Christmas Fire

A Sermon Based Upon Luke 3: 7-20

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Third Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2012

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16 NRS)

John the Baptizer would not be a welcomed guest at most Christmas parties.  His message of repentance, judgment, change and baptism by water and fire, are just too much for our traditional, generic, polite family Christmas traditions.

Christmas is supposed to be fun.  It’s primarily a holiday, not a holy day.  We’ve changed the meaning and the message, softened it’s story that is much too stuffy for our wants.  What’s more, Christmas can’t be about change or repentance, because Christmas is about doing things just like we always done them, right?  It’s about putting up the tree and putting on the decorations.  It’s about children, family gatherings, food, festivities, music, warm services and celebration.   As the fatherly character Tevye sang over and over in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”: It’s about “TRADITION!”  Christmas is supposed to be about keeping these wonderful cultural, family and religious traditions.  These ‘traditions’ are heart-warming and nostalgic, as they remind us of home, hearth, and happier days.  A Christmas most wished for is a Christmas that reminds us of what it used to be, and should be for our children, just as it was or should have been for us.   

There is a lot to love about Christmas and its traditions.  No one would want to take away from the beauty of the season---even its childlike focus and fun.   Christmas is about the birth of a child, but this child, we must also know, was born for more than fun, happy, or sentimental reasons.   So, to get the whole picture of Christmas, we also need to hear John’s side of the story and to contemplate his very important message.   If we don’t include John’s serious and solemn part of the story, all our celebrating becomes shallow, superficial and artificial.   

ANOTHER SIDE TO CHRISTMAS

Luke’s focus on John’s message centers around this very impressive question every preacher likes to hear after the sermon: “What then should we do?”  (Luke 3.10).  After John calls upon his listeners to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (3.8), the people basically ask what does repentance look like.  John’s answer is not churchy at all, but it’s very practical.  In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."   Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?"   He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you. "Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."  (Luk 3:11-14 NRS).“

However you view Christmas, however you view religion and church, these are not our normal answers to “what should we do” are they?   What would it take to get us interested in this other side of Christmas? 

It would take a lot, wouldn’t it?  It might take a Hurricane blasting through your world!  It might take having your house set on fire and losing everything.  It might take losing your job or some other shocking event to shake you into considering this other side of Christmas.   You might have to be left out in the cold, without a coat, before you consider others who have none.  You might have to experience a Christmas with no food on your own table, before you think about sharing your table with someone.   You might have to be “soldier” experiencing the ravages of war before you understand just how hate, evil and injustice is out there.   It might take some realization of what happens when people get greedy, before we understand what we can lose. 

Can we see this ‘other’ side of Christmas from where we are standing? Is it not closer than ever before?

John sees the world differently than most of us have ever seen it.  This is also why John sees Christmas differently.   John sees Christmas from the point of view of the voiceless, the disadvantaged, the struggling, the poor and the suffering.   From this side of things, Christmas always looks different and it’s sometimes hard to look at, especially when all we want for Christmas is for fun.  Why spoil the fun, right? 

When Teresa and I were missionaries, for 5 of six years, we were away from home at Christmas.  We couldn’t go to the normal Christmas events---the family gatherings, the church services, the American traditions—No Rudolf, No Charlie Brown, No Miracle on 34^th Street.    We had to learn to be, just us, alone at Christmas.

One year, our second year of living in the eastern part of Germany, Teresa had a great idea.  We lived in a town filled with political refugees from all over the world.  Sometimes they would show up at our church.  So, what did Teresa do, but she invited a couple of those refugees who were also alone, to share our table at Thanksgiving and at Christmas.   One of them was a Romanian and the other was African.  It was a moment sort of like answering John the Baptizer, “Whoever has food must share with anyone who has none”.

I remember specifically, how I said a prayer and we started eating our delicious meal that Teresa had prepared.   The young man from Africa, named John, just stared at his plate.   “Do you not like this kind of food”, we asked him.   “Of course, it’s fine!”  “Are you O.K.?”  We asked again.   “Yes,” John answered, “It’s just that I don’t know where my family is!   Here I am, with all this in front of me, and I don’t know whether my wife and children are even alive!”    I had to flee!   I had to run for my life!   It’s so hard to eat, when I don’t know.  I feel so guilty!”

