Hope Rises(24April2011)

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus M12 (11 04 24) (Part of the Easter Celebration Service)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Hope Rises
Text: John 11:1-44
BIG IDEA: Jesus’ rising from the dead proves to us that tragedy, and even death, can be reversed.
Last month we witnessed the devastating tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake. We saw the footage of homes being carried by the water, cars swept away, and even large trucks and freighter ships being flipped over like small toys.
Then, in the days that followed, we saw scenes of the drooping skeletal remains of buildings, and images of the flooded streets.
Some of our extended family were in Sendai when the earthquake hit, my wife Sakiko’s closest aunt and her aunt’s mother. For four or five days we had not received any word from them—they didn’t show up on any of the lists of people who were in the shelters. Their son had worked for IBM—and is tech savvy—so we figured he would have been able to reach them. Things were not looking good after 4 or 5 days. At the dinner table, I turned to Sakiko and asked, "Do you think they're dead?" "I think they may be dead," she replied.
Then the following day, we heard that they were OK.
I am originally from Japan and my wife was born and raised there, and as we saw the houses being carried away…. I was in tears and my wife wept.
Sakiko’s dad was twelve years old and living in Osaka when the World War II ended. He said, “Japan looks like it did after the war.” The war, of course, with the exception of Kyoto, reduced Japan’s major cities to ashes…
And seeing the recent images of the skeletal building of Japan after the earthquake and tsunami, like a massive bomb had exploded, I felt grief, but I also thought about how the country and the people were able to rise from the ashes of the war.
Sakiko’s parents’ and my parents were children--about 12 years old when the war ended.
During the war and just after, they were very hungry much of the time. I remember my mom telling me how she (usually when I refused to eat my veggies as a boy) how she and the other children were so hungry that they walked out to the river to pick flowers and ate them (I told her we have would have flowers on the platform today and asked her to make sure she had breakfast before coming). With the help of foreign aid they were able to re-grow their crops, rebuild their roads, their houses, and their businesses.
Through that experience of great adversity, arguably Japan’s greatest generation emerged. Our parents’ generation literally and metaphorically –rebuilt the country. And as a result of that tragedy, people were opened to new spiritual realities, and my mom and some members of our family came into a life-changing relationship with the living God.
We, of course, don’t have a crystal ball to see the future of Sendai and Fukushima. People are saying that just like after World War II it will take about 30 years to rebuild.
I don’t want in any way to diminish the pain and loss that Japan has experienced.
But we do know from history that people do rise from the ashes. We know that people who appear beaten down, like seeds that are cast on the ground, stepped on, and forgotten, in time have a way of rising.
So Easter is not just a story for us here in Vancouver, but it is a story of hope for people in places like Japan, Tunisia and Egypt, Libya, and the Middle East. It is a story of hope for all people, particularly for those who have experienced suffering and have been touched by death.
Easter is a story about Christ rising from the dead, but that resurrection, of course, would not have happened, without Christ first having gone through what appeared to be a tragic, senseless death.
We would not have Easter if we did not have Good Friday. What is Good Friday? Why do we call it good?
Good Friday looks back to the day when Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God, was nailed to a Roman cross. The cross, of course, is such a famous symbol today. People wear it around their neck. But, it was certainly not a beloved symbol in the Roman world of the first century. It was equivalent to the electric chair. Worse really. When a person was nailed to cross, everyone would have assumed that they had committed a violent, heinous, crime. In fact this tortuous death was considered so gruesome, so degrading that by Roman law a Roman citizen no matter how monstrous and evil a crime they had committed would not be subject to death by crucifixion.
When Jesus was on the hanging cross, those who did not know him assumed that he was dying as a criminal for a sin that he had committed.
But according to the Scriptures he died as a sacrifice for our sins. So we could be forgiven and free to know God.
The Japanese people who have volunteered to work on the frontlines to contain the nuclear radiation are acting in a way that gives a window into what Christ did for us.
There are certain government regulations, of course, that limit the amount of radiation a worker can be legally exposed to. A typical worker is only allowed to work for about 15 minutes while trying to contain the nuclear radiation. Our friends in Japan tell us that a disproportionately high number of people volunteering to work on the frontlines to contain the radiation are followers of Jesus Christ (the number of Christians who have volunteered is surprisingly high—as you may know there are very few Christians in Japan). And they are begging their supervisors to let them work longer than legal 15 minutes… for much, much longer so they can make more headway. In some cases it means that they are being exposed to 20 times, that’s 2000 % of the radiation in a day that they are legally allowed to face in a year. The reason we know of this is that some of Christian front line workers have asked my wife and me to pray for them.
Seth Grae, the CEO of a North American based nuclear consultancy company has been observing what these men are doing and says, “What we are seeing now is, really, heroic.”
These workers are voluntarily willing to lay down their well-being and maybe their lives to contain the nuclear radiation so they can protect their communities, their country, and the world.
They walk into death`s door and hope rises.
And likewise so in a mysterious way when Jesus Christ was dying on the cross, it was like he was absorbing in his body all the radioactivity of our sins--so that no matter what we have done in the past, no matter what our sin, we can be forgiven. Jesus absorbed the radioactivity of our sin in his body on the cross, so that we could enter into a relationship with God without guilt or shame, so that we could be free of spiritual contamination, so that we could be adopted as cherished daughters and sons of God.
Jesus walks into death and hope rises.
On Good Friday Jesus died—Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Three days later he rose from the dead.
