Tag: suffering

When Monday Morning Comes

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year B2 Comments

Mark 1:9-15 NRSV

One moment, Jesus is overcome with joy in the presence of God as the heavens were “torn apart” and the Spirit of God descends upon him “like a dove.” A voice comes from heaven: “This is my Son the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

And then, without warning, “immediately,” says Mark, Jesus is driven into the wilderness for forty days, hurled into a place of trials and temptations, into a place where God seemed to be absent.

At one time, when I was much younger and more naïve, much less experienced in this world, this passage of scripture used to bother me. For what kind of God would fill Jesus with the light of holy love and joy one moment only to drive him into the dark wilderness in the next moment?

Well, as I have grown older, I no longer struggle with this question. Because the reality is that the Spirit of God does not have to drive us into a wilderness. We are already there. We are there because we are human, and life itself is a rollercoaster of joyous moments and wilderness moments. We encounter suffering and trials in life, not because God drives us into it, but because we are earthly creatures living in a fragmented world.

Like happens with you and me, one moment, Jesus is standing in presence of God. The next moment, he’s standing in a seemingly God-forsaken wilderness.

Last Sunday, we were invited to go the mountaintop with Jesus. It was a magnificent scene as we were standing in the very majestic presence of the Holy One, the creator of all that is. There, we were enveloped by Love, Love’s self.

But then, Monday morning came. It came for me personally when I woke to the news that my Uncle Ernie had died.

The unexpected and harsh news from my brother was especially tragic considering the recent death of Ernie’s beloved wife, my Aunt Ann, who died right after Thanksgiving. Uncle Ernie had been overwhelmed with grief and was having a difficult moving forward.

Like Jesus, one day we experience the holy presence of God, but then, Monday morning comes, and we are hurled into the wilderness.

Did you hear the good news in that sentence? “Like Jesus…” The good news of the Christian faith is that God understands. The good news is that God empathizes. The good news of the gospel is that God has experienced this world as we often experience it through the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

But there’s even better news as we read Mark’s gospel. It’s just one short sentence, but it is a beautiful sentence. Mark says: “And the angels waited on him.”

Angels, representing God’s providence and presence waited on Jesus. Suffering, struggle, and trial are present in the wilderness, but so is God! Throughout Jesus’ forty days, God was not far away, and God was not absent! God was with Jesus, ministering to him, serving him, waiting on him.

And the good news is that as angels were there for Jesus in his wilderness, we can find angels sent by God to be there for us.

Last Saturday, Uncle Ernie’s only child, my cousin Trey, had the joy of coaching the basketball team of his five-year old son, Cooper. Cooper was named after our beloved grandmother Sarah Jane Cooper. If you are a parent you may remember, it was one of those basketball games where the final score is something like 8 to 4. It was the second to last game of the season. During that game, Cooper scored his very first basket. In the moment the ball went through that hoop, knowing my cousin Trey and his love for basketball, I am sure he felt like the heavens had opened up, and the Spirit of God had descended upon him.

The very next day, Trey went to visit his Dad, who he had checked on every weekend since his mother died a couple months ago. Trey opened the front door and called, “Dad! It’s me Trey.” Hearing no answer, he walked into his father’s bedroom and found him lying face down in the bed unresponsive. Observing that he was barely breathing, he immediately called 911.

One day, Trey is experiencing heaven on earth coaching his son’s basketball game. The next day, he’s hurled into a wilderness.

Later that night, after being told by a doctor that his father’s death was imminent, Trey and his wife Kaylee got on the elevator and headed to the ICU floor. As soon as they stepped off the elevator, they immediately heard a kind, inqusitive voice from a nurse who was sitting at a desk: “Trey, is that you?”

The nurse then introduced herself to Trey and Kaylee as the granddaughter of Ms. Ava who lived next door to our grandmother when Trey was growing up. She said: “Trey, when I would visit my grandmother, I remember watching you and your father playing in your grandmother’s backyard.” She then talked about how much she loved our grandmother, so much so, that she named her daughter Sarah Jane after her. Trey said, “we named our son Cooper after her!

Trey said that Ms. Ava’s granddaughter then empathetically walked them to the room where his father was. She then went and found two recliners which she pushed into the room so Trey and Kaylee could sit Uncle Ernie’s bedside his father during his final hours.

The good news is that when we find ourselves in the wilderness, there are angels are among us, reminding us like a nurse with a daughter named Sarah Jane reminded Trey, that God never leaves us nor forsakes us. Even in the darkest experiences in this wilderness called life, God is always present.

The Rev. Fred Rogers put it this way: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

This is especially good news this Sunday, because whether or not we are ready for it, Monday morning is coming.

On Monday morning, anxiety is usually your alarm. You are awakened with a list of countless worries. If tomorrow morning is anything like the last few mornings, added to our fretful list are the children who were injured in yet another horrific mass shooting. You worry about your own children, your grandchildren, great-grandchildren. You worry knowing that they are unsafe wherever they are, at a ballgame, at school, at a party, even at church. You grieve over the state of our country. You anguish that so many of your friends have acquiesced to the notion that nothing can be done to prevent this from happening again.

The good news, there are angels among us.

