WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES
September 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Working Behind the Scenes
In one of his sermons, preacher Van Morris points to this story from author Richard Phillips:
There are two statues in Washington D.C. that together tell a remarkable story. One is the massive memorial to General Ulysses S. Grant that stands at the east end of the Reflecting Pool, literally in the morning shadow of the U. S. Capitol building. Visitors can hardly miss this majestic depiction of the legendary general atop his war stallion. Grant’s military leadership was decisive to the Union’s victory in the Civil War, and he is considered a symbol of the force of human will, an icon of the strong man who stands against the storm when all others have shrunk back.
Some two-and-a-half miles away, in a pleasant but nondescript city park, stands a more commonplace memorial. The statue of this lesser-known Civil War figure, Major General John Rawlins, has actually had eight different locations and is hardly ever noticed by visitors. Rawlins had been a lawyer in Galena, Illinois, where Grant lived just prior to the war, and he became Grant’s chief of staff. Rawlins knew Grant’s character flaws, especially his weakness for alcohol. At the beginning of the war, Rawlins extracted a pledge from Grant to abstain from drunkenness, and when the general threatened to fall away from that promise, his friend would plead with him and support him until Grant could get back on track. In many ways, it was Rawlins who stood beside the seemingly solitary figure of Grant the great general. Rawlins’ memorial is modest compared to the mounted glory afforded Grant, yet without his unheralded love and support, Grant would hardly have managed even to climb into the saddle.
How many times have stories like this been told down through the ages? It seems that, for most figures of great renown, there is someone who has been working behind the scenes—a man or a woman either forgotten or unknown by history. But without these encouragers, the person of fame, whose greatness we laud, might never have been known.
This Sunday, as we read Acts 11 together, we’re going to meet one such person. Barnabas (whose name actually means “son of encouragement”) doesn’t have the same reputation as his partner Paul. That’s probably due to the fact that Paul penned much of what we call the New Testament, and we have no such writing from Barnabas.
But, as we’ll see, Barnabas is crucial to Paul becoming “Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.” Without him, who knows how things might have turned out? It takes a special kind of person to do what Barnabas does, with special characteristics. We’ll be looking at them during our worship time.
In the meantime, let me thank those of you who are like Barnabas here at our church. There are many of you who work quietly behind the scenes, who aren’t out for recognition, who are able to let others get the credit. Thank you for that. God bless you.
TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN
August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The following story comes from an AP News report, back in 2004:
On October 2, 2004, 17-year-old Laura Hatch left a party in a Seattle suburb, and that was the last time she was seen for more than a week. No one knew why she didn’t return home later that night. No one knew she’d lost control of her car and careened down a steep forested ravine.
Laura’s parents contacted the police, and a search began. When a week went by without any leads, the Hatches organized a search team of 200 volunteers including members of Creekside Covenant Church in Redmond, Washington where the family attends.
When the extensive search failed to produce any results, family members began to assume the worst. “We had already given her up and let her be dead in our hearts,” Laura’s mother told the media.
Sha Nohr’s daughter was one of Laura’s friends. Norh, a Creekside Covenant Church member, told her distraught daughter that all they could do was pray. But Nohr had trouble sleeping that night. She kept having a recurring dream of a wooded area and heard the message, ”Keep going, keep going.” The following morning, Sunday October 10, Nohr and her daughter drove to the area where the crash occurred, praying along the way.
”I just thought, ‘Let her speak out to us,”’ Nohr told the Seattle Times.
Nohr said something drew her to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier and more than 100 feet down a steep, densely vegetated embankment where she barely managed to discern the crumpled 1996 Toyota Camry. Nohr discovered Laura in the backseat, conscious, but seriously injured.
When the paramedics arrived, Laura was taken to Harborview Medical Center where she was treated for severe dehydration, a blood clot in her brain, broken ribs, a broken leg and facial lacerations. Amazingly, she had not had anything to eat or drink for eight days.
The skeptic in me wants to know, “Was this girl really saved by a dream, or was it just luck?” And the only answer I can give to that is, “Why not?” We get so busy telling God what he can and can’t do. But I don’t think we’re exactly in a position to dictate God’s limitation. Perhaps the first rule that we need to learn and relearn is that God is God and we…aren’t.
Today we’re going to read a story in Acts where God decides he’s going to save somebody without consulting anyone else. And thanks be to God that he does make this unprecedented and unforeseen move. Without it, you and I would not be sitting where we are today. You and I would not have been granted the wonderful privilege of being called his sons and daughters. And it’s all because God had bigger dreams for his Kingdom than anyone could possibly imagine.
CHANGE OF PLANS
August 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I was forwarded an email from a friend this week containing a discussion of John 20:7. That verse
tells us that, when Peter and John ran to the empty tomb after Jesus was raised from the dead, they
found his burial clothes and the “the napkin, that was about his head…wrapped together in a place
by itself” (John 20:7, KJV).
The forwarded email went on to explain that the napkin was folded because Jesus was making an
intentional reference to a Jewish custom where the Master of the house folds his napkin and places
it on his plate to signify that he’s not finished eating; he’s coming back. Get it? According to the
email, Jesus was saying that he’s coming back. My friend wanted to know if this is really what
John 20:7 means.
Loving a good Bible mystery (nerd that I am), I went back and looked at a couple of commentaries.
My verdict? I’m not convinced that this is the point of the folded up head cloth. I couldn’t
find any reference on the internet or in my commentaries to this Jewish Master legend.
More than that, I think this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of the word that the King James
Version happens to translate “napkin” in John 20:7. The Greek word is soudarion. It comes from
the Latin word sudor which means “to sweat.” (Where we get our English word “exude.”) A soudarion
is a cloth used to wipe one’s face. Not necessarily for food, but for sweat. It’s not really a
napkin; it’s more like what we would call a handkerchief. Thus, the KJV is the only version that
translates it “napkin”. Other translations are cloth (NRSV), face cloth (NAS) and burial cloth
(NIV).