On the Sunday morning following Jesus’ death, friends felt deep grief much like someone in Sendai who had lost their father, or someone in Egypt or Libya who had lost a mother or daughter, or maybe as you felt if you have ever lost a loved one.
But their grief turned to laughter and delirious joy when they saw Jesus three or four days later risen from the dead.
But what did it mean—what did his rising mean? This is the question of Easter.
In order to unpack the meaning of the Christ rising from the dead, let me take us to an event in Jesus’ life 2 or 3 months BEFORE—he died on the cross and rose again. It gives us a glimpse of what his rising from the dead would mean for us… and a window into the meaning of the Easter.
In the gospel of John, Chapter 11, just a few months before Jesus dies on the cross, Jesus receives news that his friend Lazarus is very sick. Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary, two of Jesus’ closest friends. After receiving news that Lazarus was seriously ill, Jesus stayed where he was for a couple more days before going to see him. His friend Lazarus ended up dying. And when Jesus arrives he finds that Lazarus has already died and has been in the tomb for four days. Martha, Lazarus’ sister, comes out to meet Jesus. She said, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha responded, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Martha here is referring to the great final Day of Judgment when every person will rise up from the grave and stand before for the living God. She is referring to a future final day.
But, listen to what Jesus says:
“25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).
Jesus suggests that the resurrection –i.e. rising from the dead – can also occur now.
Jesus asks, “Where have you laid him?” They took him to the cave where Lazarus was buried.
And Jesus wept.
The Greek here word for wept suggests that Jesus was deeply distressed and angry. The Greek word describes a horse that snorts in anger. When someone we love dies there is grief, tears, sadness, but like Jesus we can also feel anger.
And when God sees devastation and anger, he also weeps and experiences anger.
Jesus says, “Take away the stone.” But Martha, the sister of Lazarus, says, “By this time there is bad odour for he has been dead for four days.” Martha, who was a very straight forward kind of woman, says in effect, “Jesus, you don’t want to go near his body. It is going to stink.” People in Jesus’ day believed that during the first days of death the soul would kind of hover around the body, but on the fourth day even the soul was saying, “I’m outa here!” But Martha was just warning Jesus to stay away from the body because it had already begun to decompose and smell.
Jesus approaches the tomb and simply says, “Lazarus, come out!” No long incantation. No abracadabra. Simply “Come out!” Lazarus comes out in his grave clothes. In Jesus’ day when a person died you would wrap him or her in over a hundred pounds of linen strips. And here comes Lazarus—dead man walking, a walking mummy coming out of the tomb.
Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead was of kind of a glimpse of what was to come.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” Jesus says he or she who believes in me even though he or she dies will rise to eternal life.
When the religious leaders asked him to prove his claim to be the one who could raise us from the dead, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple [meaning his body] and I will raise it up on the third day.”
When God raised Jesus from the dead, it was God’s way of saying, your sin have been paid for. You and, i.e., us can rise from the dead to eternal life as well.
Jesus' death and rising from the dead was a glimpse of what would happen to us if we put our trust in him.
Because he walked into death, hope rises for us.
Earlier in the service, Kahlil Ashanti portrayed part of C. S. Lewis’s famous children’s story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
One of the children, Edmund, betrays Aslan the Lion, the Christ figure, and his friends.
And so the White Witch says to Aslan the great Lion, the Christ figure, “You have a traitor here. You know the deep magic says that every traitor belongs to me. His life is mine. I have the right to kill him...”
Aslan bargains with the witch to exchange his own life for Edmund's. So, the Witch ties Aslan to the Stone Table, shaves off his great mane, and then kills him with a knife.
Susan and Lucy, two of the children who were hiding behind a bush witness the horrific death of Aslan are now walking about aimlessly…
At that moment they hear from behind them a loud noise, a great, cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a huge stone. The stone table on which Alsan was killed was breaking into two pieces cracking from end to end.
They looked around and there shining in the sunrise was Aslan, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane.
“Oh, Aslan!” cried the children staring up at him. “What does it all mean?” asked Susan, when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, ‘that though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a deeper magic still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back into the stillness and darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a victim who had committed no treachery was killed, though in a traitor’s stead, the table would crack and death would start working backwards.”
We celebrate Easter because Easter means because of Christ’s death, Christ who committed no treachery and was killed in a traitor’s stead—our stead. Death works backwards.
Aslan walks into death and hope rises.
Jesus walks into death and hope rises.
Easter means that even death the worst and last enemy is defeated.
I have a grandmother who is 97 and just recently retired from playing tennis. Some years ago she was bragging to me that she was ranked the #2 tennis player in the nation of Japan in her age category. And I said, “Yes, but in your age category there are probably only 2 or 3 of you still playing.” I thought that was a pretty funny thing to say until she showed me her backhand. My grandmother has been extraordinarily healthy and fit for her age, but recently she is showing signs of forgetting. She is showing signs of early dementia. I wonder how much longer she will live for.
I am reminded as I watch her how, of how fleeting our life on earth is. But, I know that because her life is in Christ’s hands and that she too will one day rise from the dead.
Even as death encroaches, because Jesus walks into death and hope rises.
Christ’s death and rising again doesn’t just mean hope for us rising at the end of time. It can also mean a reversal of fortune for us in this life.
If we live long enough, we will experience some kind of pain and suffering, usually directly, but if not directly through the experience of someone we love and care for. Pain in not being admitted to a particular school or a company, the loss of a job, unreciprocated love, a breakup with a partner, pain because of accident or an illness. Suffering can feel deep and awful, and at the time can feel never-ending.
