor, Jesus’ face shone, not like the moon, but like the sun. We don’t read of Moses’ and Elijah’s face shining like the sun, but we read that Jesus’ face shone like the sun. And if Moses’ face radiated like the moon after he had been on Mt. Sinai, if Moses’ face radiated because another greater light had shone down upon him and he was reflecting it back, Jesus’ face shone like the sun. The source of his glow was something within him.
In Hebrews 1:3, we read:
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.
In Colossian 1:15 we read:
The Son (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God.
What about Elijah? Elijah was a great and courageous prophet. But according to the end of the book of Malachi, the prophet prophesies that Elijah would return as a forerunner for the Messiah, the Christ, the Saviour figure of the world.
Jesus tells us that Elijah did return in the person of John the Baptist. Not literally, but John the Baptist had the same spirit as Elijah. According to John the Baptist, i.e., the Elijah figure, he was a friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29). He was not the groom himself, but he was a groomsman. He prepared the way for the groom. He made a path for the groom to walk down. And, according to John the Baptist, who is the Elijah figure, Jesus was the groom he was pointing to, Jesus was greater than himself.
Moses and Elijah and Jesus are talking. According to verse 30, they talk about Jesus’ departure which is he about to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem. The word in our English translation is rendered “departure,” but in the Greek the word is exodus from which we get the word “exodus.” Moses led the Hebrew people out of the land of Egypt across the wilderness toward the promised land. Moses led the exodus of God’s people out of a land where they had been slaves into a place where they became free people.
Jesus did something greater. Through his exodus, which was a symbol of his death, he rescued us from the slavery of sin; he set us spiritually free and brought us into the promised land of God’s daylight. So from the story we know Jesus is the greatest of the three.
It is also clear in this story that Jesus is preeminent among the three in this story itself. While Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah, we read that a cloud enveloped them, and a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my Son whom I have chosen. Listen to him.” And after the voice had spoken, according to Peter, James and John, only Jesus was there on the mountain. Clearly God was affirming the unique role of Jesus Christ, his Son, not Moses or Elijah. This is why he says, “Listen to him.”
And the voice of God the Father here on Mt. Tabor is similar to the voice of God at Jesus’ baptism, where the heavens open and his Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. And God says of Jesus, “You are my Son whom I love. With you, I am well-pleased.”
Gifted commentator Dale Bruner says that one of the things God is saying is, “All I want to say, and all I want to show you about me, I have made known in my Son Jesus. If you want to hear me, listen to Jesus. If you want to get to know me, get together with Jesus.”
So what is God saying to us in this passage? God is saying, and he says it twice, once at Jesus’ baptism and now at his transfiguration: “Jesus Christ is my priceless Son. I am deeply pleased in him. In my Son I will say all I want to say, and reveal all I want to reveal, and do all I want to do.”
Why listen to Jesus? Jesus is not simply another great prophet, not even prophets on par with Moses and Elijah. He is the unique Son of God. He is the exact representation of God’s being. He is the final revelation of God.
A lot of people say Jesus was a great teacher and that’s it… or a prophet. You can’t read the gospels and conclude that he was just a great teacher or a prophet. He claimed to be God. He said things like “I saw Satan fall from heaven.” Normal people don’t say that. When he said “I saw Satan fall from heaven,” he is saying “I preexisted.” He said to the Jewish religious leaders, “Before Abraham was ‘I am’.” When he said this, he was saying something that the Jewish leaders consider blasphemous. Abraham lived 2000 years before the time of Jesus. So Jesus Christ is saying that before Abraham existed, he was already in existence and the reference to being “I am” is a way of saying “I am God,” because when Moses asked God “Who shall I say that you are,” God says in the burning bush, “I am. Tell them that I am sent you.”
We cannot read the gospels and conclude that Jesus was just a good teacher. He claimed to be God. So he was either a liar or he was crazy, or he was and is the unique Son of God, the exact representation of God’s being, God in human flesh. But people in a place like Vancouver don’t want to say Jesus is a liar or a lunatic – he's too popular... It would be a little like a Canadian disparaging Sidney Crosby right after he scored the gold-medal winning role... People just don't call Jesus a liar. But people also here in Vancouver don't want to say Jesus was the unique son of God, the one who gives people special access to God. So, it’s popular in a place like Vancouver to say that Jesus was a great moral teacher or a prophet. But if you read the Gospels honestly, you can't make that conclusion. Either he is who he says he is--the source of all life--or he is a lunatic, a fake.
As God says on Mt. Tabor, he’s God’s unique Son. We must listen to him.
Why listen to Jesus? Because he is the unique son of God.
Why listen to Jesus? Because listening to Jesus helps us to understand how deeply we are loved by God and listening to Jesus helps us to express our love for God.