So why does John want us to know that it was “folded”? Probably as evidence that Jesus was
raised from the dead. If Jesus’ body was stolen, it is unlikely that the grave robbers would have
stopped to unwrap his body. And they certainly wouldn’t have neatly rolled up the burial shroud
and put it back in place.
This just seems more likely than connecting it to an obscure Jewish dining custom for which there
is no evidence. In the end, it’s hard to blame someone for wanting to be encouraged by the fact
that Jesus is returning to us. And it’s great news, without or without the strange story of the folded
napkin!
But what John is telling us is also great news. John wants us to know that Christ is risen! He has
seen it with his own eyes. His body wasn’t stolen. The resurrection of Jesus changes everything.
This Sunday, as we read Acts 9 together, we’re going to see just how Jesus’ resurrection changes
one man’s life in a way that will change the world.
—— Robert
BEARING WITNESS
August 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Bearing Witness
Things are about to get kind of dark. This Sunday, as we continue to read through Acts, we’re moving from the heady early days of the church to the dark times when Christians are drawing all of the wrong kinds of attention. It starts shockingly, with the execution of Stephen, the first of Jesus’ followers to be killed because of his faith.
It’s easy for us to forget that, for many people, persecution has always been a routine part of following Jesus. We gather freely and in public. We boldly display the name of Christ on the sign in front of our building. I preach without fear of retaliation. But it is not that way everywhere. Let me remind you of just one story. It’s from Sky Jethani’s, The Divine Commodity:
Ghassan Thomas leads one of the few public churches that emerged [in Baghdad] after Saddam Hussein was toppled. His congregation erected a sign on their building that said “Jesus Is the Light of the World,” but the church was raided by bandits who left behind a threat on a piece of cardboard. It read: “Jesus is not the light of the world, Allah is, and you have been warned.” The note was signed “The Islamic Shiite Party.”
In response, Pastor Ghassan loaded a van with children’s gifts and medical supplies—which were in critically short supply following the American invasion—and drove to the headquarters of the Islamic Shiite Party. After presenting the gifts and supplies to the sheikh, Ghassan told the leader, “Christians have love for you, because our God is a God of love.” He then asked permission to read from the Bible. Ghassan turned to Jesus’ words in John 8, “I am the light of the world.” He then showed the cardboard note to the sheikh. The Muslim leaders, astounded by Pastor Thomas’s actions, apologized.
“This will not happen again,” [the sheikh] vowed. “You are my brother. If anyone comes to kill you, it will be my neck first.” The sheikh later attended Pastor Thomas’s ordination service at the church.
I don’t know what I would do if I found such a note in my church. I hope I would show the same courage as Ghassan Thomas, but I don’t know. I think first I would be shocked: “How could something like this happen?”
I wonder if the first Christians thought the same thing in the wake of Stephen’s martyrdom. I wonder if they thought it would be the end of their new Way of life—the end of Christianity. If they did think it, we’re never told that.
What we’re told is that God took this awful thing that happened and he used it to grow his Kingdom. That’s the way it works. That’s what we need to hear. We’re not promised that we won’t suffer as Christians. We’re promised that God will take it and make something amazing of it, if only we will be faithful.
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
July 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Skeletons in the Closet
If you don’t watch as many movies as I do, you may not be able to relate, but have you ever been watching a movie and seen a memorable actor and thought to yourself, “They look…different!”
It happened most recently when a friend of mine and I went to see Iron Man 2. There’s a relatively famous comedian who plays a US Senator, and when he showed up on the screen, I could tell my friend was thinking the same thing as me, “What happened to him?!” The man didn’t have a wrinkle on his face. His lips were swollen. His forehead was puffy. He looked like he’d been on the losing end of a run in with a swarm of bees. Every time he showed up on the screen, I wanted someone to sneak up behind him and jab him with an epipen. Clearly, he’s had a little “work” done.
Then there’s Joan Rivers. Since 1965 she’s had bags removed from under her eyes, two complete face-lifts, cheek implants, fat injections, brow smoothing, teeth capping, neck tightening, a tummy tuck, and a nose-thinning. Regarding her obsession with her appearance, she once said, “When you look better, you are treated differently. …People want to be around attractive people.”
Now, most of us would scoff at this obsession others have in hiding their physical imperfections. Sure, maybe we try to dress well or look our best. But multiple surgical procedures is just too much.
But I wonder if we aren’t guilty of doing something similar to that when it comes to our spiritual imperfections. I wonder if we don’t go overboard smoothing out all of our spiritual blemishes and wrinkles and flaws. I wonder if we aren’t obsessed with hiding our sin.
That’s why I think we need to see the passages that we’re going to look at this Sunday. It’s easy, especially in our tradition, to think that the early church was this pristine gathering of flawless people. But it simply was not so. In spite of all the wonderful things that God was able accomplish through the first believers; in spite of their courage and willingness to give; the members of the early church were far from perfect.
As we study parts of Acts 5, 6 and 8, we’re going to see that the early church certainly had its flaws. We’re going to see dishonesty, theft, greed, and conflict. For some of us, this might be bad news. It might disrupt our notions of the early church’s perfection. But for others, I hope it will provide relief.
I’m not just trying to throw stones here. I’m not trying to burst anyone’s bubble. And I’m certainly not suggesting that God doesn’t want us to do our best. But maybe if we can spend some time looking at the failings of the people in the earliest church, we can let go of this need to act like we don’t have any of our own. And when we stop hiding, God can really get to work.
—— Robert
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