What does John say to this?  What do you say when you share your food and they still can’t eat it?  I’ll tell you what John says.   John says, “I baptize you with water, but the one who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”   Here we were, gathered around that table, and everything we thought about Christmas was on fire.   It was a baptism of fire—the fire of God’s Spirit.   We were all trying to eat, and God was baptizing us with the Holy Spirit.

A REAL SPIRIT  WITHIN

What kind of “baptism” is this?   A lot of people get confused about the ‘Baptism of the Holy Spirit”.   They think it some kind of unique religious experience that God only gives special people who are good enough, right enough, religious enough.   Others think it is some kind of “out-of-the-body” other worldly experience of God’s grace.  But what we discovered and what I think John was preaching, is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is nothing more and nothing less than a baptism in to reality.  It is not to rise above how things are, but it is to dive into seeing life as it really is, and not just seeing it as we would like to see it.   It is that baptism of the water that becomes a baptism of fire when people realize who they are and how they are, and even how they aren’t, and then ask themselves, “What should we do?”  “How should we respond”, not just saying, “What’s in all this for me?   For you see, you don’t get to this “fire” of Christmas, without also looking straight into the pain, the suffering and the hurt others have, and that you can help answer.   This is the Baptism of Fire which can come as a time of questioning, testing and trial.   Christmas is warm, but that warmth can also burn.  Here I’m reminded of my daughter’s own words, some of her very first, when we adopted her in November.  She was only 16 months old.  She walked up a Christmas candle, stared straight into it, put her hand close and then she said,  “Ahnie, burn!  Meaning, that will burn!   “Yes, dear, Christmas is warm, but it can also burn.

In our text, John says to the people, “I can only baptize you with water….”   John really can’t make them understand the need to look into this fiery side of Christmas.   The burning of the fire can only come from THE ONE who is coming---THE ONE who is more powerful.   He’s the one who brings the fire.   John says, “I am not able to even untie his sandals as a slave would do.”   This baptism of fire, the real fire of life, can only come when you let HIM baptize and burn his truth into your heart.

We talk a lot at Christmas about the difficulty that some of us have, getting into the Christmas spirit.   Sometimes we are like Ebenezer Scrooge.  Bah Humbug!  It will take a lot to move us, excite us, stir us.  We’ve seen too much and know too much to get excited about Christmas.  Some of us want Christmas to hurry up and get over with.   It isn’t yet here, but we are ready to move on.   It’s understandable.  Some of us are setting there with John at that table.  We have have too much reality to get into what people call the Christmas “spirit.”   It’s so artificial.  It’s so shallow.   We’ve seen too much.  We just can’t manufacture Christmas anymore.  The Christmas that was, just can’t “bless us” anymore.  Instead of warming us, the ways and season of Christmas can leave us feeling as if we have been left out in the cold.   The fire is gone.  Our wood is wet.  No matter what we turn on to spark the flame, it gets quickly extinguished.

Perhaps this is even more of a reason we need God’s fire this Christmas.   We need a fire that still burns when all other flames have burned out.  We need a spark that will ignite our frustrations into feelings that fill our empty spirits with new life.   Do we feel a need for God’s fire, at Christmas?

Herod didn’t.   You can read what he did when he heard about John’s preaching.   When John’s preaching got into Herod’s heart, he didn’t like it.  So, what did Herod the ruler do?   He shut John up by putting him away in prison (3.20).   Why did Herod do that?  Was it any different than what we too might do, when we like to be in charge of our own kingdom and our own life?   Herod was his own person.   Herod had his own way.  Herod wasn’t going to let God’s fire get into him.   He wasn’t going to let God get a word in edgewise.  Like many, too many this Christmas, Herod already had his plans, and he wasn’t going to let any fiery preacher or God of fire, upset his applecart.   He would live his life without anyone else’s recommendations.   While most of us would take Christmas to be “good news”, John took Christmas to mean something else.   He rightly understood that the this message of John laid the “axe at the root” of his own tree, but Herod was not going to let anyone pick up that axe; and he definitely wasn’t going to pick it up himself.

FANNING THE FLAME

We all know what Herod was not going to do.  He was not going let the fire burn in him.  He was not going to pick up the axe that was laid at his own tree.  He was going to shut up reality in a prison.  He was not going to face how things really were, nor was he going to do anything to let the fire get close to him.    But I hope you are not like Herod.  You don’t want to shut Christmas away.  You face a hard reality, but you still want to feel the warmth of the flame.  You want to see the fire, so you ask yourself, in spite of how things are, who I am, or what’s real, is there any way you can move toward or re-light the Christmas fire in your heart?  John, what then should we do?