As Jesus is in prayer with Peter, James and John, as he is with Moses and Elijah, he hears God saying, “This is my Son whom I have chosen.” At his baptism, Jesus hears the words, “You are my beloved Son, my priceless treasure. With you I am well-pleased.” The most important thing that we can hear from God is his voice saying, “You are my beloved son and you are my beloved daughter. I am delighted in you.” It is so simple, but it can be so powerfully healing.
You may say that God says of Jesus that he is the beloved son, that he never said that of me. The Bible teaches in Romans 8 that when we meet Jesus and his Spirit enters into us, the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit, that we are beloved, the beloved sons and daughters of God, as well. In verse 31, we read that Jesus was about to experience an exodus (a way of saying his death) so that we could be set free from our sin… If you look at Jesus’ death on the cross and understand he died for you, he mysteriously bore your sins and shame in his body so that you could be forgiven and reconciled to God – you'll hear in that how you are allowed in the deepest possible way to be forgiven by Christ. If you have never asked God to come into your life and forgive you of your sins based on Jesus' death for you on the cross, if have never asked him to fill you with his Holy Spirit, you can do that, and begin to know how beloved you are.
My good friend, Joanna Mockler serves as a fellow trustee for World Vision. Joanna recently asked the international leadership of World Vision to pray for the children of the world. World Vision, as you may know, sponsors hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kids around the world. She says, “Pray that God would turn the hearts of these children toward him, and pray they would know how much they are loved by him.” I was just with some of our families at our Family Friday night this past Friday. We were talking about building a house for God, creating a rule of life for the family. I know that for many parents in our community the greatest thing they want their kids to know is that they are loved both by God and by them.
I just got an email from parents here at Tenth who shared:
Our daughter (age 4) has asked us several times whether we would still love her if she turned bad in the future; our answer: we will still love her as she is always our beloved child but our hearts will be broken and want to see her to become a good person again; we tell her this is how God loves us too; we can tell that she feels secure in our love.
When we know that we are loved by our Maker, there is healing in that knowledge. There is something about coming to God daily in a prayerful meditative way that helps us know, not just in our head, but in our heart, that we are loved by God. When that happens we are healed. We are healed from our need to always be doing more, from the need to be earning more money, from the need to be popular, cool. We are free from the need to have lots of influence. We are free from the need to be successful. There is nothing wrong in being successful, but we can be free from the pathological need to be successful to validate our existence. We can be set free by the knowledge that we are the beloved.
So why listen to Jesus? Because in his voice we know how beloved we are by God.
Why listen to Jesus? Because when we listen, we not only know that we are loved by God, but when we listen we also express our love for God.
When we listen to Jesus, we also attend to his call for us. As Jesus speaks to us through the gospels, in particular, and occasionally directly to our heart by his Spirit, and when we follow that word, when we obey that word, we express our love for Jesus. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.”
I know the word “obedience” has negative connotations for many of us. Maybe we think of an austere school principal from our past who was very much into enforcing the rules. But none of these sorts of negative feelings of resentment associated with some authority figure applies to our obedience to Jesus Christ, because while Jesus’ word for us isn’t always an easy or soft word, it is always a loving word. The word “obedience” is derived from the Latin word audire, which means “to listen.” “Obedience” means to listen attentively. Listening deeply to Jesus means “to obey” him. We don’t need to experience any sense of fear or hesitation in listening to and obeying Jesus because of the love that Jesus Christ has for us, as his beloved brothers and sisters.
How do we listen to Jesus?
We’re going to experience a shift as we look more practically at how we can become people who listen to Jesus.
There is a clue in our text. In verse 28 we read that Jesus took Peter, John and James up on to a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed. And then we read about how the cloud, the cloud of God’s presence, descended on the mountain. For most of us, when we pray, we are not going to experience the literal cloud of God’s presence. But we know that throughout the Scriptures and throughout the history of the Christian church, when people have prayed, when people have sought God, they have experienced God. Prayer becomes a portal for them to the great mystery. We typically associate prayer with our speaking to God. Certainly part of prayer involves our speaking to God, but ideally our prayer also involves our listening to God. The posture of prayerful silence is the optimal space for us to hear God. It is no accident the prophets and many of the fathers pursued God in the silence of the desert or the cave. Benedictine monk Christopher Jamieson says, "Silence is the gateway to the soul and the soul is the gateway to God."
God’s still small voice is best heard in a quiet place away from the chatter and the clamour of our lives. We live in a time where most people have no silence at all. After a day at school or at work, most people unwind by turning on the television, viewing something on the internet, or fiddling with their iPod. Many people today, particularly young people, don’t want to have any space in their lives where they are quiet and alone experiencing solitude.