Angels like Kansas City Chiefs offensive guard Trey Smith who saw a frightened boy with his father during the shooting and used his WWE title belt to comfort the boy saying: “Hey buddy, you’re the champion. No one’s going to hurt you, man. We’ve got your back.” Then, after they were loaded onto a bus, he talked to the boy about wrestling to keep his mind off the frightening and chaotic scene.

There are angels among us like Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire who also sheltered a boy during the shooting. The boy’s mother posted on social media: “Huge thank you to Clyde Edwards #25 for sheltering and getting [my son Zach] to safety… Clyde even went back to check on Zach to make sure he was still doing ok. What a great human being!”

And there are other angels among us living with a renewed determination to continue fighting for sensible gun laws, committed do doing more than sending thoughts and prayers.

This wilderness experience of Jesus is often called “the temptation of Jesus.” I believe we are sometimes tempted to believe that we can make it through our wilderness alone, on our own power. We are tempted to believe that our own physical power or even our own spiritual power can see us through our wilderness experiences.

However, we must be able to humbly recognize that we need another power. For if the Son of God needed angels to wait on him in his wilderness, how much more do we need angels to get through ours? How much more do we need God’s abiding presence? How much more do we need one another? How much more do we need those who have been called to be God’s transforming agents in this world, those who call themselves disciples fighting every day to make this world a more just and peaceful place to live, who are, even now, sitting all around us?

Which leads to this question: Come Monday, who might need us? Who might need us to wait on them, shelter them, calm and comfort them, fight for and vote for their safety.

It’s Sunday morning.  Gathered here in the presence of God, we are loved, and we are affirmed. The heavens are open. God’s Spirit fills this room, and God is speaking to our hearts.

In a few moments, we will receive the bread and the cup, and we will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved with a grace that is greater than our sins. We will pray. We will sing a hymn. And we will make commitments and our re-commitments. During the Benediction you will hear the wonderful words: “You are God’s beloved children, with whom God is well pleased.”

Yes, it is Sunday morning, and we are here in the very presence of God. But we can be certain of this:  Monday morning is coming. For some of us Monday morning may come this Sunday afternoon. As sure as we are here, the wilderness coming. The good news is: we will get through it. Something good will come out of it. Our fears will be relieved. Mercy will be given. Justice will prevail. Peace will come.  Love will win.

How can I be so confident?  Because when I look around this room, you know what I see?  I see angels.

Our God Rides a Donkey

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn LentLeave a comment

donkeyjesusJohn 12:12-15 NRSV

A few moments ago we prayed for a variety of people who all have one thing in common.  They are suffering.  Some are suffering with cancer.  Others heart disease.  Some are trying their best to recover from strokes. Others are recovering from injuries from an accident or a fall.  Others are experiencing the grief over losing a loved one to death.

And of course the question that people of faith ask is why?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

As a Christian pastor, I have often said that the question that one should ask is not “why me?”   But “why not me.”  We are human beings, and the reality is, that human beings suffer.  Human beings get cancer, have heart disease and strokes and get into accidents.

“Why me?”  No, the better question is, since I am a human being, “Why not me?’

Hear me clearly say this: When bad things happen, God is not punishing us, God is not trying to get anyone’s attention, wake anyone up, and God is not trying to teach us something.  In this fragmented world, bad things simply happen.

I hate it when people misquote the Bible by saying that “the Good Lord doesn’t put any more on us that we can bear.”  As if the Lord looks at people like Joyce Letchworth and says: She has buried two sons, had heart bypass and a valve replacement surgery, still, I think she could bear breaking a hip.

God does not put anything on us.  We suffer because we are fragile, immortal human beings and that’s it. And God does not “take,” “pluck,” or “call home” anyone from this life.  We die because we are human.

However, I believe the question that most of us really want answered is not so much, “Why me?”, but “Why isn’t God doing something about it?”  Why doesn’t God do something to prevent or relieve the suffering? We understand that God doesn’t cause suffering, but, why on earth, doesn’t God do something about it?  That’s what I don’t understand.

Well, one easy answer is that suffering is for our own good. A long time ago, Irenaeus of Lyons, a second century bishop, wrote on the educational value of suffering.

Why doesn’t God end our suffering?  Well, through our encounters with pain, we grow and develop. The infant who touches a hot stove learns a valuable lesson.  What if human beings never experienced want, deprivation, terrible heat or unbearable cold? Would human culture have developed among other creatures? No, said Irenaeus. Suffering is thus a great teacher, a wonderful prod for advancement in human development.

Even the book of Hebrews says that Jesus learned obedience through his suffering.

Now, I realize that this is somewhat true. The keyword here is “somewhat.” My aching bones tell me that a person in my shape should not try to run a marathon. But what about those whose bones lie in the mass graves in Iraq or Syria? What about the bones of the five year old boy found in a septic tank in Virginia? What lesson is there for that grieving community?

Some pain is helpful, but not all pain. The truth is that there is far too much useless, pointless pain in this broken and fallen world to speak to positively of the educational potential of suffering. What on earth is a child who falls victim to an internet child molester to learn?

Which brings us back to our main question: Why doesn’t God do something about the pain of this world?  Why doesn’t God intervene and do something?

One philosopher once said, “Either God is good, but ineffective and unconcerned, in which case he is not good for us, or, considering the unrelieved, unjustified pain in this world, God is evil.”  There is just too much unrelieved, unaddressed pain in this world to have God any other way.