Jesus’ dying on the cross and rising again means that all of our fortunes can be reversed.
It means our suffering can be redeemed in this lifetime, and if not here, certainly in the life to come.
The Scriptures teach that when our lives our joined to him, God begins to work out all things for our ultimate good—even tragedy.
It’s a like when an artist like Michelangelo joins his brush to ours and begins to work with our brush on the canvas of our life so that it even the black spots become part of a larger masterpiece.
This is why followers of Christ, look back and say I thought it was the worst that ever happened, but I now see how God has redeemed it and how he has given me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness.
No matter how tragic something appears, Jesus walks into death and hope rises.
And if that seems impossible, listen to what the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky said in the Brothers Karamazov:
"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage… that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all suffering…."
Dostoyevsky is saying that in the end God will choreograph something so precious that all of our suffering will be healed and redeemed so that even the worst kind of suffering will vanish like a mirage, as if we are waking up from a bad dream.
Because Jesus walks into death and hope rises for us.
When first married I used to have this reoccurring nightmare. I would dream that my wife Sakiko had died. Then I would wake up and see with a sigh of relief and that she was still asleep beside me. But, I’d watch to see if the duvet would rise and fall once or twice just to be sure. (But the challenge is we have a pretty thick duvet--so Sakiko, in case you been wondering all these years why every once in a while I jerk you awake without any reason, now you know why.)
Now as the parent of a rambunctious 2-year-old, I have a dream from time to time that I have lost Joey somewhere in a crowd--all of a sudden I can’t see him anywhere. (This actually has happened…. in real life… While entering Science World, when I was just turning away to hang up his coat, and then turned around, Joey was nowhere to be seen. I ran outside to look for him on False Creek. He wasn't there. I ran inside and quickly scanned the entrance way. I couldn’t spot him. I contacted one of the staff members who told me to stay where I was--near the entrance--in case he tried to run out of Science World. The staff member got a description of him from me and then walkie-talkied that information to the staff: (look to the side) start looking for a Japanese looking 2 year old, wearing a blue sweatshirt or a maybe a green shirt, or maybe it’s brown… or it could be yellow. It was definitely a color. After about 6 minutes (which felt like about 60) somebody found him.) That really happened, but I have dreamed about him being lost, and my feelings of panic and depression feel incredibly real because in my nightmare I know my wife Sakiko is going to be inconsolable over our son's kidnapping or even death, and I am also sad and frightened because I know she is going to kill me too.
Then I wake up from the dream and I see Sakiko lying beside me… (And I think I will let her sleep). I know Joey’s sleep in his bedroom at the end of the hallway dreaming of cupcakes.
Because of Christ's resurrection –if our lives are joined to him – one day everything that has ever happened to us that’s bad–will be so healed, so completely redeemed that its memory will fade as if we were waking up from a dream.
In the great story Lord of the Rings Sam believes that Gandalf has fallen off a cliff and has died. But at the end of the story, Sam has been asleep for a long while and then he begins to wake up. As he wakes up Gandalf stands beside Sam, his face glistening in the sunlight and says, “Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?” Sam, laying on his back, stares with open mouth and for a moment between bewilderment and great joy cannot answer. At last he gasps, “Gandalf, I thought you were dead, but then I thought I was dead. Is everything sad going to come untrue? “
“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed. Sam said, “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves, and all the songs I have ever heard.”
Christ’s dying and rising again means everything sad things that happened to us, everything tragic, will be healed and redeemed so like waking from a bad dream, every sad experience will come untrue.
Jesus walks into death and hope rises.
This is why we celebrate the promise of Easter. This is why we have hope. This is why we, along with one-third of the world, celebrate Christ’s rising.
If you are here and you are not sure that you believe, one of the ways that you can begin to believe is by asking Jesus to give you a little glimpse of the resurrection that you can one day experience.
My wife and I had two wedding ceremonies, one in Japan and one here in Vancouver. Before the ceremony in Japan, Sakiko, whose job it had been as a writer to go restaurants and write the restaurant guides, and her dad, who was a food executive who sampled food in his work, went to the hotel where we were going to be having our reception and they sampled the food: the appetizers, the main course, the wines and the deserts. It was a glimpse, a foretaste of what was to come.
When Martha’s brother Lazarus had died, Jesus came to see her. She said, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” He said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha responded, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
She is referring to a future event.
But, Jesus says:
“25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).
Jesus suggests that a resurrection –i.e. a rising from the dead – will occur in the future, but can also happen right now. He is saying we can begin to experience a spiritual rising to new life now. When he says anyone who believes in me, that is anyone who trusts in me will live even though they die and whoever believes in me will never die – he is talking about a spiritual life that can begin in us now and that will never die out.
So if you would join your life to Christ – not only will you experience the resurrection at the end of time – you will experience a spiritual rising to new life today.
Has this happened to you? Has your heart changed—has God brought new life to you, a spiritual resurrection?
If your life is joined to Christ, you will rise again as he did. But that resurrection does not have to begin only then. It can begin now if you will turn your life to Christ and ask him to bring new life to you.
The risen Jesus stands ready to walk into the pain and even tragedy of your life and can bring you comfort and new life and as he does in hope will rise for you.