When I was pastor in Shelby, back in the 80’s, I was part of the Kings Mountain Baptist Association.   Rev. Bob Davis had established a social ministry in that area; the first one in North Carolina, called a “Toy Store” ministry.   Annually we churches got involved by collecting toys for needy families so they could have some way to celebrate Christmas.   We wanted them to give some gifts, and we wanted to share our love.

It was a very successful event.  We collected much  more than toys and we interviewed families, shared our faith, counseled them, and it all made Christmas real for us, as much as it made it possible for them.

I encouraged my church to get involved.   We all had what we needed, and some people did not have that.  Some were enthused to work in the ministry.  Others felt it was a bother to their own family time and traditions.   But I’ll never forget how one Sunday School teacher and class responded.   They got involved with the toy store ministry, but they wanted to go deeper.   The decided, as a Sunday School class, to adopt their own needy family, not just for Christmas, but for the whole year.   They learned a lot of hard things about life, about poverty, and about caring that  year.  They learned a lot of things they did not know.  They also learned that a lot of things they had believed about people was wrong.   But what one lady named Lynn learned, was the most amazing witness of all.   It was a witness to the real fire of Christmas.   She told me, that never again could she or her class ever have a Christmas party again, without inviting, adopting or helping a family in need.  Christmas was not Christmas, unless they all jumped into the fire of people’s needs, hurts, pains and problems.  Without this Christmas was not warm enough.  Without doing something put them into reality, Christmas was just not Christmas.   I think that Sunday School class had a “baptism by fire”.  

Do you remember what the disciples came to Jesus and asked?  James and John came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”   That’s what a lot of people think Christmas is, or what Jesus is.   They think Jesus gives me “whatever” they ask.   So they ask Jesus, just like the Zebedee sons did: “Grant us, that we sit on your right and on your left in the kingdom?”  When they get what they want, they think the Kingdom has come.   But Jesus thinks otherwise.  Then, Jesus then turns to them, saying, “You don’t realize what you are saying?  Are you able to “drink the cup” and be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with! 

“We are able! They answered.  Sarcastically, or ironically Jesus answers:  “Oh Yes, you will be baptized with my baptism” (Mar 10:39-40 NRS) but it’s not at all what you think. 

“Whoever wants to be great, must be a servant…whoever wishes to the first, must be a slave.”   And whoever wants the true warmth of Christmas has to first be baptized with the fire---the very same fire that burns with the pain of this world is the very same fire than can make your Christmas real.  But if you want to get warm, the word says, you must move closer to the fire.

John’s final picture of this Christmas fire is unforgettable.  John says that only one who can baptize you and I with this fire has, “His winnowing fork is in his hand…”  (17).   In the ancient world, when they were threshing wheat, someone would build a fire, fan the flame, and then someone would use a pitchfork-like instrument, especially made for wheat---a winnowing fork, to toss the wheat into the air so the wheat would be thrown into the direction of the granary, but and the worthless chaff or husk would then be blown away straight toward the fire.   As one has rightly commented, we wrongly think of the devil as having the pitchfork of authority, when all power and authority really belongs to Jesus Christ.   (http://hyperactivetheology.blogspot.com, May 15, 2011).

What Christ allows to come through the fire, will not burn you, but it will burn in you.   It is a flame that will not just make you warm, but it will make you alive.  When you let God’s fire burn in you, this flame that burns for others, it will not just make your Christmas alive, it will make your family alive, and it will make you alive.   When Christmas is more than getting what you want, this is when, and only when, Christmas can give us all what we really need---a world set on fire, and baptized with a spirit of love, purpose, mission and hope.   The only kind of Christmas fire that lasts is the fire that will burn within our hearts, as our hearts burn with the loving Spirit of God.  This is only way to truly warm you heart, and set your faith on fire this Christmas. 

Anybody got a match?  Anybody care to fan the flame?  Anybody realize what you can do to feel the fire, Gods fire, this Christmas?  John knows.  You can know too.  Amen.  