I have been reading the essays written by William Deresiewicz. Deresiewicz has taught English at Yale and Columbia. In one of his classes he asked the students, “What does the place of solitude have in your lives?” One of them said, “I find the idea of being alone so unsettling that I will sit with a friend even while I am writing a paper.” Another student in the class said, “Why would anyone want to be alone?” For a lot of young people today the last thing they want to do is be alone and in silence.
Without a prayerful silence in our lives, we will not be able to hear the voice of Jesus. Part of the reason why we have encouraged Practicing the Presence: Spending Time with Jesus in Scripture and Prayer this year is to foster this place for prayerful listening in Jesus’ presence. If you want to learn more about what it means to discern the voice of Jesus, I commend Gordon Smith’s upcoming seminar (In your program: Gordon Smith: The Voice of Jesus: Learning to Listen; Learning to Pray. Saturday, February 26, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Upper East Hall, Tenth Church. On the Tenth website: Under “Seminars” in the Tenth website.) I have found that prayerful silence has been an increasingly important part of my own journey with God. People who know me are aware that I love activity and action and movement, literally and metaphorically. I love to exercise. I love to see movements launched. But I am also deeply drawn to ancient spiritual practices. My doctoral studies, as you may know, are exploring some ancient monastic spiritual practices, which I believe are needed for today.
I have the practice of getting up very early while it is still dark. I don’t want to talk about when I actually get up because I don’t want you to necessarily emulate it. I am probably going to bed earlier than many of you because we have a toddler.
I begin by entering into an ancient spiritual practice established by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500s called The Examen. I enter into an exercise where I prayerfully review the last day and review what I did, how I felt—to use the technical term given to us by Ignatius of Loyola: consolation. That is, feelings of joy and peace, energy and sense of being alive, and aligned with God. Where I experienced feelings of desolation-- where I felt impatient, angry, anxious, sad, disconnected from God, then I will simply take one or two of those feelings and offer them up in spontaneous prayer to God. I might express gratitude for some gift in the previous day. I might lift up something that is causing me to feel burdened.
(If you’re interested in exploring this, there is a great article on the Internet by Dennis Hamm, a Jesuit priest, called Rummaging for God: Praying Backwards through Your Day. The website is in your sermon outline).

Then I usually mix a green drink, pour some cereal into a bowl, and then, as some of you may know, I use my phone and begin to listen to a passage from the Psalms, the Proverbs and the Gospels, or maybe an epistle. If a passage strikes my heart, I will relisten to it…hit the rewind button. I will use the scroll function, scroll back, listen again and again, and then offer that up to the Lord.
This week for example I've begin listening to the Gospel of Mark. I read about how Jesus ate with "sinners" and tax collectors. I am struck by how broad and deep Jesus’ love is for people. I scrolled back to that section several times. I thought about Ken Pierce’s message from last Sunday about how God calls us to love people who are not religious. I thought how I was going to be meeting up with a friend of mine with whom I share a common interest in sport. He's not religious. His views about ultimate reality are different from mine. His lifestyle, at times, has been very different from mine. So I prayed that as I meet up with him I would sense the welcome of Jesus.
While it is still early in the morning, I typically either go running or swimming. I find both running and swimming contemplative experiences. Then I get to the office.
So, we can listen to Jesus as we quietly “rummage for God” as we pray over the things that we have felt over the past day. We can listen to Jesus as we spend time in his Word.
We can also listen to Jesus in "real-time" as we pay attention to the circumstances of our day.
Part of what I do at the end of my prayer time each morning after a time of quiet reflection over the past day, after having prayed for certain people and issues that I sense I'm to pray for, I pray something : “Lord, I give you this day. Please take the lead. Help me to respond to your initiatives.”
I know this is fairly abstract. So let me illustrate.
Fairly recently, in the morning I had prayed, "I offer this day to you. Please lead me." I almost always go running or swimming in the mornings, but that morning I wasn’t feeling 100% . I do not run and swim out of any sense of obligation. It’s done with a sense of fun. So I headed to the office at about 6 AM and the power is out at the church which is unusual. So I'm sitting in my office in the dark and I do something that I almost never do at that time in the morning, I turn on my cell phone so that I have a little light in my office. As I turn on my cell phone I realize that I have a breakfast appointment that I am not aware of that I would've missed otherwise. (Some of you may know someone else sets up my schedule during the week or I might double book myself.) Early into our breakfast the person shares that he's gone through a very difficult time the last two weeks, and then he asked me why is it that I believe in God--why is it that I believe. I was able to share with this person that I believe in God through some of the experiences I've had with God, and cited some other reasons. Talking about my own faith strengthened my own faith. I hope and pray it made a small difference in his life as well. But looking back, I sense that was a conversation I was supposed to have, and that connection I would've normally missed because I don't turn on my phone that time in the morning. I know this is very subjective, but I simply had a sense that this was arranged by God. I can’t always look back on a day and see as clearly how God guided me. But, I want to listen to Jesus through silent prayer, his word in the gospels, in the circumstances of my life, and also in the choices, especially the major choices of my life.