Another response is that God is very good, but God is simply inactive. This seems to be the conventional modern resolution of the matter. Rabbi Harold Kushner has said that God only had six days to complete the world, and unfortunately, some things were left unfinished. God is not a personal errand boy. Stuff happens. And God? Well, God is simply uninvolved.

This is the modern, deist God of our founding fathers. Deism is the belief that God set up the world then went on a permanent vacation. Deism rescues us from the dilemma of having to make excuses for God’s lack of engagement with us and our suffering. God doesn’t heal, save, rescue or reach in, not because God is unconcerned and unloving, but rather because God is simply uninvolved.

Deism tended to be the faith of most of the modern world because, in order to get the modern world going, the first thing we needed to do was to remove God from the world so that we could be free to run things as we want. Belief in this God who is empathetic but not meddlesome, having gotten God safely filed away as some vague spiritual feeling, we were free to give ourselves more fully to a more effective god—the nation, the economy, or whatever. The bloody 20th century, the perhaps even bloodier beginning of the 21st century, is the result.

But then, despite ourselves—God, all of a sudden, surprises us. God comes. And God acts. A life gets uplifted. Someone comes away healed, whole. A life is changed, a future rearranged.  On her death bed, after suffering more than I have seen anyone suffer, Alawoise Flanagan miraculously smiles, her eyes ablaze with hope. And members of the Flanagan family miraculously experience a peace and strength that surpasses all understanding. Just when we thought God had taken some cosmic vacation, God shows up and we experience life, abundant and eternal.

This is Palm Sunday. It is the Sunday that God showed up on the streets of Jerusalem riding a donkey. It isn’t that God is unconcerned, uninvolved, and uninterested in us, it is that the way God comes to us is not the way we want or expect God to come.

William Willimon writes: We wanted Jesus to come in to town on a warhorse, and Jesus rode in on a donkey. We wanted Jesus to go up to the statehouse and fix the political problem, and Jesus went to the temple to pray. We wanted Jesus to get organized, mobilize his forces, get the revolution going, and set things right, and Jesus gathered with his friends in an upper room, broke bread, and drank wine.  We wanted Jesus to go head-to-head with the powers-that-be, and Jesus just hung there, on Friday, from noon until three, with hardly a word.

It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t do anything; it was that Jesus didn’t do the thing that we wanted. It wasn’t that Jesus did not come and intervene; it was that Jesus came riding a donkey.

God emptied God’s self, poured God’s self out, became one of us, bore our sins and our sufferings, even to death, death on cross. God came to us—not in a way that we wanted—but in a way that is all we truly need for life—abundant and eternal.

When my friend, Tony Cartledge’s, eleven year-old little girl died in his arms after their car was struck by a drunk driver, Tony said that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was there. No, God didn’t go after the drunk driver with a vengeance and reverse the evil that had happened, but there God was nonetheless: Holding that little girl with him; feeling Tony’s pain; shedding divine tears; promising hope and peace. God was undeniably present. And “miraculously,” said Tony, “that presence was enough.”  “That presence was all that I needed.”

There are people on our prayer list, and others for whom we prayed today who I pray will somehow, some way, be able to say: “It may not have been what I wanted—but God’s humble, loving, suffering, self-giving, life-changing, healing, hopeful presence, is all that I will ever need—for now and forevermore.  Amen.”

Our King Wears a Crown of Thorns

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn LentLeave a comment

6187141-crown-of-thorns-hung-around-the-easter-crossMany people will not worship in a church this Holy Week because someone in the church, without thinking, offered them an easy answer in the face of evil. “God does not make mistakes,” they said. “God is in control. God knows what God is doing,” they said.

The reason I believe people are tempted to give up on God in the face of evil is because, contrary to what their good-intended church friends say, they are unaware that God does not reign from some heavenly throne in some blissful castle, but from an old rugged cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, between sinners like you and me. I believe people become despairing and cynical about God, because they fail to understand that our God does not rule like the rulers of this world.

The rulers of this world rule with violence and coercion and force. Earthly rulers rule with an iron fist: militarily and legislatively and with executive orders. The kings of the world rule with raw power: controlling, dominating, taking, and imposing.

But Christ is a King who rules through suffering, self-giving, self-expending, sacrificial love. Christ the King rules, not from a distance at the capital city, not from the halls of power and prestige, but in little, insignificant, out-of-the-way places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Enid and Waukomis..

Christ the King doesn’t rule with an iron fist, but with outstretched arms. Christ the King doesn’t cause human suffering from a far, but is right here beside us sharing in our suffering.

God’s power is not a power that takes, but is a power that gives.

God’s power is not a power that rules, but is a power that serves.

God’s power is not a power that imposes, but is a power that loves.

God’s power is not a power that dominates, but a power that dies.

This, says the late theologian Arthur McGill, is the reason that it is “no accident that Jesus undertakes his mission to the poor and to the weak and not to the strong, to the dying and not to those full of life. For with these vessels of need God most decisively vindicates his peculiar kind of power, [a] power of service whereby the poor are fed, the sinful are forgiven, the weak are strengthened, and the dying are made alive.”

Christ the King did not take our first child. The day our baby died, God cried with us in that hospital room.