Gone Speechless

A Sermon Based Upon Luke 1: 5-20

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2012

“He kept making signs to them and remained speechless. (Luke 1:22 CSB)” 

Silence is as not as golden as it used to be.   Much of the activity of our world depends on making a lot of noise and a lot of talk.      

We seem to have a great need for noise, and more noise.   What do most of us do when we get up in the morning?  We want to hear.   We want to hear the morning news.  And the daily news we want to hear depends on somebody saying something.  The 24/7 cable news is a non-stop business of talking and noise-making.   Noise gets our attention.  It makes news, sells books, and makes an impact.  All this noise has created a need for even more noise.     

The Christmas season makes its own kind of noise.  What would Christmas be without the sounds of the season---the singing of carols, the warm greetings of good cheer, and of course, the message of “good news” which we believe will make us most happy?  Christmas is all about making THE most joyful noise, right?   Not so fast. 

GONE SPEECHLESS IN FAITH

According to Luke, the most important Christmas story-teller, the very first Christmas miracle does not make a sound.  It was kind of a very odd, silent, and even negative miracle--a kind of miracle in reverse.  The first miracle of Christmas was the very odd occurrence of a preacher who can’t talk.   Preachers don’t like this miracle.  But we should have known it was coming, because before there could be a “holy night”, there had to be a “silent night”.   Before we can get to the core of Christmas, we need to hear this silence.   “Jingle Bells” can’t be heard until the preaching stops.

Don’t you remember how true this was when you were a child?   When we would gather at Teresa’s grandmothers on Christmas Eve, before we opened the presents, we first had to get still and listen to Maw Maw Pauline read the Christmas story.  Children had to be taught to endure these moments of stillness at a very young age or else, they couldn’t stand it.   They fun can’t start, until the talking stops.

Needless to say, putting a “dumb”, speechless preacher ahead of the Christmas story proves that Luke wasn’t a preacher.  Tradition says he was a medical doctor.  No preacher or prophet would put such a story up front.   Mark skips Christmas altogether.  John doesn’t tell this story, he starts with the “Word”.   Even Matthew, who does talk Christmas, doesn’t dare tell this story.  He gets right talking about Jesus.   But Luke decides to start with a speechless preacher, just standing there, looking all kinds of silly.    

The scene is even funny.   Zachariah comes out the inner most sanctuary to make his normal speech and can’t speak.  He starts waving his arms.  He keeps on waving his arms.  People are wondering what is going on.  They know something is not right, but since Zachariah is a good priest and a good man, they give him the benefit of a doubt.  “He’s seen a vision”.  If they only knew that what had happened, but all good ole preacher Zach could do was wave his arms and look “dumb”.  No wonder they called his son a Baptist!

 This whole scene is filled with humor, but it’s not funny.  A year or so ago, a prominent Pastor in Greensboro announced to his congregation that he had to retire early to go on disability.   In the process of having surgery to repair a hernia, they removed his breathing tube and damaged his vocal cords.  Now, he could only speak about 5 or 10 minutes until his voice gave out.   You might wish too!   Shame on you!  Being a preacher, you need to talk a little longer, so he had to file for disability.   He must have had a good lawyer.  

If you are a preacher or a church goer, this story speechlessness has serious repercussions.   The silence of Zachariah can be deafening.   It can have more silence than we may want to hear.  

Zachariah’s story began with angel appearing.   Even for the Bible, and for a priest, having an angel appear is not normal.   “Fear overwhelmed him” (1.12).  While shaking in fear, Zachariah is told by this angel that his wife Elizabeth will bear (him) a son to be named John.  Birth stories have been told, but who would think it could happen to you.   The angel tells Zachariah:  “This child will be great in the sight of the LORD” (1.15). “He will turn many of the people of Israel to the LORD their God” (1.16) and “with the Spirit of Elijah” (the great prophet), he will “turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the LORD.” (1.17). 

Again, Zachariah is not “underwhelmed”, he is “overwhelmed” (1.12).  His negative response shows us a very human side this well-respected priest:  “How will I know this is so?  I am an old man, my wife is getting on in years” (1.18).   While it would be nice to read the story from the outside, Luke takes us on the inside; inside the church, inside the parsonage and inside the heart.   But perhaps we can understand a little of Zechariah’s cynicism.   He’s an old man.   He’s been around the block a few times.  He’s an expert in all the things that pertain to God.   He knows too much to get caught up in all this revelatory excitement. 

