A Path in the Wilderness

Isaiah 43:19 - "Look!  I'm doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don't you recognize it?  I'm making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness."

I love that verse, and while it sounds great, "a new thing," a way where there used to be no way, what we forget in our enthusiasm is that new is not easy.  There is hard work to be done in clearing the path.  Sometimes God opens a door and boom! there you go.  But sometimes God shows you the end in sight and hands you a shovel or a machete or a plow.  I now understand about the birth pangs of a new creation in a way I didn't used to.  Sometimes it's easy to make something new; sometimes there are a lot of bramble and thorns and underbrush to clear first. 

...But then, after the hard work and the blisters, you get to look back at the path God gave you the strength to clear and you praise his holy name and testify that with God's help, it is possible.

Papers, Please

February 24, 2013

2^nd Sunday in Lent

Phil. 3:17-4:1

Papers, Please

(The 3 B’s of (Christian) Citizenship)

            About halfway through “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” Indiana Jones and his dad, Henry Jones, Sr., find themselves aboard a dirigible trying to escape the Nazis. The Nazi chasing them boards the giant balloon and is about to confront Henry when our hero, Indiana, posing as the conductor, taps him on the shoulder and asks, “Ticket, please,” and promptly throws him out the window.  He then turns to the rest of the passengers and says, “No ticket.”  The other passengers eagerly pull out their tickets to show him.  Perhaps you haven’t been aboard a dirigible, but traveling by train and you are asked, “tickets, please” or traveling internationally, “passports, please.”  And then there’s that moment of fear that the country won’t let you in, or on an overnight train in Europe when the conductor asked for and kept our passports – he gave them back to us in the morning.  What happens without passports or tickets?  You might get thrown off a dirigible.   Or get arrested.

            In November 2011, a police officer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama stopped a rental car that had no tags.  The driver had only a German identification card and so he was arrested and taken downtown.  He was charged with not having proper identification: no papers.   The man was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from his hotel.  He was a German executive for Mercedes-Benz.  Alabama’s tightening down on immigration papers continued the next month, December 2011, when police ticketed a Japanese executive of Honda, at a checkpoint.  Mr. Ichiro Yada even had with him an international driver’s license, passport, and U.S. work permit!  You see, Alabama enacted a law in September of that year requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally.  They dropped the charges against Mr. Yada after being shown a copy of his Japanese driver’s license.[1] 

I think we’re going a little crazy here.  Papers, please.  Tickets, please.  Passport, please.  We just read in Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven.  What documents do we have to support that?  Perhaps you have the certificate from when you baptized, or confirmed.  Maybe you often wear a cross necklace or carry a Bible.  How do you show that you belong to God? 

            Citizenship has to do with belonging, who belongs and who doesn’t.  If we are citizens of heaven, then we belong to Christ.  In baptism we are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever, to quote the old liturgy.[2]  Everything we do stems from our baptism.  It was our entry way into belonging to Christ and becoming citizens of heaven.  If our citizenship is in heaven, then it is not here.  Here, in this space where we worship God, we are all here at God’s invitation and so we all come as equals, not at the mercy of immigration officials but at the mercy of the Holy Spirit.  If we belong at all, it is by the grace of God.[3]  The Holy Spirits works within us and through us, names us and seals us.  We do not do that work ourselves.  And this space serves us, we do not serve this space.  This space belongs to God and he and he alone makes it holy so that where we are standing is holy ground.  Each worship space becomes a foreign land that we call home and we do not have to show papers to enter.[4]  As Christians, our notions of who belongs and who doesn’t are a little different from society’s standards because we say everyone is welcome.[5]  When we celebrate communion, we believe everyone is invited and welcome to participate.  It’s not my table or Pastor Ken’s table, it’s not Orange’s table or a Methodist table, it’s the Lord’s table and we are all invited guests, Pastor Ken and myself included.  So citizenship is about belonging, and we are all invited to belong to God.

Citizenship is also about boundaries.  We know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, but what separates us from people who aren’t Christian?  How do you know if someone’s a Christian?  We don’t all wear cross necklaces.  There’s the 1960s song, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” but people who aren’t Christians do good things, too.  We don’t have the monopoly on doing good.  What’s different for those of us who belong to God is the reason why we love, the reason why we serve, the reason why we do good things.  And the answer isn’t “because we’re supposed to.”  The answer isn’t “because that’s just what we do.”  The answer isn’t “because if I don’t, then no one else will.”  The answer is because God calls us to.  God calls us to love him.  God calls us to love our neighbor.  God calls us to come and worship him.  God calls us to serve. 