God did not cause the tumor. The day the doctor said the word “cancer” was a day of anguish for God as it was for us.

God did not create the layoff.

The day you were told that your job was ending, God stayed up with you and worried with you all night long.

And God did not take your loved one.  When they died, something inside of God died too.

What we all need to learn are very different definitions of “king,” “rule,” “reign” and “power”—very different because they define the ways of the only true and living God rather than defining our false gods and their ways.

So when life gets us down, we need to remember the great truth of Holy Week—Christ is the King. And this King is reigning, suffering, sacrificing and giving all that God has to give from the cross.

God does not make mistakes. God knows what God is doing. God is in control. But God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels but a crown of thorns.

I Need a New Drug

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn EasterLeave a comment

Cialis

Have you noticed that every other television commercial that comes on the air is an ad touting the benefits of a new prescription drug? There is a new drug available for whatever it is that might ail you!

Do you have frequent heartburn? Are you tired of being tired? Is depression making you depressed?  Do you have trouble going to sleep? Do you have difficulty waking up? Do you want to avoid diet and exercise? Is it painful for you to walk your dog? Is your hair falling out? Do you have a going or a growing problem?  Are you overweight but love to eat?  Do you need to put some excitement back into your relationships? No matter what you’ve got, there is a new pill created just for you.

And then, in nearly every commercial, after the person begins taking what they asked their doctor to prescribe, there is all of this exuberant celebration: dancing in the streets; jumping up and down; digging for clams; running around in the yard with your dog and your water hose; even sitting outdoors and watching the sunset while holding hands with your significant other in separate bathtubs!

As a pastor, I oftentimes wonder if this is not how we oftentimes promote the church.  \If you channel surf through the religious channels, you will find that there is no shortage of preachers who sound like they are spokespeople for some new drug. “Are you down and out?  Are you drowning in a sea of debt? Are you empty inside? Does your marriage need a boost? Then pick up the phone and make your pledge, send in your check, and sit back and wait for God to pour out God’s blessings!  Wait for God to give you a reason to celebrate!”

I am not exactly sure, but I suspect that is what many people were thinking when they were following Jesus throughout Galilee. Listen to how the Sermon on the Mount begins: “And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”  Folks had come out from all over to follow Jesus.

And listen to what Jesus says:

Are you 50 years old and wonder where your life is going? Are you down and out and feeling blue?  Do you need help raising your children?  Does your marriage need a boost?

No, instead Jesus says things like, “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

The crowd gets really quiet!  Someone whispers, “I know he didn’t say ‘hard,’ did he? I thought Jesus was all about making things easy!”

Jesus continues:

“Love everyone, including your enemies. Be a blessing to the poor and to those who hunger and thirst for justice. Pray for those who persecute you. Forgive those who have wronged you. Don’t judge. Accept others as I have accepted you. Deny yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me. Die to yourself. Don’t just hear these words, but do these words.”

I am afraid that churches are so desperate to attract people that they have been willing to trivialize and water down the gospel. I am afraid that the salvation that many churches are preaching is no different than the salvation that is being preached in commercials about a new prescription drug.

May God forgive the church for sometimes implying that Jesus will make life easier, will fix everything that is wrong with us, will put a little lilt in our voices, a little sunshine in our souls, because the chances are very good that the message Jesus preaches will only make your life more difficult.

The Realness of Christmas

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Farmville EnterpriseLeave a comment

wounded children

Instead of decorating my tree this year with Christmas music playing in the background, I decorated it while watching the nightly news. As I hung ornaments, I listened to the tragic story of a high school student killed in an automobile accident. As I turned on the lights on the tree, I glanced up to see pictures of mothers with their children escaping from Syria into refugee camps in Lebanon. I saw images of many children: some starving, others injured, some dying, others sick, all very afraid. I thought to myself, “I need to turn this depressing mess off and put on something Christmasy.”

Then it occurred to me. This is probably as close to Christmasy as it gets, for this is Christmas undecorated. This is real Christmas, and it is a shame that we try to cover it up with colorful paper and tie a bow around it. We string it with lights and decorate it. We romanticize and sentimentalize the whole Christmas scene with gleeful music and cheerful food.

Perhaps it is because in our shallow minds, the scene is majestic. It is glorious: angels flying in the night sky singing a heavenly chorus; a brilliant star rising in the east; a baby worshipped by shepherds and kings and even animals. In our nativity scene, there is no crying, no hunger, no disease, no anxiety, no fear, no mourning. Our nativity is a serene, sweet, sanitized scene.

However, this was not the reality of the first Noel. Christmas reality was not beautiful and was far from perfect. And no matter how hard we try, no matter how much energy we expend or how much money we spend; we cannot conceal the real harshness of it, the harsh realness of it. Christmas reality, says the prophet Isaiah is “like, a root out of dry ground.” Jesus was born among animals in a cattle stall and placed in a feeding troth with the stench of wet straw and animal waste in the air.

Yes, Kings, Magi or Wise Men came to worship the baby, but we like to forget that King Herod was using those eastern visitors to locate the baby so he could run a sword through him. And we forget the holocaust in Ramah, the innocent babies slaughtered, the desperate cries of anguish and despair from parents because there children were “no more.” We forget the escape to Egypt like homeless refugees. This is Christmas reality.