If it sounds too good to be true, it normally is.  That is the norm, and of all people the priest knows it, even if he can’t talk about it.  People might fall for it, but not him.   He’s seen too much and gotten too smart.   We know too, that though millions buy lottery tickets, only one person wins.  You have a better chance to be struck by lightning.   Most people stay poor and even those who do win, can’t manage all that money.  Life is bent in a “same ole, same ole” direction and is mostly downhill.   As I heard someone say recently, “The golden years aren’t so golden!”  But don’t blame Zachariah or his age for his negativism.  As a priest, he has experience.  He’s seen the worst side of life.  He hears about all the sins.  He hears all the prayers and knows that most seem unanswered.  You can’t fool him and you probably can’t help him much either.  If Zachariah has a voice left, it’s negative. 

  

Several years ago, when living in Greensboro, we bought our first house.  I was forty-two and finally had a house to call my own and also, I was learning about all the responsibilities with homeownership.  One day I got a letter in the mail, telling me my homeowner’s insurance was about to be canceled.   I called my insurance agent.  He said it was because I had a large crack in my driveway where a root had pushed up the concrete and made it too hazardous.  I could not believe they would cancel my insurance over a root.  I protested to the agent and he understood.  He said all this was done by an inexperienced adjuster who drove buy, took a picture and filed a hasty report.   He’s probably trying to make a name for himself.   He cited the concern that someone would visit me, get out of their car, fall and sue.   I told the agent to tell the company not to worry.  “I’m a preacher,  nobody ever comes to see a preacher. ” 

GONE SPEECHLESS FOR FAITH

I should have kept my mouth shut.   When life turns negative, we often become negative too.   You can lose your voice for God and for good, even when you are still talking.   For a preacher, negativity is a special hazard, even though we are called to preach “good news”.   Bad news just works better.  Sin sells.   Gossip works better than gospel.   Any of us can get hooked into such negativity.  Christians can sound more negative than positive.  Have you ever been in a church where the tone of the preacher’s sermon and the Amens of the congregation make the bad news sound more exciting than the good?   If you are Baptist, you probably grew up in a Zachariah kind of church which spent much more energy talking about what was wrong with the world rather than talking about what is right about God.  Is there any wonder many people don’t want to talk to Christians, who are so much better at talking about what they are against, rather than what they are for?  Is there any wonder it has gotten harder to talk about our faith to the world?   Who wants to listen to our negativity with all else they hear?  Christians often seem just as negative, domineering, pushy, extremist, uncaring, unkind, or snobbish as anyone else, or worse.   We can make “mountains” of issues out of mole hills.  We can strain the gnats and swallow camels.   We can see the splinter in the eye of another, but miss the log in our own.  We can get so big about our own viewpoints we can no longer walk through the eyes of needles in our discussions about faith.  It’s our way or the highway and most people take the trip away from us.     

Sometimes the best word we can have is to stop talking, at least at first.  Speaking up isn’t always the best way to share our faith.  When we get stuck in the negative, judgmental ways of seeing things, people don’t want hear us just like the angel did not want to hear Zechariah.   Like him, before we can rightly share our faith, we may need to lose our voice.   We might then come to realize that we’ve already lost our voice, because we’ve already lost our faith.   More might be will be believed, understood or revealed, if we would just be quiet and listen.  James was in this same kind of Christmas spirit when he said, “Be slow to speak, and quick to listen.” 

Hearing and seeing Zechariah’s lack of faith, the angel identifies himself.  “I’m Gabriel.  I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news, BUT….”  It is this very “good news” which Zechariah has difficulty trusting and believing.   The very “presence of God” is speaking, but Zechariah can’t grasp it.  As a priestly voice for God, he must be held accountable.   “Because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur” (1.19-20).   The priest must now lose his voice so he can regain his faith.

What happens next is both comical and sad.  Zechariah comes out to stand before the people to give his normal message.  But he can’t speak.  The people are somewhat sympathetic, claiming he’s had some sort of vision.   Zechariah knows it’s much more than that, but he can’t speak.   He has all these things to say, but he can’t get it out.  He waves his arms.  He stands there. There’s all kinds of deafening silence.  Some people take a deep breath.  Others probably catch themselves chuckling.  Maybe some dare to laugh out loud.  With the time of worship gone, Zechariah just goes home, without saying a word.  Everyone goes home.  They all worshipped but none of the knew it.  They had a real sermon, but no one said or heard a word.  God was at work, but he was at work in all this silence.  By taking away the voice, God was at giving them a new faith.