I tend to be an initiator, a “let’s go for it” kind of person. I really want my life to be attentive to Jesus’ guidance especially in the major decisions of my life.
When I was single, the best advice I ever received was from my friend and pastoral colleague, Brian Buhler, who at the time was pastoring over on the North Shore. He said, “When it comes to marriage, you want God’s guidance there.” It sounds simple, but there is so much wisdom in there.
If I look back, there was one relationship where I had invested so much time and emotion and effort; there was chemistry; we were both followers of Jesus; we were briefly engaged…we both wanted the relationship to work out, but as we thought about it and prayed about it, we didn’t sense any sense of peace or alignment with God around our being married. We did not have any big, logical reason as to why not. It was heart-breaking to break up, but it was God’s will.
Even though, like most people, I had a few relationships before I got married, I thought maybe it was God’s will for me to be single. That was something I continued to offer up to God. When I met Sakiko (reconnected with her after 10 years. I won’t worry you with the details again of that story), I had a real sense of peace and alignment with God. I didn’t get a word from heaven saying, “Marry her.” But we both felt the sense of peace from God in this relationship, moving toward marriage.
When it came to having or not having children, we really wanted a sense of God's guidance. We came to pursuing further graduate studies, I really wanted a sense of God's guidance. When it comes to investing our resources locally and globally, I really want us to be guided by God.
And so I seek to listen to Jesus in prayerful silence, in the Word of God in the gospels, and my circumstances, and in the major decisions of my life.
All of these examples thus far are ways that we can listen to God in solitude, but God also calls us to listen to his voice in community.
When Jesus is praying on Mt. Tabor, later called The Mount of Transfiguration, he is with Peter, John and James. He is joined by Moses and Elijah. This is what my colleague Ken Pierce would call a small group—an amazing small group! Who wouldn’t want to be part of that small group! But throughout the history of Christian spirituality there has been a great tradition of spending time with God in solitude—prayerful silence, listening, or listening to the Scriptures.
But also being within a community of brothers and sisters who share your faith in Jesus Christ is also essential to hearing the voice of Jesus.
I will speak a little more next week on this community aspect, and Gordon Smith will likely address it in his seminar on The Voice of Jesus.
But if we want to fully hear Jesus’ voice we need brothers and sisters who can be a voice of Jesus to us. Throughout the gospels, although Jesus is in regular communion with God, we can only hear God audibly speaking to Jesus twice—at his baptism and on The Mount of Transfiguration. For most of us here, we won’t hear a near audible voice from God very often. For most people that will be the exception. But we can hear God through prayerful silence, the Examen, the Scriptures, through our circumstances, and in the major decisions of our lives--we can listen to Jesus and to community.
If you are dating someone, and you are head over heels over that person, but if all of your Christian friends (I don’t mean people who are Christian in name, but who really know God) together say, “I don’t think you should be with that person,” it could be that God is speaking to you through your community. Or all your Christian lawyer friends, say I don’t think a career in law is for you. It might be that God is speaking to you through that.
So when it comes to listening to Jesus, it’s important to spend time in prayerful solitude. It is also critical to spend time in Christian community because God speaks through the community.
When Peter was asked by Jesus, “Who are you? Who do people say that I am?” Peter replied thoughtfully, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Peter understood that intellectually on the Mount of Transfiguration in prayer. He had this mystical experience in community where he saw Jesus enveloped by a cloud, and he heard the voice of God affirming that Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God.
As we pray and listen to Jesus in solitude and in community, we probably won’t have the same experience Peter had or exactly the kind of vision that John had on Isle of Patmos while he was praying. Those were unique, one-time experiences, but as we pray alone and with others we will experience God deeply. We will meet him and he will speak to us by his Spirit, through the Scriptures, through our circumstances, and through our brothers and sisters.
This is not your high school principal. It’s not your yoga instructor. It’s God who says, “Listen to my Son. Listen to Jesus.”
Lead the people in a simple prayer of Examen.

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Turning to Daylight (06Feb2011)

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus (possible title for the website advertisement: The Way of Jesus)
The Way of Jesus M1 (11 02 06)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Turning to Daylight (new title)
Text: Mark 1: 14-20
BIG IDEA: When we turn to the daylight of God we experience heaven on earth.
The little village of Rattenberg is the one of smallest towns in Austria, and has been getting smaller each year.
The town has lost 20 percent of its population in the past two decades, and has now only about 440 residents.
The reason? Darkness.
Rattenberg was built in the 14th century behind 3,000 foot Rat Mountain (show powerpoint image #1) in order to barricade it from marauders.