A couple weeks ago, Pastor Ken shared a story we heard at the district clergy meeting with Bishop Hope Morgan Ward.  She also related to us a conversation with a lady who taught preschool Sunday school at a small church she pastored.  This lady was feeling burned out because she’d been the preschool Sunday school teacher for a long time and wanted to quit, except she felt like if she did, then no one would teach the little kids.  Bishop Hope advised her not to worry about that and the lady promised she’d pray about it.  The church was going through a time of connecting all the members with different ways of serving at the church and had them all listed on cards that they passed out.  The lady took her card home and prayed about it.  When she turned it in the next Sunday, she had marked preschool Sunday school teacher.  Bishop Hope was surprised and asked her why.  The lady said she didn’t really want to be a trustee or cook in the kitchen or lead worship or any of the other options listed on the card.  When she’d prayed about it, God was calling her to continue teaching the preschool Sunday school class.  So let’s not worry about “if I don’t, then no one else will,” but let’s work on how God is calling each of us to serve.  Because God is calling.  You don’t get to say, “I’ve done my bit.”  God is not done with you until you reach heaven.  We gather once a week for worship.  Many of us are involved in small groups during the week.  If you’re not, I highly encourage you to join one.  The final part of our 3-G motto, Gather, Grow, and Go, is to serve.  The only question is how and where.  We have lots of opportunities at the church to serve, many weekly and monthly ways to serve in the community.  What is God calling you to do?  How is God calling you to serve?

Being citizens of heaven does not mean that we live in an alternate reality or that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the problems and crises of this world.  Rather, it means that we engage this world with completely different set of values.[6]  We don’t serve because it’s a good thing to do.  We’re not involved in prison ministry or with the homeless shelters because it’s something we’ve always done and we’re nice people.  We do it because it’s what God is calling us to do.  One mark of your citizenship is that you are answering God’s call on your life, whatever that is.  And on the outside it may not look any different from someone who isn’t a Christian, but you know why you do what you do and you can share that reason with anyone who asks. 

            The Disciple’s Path bible study started this past week and in Week One there is a chart of Spiritual Practices, divided into individual ones that we do on our own and communal ones that we do with others.[7]  The “Personal Spiritual Disciplines” were Prayer, Scripture Meditation, Financial Generosity, and Invitational Evangelism.  The definition of that last one, Invitational Evangelism, was knowing the Gospel story and knowing your story and some in the group confessed that they didn’t know their own story very well.  You can’t tell others why you do something, can’t tell them what makes you different as a citizen of heaven, if you don’t know your own story, if you don’t know what God is calling you to do.  If you need help with that discernment, Pastor Ken and I would love to pray and listen with you.  Just let us know.

            Regardless of the specific ways you live out your calling as a citizen of heaven, there is one thing God is calling all of us to and that is becoming like Christ.  Citizens of heaven are always striving to become more like Christ.  This is the Christ who said that the first and greatest commandment is: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”[8]  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  This is the Christ who is transforming us to become like him, a process which continues for the rest of our lives, as we are going on to Christian perfection. 

The folks participating in A Disciple’s Path bible study also told me that Pastor Ken and I are doing a good job preaching on prevenient grace, God’s grace that comes before we know him, calling all of us into relationship with him, but that we preach less on justifying grace and sanctifying grace, at least by those names.  Justifying grace I think you all are familiar with, even if not by those words.  It’s saving grace, it’s being justified by grace, being made right with God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The last one, however, is the one I’m talking about in becoming like Christ, and that’s sanctifying grace.  This is the sustaining grace as “we continue to grow in the likeness and image of Christ through the perfecting work of the Holy Spirit.”[9]  You see, we never stop growing.  God is never done with you.  You may at times feel that you are done with God, or need a time-out, but God is never done with you.  “Sanctifying grace is where we figure out that it’s not ‘all about me’ and begin to participate in God’s redemption in the world.”[10]  As citizens of God’s kingdom, we work with him in this transformation process.