HEARING GOD’S VOICE BEYOND OUR OWN

The good part of Zechariah’s speechlessness is what he didn’t say until God spoke.  We read that it was on the 8^th day, when they “came to circumcise the child” (1.59), and they all were going to name him.  Zechariah still couldn’t speak.  The naming of the child was going to happen the same way, the way it was always done, after the old traditions.  If God was going to bless this child, everybody thought, this child had to have the family name.  He had to fit the mold.  He had to take name after his Father? Right?  Wrong.  It was Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, who needed to speak up, if God was going to speak.  Sometimes, and especially at Christmas, if God is going to get a word in edgewise, a woman needs to speak up.    

Zechariah’s household was a good house, but it had become a house filled with too much negativity.  So the very next word we hear in Zechariah’s house is not his own voice, but it’s the voice of his wife.  Elizabeth’s very next word breaks all the negativity and all unbelief at home, when she speaks up with the voice of God in her heart and answers, “No”!   He is to be called John.”   Of course, the people argue with her.  “None of your relatives have this name.”  She doesn’t give in.  She stands her ground.  So, in a man’s world, what do they do, but they go to Zechariah’s, who still can’t speak.  They’d rather hear the opinion of a dumb preacher than a woman who speaks her own mind, or especially God’s mind.   They motion for Zechariah, the dumb preacher to have the final say so in naming this child.  “What name do you want to give the child, Zechariah?” 

Zechariah takes a writing tablet and wrote: “His name is John”.  When that man listened to his wife, he started listening and agreeing with God.  They were all amazed.  They were amazed that he agreed with his wife, against all the traditions, their customs, and against his own ego.  It was then, we read, that “immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. “  When Zechariah listened for the voice of God through his wife, he regained his voice for God.

This is not a women’s liberation sermon, it’s a human liberation sermon.  Sometimes we can’t hear God’s voice, until we lose our own.  Sometimes God speaks through a woman.  Sometimes God speaks through the man.   Sometimes God speaks through a no.  And sometimes God speaks the loudest through the silence.  But the truth of Zechariah’s story is clearly this:  We can’t hear what God has to say, until we lose our own voice.   Losing our voice is a first step to regain true faith.  If we will listen for God’s true voice first, then we find a new chance to speak “good news” for God. 

Do you hear what Zechariah went on to say and to sing, when he gets this second chance?   Now, he “blesses the LORD God of Israel….who has raised up a mighty savior….” (1.68)   It is not by big noisy ways, but by still, small ways, that God will “show mercy”, and “rescue” (1.72-73).   It is by “the forgiveness of sins” (1.77) and “by the tender mercies of our God, that the dawn will break upon us---to give light to us who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death” (1.78).   Only when Zechariah let’s God speak, can he come to know that when most talk war, that only God “will guide our feet into the way of peace”  God can and will give any of us a second chance, if we are willing to let God work in a new way.   Will you lose your voice, opinions, attitudes and beliefs to find the true voice of God still trying to speak?   It’s no small wonder what you can say, when you lose your voice and go speechless.  Amen.  

SKYFALL

A Sermon Based Upon Luke 21: 25-36

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2012

“Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”.  (v. 27)

Clouds aren’t what they used to be.   Today we don’t just talk about “clouds” in the sky but we also speak about ‘iclouds’.  These “iclouds” are those places in cyberspace where you can store personal information about yourself, your work, your music or your movies, all safely stored away somewhere out there in appledom (who invented the icloud), where it will be protected from any evil, earthly virus that makes your computer come crashing down.  It can also store all your stuff until you want to download it to a new computer, cell-phone, or laptop.  No matter where you are or when you need it you can access all your stuff.  One major concern about all the gathering information in cyberspace is that we will die, but all that “cyberstuff” will live on in an “cloud” until somebody finds it and pushes “delete”.   All your stuff survives, even when its owners don’t.       