If so, and you would like to do that, you can pray with me, “Christ, I don’t understand it all, but I believe you died on the cross and rose again for my sins. You absorbed the radioactivity of my sin in you so that I could be forgiven and restored to God. I turn to you. Help me to experience a new life now and in the days to come.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Servant King(17April2011)

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus M11 (11 04 17)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Servant King
Text: John 13:1-17
BIG IDEA: We are most like God when we are sanctified and serve.
When I was in my going into final year of seminary, I was elected student body president.
During my year, as student president, I occasionally met with the board of trustees.
Before meeting with them, I was always clearly told by senior level staff member not to bring up anything that would embarrass the administration and nothing that would blindside them—“no surprises.”
Before meeting the trustees, I get a list of their names and found out what they did…
Part of list went something like this:
C Firestone from California—of the Firestone Tire family.
J Talcott who lives not far from us in Boston. He’ll introduce himself as a cranberry farmer, but he owns Ocean Spray Drink Company.
Billy Graham…
2 or 3 times that year, I’d attended these cocktail parties (without real cocktails) with the trustees and special guests of the seminary.
At one of these parties I started chatting with an elderly woman standing nearby… After talking for a few minutes, I discovered she was Mary Rockefeller (of the Rockefeller family).
I thought, “She looks like an ordinary person. She’s dressed modestly. She’s not at all pretentious. She’s warm. Like an elegant grandmother.” She said, “I am not really qualified to serve on this board. I don’t know anything about theology.”
I thought—didn’t say—I know exactly why you’re on the board.
As I became acquainted with her, I found her to down to earth, and very generous—to the school and contributing to big projects and small ones—I recall how she would gave a fund account to help students with families at the seminary to pay for babying sitting and go on dates… who otherwise couldn’t afford to.
I thought if I didn’t know who she was, I would not know that she was Mrs. Rockefeller.
If you saw Jesus… on first glance, you might not recognize him as the unique son of God. According to the Bible, he had no outward beauty that we naturally be attracted to … He had no worldly wealth… He never postured as the leader with symbols of status, nor did he refuse to do something lowly, considered beneath the dignity of leader.
Today, we’ll see a picture of the Jesus we are called to follow and, with God’s help, to become like.
If you have your Bibles please turn to John 13.
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
In John 13 Jesus is in an upper room in Jerusalem with some of his closest friends the night he is betrayed, the night before he was nailed to the cross. We read in verse 1 that it was just before the Passover Feast. The Passover Feast was considered the most important of the Jewish feasts. It celebrated the time when God delivered his people, the Hebrew people, through the leadership of Moses, out of the land of Egypt where they had been slaves for 400 years.
The population of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus was roughly 80,000, but at Passover it might swell to some 3 million people—the streets crowded like downtown Vancouver after we won the Olympic gold medal in hockey (and some of you are saying like it will when the Canucks win the Stanley Cup this year). Word had spread that Jesus, who lived in Bethany, a community less than 2 miles away, had raised a man named Lazarus to life after he had been dead for 4 days. And Jesus, who had performed all kind of miracles, was coming through Jerusalem.
People were anticipating that Jesus would reclaim the throne of his great great great great… grandfather David, and become the king, the Messiah who would liberate his people.
So, as we might expect, when he came into Jerusalem on a donkey, people shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! Blessed is the King of Israel! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David!” Hosanna means “save now,” but is the equivalent in our time of “God save the King.” And Jesus is a King. He is the ultimate King. According to the Scriptures he is God in human flesh. But, as we will see, he is a very different sort of king than what people expected.
Here in the Upper Room, Jesus and his friends had gathered for a meal the night before he goes to the cross. Since the roads of Palestine were not paved like ours, but made of dirt, in dry weather there would be a lot of dust, and in wet weather the roads would turn to mud. People in Jesus’ day wore sandals, so when you would walk out in the streets your feet would become dirty. Just inside the doorway in most homes in Jerusalem would have been a basin of water and a towel. (USE PROP) In a Jewish home, typically a slave (who was not a Jew—the Jews were not supposed to ask a Jewish servant to wash their feet—too demeaning) would greet the visitors and wash their feet.
When Jesus gathered his students for a meal, none of them voluntarily carried out this lowly task. They were fantasizing about what kind of cabinet positions they might hold in Jesus’ administration. In fact, according to the gospel of Luke, Jesus’ students were arguing about which of them would be greatest in the kingdom that Jesus would soon inaugurate. As they were jockeying for position and status, no one, of course, dared to stoop and take on the role of the servant and wash each other’s feet. Doing something so slowly would be a tacit admission of who was on the bottom of the totem pole.
And then something astonishing happened! The disciples are reclining, sitting in the Upper Room, some of them are lying on their side, some are seated on the floor. They are in a horseshoe shape. Here in the Upper Room Jesus and his students reclined on the floor, and their feet are covered in grime.
Having loved his own in the world (vs. 1), Jesus now showed them the full extent of his love. Jesus knew that his Father (vs.3) had put all things under his power, that he had come from God and that he was returning to God. So (NOT BUT, but SO… or therefore)… as one with all power, who knew where he had come from and where he was going, got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
Jesus is a king, in fact, he is in fact the King of every king, the Prime Minister of every prime minister, the President of every president, but he is a very different sort of king. He washes feet. In Jesus’ day, we have no example in ancient literature of a rabbi stooping to wash to wash his disciples’ feet. In that day a peer would never wash a peer’s feet. It was considered too demeaning. And if anyone needed their feet washed that evening, it was Jesus. He was just hours away from a cruel and violent lonely death. If anyone needed to be served and cared for that night, it was Jesus. But it was Jesus who took off his outer clothing, wrapped the towel around his waist, poured water into a basin, and began to wash his students’ feet, drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him.
What enabled Jesus, the King of kings, the unique Son of God, to do what was considered to be such a demeaning task? So—Jewish… it is done by Gentile slaves.
There is a clue in the passage where we read:
3 “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God and SO he got up from the meal…. And began washing their feet….”
Jesus knew that God had put all things under his power, and that he was returning to the Father. Jesus lived in the security that his Father loved him, and that his Father had given him all authority and power. That sense of security, that sense of being loved, that sense of personal power in the best sense gave Jesus the freedom to do something that was considered humiliating…to wash another person’s feet.
And when we have a relationship with God the Father, when you realize that you have been chosen by him, that you are a beloved son or daughter, we are filled with his Spirit. When we know where we have come from and where we are going, then we are secure enough to humbly serve others. (If we are insecure, we will only feel free to serve in prestigious or glamorous ways, and we achieve only a superficial kind of greatness. But if we are secure in God’s love for us, and if we are confident in the power that God has bestowed upon us, we can descend to true greatness-- greatness in God’s terms.)
We see in vs. 1 that Jesus loves his students by washing their feet. Love in the New Testament is more than just a feeling—it is an action.
In a moving scene Jesus looks around and begins to wash the feet of Thomas, a guy who’s been close to Jesus for three years, has seen amazing miracles Jesus has performed, but doesn’t really believe in Jesus yet. Thomas has doubts. He doesn’t believe Jesus will be able to do what he claims he will do—rise from the dead.
Jesus washes Peter’s feet. Jesus knows, according to verse 38, that in less than 24 hours Peter will deny 3 times that he even knows him. In fact, he knows each of them will desert him. Then, of course, he washes Judas’s feet. Judas is Jesus’ CFO. Judas literally sells him out, saying in effect “you are less than 30 silver coins to me.” He knows all this. Jesus knows he is going to be betrayed or sold, but he loves him anyway.
His act of washing his disciples’ feet, as amazing as this was, was this really a kind of trailer to what he would do for them the following day, something far greater than washing the feet of his disciples? There is a part of us that when we read the words “that Jesus having loved the people in the world, and now showed the full extent of his love,” then Jesus stooping down to wash their feet, that says “That’s it?” Amazing and humble. It would be like saying, “On their fiftieth wedding anniversary, Steve showed his wife the full extent of his love by mopping their bathroom floor.”