This is the reality of it, and this is the good news of it! The good news of Christmas is that there is nothing glamorous, glitzy sentimental, or romantic about it. The good news of Christmas is that God came into our depressing mess. God came into the real world, encountered real evil in the most real of ways, experienced real suffering and pain and died a very real death.

Someone who was suffering with terminal cancer once told me: “Although I cannot explain it, somehow, the sicker I am, the more pain I experience, the more hopeful I become. In the moments of my most immense suffering, God is the most real to me.”

Through the coming of God in Christ into a very real and broken world, we know that God knows something about real human suffering and real human misery. God knows what it feels like to feel forsaken by God. God is therefore able to relate to us in the most intimate of ways in those moments when life is the most real and the most broken.

Thank God something as depressing as the nightly news can actually be Christmasy.

The Rainbow and the Cross

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Farmville Enterprise1 Comment

rainbow crossThe Ebola virus is spreading throughout the world, recently killing a top doctor. Financial turmoil has seized Argentina. A Malaysian plane was shot down over Ukraine, and fierce fighting has broken out around the wreckage. The death toll rises in Gaza as deadly violence occurs every day. Israel attacks a UN school killing 20 evacuees. Mobs of Islamic militants kill dozens in China. An unprecedented crisis at our own border continues. Immigrant families are being torn apart. Kidnapped Nigerian girls for whom churches all over the world prayed are still missing. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright summed up the state of the world last week in one simple sentence: “To put it mildly, the world is a mess.”

I am not the only preacher to point out that the state of the world today is reminiscent of a story found in the early chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 6 we read: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” In other words, the state of the world caused God great suffering. Other translations read that the state of the world “broke God’s heart.”

We know the rest of the story. The Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created” and in Genesis 7, we read that for forty days and nights the rains fell as God intended to start the whole thing over with Noah and his family. However, just one chapter later, the futility of God’s intentions became obvious, as the state of the world had not changed. After the flood “…the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.’” In the following chapter, we read where the rainbow is forever a beautiful reminder of this great promise.

Sadly, I believe we tend to forget what this promise truly means. Perhaps it is due to a selfish inclination that we have had since our youth that we only remember God will never again try to “blot us out.” However, this promise means so much more. This promise means that our God has chosen a path of suffering. The rainbow means that the state of our world continually breaks the very heart of our God.

There is a reason the prophet Isaiah moves us when we read about “a man of suffering, acquainted with infirmity, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities” (Isa 53). There is a reason Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things…”(Mark 8)  There is a reason at the death of Lazarus we read, “Jesus wept” (John 11). There is a reason Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matt 27). There is a reason the soldier who was standing at the foot of the cross of our crucified Lord exclaimed: “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Matt 27).

Furthermore, there is a good reason that, living in a world which, “putting it mildly, is a great mess,” we sing: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Good News in the Disappointment of Holy Week

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Short ArticlesLeave a comment

holy week crown

It is two-thousand years later, and we are still surprised, confused, and even somewhat disappointed. Shattering our expectations of a Savior, King Jesus enters the city this week to liberate his people riding a borrowed donkey with an army of rag-tag students who have no idea what they are doing.

God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels, but a crown of thorns.

When God chose to save the world from sin and evil, Jesus exercised a peculiar kind of power. It is not the type of power that we are accustomed to or desire. It is not a power that rules but is a power that serves. It is not a power that takes but is a power that gives. It is not a power that seizes but is a power that suffers. It is not a power that dominates but is a power that dies.

And we are still surprised, confused and somewhat disappointed.

“O God, though I attend and support my church every Sunday, why do my prayers seem to go unanswered? Why do I still struggle with life?”

“Dear Lord, We have been serving you our entire lives, faithfully giving you all that we have! I do not understand why you have not brought physical healing to my wife who suffers daily with a chronic disease.”

“Heavenly Father, we try our best to respect and love all people. That is why I am somewhat dismayed that you allow others to call us names, ridicule us and cause us pain.”

“And yet, Lord, in my astonishment, bewilderment and disappointment, you come to me nonetheless. Although I have no idea I am doing, you envelop me with your grace. You come to me in all of your glory and with all of your power. You come serving, giving, suffering and dying. You come offering me the very best gift that you can possibly offer—the gift of your peculiar holy self.”

And the good news is: that is more than enough!

Reigning from the Cross

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

world_in_handsLuke 23:33-43 NRSV

Today is the last Sunday of the Christian Year.  It is called “Christ the King Sunday” or “The Reign of Christ Sunday.”  It signifies that at the end of it all, Jesus Christ has the last and final word.  And in this world of so much suffering and pain, oh how we need a day like today!  Oh how we need to be reminded that when it all boils down, when it all pans out, Jesus Christ is our ruler and our king. When it is all said and done, Jesus the Christ is ultimately in charge. Today is the day that we reassure ourselves that no matter how bad life gets, no matter how distressed, fragmented and chaotic life becomes, Christ is always in complete control.  “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” as we all like to sing.

Now, in this world of heart ache and heart break, the truth that Christ is the king and ruler of it all is always supposed to bring us great assurance and peace.  However; although none of us good God-fearing, church-going folks like to admit it, this truth of God’s complete reign over this world usually brings us the exact opposite.