But the mountain also blocks out the sun from November to February. Thanks to some clever new technology, the town has hopes of getting a little brighter.
An Austrian company called Lichtlabor has came up with a plan to bring sunshine into the darkness by installing 30 heliostat mirrors onto the mountainside (show powerpoint image #2


The mirrors will grab light from reflectors on the sunny-side of the mountain and shine it back into the town.
The project was cost about 2 and half million bills…
It’s hard to live in darkness…
Some 700 hundred years before Christ was born the prophet Isaiah prophesied that the people in our world living in spiritual darkness would see a great light coming from Galilee. We see this prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled in the light of the world emerging from Galilee in the Gospel of Mark.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 1:14. This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
In Mark 1 vs. 15 we come across the very first words of Jesus in the earliest of the gospels--Mark: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus. We are going to look at what it means to repent or turn toward the sunlight of the kingdom of God and what our lives can look like when we live in the daylight of the King.
But first let’s look at the term “Good News.”
In Jesus’ first recorded words he says (in vs. 15), “Repent and believe the good news.” “Good news” can also be translated “gospel.” In the Greek the word that is translated “good news” has the word angelion in it, which means “news” and the word eu which means “good.” So “good news”—or news that brings joy. Mark here is borrowing a term from the secular world, and it referred to some history-making, life-shaping news. For example, there is an inscription not long before Mark is writing which reads “the Gospel of Caesar Augustus.” It is a story of Caesar Augustus’ birth and coronation. So the word “gospel” referred to some history-shaping event that changed everything. Gospel could refer to a coronation, the ascension to the throne of someone, and it could also mean victory. For example, when Greece was invaded by Persia, and against all odds when Greece won the great Battle of Marathon, according to tradition, they sent runners (basically evangelists) to Athens and to other parts of Greece. These evangelists proclaimed: “We have fought for you. We won and you will not be slaves. You will be free people!” And that is a kind of gospel. It’s the good news about something that has happened in history—something for you that changes your status forever.
The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t at its core good advice; it is good news. 2x It is good news about something that has happened in history that can change your status before God forever. It is good news that can actually set you free. It is good news about the fact that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and through his rising from the dead—resurrection--the door has been opened for us to be set free from our sins and to be welcomed as forgiven people before a Holy God. The gospel tells us that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross mysteriously the powers of Satan, darkness, and sin have been decisively broken, and we can receive forgiveness for our sins and freedom from the darkness.
In the movie, The Fighter, which is based on a true story, actor Mark Walberg plays the role of Micky Ward, a boxer of Irish ancestry who lives in Boston. During an important fight (I don’t want give away which fight—in case you haven’t seen the movie), Micky Ward is being pummeled and beaten badly. But deep in the fight Micky lands a punch that severely weakens his opponent. The fight is not over, but the opponent has been rocked and drained of his power by a decisive punch that Ward lands.
And on the cross of Jesus Christ it looked liked Jesus Christ was being pummeled, being beaten, but mysteriously as he died on the cross for our sins, he dealt Satan and the powers of darkness and the powers of sin a decisive blow. Those forces of darkness are not dead yet. They are still active and alive, but they have been rocked. They have been drained of their power. They have been dealt a death blow.
And through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for our sins and his resurrection, not only have the powers of darkness been defeated, but a wider door than ever before has been opened to the sunlit path of God. The first words of Jesus first words are these: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
In the coming week as KP teaches, we will see Jesus calling people to repent, believe the Good News, follow him--becoming fishers of people. He calls Simon, who is later called Peter, and his brother Andrew as they cast nets into a lake. They were fisherman. Jesus said, “Come follow me.” At once, we read, they dropped their nets and followed him. We see that he calls James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, who are also in a boat preparing their nets. He called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat and followed Jesus.
There are several things that are stunning about Jesus inviting these men to follow him. One of the things that is unique about his call is that he as the rabbi is calling his students, his apprentices into his circle. In Jesus’ world prospective students would approach a rabbi and ask the rabbi to become their mentor. It was not the other way around. Like today, when you are a high school student, perhaps with exception of elite athletes, a university admissions officer doesn’t approach high school students and ask them to come and study at the university. It is usually the students who have to apply to the university, not vice versa. And so it was in Jesus’ day potential students would in effect apply to study with certain rabbis. Rabbis would not be approaching students and ask students to study with them. But we see Jesus here approaching prospective students, and saying, “Come follow me.”
Jesus approaches us, calls us, as well, to follow him, and if we end up following Jesus, as we look back, we see it is not because we initiated it as a spiritual quest, but because God placed in our heart a desire to know him. Because Jesus called us.
