September 9 - Snippet from Sunday - Don't Be Deceived!

A lot of our Christian faith looks toward the future. Each Sunday I step behind this pulpit and remind you again of the good things God has promised for our world. I say over and over that God has promised to make everything right, to make blessings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount a reality: The poor will really be blessed with God’s kingdom, and those who weep and mourn will really find comfort. Those people starving for justice will be satisfied when God finally brings justice. Like the prophets Isaiah and Micah foretell, God will bring justice to the nations, and then they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore (Is 2.4; Mic 4.3). A day is coming when drought and famine, trade embargoes and warlords will no long leave millions to starve to death. A day is coming when disease will no longer wrack our bodies, when loneliness and grief will no longer bring tears to our eyes.

But all of this is still to come. Christ has died; Christ is risen--Amen! But we are still waiting for Christ to come again. God has promised us much; God has given us a downpayment in Jesus’ resurrection, but we’re still waiting for God to make good on the rest. In the meantime, we’re very much aware that everything is not right. The poor stay poor, the mourning continue to mourn, justice is still denied those dying for lack of it. We pass children even in our own community who know hunger. News broadcasts from Syria remind us of that war is still a reality tearing people’s lives and communities to pieces.

I’ve heard people say that Jesus’ followers are so future-oriented that we turn a blind eye to the hard reality of the world around us. We’re so focused on “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by” that we lose touch with the here and now.

I wonder if the original Jewish home churches who received James’ letter two thousand years ago entertained that same thought about James. Last Sunday we the shocking words that open James’ letter; v 2 says, Consider it pure joy . . . whenever you face trials of many kinds. I can picture a few members of those home churches that received this letter raising their eyebrows at these words. These original believers were the descendants of Jewish refugees and exiles. They were quite familiar with trials. I can almost hear one of them muttering, “It’s well and good for James to say that people should consider trials to be pure joy while he’s safe and secure in the big church in our Jewish homeland, but he’s a little out of touch with life for us here in the belly of the Roman Empire.” Maybe we think something similar: “Pie in the sky and promises that God will one day make things right are fine between 10:45 and noon on Sunday morning, but for the rest of the work week, those promises feel a little out of touch.”

I think the Spirit anticipated this skeptical reaction from people who read James’ letter. So in vv 9, 10, and 11, the Spirit led James to tackle head on probably the most concrete reality facing the original believers or us today: money.

 

(Check out the whole sermon after the jump. . .)

Dec 14, 2008 - Christmas Joy

First Presbyterian Church of DuPage - 8 a.m. & 10.30 a.m.
14 December 2008
Lk 2.8-20

I want to talk about joy this morning. I want to talk about our reasons to be joyful--why we can be joyful, why we are able to rejoice. We get to hear this morning one the three or four most exciting events in all of scripture, in all of history. We get to hear how God came to be with us. Yet the account in Luke chapter 2 doesn’t allow us to reduce this to a pretty picture and nice sentiment inside a Hallmark card. It’s no tame thing, but in ways our nativity scenes and Christmas pageants cover up, it’s surprising, strange, mysterious, terrifying.

During our worship together the past two Sundays, Pastor Mark has passed out a booklet by Billy Graham, The Father’s Gift. If you haven’t received a copy, catch me or Pastor Mark after the service, and we’ll track one down for you. Billy Graham comes back over and over in the book to the difference between our stressed-out, hurry-up-and-shop experience of Christmas and what God was doing on the very first Christmas in Bethlehem. I encourage us each to read through it during this next week, whether on our own or together with family or friends, maybe at the dinner table. It’s short, with brief chapters. Maybe do a chapter a night.

In the chapter entitled “The Gift of Joy,” Billy Graham describes the scene we’re going to reflect on this morning. He writes, “Like most people of Palestine, those shepherds outside Bethlehem were poor and insignificant men. They had no reason to expect that this night would be different form any other. But God had other plans. This was the night when God Himself would come to earth. The dull routine of their lives was suddenly and dramatically shattered by the appearance of the angels, and the tidings of Christ’s birth echoed across the skies. What is the message of those Christmas angels? First of all, it is a message of love and peace. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace good will toward men,” sang the angelic multitude. It is a message of joy and hope. “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” The message of the Christmas angels is that God not only exists, but that He is a loving heavenly Father who seeks to restore us to what we were created to be--His children. Because God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has entered this world, we know beyond a shadow of doubt that joy and hope can be ours if we will but receive the gift of Christmas.” (28-29)