Think about those times you were reminded by someone, albeit with good intentions, that “God is in control.”  When Lori and I lost our first child two months before the due date, people came up to us and said, “Don’t let this get you down.  Just remember that God doesn’t make any mistakes.”

After the doctor gave you the news that the tumor was malignant, people came up to you and said, “Don’t worry, God knows what God is doing.”

When people learned that you were going to lose your job, they reminded you, “It is going to be alright, for God is in control.”

At the graveside of a loved one, your friends and family lined up between you and the casket and whispered: “God has a reason for this.”

And very politely, we nodded. We even thanked them for their words with a hug or a handshake.  But then, a short time later, after we dried our tears, after we came to our senses, while we were sitting quietly at home or while we were out on a long drive, or maybe sitting in church, we began to reflect and to ponder those well-intended words. We began to think to ourselves: “If God is really sitting on some providential throne in complete control of this fragmented fiasco called life, this disastrous debacle called the world, then what type of ruler is this God? What type of king sits back and allows so much evil to occur in their kingdom?

Christ the King—what is supposed to bring us great strength, peace and comfort, instead brings us frustration, anger and doubt.  Christ the King—what is supposed to bring us assurance and hope brings us utter misery and despair.  And we are very much tempted to join all those who laughed and ridiculed Jesus: “Umphh!  King of the Jews! Some King!”

I have said it before, and I do not mind saying it again—If  God is the one who willed our first baby’s death, causes tumors to be malignant, gets us fired from our jobs, and takes our loved ones from us, then I really do not believe I want anything to do with a god like that!  I think I would rather join the millions of people who have chosen not to be in church on this Sunday before Thanksgiving.

The good news is that I am here. And I am here to thank God that God is not the type of King who decrees the death of babies, pronounces malignancies, commands layoffs and orders our loved ones to be suddenly taken from us. There is no doubt about it, Christ is King.  But thank God, Christ does not reign the way the kings of this world reign.

The reason I believe we allow ourselves to be tempted to give up on God in the face of evil is because we often forget that our God reigns not from some heavenly throne in some blissful castle in the sky. Our God reigns from an old rugged cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, between sinners like you and me. I believe we oftentimes become despairing and cynical about God, because we forget that our God does not rule like the rulers of this world.

The rulers of this world rule with violence and coercion and force.  Earthly rulers rule with an iron fist: militarily and legislatively and with executive orders. The kings of the world rule with raw power: controlling, dominating, taking, and imposing.

But Christ is a King who rules through suffering, self-giving, self-expending, sacrificial love.  Christ the King rules, not from a distance at the capital city, not from the halls of power and prestige, but in little, insignificant, out-of-the-way places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Fountain and Farmville.

Christ the King doesn’t rule with an iron fist, but rules instead with outstretched arms. Christ the King doesn’t cause human suffering from a far, but is right here beside us sharing in our suffering.

God possess what the late theologian Arthur McGill called a “peculiar” kind of power.

God’s power is not a power that takes, but is a power that gives.

God’s power is not a power that rules, but is a power that serves.

God’s power is not a power that imposes, but is a power that loves.

God’s power is not a power that dominates, but a power that dies.

And as Arthur McGill has written, this is the reason that it is “no accident that Jesus undertakes his mission to the poor and to the weak and not to the strong, to the dying and not to those full of life.  For with these vessels of need God most decisively vindicates his peculiar kind of power, [a] power of service whereby the poor are fed, the sinful are forgiven, the weak are strengthened, and the dying are made alive.”[i]

Christ the King did not take our first child.  The day our baby died, God cried with us in that hospital room.

God did not cause the tumor. The day the doctor said the word “cancer” was a day of anguish for God as it was for us.

God did not create the layoff.  The day you were told that your job was ending, God stayed up with you and worried with you all night long.

And God did not take your loved one.  When they died, something inside of God died too.

What we all need to learn are very different definitions of “king,” “rule,” “reign” and “power”—very different because they define the ways of the only true and living God rather than defining our false gods and their ways.

So when life gets us down (and if we live any length of time at all in this world, it most certainly will), we need to remember the great truth of this day—Christ is the King. And this King is reigning, suffering, sacrificing and giving all that God has to give from the cross.

crown of thornsGod does not make mistakes.  God knows what God is doing.  God is in control.  But God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels but a crown of thorns.

This past week I visited a lovely lady in the hospital who is dying with cancer. Doctors have given her about three months to live. With great faith and assurance and peace, she told me that everything was going to be all right. No, she is not delusional. Her mind is not clouded with morphine. She is at peace because her King reigns from a cross. Her King is not far away from her sitting a throne removed from her agony. Her King is at her side suffering with her. Her King is not above her pain.  Her King is experiencing her every pain. Her King is not slowly taking her life away from her. Her King is giving the King’s very life to her, pouring out the King’s very self into her, and promises her every minute of every day to see her through.

Because of this, she told me that she has never known a time in her life when she more close to her Lord. All of her despair has been transformed into hope. And she is absolutely convinced that her death will be transformed into life everlasting.

After she described the intensified intimacy she now shares with her Lord, she then said something miraculous. With a hopeful joy in her smile and eternity in her eyes, she told me that she is really looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this year.  Think about that for a moment.