As amazing as Jesus’ washing of feet is, Jesus clearly has something more in mind here. In the next 24 hours he will not just remove just his shirt. He will strip right down. He will allow himself to be nailed to a cross, executed in the most painful, humiliating way imaginable, a kind of capital punishment so degrading the Romans—no matter how evil a crime of one their citizens had committed--would not subject their own people to that kind of death. His washing of feet was a prelude to his more humiliating act of service--to laying down his life on the cross, a death only fit for the worst kind of criminal—a death for his disciples and for us, a death bearing our sin and shame in himself so that you and I could be clean and forgiven.
We know his washing the feet of his disciples points to a greater cleansing he would achieve for them through his conversation with his student Peter.
When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said, "Master, you wash my feet?"
Jesus answered, "You don't understand now what I'm doing, but it will be clear enough to you later."
Peter persisted, "You're not going to wash my feet—ever!"
Jesus said, "If I don't wash you, you can't be part of what I'm doing."
Master!" said Peter. "Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!"
Jesus said, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one of you is clean.
Life has a way of making us dirty. Sometimes we make a choice to jump into the mud and manure. Sometimes our feet just get dirty because we are walking through dusty roads of the world and we feel that we have been, if not corrupted, at least compromised in some way.
If we want to have a part of Jesus, the holy and pure Son of God, we need to ask him to wash and cleanse us. We need to ask him to give us a spiritual bath.
This week I just heard the story a young man who said when he was baptized he felt he was being given a bath from the inside… he felt… (and couldn’t find the word right away)… “Clean…. Cleansed. Cleansed from the inside.”
And the King of kings is a servant King. He serves us by washing us…cleansing us. The technical word used in the New Testament is “sanctify,” which simply means to make holy, to make pure, to set apart for God.
This is possible because he served in the ultimate way when he died on the cross a sacrifice for our sins—absorbing our sin and shame upon him. The Scriptures tell us in Isaiah 53:5:
But he [Jesus] was pierced [on the cross] for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
When we come to Jesus and confess our sins, in Scripture we are told:
In 1 John 1:9 we read: 9 he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins (based on Christ’s work) and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Part of what it means to follow the servant King Jesus is to be cleansed (or sanctified).
The second part of what it means to follow the Servant King is to serve.
In verse 15 we read:
15 “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
Jesus says, “I have set an example that you also should wash one another’s feet.” Then Jesus says, “Now that you know these things you will be blessed if you do them.”
As you may know some Christian communities take Jesus’ commandment to mean that we are to literally wash one another’s feet. They hold foot-washing services on Maunday Thursday. The moms’ group that gathers here on Thursday mornings with young children, led by Karla, recently washed each other’s feet. When our team went to Cambodia in November and contributed to the final training of emerging pastors there, who were graduating the Diamond Leadership program, the Cambodians who are very conscious of hierarchy and authority decided to kneel before our team and wash the feet of our team members as a way to show that they as pastors are called to serve, and then the our team knelt and washed their feet. People were crying because in Cambodia and even Canada washing another person’s feet is so counter-cultural.
In verse 15 Jesus said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Jesus here shows us that the King of the world, loves us by serving us.
As NT Gordon Fee has pointed out commenting on Philippians, Chapter 2, “Precisely because Jesus Christ was in very nature God, he didn’t consider equality with God something to be used to his own selfish advantage, but he poured himself out, taking on the very nature of a servant.” (USE THE JUG and the WATER HERE.)
We are most like God when we empty ourselves and love others through service. Because we are made in the image of God, we are most fully human when we faithfully mirror the nature and character of God. He says in verse 14, “14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
If we had not read this passage just now and you had not read it before, you might have anticipated Jesus saying “now that I have washed your feet, please wash mine.” As we saw, if anyone needed his feet washed it was Jesus! He was about to die a cruel, violent death.
But, if Jesus had said that, his disciples would have been fighting over the privilege of being first to wash his feet. But Jesus says instead, “You should wash one another’s feet.”
Lesslie Newbigin has served for many years as a missionary in India. He said that Jesus’ command here literally changes our whole idea of relationship. Newbigin says (I paraphrase), because Jesus laid down his life for us, we owe him a debt, but he calls us to repay the debt by serving other people.” In the parlance of the popular movie some years ago, having been served by Jesus we are to “pay it forward.”
I owe Jesus Christ what he has done for me. But he calls me to repay the debt by serving others. My wife Sakiko. Our son Joey. So are the members of my community here at Tenth and our neighbours. It is an unique way of understanding our world. It reverses the values of our world—it’s upside down.
In my message a few weeks ago on loving children, I talked about how Jesus flips the values of the world upside down. People tend to move toward people who have money, status and power and conventional beauty and those can advantage us in some way. Jesus calls us to serve the people right around us, whether or not they have money, status, power or conventional beauty, whether or not they can advantage us.
He calls us to love people by serving others, particularly those who can’t repay us. Jesus washed the feet of Judas, a man he knew would betray him, in fact…. of all his students—each of whom would desert.
In our world we tend to “love” those who can advantage us in some way.
We tend to “love” people we are attracted to. We may be attracted to a person’s appearance. Or their intelligence. Or their lifestyle. Or their social network.
But when we love that people we are naturally attracted to, we at least in part are going to them to get our needs met.
When we “love” those we are naturally deep drawn to, our own needs our met.
What we often describe as loving another person, but often we are loving ourselves—getting our needs met through that person.
Dr. Peter Ritter is a psychiatrist who has written on the subject on the “them” ethics for doctors and people in the helping professions. He sometimes comes across psychiatrist colleagues who are sleeping with their clients (most aren’t). When Peter challenges them by saying that’s an abuse of power and illegal and unethical and deeply damaging to them and you, the psychiatrists will respond by saying, “I am such a loving guy (it’s almost always a man), that I need to serve these women with low self esteem by loving in a physical way.” When Peter probes a little further, the psychiatrists divulge that all the women they sleep with are young and attractive. Then Peter says, “ If you’re having sex with your clients to boost their self-image why don’t you sleep with clients who are old and/or ugly? They need self-esteem boost most.” They’ll say, “ That’s disgusting. I have standards.” Peter will say, “You’re not sleeping with your clients for them, you’re doing for you to get your needs met. So, don’t call that love.”
That’s an extreme example. But isn’t it true that in the world…we tend to “love” people we are attracted to. It may be not be in a physical, sexual way. We may be attracted to their mind, their money, their lifestyle… their connection, and so we what call love is often a case of getting our needs met—the focus is us, not them.
Jesus here redefines love as not getting our needs met through another, but by serving others—in the most humble way---even those who can’t advantage us.
Jesus said, “Now that you know these things blessed are you if you DO them.” Love is not just an attitude, but it is something we do. It’s like love—love is not simply a feeling, it’s something we do.
A pastor in the San Francisco Bay area I have taught with named John has a friend, who according to him, would not do well in a contest for high piety. He has deep wounds that still affect him in many ways. He had virtually no father growing up. His mom was a difficult person. She married five different men, none of them lasting long. She had little time for his friend and failed to give him encouragement. He’s a man now, and several years ago his mother developed a degenerative muscular disease and gradually lost almost every physical capacity. None of her children would have anything to do with her, and not one of the men to whom she’d been married even acknowledged what she was going through.
This man, however, decided to serve her. He took her into his home and cared for her, feeding her by hand, combing her hair, and cleaning up after her messes. When John was in his home, about all she could do was cry and moan incessantly. He wondered, “How can he stand this. I thought, I’ve been given blessings – the church, Scripture, family – exponentially greater than this guy, and I don’t know if I could love like this.”