Our text for this Advent also speaks of a “cloud”.   The picture Jesus gives us is not about a computer that comes crashing down, but of a world that comes crashing down.  The only thing that survives and brings any hope is that the “Son of Man” will survive and come “in a cloud with great power and glory”.   When the world crumbles so that “one stone is not left upon another; and all is thrown down” and when even the “heavens will be shaken” the only power and glory remaining comes from this “cloud” which holds all human hope for redemption.  Of course, all this “cloud” talk, is metaphoric “end of the world” talk.   It’s strange talk, but it’s true.  Like the advent of “iclouds” or “Son of Man clouds”, the truth can be stranger than fiction.  

THE END THAT ALREADY CAME

When Jesus speaks about the “Son of Man coming in a cloud” he is talking apocalyptic.  He is talking about an an “end” that has already came in “his world”.   The clues about this are all around in this mysterious text.   When Jesus says, “not one stone will be left upon another” he is speaking specifically about the destruction of the temple.  Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans about 40 years after Jesus spoke these words.  Jesus saw the end coming sooner, rather than later and said: “This generation will not pass away, until this is fulfilled”.  That is exactly how it happened.  

Another clue of when this all happened comes  when Jesus says, “but before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you…”   By the time Luke’s gospel was written, all kinds of Christians had been arrested, persecuted and killed.  Stephen was stoned.  James was shot with an arrow.  Peter was hung upside down.  Paul was beheaded…and the list goes on.  The whole history of the early church is filled with the blood of the martyrs which, as we all know, became the seed of the church.   “You will be hated by all, but not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls” (v. 18-19). 

Those who followed Jesus had hardships.  Many who were his disciples, died.  But the church didn’t die. Nor did the church lose its soul.  With the promised and predicted persecution, the church only got stronger and stronger, and grew more and more.  This is one of the true “wonders” of the ancient world; how the church was built around a crucified, defeated Jesus, who was worshipped by a people who were constantly hated, attacked, ridiculed and even killed for their faith.  It sounds impossible that the message or mission of the church could have survived, but it did. 

Yet another indication of 'when' this happened is understood from Jesus’ military warning: “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you’ll know…..” (vs. 20).  He’s speaking directly about the Roman invasion of Jerusalem in 70 AD which gave us Masada and the diaspora---the tragic death of the last Jewish hold-outs and the scattering of the Jewish people over the whole earth.   This is how the Jewish people became a people without a country for most of their history, at least until 1948.   The descriptions Jesus gave are utterly realistic about the terrors of war, invasion and the chaos that always follows: “Those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it….for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment…. Woe to those who are pregnant….there will be great distress….they will fall by the edge of the sword…they will be taken away captive among all nations….(remember two will be a mill, and one will be taken, the other left).  Those who live and die will be random and  unpredictable.   It will all seem so meaningless, but this is what will happen when “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles….until the time of the Gentiles will be fulfilled” (v. 24).

“That is how the world will end, that is how the world will end, said the poet, T.S. Elliot, not with a bang, but with a whimper.”   Well, it all depends how who you are.  For some people, especially the rich, there is a very big bang when their world falls apart.  But for others, especially the poor, the end often comes like a fading recording, as life becomes fainter until the end whimpers----everything unwinds unnoticed, just as their lives always are, until everything is gone never to return.  Things will never be the same.   Even though some survive, everything is different.  And as Jesus described their feelings.  It wasn’t just that earth that was shaking, but it was also the “heavens” that shook (26).  When describing the end that came, Jesus hit the proverbial nail right on the head.

THE END THAT IS STILL COMING

I guess many might read this passage and say, who cares? That’s how it was, but that’s not how it is now, and has nothing to do with today or our future, right?  Oh, how we wish, the end would never come, right?   

We wish for all kinds of things in life.   Remember as a child how you were asked, if you found a Genie in a bottle what 3 things would you wish for?  If you were smart, your last wish was always for 3 more wishes.  We wish life itself did not have an ending---and could go on, and on, and on forever.  Eternity seems to be in our “hearts”.  We wish worlds, nations, and other human projects and dreams would not end.   But the Bible tells us the truth about life, not what we wish or deny to be true.  What happened then, can happen again today also, and will.  History has a funny way of repeating itself, doesn't it.   Dejavu happens.   Stuff happens.  Life happens.  Death happens.  Way too much in this passage is exactly how things always happen when “worlds” falls apart.   Wars.  Disasters.  Intolerance.  Persecution.  Marching Armies.  Trampled cities.  People fleeing as refugees.  People fainting for fear.  We haven’t known much of this here it here in America, at least not yet, but Europe has, Asia has, Africa has, South and Central America has, and still do.  We can also add that we haven't or hadn't known much poverty and hunger right in our own neighborhoods too, but  now we do.  Things do fall apart.  Who would have figured the Arab spring, or who would have thought about the Halloween Hurricane?  It’s not so hard to imagine “what” might happen, but it’s much harder to imagine “when” or “who” it will happen to next, but it will happen.  “You can bet your bottom dollar, it will,” my mother used to say.   How did she know?   The end comes, it will always come.