            You know, I started off thinking that our two Lenten studies were very different.  A Disciple’s Path is about growing in your faith through the five parts of our membership vows and is steeped in Wesleyan theology.  Becoming the Church Together is about looking at the issue of immigration through the lens of faith.  The two studies aren’t quite so different after all.  Working for justice, serving with the poor and marginalized, which many immigrants are, obeying God’s call on your life, loving your neighbor, some of whom are immigrants right next door to the church, these are all part of a disciple’s journey, all part of being citizens of heaven, all part of becoming more like Christ.  Part of what I love about Methodism is the balance of personal piety with social action.  It’s not all about you and studying the Bible.  It’s not all about works of mercy, either.  The Christian life, Christian citizenship is about both as we continue to grow and serve and love God and love neighbor and become more like Christ.  There are no passports, no papers to prove you’re a citizen of heaven.  You don’t need a ticket to get there, and you won’t get tossed out the window if you don’t have one.  God invited you here, and he invites you to continue your relationship with him, growing your love of him and loving your neighbors, papers or not.

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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/02/alabama-car-boss-immigration-law

[2] The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 308

[3] Claudio Carvalhaes, lecture, Festival of Homiletics, Atlanta, GA, May 17, 2012

[4] Ibid.

[5] Becoming the Church Together: Immigration, the Bible, and Our New Neighbors, North Carolina Council of Churches, p. 13.

[6] Alejandro Botta, “Second Sunday in Lent” in Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C, Dale Andrews, Ronald Allen, Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Eds., p. 131

[7] James Harnish, A Disciple’s Path, Daily Workbook, p. 29

[8] Mark 12:29-34

[9] James Harnish, A Disciple’s Path, Daily Workbook, p. 23

[10] Ibid.

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

January 20, 2013

2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany

Isaiah 62:1-5

            “Speak now... or forever hold your peace.” It's as iconic a wedding phrase as “for better or for worse.” You hear it a lot, but the only time anyone ever “speaks now” is in campy romantic comedies. Nobody wants to be the one to stand up and disrupt the flow of “how it's supposed to work,” which is why it’s no longer commonly used in wedding liturgy.  Now, I want to clarify, there is no typo in the title, I did mean peace, p-e-a-c-e, not p-i-e-c-e.  Pastor Ken and I had a North v. South type conversation over that.  “His people” are from around here and around here you speak your piece, p-i-e-c-e, or you hold it.  “My people” are from up north and hold their peace, p-e-a-c-e, when they don’t argue with you.  That first verse of the Isaiah passage that we just read said, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.”  Well, in the King James, it reads “For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace,” p-e-a-c-e.  Why are we speaking now and not holding our peace?  Three reasons.

            For the first reason we’re going to look at that same verse in the New Living Translation.  As someone who works with words, I find it fascinating to compare different bible translations.  Rather than saying “for Zion’s sake,” the New Living Translation says, “Because I love Zion, I will not keep still.  Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent.”  Not just for Zion’s sake, but because I love Zion, because I love God’s people.  Why do we need to speak now?  For the sake of God’s people.  Because some of God’s people don’t have voices.  Like the Lorax, who “speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,”[1] there are some of God’s people who effectively have no tongues. 

In 1977, Oscar Romero was appointed the new Archbishop of San Salvador.  He was considered a safe choice, one who would stick to his books and not rock the boat in the already rocky Salvadoran society.  Well, “rocky” is an understatement.  Serious oppression, terror, and violence was going on, all sanctioned by the government and enforced by the military.  People were mysteriously disappearing, elections were rigged, the press was censored, and you never knew if soldiers were about to start a massacre.  Archbishop Romero decided to start speaking out after his good friend, Rutilio Grande, was murdered.  Padre Rutilio Grande was the first priest of many to be killed during this time, and while in the U.S. a pastor’s murder may not seem so dramatic, in a Catholic country, priests are sacrosanct.  For the three years Romero served as Archbishop, until his own assassination in 1980, he became the voice for the voiceless.  His sermons were broadcast on Salvadoran radio and his common theme was the church and how the church has a duty to speak out against injustice and oppression. 