When she died, 16 people came to her funeral. Not even all her kids came. But this man was there, and on a little toy tape recorder he played a tape of his mom singing a Christmas carol. He talked about how she loved Christmas and how when he was a kid he used to play
the guitar and she would sing with him.

He didn’t love her perfectly… But he loved her when loving was hardest.
He loved her when no one else would love, and he remembered her with kind words.
That’s what it looks like to serve like Jesus.

Jesus serves like that… when we were hardest to love, when we offered him no advantage. The Bible says. “God in Christ demonstrated his love for us in this world, while we were still sinners, enemies of God. He laid down his life for us in Christ.”
You see loving and serving in Jesus’ way isn’t about “loving” so it can advantage us some way. It is about loving those when it is hard to do--through action…
Let Christ sanctify and serve you… so we can love as Jesus loves.
Open up some space… is there anyone you know of that you need to serve?

Essential Spirituality

Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus: M9 (11 04 03)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Essential Spirituality
Text: Matthew 23:4; 23-28
BIG IDEA: An essential spirituality will involve justice, inner purity, and playfulness.
(Easter story: radio, dinner and the vision)
Joey, our two-year-old son, my wife and I had an interview for a preschool we were hoping that he would be admitted to. When we walked into the preschool, the teacher who was interviewing us pointed to a miniature plastic tea set on a tray. She said in our preschool we teach children good manners like how it's polite to pour tea for others before pouring your own tea. Sakiko and I are nodding our head and I’m saying “Yes, yes, good manners to us Japanese are really important—shared values.” At this point our two-year-old son Joey grabs the plastic tea set and throws it really high into the air and starts laughing his head off. He then runs full speed over to the sliding door on the other side of the classroom--loses one of his shoes on the way and starts to open and slam shut the sliding door over and over--laughing his head off. I was sorely tempted to say, "He's not normally like this," but I knew that would be a bold-face lie.
When Sakiko and I were driving home we said, “The interview didn’t go very well.” I said, "On our application, you should list that you were trained in traditional Japanese tea ceremony. That might give us a chance of getting admitted.” Sakiko said, "I am not going to put that on our application – I've forgotten everything that I learned." I said, "I have a BA. I've forgotten most of what I learned during undergrad. But I have no problem putting on my resume have a BA or a Masters degree.” We got into an argument. She said, "What if they ask me to teach the kids Japanese tea ceremony?" I said, “Well just close your eyes and say I don’t remember everything, but as far as you know this how to do it… then bow and start pouring really slowly…. (no one will know).
The fact that we were willing to have a fight this over this shows that it was important for me that Joey get admitted to preschool – we only applied to one school. Our fight also showed that it was important for Sakiko to act with what she considered complete integrity and to not be put in a position where she was going to be asked to do something that she couldn't deliver on. (BTW, we didn’t put that on the application. Amazingly, he was admitted. They figured we need to teach the boy some manners.).
When you see someone in an argument or fight, you get a window into something that is really important to that person. What are you willing to fight for? Whatever that something is, is something really important to you.
In our Gospel text today we see Jesus in a fight with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees (the equivalent of lawyers of his day). You might think, "Why would you preach on a text where Jesus is in a fight?" Because as we see Jesus in a fight, we see what's really important to him. Because Jesus is God in human flesh, as we see what's important to Jesus, we see what's important to God.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew, Chapter 23.
In Matthew 23 we see that Jesus rebukes the teachers of the law, the scribes, and the Pharisees, or the lawyers of Jesus’ day, who had multiplied the Law of Moses into hundreds of rules and regulations. Their traditions went well beyond what Moses actually taught so that the life of the Israelite person was burdened.
If you have your Bible, please turn to Matthew 23:4.
4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
In this passage Jesus is attacking the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, not only because they do not practice what they preach, but because they unnecessarily place heavy loads on people’s shoulders.
In Matthew 23 Jesus says over and over, “Woe to you!” Today we don't really use the term, “woe” in our language. What does it mean? When he's using it in this context against the Pharisees, he is stating that what the teachers of the law and the Pharisees are doing is appalling. If you think I'm overstating this, Jesus calls the teachers of the law and the Pharisees “snakes” and a “brood of vipers.” (Sounds like the cultural equivalent of swearing and telling them off.)
In Jesus’ fight with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, we not only see what he finds deplorable, but we also see what is deeply important to him.
In his fight, we see how important justice and inner purity are to Jesus.
Please turn to Matthew 23: 23.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