Jesus calling his first apprentices or disciples was also stunning, not only because he actually called them and did not wait for them to approach him, but also because his call led these people to drop their nets and leave their families to live with Jesus. It was truly a residential training program. They live with Jesus. They did not just commute in from the suburbs and take seminars with Jesus. They were truly residential students of Jesus, living with him.
This also is stunning, given the culture of first-century Palestine. In our culture it is common for people to change their careers. It’s typical for someone over their adult life to change their work eight different times. But in Jesus’day people were not in the habit of changing their careers as people do today. In fact, for people like Andrew and Simon and James and John, who were fishermen, not only had they been fishermen all of their adult lives, but their fathers had been fishermen, and likely their grandfathers, their great grandfathers. This has been who they are across the generations. And when Jesus calls them, they drop their nets and they leave their fishing careers and become fishers of men and women, influencers of people, following Jesus.
When Jesus calls his apprentices, his students, we also see in verse 20 how James and John not only left their nets, but they also left their father Zebedee in the boat. The students of Jesus also left their families. Again, in our culture---no big deal. Young adults typically leave their families to study or to start on their careers. It is natural and normal. If young adults stay at home, it is not because they feel so attached to their parents, but it is because their parents have a room in their house or a basement suite they can have to live in. If a young adult has a financial incentive to stay at home, he or she might. But in Jesus’ world people did not geographically move away from their home towns like they do today. They did not move away from their families when they became young adults in the way people do today. They tended to stay with their family until they got married. Family ties in Jesus’ day, as is the case in some Asian, African and Latin cultures today, were much stronger than family ties are for most people in Vancouver. So, for Simon and Andrew and James and John to leave their families to follow Jesus would have been radical.
Jesus’ first recorded words that he utters in the earliest Gospel: “The time has come… the kingdom of God is near,” and then Jesus says, “Repent. Repent and believe the good news” are radical. They call us to a new way of life.
What does repentance mean? Repentance simply means “to turn toward God.” Implicit in repentance is the idea of turning away from sin, but it is not a word with a distinct two-step where you 1) turn away from sin, and 2) now that you have turned away from your sin you now become qualified to turn to God. Repentance has the idea of a singular movement. It as we turn to God we naturally, in turning to God, turn away from our sin.
When I was in Grade 8, for part of the football season I played running back. If you are not that familiar with football, a running-back is the player who receives the ball into his belly from the quarterback, and tries to carry the ball down the field (hopefully if you catch part of the big game today—the Super Bowl). Now on any given play in football, when a running-back gets the ball there is a predetermined direction in which he is supposed to run. The play is designed, for example, to develop on the right side of the line behind certain, big strong players (your new best friends). You are also taught if you are running toward that certain part of the line, but there is no opening, look for daylight, look for where there is an opening to run and to take the field down the field. You are carrying the ball down the field toward the right side of the line and if things are not opening up you are supposed to pause, to be patient, and wait for something to open up. If daylight begins to emerge on the left side of the line, you are to cut left and go through the hole. Run to daylight and advance the ball. Obviously, to run toward the hole, to run toward the daylight, you have got to turn away from the clogged part of the line, so that you can run toward the opening.
So it is in our relationship with God. In order to enter the daylight of God, it means that we naturally turn away from something in our lives so that we can run to daylight. As many of you have heard, when I first moved into the daylight of God as a teenager, when I first heard the good news that Jesus Christ had died on the cross for my sins so that I could have a new beginning with God, I moved toward that light. I moved on to that sunlit path. After I made that first step at a Christian youth gathering, I remember going home, going to the garage, going into a stack of wood in the garage, pulling out a log, and then pulling out a copy of Penthouse magazine that a friend and I had bought, splitting the cost 50-50. I remember making a unilateral decision to pour gas over that magazine, toss it into the fireplace, and set it on fire.
But I also remember, as I made my movement toward the light of God, I knew intuitively, although I had not read the Bible, that it might compromise certain friendships that I had. At that stage of my life probably the most important thing in my life, other than maybe succeeding in sports, was being part of a certain group in school. I had worked really hard to become part of the popular “bad boy” athlete crowd. I just barely made it in, but I was in. I knew that running toward the daylight might compromise these relationships. Again, though I had not read the Bible, I knew that God was calling me to please him and not make social popularity the centre of my life, though I could not have articulated it that way back then.
We tend to think of repentance as burning a pornographic magazine. That is a more conventional image of repentance—turning away from something that is an obvious sin. But repentance also means that we turn away from something that has become the centre of our lives, so that we can run into the daylight of God. In some cases repentance means that we literally get rid of something. We burn the Penthouse magazine. But in other cases it simply means that something is no longer at the centre of who we are. After giving my life to Christ I was still friends with my friends, but being accepted was no longer at the centre of who I was. Christ was beginning to take that place.