In a pastoral letter in 1978, Archbishop Romero wrote that “the church has a mission of service to the people”.[2]  That is, the church does not exist for itself.  We are not here this morning for us.  We are not here for our own sake.  Orange is not here to serve us.  I hope you didn’t come here to be served or to “get something out of church,” because we are here to glorify God.  Period.  End of story.  We gather in worship to love God.  We grow because we love God and we use that growth in service of our neighbor because Jesus also tells us to go and love our neighbor.   Sometimes that love means being a voice for those who have no voice.  Sometimes that love means an action.  For example, did you know that hospitals were started by Christians?  Medical care was not invented by us, but in-patient medical care, what we know as hospitals were created in the 4^th century by Christians who understood that loving their neighbor meant taking care of the sick.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism in the 1700’s, led the early Methodists in visiting prisoners at Oxford Castle in England, sharing food, medicine and Holy Communion.  It is our heritage as Christians and Methodists to speak out and love God’s people, not only with words but with actions. 

Finally, we do not hold our peace, indeed we cannot hold our peace because God’s work is our work and God is about the work of restoration and redemption.  God is about the work of making things whole, of showing his love, of setting not only you free from the chains that bind you, but others’ chains as well.  There is an online comic strip called “Coffee with Jesus” that is done by a group called Radio Free Babylon.  A couple weeks ago, they posted a comic titled “The Real World.”[3]  The first panel shows a nicely dressed lady named Lisa holding her coffee mug and saying, “I look at the world and see field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea!  They all speak of your deep love, Jesus!”  Jesus, holding his own coffee mug, responds saying, “I know, right?”  And Lisa says, “But then I look at the real world and see the sorrow and the strife, and I’m like, ‘Where is God in this?’”  The final panel has Jesus saying, “I am deep in the sorrow, Lisa.  The strife is daily with me. // And every day I’m going, ‘why isn’t Lisa here with me?’” 

If the words of Isaiah resonate with you, “I will not keep silent, I cannot rest” until God’s people are saved, then you’re probably already there with Jesus in the strife and the sorrow.  If you are there, then be encouraged, and do not hold your peace until justice is done.  And if you’re not yet in the trenches with Jesus, c’mon on in, because Jesus has got your back.  Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but we are called to be restless until there is salvation for all of God’s people.  And salvation isn’t simply being spiritually saved, accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  This salvation is meeting people’s spiritual and physical needs, to use the motto of the mission agency I used to serve with in Nicaragua.[4]  Spiritual salvation.  Physical salvation.  God’s justice.  For all of God’s people.  Knowledge that God delights in you, like the Isaiah passage says.  Have you told someone that lately?  Turn to your neighbor and tell them, “God delights in you.”  Tell another neighbor later on today who’s not at church now. 

If you’re starting to feel restless but don’t know what to do, come to the mission meeting Wednesday evening.  We’re going to be brainstorming and making plans to work with God in growing his kingdom from our little corner of the world.  If you want to be involved but can’t come Wednesday, get in touch with Patrick, his contact information is in the bulletin, or talk with Pastor Ken or myself. 

Archbishop Romero was killed while celebrating mass, at the conclusion of his sermon.  In that final sermon, he said, “we know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.”[5]  In other words, the next time you’re faced with the choice of speaking now or forever holding your peace, speak.  Act.  God will bless your effort, because God demands it.  Thanks be to God for His word to us today.  Amen. 

Bendice, Señor, nuestro pan.

Da pan a los que tiene hambre

Y hambre de justicia a los que tienen pan.

Bendice, Señor, nuestro pan.

Bless, O Lord, our bread.

Give bread to those who are hungry

And a hunger for righteousness to those who have bread.

Bless, O Lord, our bread.

Amen.

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[1] Dr. Seuss, The Lorax, 1971, p. 21.

[2] Archbishop Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements, 1985, p. 97.

[3] http://www.radiofreebabylon.com/Comics/CoffeeWithJesus.php

[4] https://fh.org

[5] Archbishop Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements, 1985, p. 192.

This is the altar of the chapel was Archbishop Romero was murdered.  The words next to the crucifix read "On this altar Monsignor Osacar A. Romero offered his life to God for his people."

Pro-Participation and Anti-Excellence

This unusual phrase came from one of the speakers at the Festival of Homiletics I attended last May.  The speaker is a Lutheran pastor charged a few years ago with planting a church in Denver.  Her ministry is quite successful and one of the things she does is to make sure that liturgy really is the work of the people (which is what the word 'liturgy' means).  As the congregation arrives, they take a card from the narthex that tells them what part of the service they will be leading that Sunday - Scripture reading, communion server, prayers of the people, etc.  The card also gives them whatever information and instructions they need to know.  The pastor described this practice as being pro-participation, anti-excellence.

You should not let your fear of failing, your fear of not being excellent, keep you from participating in worship. 