In this message we’re going to look at how important justice and inner purity are to Jesus and therefore how important justice and inner purity are for anyone who wants to develop a relationship with Jesus.
In vs. 23 we hear Jesus say:
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24
In Leviticus 27 and Deuteronomy 14 we read that God commanded tithes (tithe simply means a tenth) of herd and flocks, corn, wine, and oil. Some people in Jesus’ day, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, wanted to do more than what God had commanded to show how serious they were. Moses’ law did not specifically command the tithing of green herbs like mint and dill, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were commanding people to tithe on these things, as well. So the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were pressing people to do what the law did not even require. But Jesus says, “But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-- justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
Jesus is saying here that tithing (giving a tenth to God) is a good practice. Don’t neglect it, but don’t let tithing or giving become a way to practice spiritual one-upmanship. It is important, but don’t let that become the centre of your spirituality. Focus on the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness…
Justice (Slide)
The best commentary on Jesus’ words may be Micah 6:8.which of course, these were spoken about seven hundred of years before:
8 He has shown all you people what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy And to walk humbly with your God.
Then Jesus says, You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were so fastidious that they wanted to avoid impurity caused by a dead insect in their drink. And again though this was not commanded in Scripture, the Pharisees would strain out a tiny insect before it died in order to maintain the purity of their water. Jesus said, “You will strain out the smallest insect, but you will swallow a camel. You focus on the tiniest detail, but you have missed the big point of God’s law.”
That is vs. 23, “justice, mercy, faithfulness.”
In Jesus’ fight with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, we see that justice and mercy are profoundly important to Jesus. Therefore, justice and mercy will be profoundly important to anyone who wants to develop a relationship with Jesus.
Now justice and mercy are words that are somewhat abstract. Why are they so important to Jesus? Why they so important to God?
Well, perhaps a couple of simple, homey examples may help.
When I was 12 or 13, I was very close to one of my younger sisters, but we also had an adversarial relationship. When I was 5 and she was 3 we were in my grandmother's back yard. I persuaded her to get into a box that I had placed by edge of my grandmother’s fish pond. I told her it was a boat. I pushed the box into the pond. The pond was very shallow. Maybe that had something to do with our adversarial relationship.
When I was about 12 and my younger sister was about 10, we got into this fight. I can’t remember what we were fighting about, but I felt that she had wronged me in some way. I announced to her that I was going to pay her back by messing up her room. I ran from the living room to her bedroom and messed her room up. When I came back to the living room, I remember seeing my mother crying in the living room. She was really upset by what I had done to my sister and by our fighting in general.
God is the Father of all, and when we hurt another human being, whether we are related to that human being or not, it brings pain to God’s heart because God loves that person. That person was created by God and is a child of God. On the other hand, when we serve another human being, it brings joy to his heart.
Someone who was working at Stanford University hospital described how a little girl named Liz was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year-old brother who had amazingly survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the question, “Are you willing to give your blood to your sister?” The boy hesitated for a moment, before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes--if it will save Liz.” As the transfusion progressed, he lay in the bed next to his sister and weakly smiled, as we all did seeing the colour return to her cheeks. His face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked in a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away?” Being just 5 years old, the boy thought he was going to give his all of his blood and then die. I wasn’t at the Stanford Hospital when this happened, but I imagine that the boy’s parents and other relatives who understood what was going on would have been deeply moved and blessed by this young boy’s willingness to not only give his blood, but in his own mind give his life to save his sister.
So it is when we are willing to make a sacrifice for one of God’s children in need--it brings joy to his heart. Even if that person is not a brother or a sister to us, that person was created by God, is a child of God and is loved by God. It brings joy to his heart when we bless one of his children. I don’t say this to try to stir you up, but when we give to people who have been affected by some great tragedy, when we sponsor a child in the developing world (as many of you did last Sunday—when I asked Jay Calder from World Vision how he felt Sunday at Tenth here in terms of child sponsorship response here. Over and over again he said, "It was off the charts. It was off the charts. Incredible.”), when we stand against the building of a casino in our city because we know it will foster addiction and end up being a tax on the poor (on those who can least afford it), when we advocate on behalf of women and children who are vulnerable to be trafficked into the sex industry, we are blessing God’s children and it brings joy to God’s heart.
In fact, when we share a cup of cold water (use prop) with someone who is truly in need, we are told in Scripture that God regards us as having given that cup of cold water to his unique Son Jesus. In harrowing passage, just two chapters later in the gospel of Matthew, we are told that when we offer a drink to someone who is thirsty, food to someone who is hungry, clothing to someone who is naked, when we serve someone who is considered the least, we really doing this for Jesus. And if we fail to do this, it's as if we haven't done this for Jesus.
There is part of Gospel of Jesus Christ that we might call “liberal” (and later we’ll see there’s a part of the Gospel that we might call “conservative.”) Social justice is a key part of Jesus’ Gospel. How we treat each other, particularly people in need, really matters. I know this can sound abstract, so let me illustrate with a couple of simple examples.
Someone who works closely with City Hall recently told me that it's not just Christians who were involved in serving the homeless in Vancouver – there are people from other faith communities that are involved in serving, and some not of the faith community at all – but then he added, “I know it is politically incorrect to say this, but the overwhelming number of people who are involved in serving the homeless in Vancouver are Christians.” That surprised me because there are relatively few Christians percentage-wise in Vancouver. But then it shouldn't have surprised me because the followers of Jesus believe that when they serve the poor, there also serving Jesus.
It should come as no surprise that the followers of Jesus have led the way in starting orphanages, schools for impoverished children, hospitals and hospices. It should come as no su surprise that the person who led the way in Canada so that people whether they are rich or poor would have access to medical care through Medicaid was a follower of Jesus Christ, a former pastor named Tommy Douglas.
Tommy Douglas

it should come as no surprise that the person who emerged as the primary leader of the civil rights movement in the United States the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (show photo).

Because followers of Christ know that when they are serving the poor and those who have been the victims of racism and other forms of injustice, they know that they are not only serving God's children but Jesus himself.
We see in Jesus is fight with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees that justice and mercy are deeply important to him and therefore will be important to those who develop a relationship with Jesus.
There's a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is deeply concerned with social justice, there's a part of the gospel lines up with what we might call "liberal,” but there's also a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is associated with what we might call a “conservative.”
Jesus is deeply concerned about social justice (something we might associate as a liberal value), but he's also concerned about inner purity (something we might associate as conservative value).
In his fight with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, Jesus says in Matthew 23:25-28.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness
The Pharisees were concerned with outward purity so they washed their cups and vessels, as well as themselves in rituals baths. The Pharisaic School of Shammai (the majority school in this period) said the outside of the cup could be clean even if the inside was not. Jesus was concerned Inner purity…. Jesus also wants the inside of our cup to be clean--(use prop's).
Inner purity mattered to Jesus.
Inner Purity (Slide)
When the Canadian priest Ron Rolheiser in his reflections on spirituality, which have shaped my own life and this sermon, was a graduate student at San Francisco, he helped pay for his studies by serving as the chaplain at a hostel in an economically depressed section of San Francisco. While working there, he became friends with a guy named David, a young social worker in the area. David was Roman Catholic, but he attended church only occasionally, had no prayer life, and no longer even tried to live out the Scripture’s teaching regarding sex. He was, however, deeply committed to the Scripture’s teaching on social justice and was sacrificially generous towards the poor.
One day David asked Ron Rolheiser, “Do you really think God gives a damn whether you say your morning and evening prayers, whether you hold a grudge against someone who hurts you, whether you masturbate, or not, or whether you share your bed with someone you are not married to? Do you really believe God cares about these petty little things? As Christians we are always so hung up on these little private things that we neglect the big picture—the fact that half the world goes to bed hungry every night and no one gives a damn. Justice, not our petty little prayer lives, is what is important.”
Justice is important, as David rightly points out, but so is our inner life, our inner purity, our life with God, our integrity before God. Jesus makes it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that it is not just our outward actions that matter, but the state of our heart. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, quotes the Ten Commandments, saying “You have heard, it was said, ‘You shall not be murder,’ but I tell you if anyone is angry with his brother without cause he will be subject to the judgment of God. (The Greek word that is used suggests that Jesus is talking about an anger that we choose to hold on to and nurse.) I tell you, Jesus says, ‘Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery’ with her in his heart.” In the Greek the word “lust” isn’t the word for healthy attraction, but it suggests we are staring at someone to arouse our sexual desires such that we would take them if we could.
So, according to Jesus, it is not just our outward actions that matter, but it is also our inner purity, and in particular the motives of our heart.
In vs. 27 Jesus says, “You look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
Seven times in his fight he calls the teachers of the law and the Pharisees hypocrites.