Repentance means turning to God, away from an attitude we may have. I can find myself comparing myself to other people in ways that can cause me to envy others, in ways not healthy for my soul. I find I have to and want to move out of the dark room of comparison and move into the daylight of God.
So it is when Christ calls us. He may not literally call us away from our vocation, as he did with Simon and Andrew, James and John. By the way, even though he called them away from fishing, they went back to fishing from time to time. Jesus was OK with that. Even though he called them away from their families, as we see later in Scriptures, they continued to interact with their families in way. So their leaving their family and their work was not absolute. But Jesus, in calling these people to himself, was calling them to make him, and not their work and not their families, the centre of their lives.
So repentance means that we turn away from something toward God. Sometimes it means that we actually get rid of the magazine, but at other times it means that something important (and for me it was my social group) is no longer the centre of who we are, but God is the centre of who we are.
Why would we do it? Why would we turn away from something that we have an attachment to toward the daylight of God?
We would move away from an attachment toward the daylight of God because the daylight of God represents an opportunity for us to live a life with God, a life where our sins are forgiven, a life where we are set free. When a great opportunity opens up to us, we in effect repent; we turn from what we are doing toward the new opportunity that we have. For a young person who has wanted their whole life to be a doctor and the door to med. school finally opens for that person, they in effect repent from opportunities to go to other schools and study to get jobs they get right away. In order to go to medical school, they in effect renounce other opportunities to embrace the call of medicine. When you meet someone whose heart you feel utterly at home with, you “repent” and turn to that person. You can in effect move away from other potential partners to be with your beloved.
So it is when you hear the good news and you see the daylight opening up before you. It is not easy, but you do turn away from those other things that you might enter into the kingdom of God.
But, what exactly does the kingdom of God mean?
Matthew, another gospel writer, tends to use the terms “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” interchangeably. The kingdom of God refers to God’s rule, God’s reign. The kingdom of God, technically speaking, was present before Jesus came to Earth. God’s reign was active and present. Through Jesus Christ, and specifically through his death on the cross and his resurrection, as he defeated the forces of Satan, darkness and sin, drained them of their power, the door to the kingdom of God has been opened more widely than ever before. There will come a day, and we don’t know when that day will be, when Jesus Christ will return as a conquering king and his reign will be complete from sea to sea. It will be complete where his glory will be present on the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew prefers to use the expression, “kingdom of heaven,” rather than “kingdom of God”—as I said the two expressions can be used interchangeably. We tend to think of the kingdom of heaven as a place we go to when we die. The kingdom of heaven in Scripture does not usually mean a place we go to after we die, but rather to any place where God’s life and beauty and love and justice are being displayed. If we think of heaven in this more biblical way, then we will think less about heaven as a place we go to when we die and more about how we can see heaven come to Earth as the life, love, beauty and justice of Jesus is poured out on our earth.
In the book of Revelation we are told that Jesus makes all things new. There will be a new heaven and a new earth that we will one day inhabit. And the language of the new earth in the Greek is not the language that God will simply destroy this earth and rebuild it, but God will renew the earth through the second coming of his Son Jesus Christ, renew and heal this earth…the second coming of Jesus Christ. That is why followers of Christ, among other things, care for the earth.
As N. T. Wright, one of our most perceptive theologians: “Our future is not in some far-away place beyond the clouds, but our future will be on this earth.”
Jesus says, “Turn and enter the daylight of God which is around you, which has been made available through me to enter into the life of beauty, love and justice of my Father’s reign.”
I know that the expression “the kingdom of God,” or as Matthew prefers to say “the kingdom of heaven,” are somewhat abstract terms. Even the definitions the “reign,” or the “rule of the King” are somewhat ambiguous descriptions, particularly since we have a prime minister and not a king in Canada (Oh, a former Anglican just reminded we have a Queen). Let me try to give a few metaphors for the kingdom of God.
Dallas Willard is a professor of philosophy who teaches at the University of Southern California. He’s very intelligent, but also humble, gracious, and warm. As a child, Dallas lived in a small rural village in Missouri. In their small community they did not have electricity available to them. But when Dallas was in his final year of high school, power lines were extended to their community, and electricity became available to the homes where Dallas lived. When electricity was available, it changed the way people could live their lives. It changed how hot or cold the house would be. It changed how long they could keep food (fruit, vegetables, meat) without it going bad. It changed how much light they had, which for Dallas meant he could stay up at night and read.
When Dallas was in high school, they had electricity made available to them. He said it made their lives far better. The people who were extending the electricity were saying, in effect, “Repent, for the kingdom of electricity is at hand. Turn from your kerosene lanterns, your scrub boards and your iceboxes into the kingdom of electricity. Many entered and some did not.
And Jesus says, “Through me a new light, a new power, is available for your lives. Turn, and enter in.”