I shared this example today at our new service when issuing an invitation for the congregation to take part in leading the service.  And then, unintentionally, the service became an example of how in spite of our mistakes God is glorified, anyway.  The bulletin did not include communion.  The communion table was set with two chalices instead of three.  After the Learning Moment, I announced the Offering next, completely skipping over the Peace and the Time of Prayer and catching the ushers and musicians off guard.  We were not excellent today.  But guess what?  We still had church; we still worshiped God.

The End of the World as We Know It: Exile and Hope

3^rd Sunday of Advent

December 16, 2012

8:00 and 9:00 only

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Luke 3:7-18

The End of the World as We Know It: Exile and Hope

There’s a saying that I always thought I followed pretty well: listen to your elders.  Ever since I knew I was preaching this morning, Pastor Ken tried to advise me to go with the Old Testament reading, the passage from Zephaniah that we just read.  But I said no, I’m going to continue the Gospel narrative, continue the story of John the Baptist and the end of the world as we know it.  Well, yesterday morning I realized that that wasn’t the focus of the Word of God for us this morning.  I needed to concentrate on the passage from Zephaniah.  Y’all needed to hear the Good News found in this passage from Zephaniah, not lessons that we learned in kindergarten about saying you’re sorry, and sharing, and playing fair.  That’s a good Word, too, but the Word of the Lord for us this morning isn’t about what John tells the crowds gathered at the river for baptism.  The Word of the Lord for us this morning is what Zephaniah has to say to those in exile, and that is a word of hope. 

We need hope today.  Our world is in desperate need of hope.  Our lives are in desperate need of hope.  Our church is in desperate need of hope.  Hope.  In the poem by Emily Dickinson, in which she compares hope to a bird, “hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune, without the words…”  It is scriptural to sing without words, because sometimes the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that are too deep for words.[1]  Sometimes there aren’t words.  However, this morning, we’re going to try to put some words to hope. 

We’re going to use the words from Zephaniah.  He’s one of the minor prophets, stuck in there between Habakkuk and Haggai.  He’s one of the prophets who writes in exile to those who are in exile.  Ever felt like you’ve been in exile?  It’s the phrase that’s stuck with me from the song we sing when lighting the Advent candles – “O come, O come Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.”  Have you known that mourning of lonely exile?  That barrenness?  That depth of despair?  “Until the Son of God appear.”  The Son of God, Jesus, appears and ransoms us in his coming.  Jesus brings hope and healing and restoration and an end to our exile, an end to our isolation, an end to our despair.  Eventually.  Israel was in exile for hundreds of years.  The words of hope that Zephaniah offers come during exile, but not even at the worst point of exile.  It gets worse for Israel before it gets better.  Exile is not an easy place to be.  It’s like limbo.  An in-between place.  Somewhere between that already and not yet that we talked about a few weeks ago.  Exile is not a place where you want to be, it is not home, and yet there you are, trying to hold on to hope.  It can feel like the end of the world.

What does Zephaniah say to those in exile?  “The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.  On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.  The Lord, your God, is in your midst,” do not fear.   The Lord “will remove disaster from you.”  The Lord “will remove disaster from you.”  Promise.  “You shall fear disaster no more.”  Promise.  The Revised Standard Version says, “you shall fear evil no more.”  The Lord “will save the lame and gather the outcast, and will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.”  In that day, the Lord will change our sorrows into joy.  The Lord will do this.  He has promised. 

There are three things here to grab onto.  First, “the Lord, your God, is in your midst.”  God is present with God’s people.  Emanuel means God with us, God is here.  God is in our midst.  God’s in the midst of our mourning.  God’s in the midst of our pain.  God’s in the midst of our questions and anger and despair.  God is here, in our place of exile.  God has not abandoned us.  God sent his Son, in the form of a baby, a sign of hope, a reminder of his presence.  God is here with us. 

Second, God is in active relationship with us.  Not only is Israel called to action, but God acts as well.  It’s a two-way street.  The relationship goes both ways, just like any healthy relationship.  There’s open communication and time spent together and mutual love and respect.  You get mad at each other sometimes, yeah, but you keep talking, you work things out.  You stay committed to the relationship.  There’s a tendency in our culture today to leave something if you don’t like it.  Don’t like where you live?  Move.  Don’t like your job?  Get a new one.  Don’t like the hard work of marriage?  Get divorced.  Don’t like the preacher?  Leave the church.  Well that’s not God.  God is faithful, even when we aren’t.  God hangs around, even when we don’t.  God keeps the communication channels open, even when we don’t want to talk or to listen.  God loves and respects you even when you don’t love or respect him.  God isn’t just present, but is active. 