A woman, dying with cancer, told me that she has a lot for which to be thankful.

Don’t we all?

[i] Arthur McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method, 61-63.

Crown of Thorns

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

crown of thorns

Many people will not worship in a church during Holy Week because someone in the church, without thinking, offered them an easy answer in the face of evil. “God does not make mistakes,” they said. “God is in control. God knows what God is doing,” they said. “God is the ruler of the universe,” they said.

The reason I believe people are tempted to give up on faith in God is because they are unaware that God does not reign from some heavenly throne in some blissful castle, but from an old rugged cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, between sinners like you and me. I believe people become despairing and cynical about God, because they fail to understand that our God does not rule like the rulers of this world.

The rulers of this world rule with violence and coercion and force. Earthly rulers rule with an iron fist: militarily and legislatively and with executive orders. The kings of the world rule with raw power: controlling, dominating, taking, and imposing.

But Christ is a King who rules through suffering, self-giving, self-expending, sacrificial love. Christ the King rules, not from a distance at the capital city, not from the halls of power and prestige, but from ordinary places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Van Buren and Fort Smith.

Christ the King doesn’t rule with an iron fist. This King rules with outstretched arms.

Christ the King doesn’t cause human suffering from a far, but is right here beside us sharing in our suffering.

God’s power is not a power that takes. It is a power that gives.

God’s power is not a power that rules. It is a power that serves.

God’s power is not a power that imposes. It is a power that loves.

God’s power is not a power that dominates. It is a power that dies.

This, says the late theologian Arthur McGill, is the reason that it is “no accident that Jesus undertakes his mission to the poor and to the weak and not to the strong, to the dying and not to those full of life. For with these vessels of need God most decisively vindicates his peculiar kind of power, [a] power of service whereby the poor are fed, the sinful are forgiven, the weak are strengthened, and the dying are made alive.”

God did not cause the tumor. The day the doctor said the word “cancer” was a day of anguish for God as it was for us.

God did not create the layoff.

The day you were told that your job was ending, God stayed up with you and worried with you all night long.

And God did not take your loved one.  When they died, something inside of God died too.

What we all need to learn are very different definitions of “king,” “rule,” “reign” and “power”—very different because they define the ways of the only true and living God rather than defining our false gods and their ways.

So when life gets us down, we need to remember the great truth of Holy Week—Christ is the King. And this King is reigning, suffering, sacrificing and giving all that God has to give from the cross.

God does not make mistakes. God knows what God is doing. God is in control. But God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels but a crown of thorns.

Heaven Can Wait

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

END IS NEARLuke 21:5-19 NRSV

One of the great things about living in southern Louisiana were the countless stories about two infamous Cajuns named Boudreaux and Thibodeaux.

Reverend Boudreaux was the part-time pastor of a small, rural Baptist church and Pastor Thibodeaux was the minister of a Pentecostal church directly across the road. One day, they were both standing out by the road in front of their churches, each pounding a sign into the ground as fast as they could. The sign read:

Da End is Near
Turn Yo Sef ‘Roun Now
Afore It Be Too Late!

As soon as the signs got into the ground, a car passed by.  Without slowing down, the driver leaned out his window and yelled as loud as he could: “You bunch of religious nuts!”

Then, from the curve in the road you could hear tires screeching and a big splash.

The Reverend Boudreaux yells at Pastor Thibodeaux across the road and asks:

“Do ya tink maybe da sign should jus say ‘Bridge Out’?”

The last couple of Sundays the Christian calendar and the lectionary has led us to ponder the tough subjects of death, the resurrection of the dead and eternal life. And today’s gospel lectionary is on a similar topic: the end of the world.

Now, I have to be honest here, after the last two Sundays, I am really ready to focus on something else!  Besides, all this apocalyptic gloom and doom talk is really not for us mainstream, progressive, educated church types here on Main Street.

But this is just how the Church calendar works I guess. We are approaching the end of the calendar as next Sunday concludes the church year with Christ the King Sunday, emphasizing that when it is all said and done, in the end, Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So, I guess it makes sense that here, on this next to last Sunday of the church year, even we downtown Main Street church folks are asked to listen to sermon about the final judgment.

And, although we don’t like it, maybe we need to hear it. After all, in the last couple of years, chatter about the end of days seems to have spiked a bit with all of the Mayan doomsday predictions, super storms like last year’s Sandy and last week’s killer typhoon in the Philippians, numerous earthquakes and tsunamis, the global recession, nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran, the constant threat of terrorism, and with the attention given by cable TV to doomsday preppers.

In September of this year, a poll by the Barna group found 4 in 10 Americans – and 77 percent of evangelical Christians – believe the “world is now living in the biblical end times.”[i]

So, in spite of what you may think about this subject, perhaps we need to hear what Jesus has to say.

About the destruction of it all, in verse 7, we read where they ask Jesus: “When will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”

In verse 8 we read Jesus’ answer: “Beware that you are not led astray.”

Then Jesus specifically warns us to stay away from those who claim to be Christian and say, “The time is near.” Jesus says, “Do not go after them.” Do not follow them. Do not listen to them. Don’t pay them any attention!

Well, glory halleluiah!  Because after two Sundays preaching on death and the resurrection of the dead, I really don’t want to talk about the end of days! So, Amen Jesus! Preach it! Let’s move on to some more pleasant things! Enough of all this gloom and doom!