The 19th century British pastor Charles Spurgeon tells this story:
Once upon a time there was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. So he took it to his king and said, "My Lord, this is the greatest carrot I've ever grown or ever will grow. Therefore I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you." The king was touched and discerned the man's heart, so as the gardener turned to go the king said, "Wait! You are clearly a good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want to give it to you freely as a gift so you can garden it all." And the gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing. But there was a nobleman at the king's court who overheard all this. And he said, "My! If that is what you get for a carrot—what if you gave the king something better?" So the next day the nobleman came before the king and he was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, "My lord, I breed horses and this is the greatest horse I have ever bred or ever will. Therefore I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you." But the king discerned his heart and said thank you, and took the horse and merely dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed. So the king said, "Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse."
To Jesus, justice matters, but so does inner purity—doing the right thing for the right reason. And if we want to develop a relationship with Jesus, justice and inner purity will matter to us.
If we are focused on social justice and inner purity, as important as these are, one of the risks is that we can become overly intense and serious. Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology, suggests if we have a healthy spirituality we will feed our souls in three ways: practicing justice, through prayer, and by having those things in our lives: good friendships, good food and wine, and healthy leisure that keep our soul mellow and grateful.
A call to focus on social justice and inner purity can sound overwhelming! It’s not meant to be a heavy burden. As we saw in Jesus opening words to the Pharisees – Jesus is against putting a heavy burden on us. Because God who brings justice through us and makes us pure—we can rest and play.
(Raise the glass prop)
Joyful Play (Slide)
We know that joyful play was part of Jesus’ life. As we saw last Sunday, Jesus took time to enjoy the company of children and presumably play with them.


Last week I saw the movie Of Gods and Men, (Show the poster.)



Of Gods and Men is a slow moving, but beautiful film about eight French Trappist monks who are caught in the cross fire of the Algerian civil war in the 1990s. It is based on a true story. The monks for years have run a medical clinic in a mountain village in Algeria, and the local Muslim villagers have come to rely on them and love them—like the Jesus they follow the are committed to social justice and mercy (use cup). But Islamic extremists begin to terrorize their village, murdering a group of Croatian immigrant laborers and others. The monks debate with each other and in their souls about whether they should remain at the monastery, risking their lives, or whether they should leave. They pray, they share their doubts, they sing, they agonize – they want to live, but they will also want to do the right thing for the right reason before God—like the Jesus they follow they are committed to inner purity (use cup).
At one point when they realize that their lives are in danger, they have a meal together. One of the brothers brings out two bottles of wine and instead of the customary reading of the Bible, the monk plays Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. (use cup). (Play a brief clip of Swan Lake)


These brothers are deeply committed to social justice and inner purity before God, and yet even in an intense time where their lives are at risk they take an evening to enjoy wine and beautiful music. It is an incredible scene—this scene alone is worth seeing the movie for.
Now a little closer to home. Francis Chan, a pastor in California, describes how every time he has money in the bank, he wants to give it away to people who are in greater need than he is. He was driving in his car and he was praying, really expressing the tension he was feeling in his heart, saying, “God, I want to give my money to people who are in more need than me, but I also want to take my family on vacation.” He was wrestling with it and the very next day he received a cashier’s cheque in the mail—no name on it—for $2000 and on the cheque there was a sticky note that simply said, “Use this for your family.” So he took them on vacation because he would have felt guilty about not using it for his family. That was the wish from whoever gave him the cheque.
God seemed to be saying to Francis I love the poor, but I also want you to play with your family, to enjoy them, as I enjoy you. Play, for some people can become the dominant part of our lives, an idol, but in our spiritual life I believe that Ron Rolheiser is right when he says that three essentials for healthy life with Jesus are commitment to social justice, inner purity, and to cultivating a joyful heart through play and healthy leisure.
But how do we become people who are committed to social justice, experience inner purity, and have a joyful, playful spirit?
Sounds pretty much impossible – the only person who really truly ever completely lived this out was Jesus Christ, and he was the unqiue Son of God!
As some people have observed, people who are liberal tend to not be pious. People who are pious or holy tend not to be liberal. It is rare when a person both committed to liberal and holy. In the rare cases where a person is liberal, i.e. committed to justice and holy, they tend to be serious and not playful. So how can we become liberal – committed to social justice, holy or inwardly pure, and playful, as well? As we've seen in the sermon by Lee and Dan on the Good Samaritan, as we saw last Sunday in a message on what it means to be a child before Jesus, we can become people who are committed to social justice, inner purity, and people who maintain a joyful and playful as we join our life to Jesus Christ's.
In second Corinthians 5:21 Paul writes:
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
I know the word righteousness has negative connotations in our society. It can imply self-righteousness. But righteousness in the Scriptures simply means to be in right relationship with God and in a right relationship with one another.
Because God became a human being in Jesus Christ, and suffered for our sins on the cross, we too can become people who are free from sin and live in a way that's right with God and each other.
Because God became like us, we too can become like him. Because God became a Son of Man, we can become a son of God, a daughter of God. Because God became a human being we can become the hands, feet, and the heart of Jesus Christ—we can become the body of Christ on earth.
We can live with inner purity before God, we can live out social justice, and we can have a joyful, humble heart before God.
In Jesus’ fight with the Pharisees, we see what is essential to him, to God.
As I said, summarized perhaps best by the prophet Micah in Chapter 6:8:
8 He has shown all you people what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy And to walk humbly with your God.
Walk with Jesus and become this, become like him.