(Lee Kosa, one of the pastors at Tenth, in the ministry with the young adults at The Lounge has been describing the kingdom of God like a beautiful garden with sparkling streams, lush vegetation and abundant fruit that is growing up in the midst of a desert wasteland. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is a better place to live on Earth because God’s reign is bringing restoration, healing, beauty, life.)
The kingdom is the sun light lit through the light of the face of Jesus Christ.
The kingdom of God is being in the presence of the amazing person who casts the most beautiful light. We have all had experiences with people who seem to cast more shadow than light. We all been with people where we have felt drained.
But have you ever been in the presence of someone who is so centred, so joyful and loving, so at home in their skin, so luminous that they are not thinking what they can get from you, but they pay attention to you, they want to serve you? They are willing to put their resources at your disposal—practically, emotionally, spiritually. And when you are with that person, you feel (you can’t put your finger on it) a sense of peace, a sense of feeling uplifted, a sense of being in daylight. That is the greatest gift of the kingdom—simply being with the King, with Jesus—simply being in the presence of the light of the world. This kingdom, this heaven on Earth, as I said earlier is not just a place we go to when we die, but it is a life that we can live right now on Earth as in heaven.
So, what does it look like for the light of the Kingdom to shine into the ordinary parts of our lives?
After a long day of work (or school) you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind a little. But then you remember there's no food at your place. You haven't had time to shop this week and so now after work you have go to the grocery store and of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. So the store is crowded with long lines.
Our default, as novelist David Foster Wallace points out, is to just get frustrated and to focus on my hunger, my fatigue, my desire to get home…or look at how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed people seem in the checkout line; or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line.
We can stand with the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.
We can experience these situations differently if we live in the day light of Jesus’ friendship.
In the long line we can take a moment for the people around us. Again, as David Foster Wallace observes, the lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line--maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Maybe not, probably—but that person is precious to God. If we are aware that we stand in the light of Jesus, we can pray for that person.
We live in the day of Jesus as students in our jobs.
Alvin Ung works for an investment firm in Malaysia. He took some time off work to attend Regent College and attended Tenth while he was at Regent. Some of you may remember him and Fern.
In Alvin’s words: “While at Regent I read about ancient Christians who inspired me to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17-18). It sounded impossible, but I tried to put it into practice as I wrote theological papers. I prayed before my assignments. Writing prayerfully, without anxiety or rush, I would thank God for the insights. Each keystroke would be an act of worship. When the work was done, I thanked God for helping me. Slowly I began to see that my work—and the process of working—could be a form of prayer.”
When he got back to his corporate job, he talked about how stressed out he was and too busy to pray.
Then he says, “I was struck by a simple thought: I should regard my workplace as a ‘monastery’ where God is already present. I could pray quick short prayers for my colleagues during work. During lunch, I imagined Jesus Christ as our unseen conversation partner. When I felt stuck, I would ask God for help. So there were lots of opportunities to pray, because I felt stuck so many times a day! Slowly, I began to realize that God had been keeping company with me all this while…even when I did not naturally turn to God.”
Work can be frustrating. It can be boring. It can even feel soul numbing. But even in those places—especially in those places like Alvin we can experience daylight, the daylight of Jesus, the beauty, the love and the life and justice of Jesus, and be an instrument to spread that light, that beauty, that love, that justice, that peace in our world.
We can experience the Kingdom of God, the daylight of Jesus, not just in our times of worship on Sundays, in our small groups, on our mission trips to Cambodia, but in our everyday life.
As part of my Practicing the Presence routine I have been YouTubing Tim Hughes’ worship song: Everything.
God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything…
God can be our in our everything.

The paradox is that in order to enter this life we have to turn away from something which may feel like a death in order to run toward the daylight.
Jesus said, “If you try to hold on to your life, you will lose it, but if you are willing to lose your life for my sake, you will find it.”
The paradox is as I believe George McDonald said, “You will die unless you are willing to die.” 2x
Why would we be willing to die for someone, turn from something, and, in effect, make someone else the centre of our life, the centre of our universe? If you have ever been in the presence of someone, as I said, who is so centred, so joyful, so loving, so at home with themselves, so filled with light that they are thinking about you, they are serving you, they are putting their practical and emotional resources generously at your disposal, if given the opportunity, experience… you want to reciprocate, to serve them in some way.
That is what Jesus did for you. According to Charles Wesley in his famous hymn:
He left his Father's throne above
(so free, so infinite his grace!),
emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.

Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

When we focus on his amazing love and say with Charles Wesley “how can it be that my God should die for me,” we are willing to die for God. We are able to repent, turn toward the daylight of God, and live not because of us, but because he first loved us.
PRAYER
We began the sermon with Jesus first recorded words.
What do you hear Jesus saying to you today? How is Jesus calling you to repent and turn toward the daylight?