Third, in the final verse from Zephaniah is the promise that God will bring us home.  God will gather us in.  We are not abandoned.  We will not be left in exile forever.  Grief may be where you are now, and that’s ok.  You may not even want to be comforted now.  But God will wait, and keeps his arms open for when you’re ready.  The psalmist wrote that “weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes in the morning,”[2] and the morning will come.  I don’t know when.  But I will hold out that hope for you and keep the candle burning for you if you cannot do it yourself right now.  The morning will come.  God will bring you home.  Promise. 

In the meantime, hold on to the words from Zephaniah.  Do not fear.  Do not let your hands grow weak.  Hold on.  Keep the faith.  The Lord your God is in your midst.  Ask him the hard questions.  He can take it.  The conversation is important.  Be angry with him, question him, weep with him.  Be in relationship with him.  In the meantime… I don’t know how long the meantime’s going to last.  I don’t know how long “until the Son of God appears.”  This is one birth that cannot be induced.  We can’t decide, okay, I’m ready now, any day now God.  Instead we cry with the psalmist, “how long, O Lord?”[3]  How long must I be in exile?  How long must I hold out hope?  How long must I wait?  And that’s a faithful response.  It may be the end of the world as we know it, but God will gather us in and bring us home.  In that we trust and place our hope. 

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[1] Romans 8:26

[2] Psalm 30:5

[3] Psalm 13:1; 35:17; 89:46; 90:13; get the idea yet?

Where We're Going, We Don't Need: Roads

November 25, 2012

Christ the King/Reign of Christ

John 18:33-37; Revelation 1:4b-8

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need: Roads

Has anyone ever done a Google search for “What would Jesus…” and see what it auto-fills in for you?  What would Jesus do, of course.  But there’s also What would Jesus drink?  What would Jesus buy?  What would Jesus tweet?  An interesting one that caught my eye is “What would Jesus drive?”  My answer is… Jesus would drive a DeLorean.  That flies.  Powered by a Mr. Fusion and garbage.  And he would have some seriously cool 1980’s shades.  You see, I was thinking about that phrase that’s at both the beginning and the end of our passage from Revelation, the God “who is and who was and who is to come,” and I was thinking about God being outside time, unlimited by time, “OUTATIME,” you might even say, like the license plate on the DeLorean, the time machine that Doc Brown builds.  In the “Back to the Future” movies, Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time and found a way to not be constricted to their own time in history, yet they still were limited by time.  There were still things they could and could not do without the risk of erasing themselves from history and preventing their ever being born.  God, on the other hand, doesn’t travel through time but is at every moment in time.  God is, here and now; God always was, at the beginning of time; and God is still to come, at the end of time.  If you want to know how that can be, well, it’s like what we say in the Great Thanksgiving when we have communion – pay attention next Sunday.  Pastor Ken and I invite you to declare with us “the mystery of faith”: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”  All at the same time.  Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  Now, this three-times formula was often used in the Greek-speaking world to describe the eternity and immutability of the Greek gods.  For example, it was said that “Zeus was, Zeus is, and Zeus will be.”[1]  But, the difference for us as Christians is that we speak not only of God’s being but of his acts.  We say not merely that our God is, but that he comes, that he reigns.   

          This is God in the present tense.  Back in Exodus when Moses asks God for his name, what does God say?  I AM who I AM.  Present tense.  I AM.  Yet… that’s actually just how we’ve translated it.  The Hebrew can actually be translated into any verb tense.  I SHALL BE who I SHALL BE.  Or, I HAVE BEEN who I HAVE BEEN.  The great I AM encompasses all verb tenses.  How many of you have studied a second language?  One thing we often find out in learning another language that we don’t learn when studying English is the names of all the verb tenses.  Preterit.  Past Perfect.  Gerund.  Conditional.  There are some I don’t even know how to say in English because I learned them in Spanish class: pluscuamperfecto!  I remember in one of my Spanish classes in high school we had to take four verbs and conjugate them into every verb tense.  I think there were sixteen verb tenses on our charts!  Sixteen verb tenses.[2]  That’s a lot of different states of time.  And yet in the statement “I AM who I AM”, God puts God’s self in every verb tense; at every moment in time.  God, in Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is always with us.  God is, here and now. 