Ok, now let’s listen to what Jesus has to say next! Hopefully it is something more uplifting than death!

“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you.”  “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; you will be hated by all because of my name; and they will put some of you to death.” “But “this will give you an opportunity to testify.”

Man! And we thought we were off the hook this week!

But if we have been reading and listening to Luke, we should not be that surprised. It is as if Jesus is saying, “Do not worry so much about the tribulations to come with the end of the world, because if you are truly following me, if you are faithfully living as my disciple, if you have fully committed yourself to carrying a cross, if you are really speaking truth to power, if you are serving those I call you to serve, if you are standing up for my justice and my wholeness in this fragmented world, then you have will enough trouble for today!

If you are truly living for me and loving this broken and suffering world as much as I love this world, you will sacrifice much. You may even lose your friends and family! Matthew remembers Jesus saying on another occasion: ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today (Matthew 6:34).

Jesus seems to be saying here: “Don’t focus so much on the end days, don’t’ dwell on the impending doom and demise of it all but instead, focus on the opportunities that you have today in this hurting world ‘to testify,’ to selflessly and sacrificially serve me by serving and suffering for others.”

Jesus is saying: “It is perfectly is to think and dream about going to Heaven one day. It is fine to have the hope that someday, somehow, some way there’s not going to be anything more to fear or dread. It is wonderful to know a time is coming when there is going to be no more crying, no more pain, and no more death. It is great to sing those old hymns of faith, such as “When We All Get to Heaven,”  “Shall We Gather at the River,” and “I Can Only Imagine,” but if Heaven is the only place your hearts are, if going to Heaven and avoiding Hell is the only reason you are Christians, then you have missed the whole point of who I am and who you are called to be as my disciples.”

I believe Jesus is saying to us: “So don’t come to church looking to avoid a suffering world! Come to church and bear the sufferings of this world! Don’t come to church looking for some fire insurance. Come to church and let me lead you into the fire!”

This is exactly why I believe so many Christians are tempted “go after” those who love to preach about the end of days, especially those who say that it is coming in our lifetimes. For it is far easier to believe that God has already given up on this world. It is much easier to look at the destruction in the Philippines and believe that it is all a part of God’s plan, a preview of things to come! It is far easier to believe that earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and poverty and wars are all part of God’s apocalyptic will than it is to believe that God calls us to selflessly and sacrificially suffer alongside those who are suffering.

It would be far easier to believe that Christianity is only about getting a ticket to heaven to escape this world than it is to believe that it is about selfless, sacrificial service.

British scholar Lesslie Newbigin comments: “In an age of impending ecological crises,” with the “threat of nuclear war and a biological holocaust” many Christians have retreated into a “privatized eschatology.”  That means, that the only hope that they possess, in the words of Newbigin, is “their vision of personal blessedness for the soul after death.”[i]

Christians everywhere, in the words of Newbigin, have “sounded the trumpet of retreat.” They have thrown their hands in the air and have given up on the world. Their faith in Jesus has become solely and merely a private matter. Faith is only something they possess, something they hold on to, that they can someday use as their ticket out here. In the meantime, they withdraw into safe sanctuaries and look forward to that day “the roll is called up yonder.”  And they listen to angry sermons by angry preachers condemning the world to Hell in a hand basket.

And giving up on the world is really nothing new.  At the turn of the first century, Jews called Gnostics had a similar view of the world.  Everything worldly, even the human body itself, was regarded as evil.  And maybe, they too, had some pretty good reasons to believe that way, because regardless of what some may believe, the world did not start going bad in our lifetimes. The truth is: it has been bad ever since that serpent showed up in the garden.

At the turn of the first century, Jews were a conquered, depressed people, occupied the Romans.  And they were terrorized daily by a ruthless, pro-Roman King named Herod—a king who would murder innocent children to have his way.  The Gnostics looked at the world and their situation and came to the conclusion that they were divine souls trapped in evil bodies living in a very dark, God-forsaken, God-despised world.

As I have mentioned, Next Sunday marks the end of the Christian calendar. The next Sunday begins the season of Advent, the very beginning of the church.

It is the season that we remember that it was into a very dark, and seemingly God-forsaken, God-despised world that something mysterious happened that we call Christmas. A light shone in that darkness proving in the most incredible and inexplicable way that this world is anything but God-forsaken or God-despised!

God loves this world so much that God emptied God’s self and poured God’s self into the world. God came and affirmed, even our fleshly existence as God, God’s self, became flesh. And God came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world. For so God loved the world that God came into the world and died for the world.

Thus, the message that we all need to hear today and hear often is not that the end is near as God believes the world is worth destroying, but it is that God believes this world is worth saving. God believes the world is still worth fighting for. God still believes that this world is worth dying for.

As the body of Christ in this world, we as the church are not called to retreat or withdraw from the world and its troubles, but are called to love this world, to do battle for this world, to even die for this world.  We are called to be a selfless community of faith in this broken world. And, no matter the cost, we are called to share this good news of Christmas all year long!

[i] Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/billy-graham-sounds-alarm-for-2nd-coming/#Y8RpIeMpqqHd8uRF.99

[ii] Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 113.