The great I AM is, is come and does reign.  Jesus Christ is the one who is, the one who reigns, here and now.  Today is Christ the King Sunday and we not only look forward to Christ’s kingdom coming, “thy kingdom come,” we also celebrate his reign today.  In the present.  In the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we find this promise from Jesus: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[3]  Jesus is always with us.  Granted, we often question it.  Lord, where are you in this midst of this suffering?  Lord, why do you let bad things happen to me?  I don’t know the detailed answer for every particular situation, but Jesus is there, crying with you, keeping you safe, guiding you even when you can’t see it.  Other times, we forget Jesus is with us.  Sometimes we pray, “Lord, be with us,” when he already is.  I’m guilty of that, too.  A better prayer would be, “Lord, make us aware of your presence,” or “Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit.”  Jesus is already with you.  Jesus is already here.  We don’t need to ask him to come.  He’s here in the good times and in the bad.  In times when we don’t understand what’s going on and why this is happening and in times when his hand is crystal clear in our lives.  Jesus is king, and his kingdom is not of this world but it’s breaking into this world, past, present, and future. 

God in three persons is the one whose being and whose acts embrace all time.  God was there at the beginning of time.  Genesis 1 tells us that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”[4]  And we know Jesus was there, too, from the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word (that’s Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”[5]  God, in Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is the one who always was.  Who was there when Moses parted the Red Sea?  God.  Who was there when David brought down Goliath?  God.  Who was there when Jesus’ disciples discovered an empty tomb?  God.    There is a reason we call God Ancient of Days, eternal, everlasting, Rock of Ages.  Lee and I visited a church in Raleigh while I was on maternity leave, and a youth sign we saw put it nicely: God is [pause] epic.  God is so big, he is the one who exclusively exists at the beginning of time and at the end of all time.  God transcends human history, he transcends our whole space/time continuum.  He is outside of time, beyond time, unrestricted by time.  And because he transcends it, therefore, he controls it.  This is the all-powerful, almighty God, who always was, who is, and who is still to come. 

That paradox, or mystery, is something we touched on a lot at seminary, and in shorthand we referred to it as the “already/not yet.”  Jesus has already come; Jesus has not yet come.  Jesus already came in first century Palestine; Jesus’ second coming has not yet happened.  Already… not yet.  Jesus already inaugurated his kingdom, but it has not yet come to completion.  That’s why Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world, and yet we get glimpses of it sometimes.  At IFC, we get glimpses; in communion, we get glimpses; in acts of kindness, we get glimpses; in worship, we get glimpses.  Jesus’ kingdom has already come, Jesus is king, and yet we still pray “thy kingdom  come.”  And not only has his kingdom already started, in the passage from Revelation it said that Jesus “made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”[6]  We are a kingdom; we are priests.  We are to be kings and priests.  As this royal priestly community, also called the church, we represent and signify the rule of God that is already present in the world.  We declare that Christ has come.  We declare that Christ is king.  And we declare with faith that Christ will come again.  We do this in faith, with “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”[7]  We do this because we believe Christ isn’t just any old king, Christ’s sovereignty is the highest one on earth!  We believe Christ’s kingship is the one abiding and universal kingship. 

Christ has been king, is king, and will be king.  Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  Christ is the one who is still to come.  Past, present, and future.  This is the God we serve.  This is the God we worship.  King Jesus.  The One who doesn’t need roads because he was there before there were roads and he’ll be there after the roads are gone.  And where we’re going, we don’t need roads, not because of any flying car, a half-crazed scientist who hit his head on the toilet, or even really cool 1980’s shades, but because God is already there and he will safely lead us there.  Our future is in God’s hands.  He is in control of our history.  May we recognize that our life is in God’s hands and live according to God’s kingdom, catching glimpses of it and creating glimpses of it, because Jesus is the everlasting king. 

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[1] Boring, Revelation, 75.

[2] After the 11:00 service a retired Spanish teacher in the congregation left me a note to let me know that pluscuamperfecto is the pluperfect tense and she listed eighteen verb tenses, although she put questions marks next to two of them.

[3] Matthew 28:20

[4] Genesis 1:1-2

[5] John 1:1

[6] Revelation 1:6

[7] Hebrews 11:1