When people run websites and write books about the coming end, which sell like hot cakes, the fear is there---it’s always there.   Much of the predictions are ridiculous.  Much of the books, even the interpretations of the Bible are just plain ludicrous.  Imaginations and predictions can run wild, very wild.  What is even more frightening is to know that the end can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy for us.  If we think too much about it, we can even make it so.   This is why Jesus also warns us:  “Beware that you not be led astray…. the end will not come immediately…..Nation will rise up against nation…You will be hated because of my name….  the Son of Man will come….Heaven and earth will pass away….   Jesus speaks with caution, but he still speaks very plainly that end of life will happen to all of us, as he says: “For it will come upon all who live upon the face of the whole earth.”

A few years ago, most of us could who are over 50 would never have imagined that the end was right under our noses when we were children, and we didn't even realize it.   It wasn't long after the great victory of World War II, and then came all these close calls such as the Vietnam War or the Cuban Missile crisis.  I was alive then, but too young to realize just how near the end we all were.   On a recent News Documentary about the Cuban Missile Crisis, they told how Bobby Kennedy knew how close we were to the end and he asked his children if they wanted to leave Washington and go to California, but they all refused.  We were just that close to oblivion   Right after that, who could have imagined a President murdered in cold blood.   Just like none of us could have imagined 911 on such a crystal clear September morning.  Neither could we have imagined the crash on Wall Street—a second time, or maybe still, a third.  Most are deep into denial, and most have trouble imagining that the end might come, not just to the world, but also to us.  I could have never imagined being seriously injured in a car wreck at 17 and having to suffer the results all my life.  Who can imagine that an end will come to us?  But it can---no, it will.  And this is this is exactly where Jesus is going with all this.  “For it will come upon all who live….”  

Are you alive?  Does your life have a beginning?  It will also have an end.  You, as a physical, breathing, living human being will have an end, no matter how hard this is to face or imagine.  Now I know, that I sound a lot like “chicken little” running around calling out that the sky is falling, the sky is falling, when it’s not hitting us on the head, at least not yet.  But it could.  The sky may not fall anytime soon, but it can and some day it will.   We live is a physical, energy expending, endlessly expanding, and constantly changing universe that does not remain the same, though it may appear differently.  The only only true constant we never want to admit is change; changes are happening all the time.  We all have beginnings which will have endings.   

ALWAYS HAVING THE END IN VIEW

Facing reality is difficult for busy or very “distracted” people to get our heads or our hearts around, but we  must.  Jesus does not tell his disciples all this simply to make them afraid, but he is helping them face reality---their reality---the world’s reality---life’s reality.  Jesus tells them this to get them ready, mentally, physically and spiritually.   He does not want to scare them.  Fear is already present.  But Jesus wants to warn them, and to prepare them so they can save both their lives and their souls.  

Listen, to what Jesus prepares them, when he says, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded….you must flee to the mountains….leave the city.”  Can you hear what Jesus is saying?   He is saying: Don’t fight against it.   When the end comes, this is not a time to fight, to hold on, or to defend, but this is a time to “give up” and to go and “run for your life”.  We don’t like to hear that kind of talk.  Jews didn’t like to hear it either.  Many of them held out on Masada and died.   To mimic Kenny Rogers Gambler song: "They knew when to hold them, but not when to fold them, when to walk away or when to run."  They could have run and lived.   Sometimes things in the world fall apart.  And you have to learn to let go.   You have to stop fighting against everything.  Sometimes you have to find somewhere to go and to give up.   In a ending situation, this will be the best resort and not the worst thing that will happen.  When the end comes, you have to “let go” and 'let God'!

Most of us have been there when someone is terminally ill and is near death.  We’ve been there when some have held on and even other family members have begged their loved one, selfishly, “Don’t leave, Don’t leave me!  We understand such feelings, but it’s often not in the dying person’s best interest.  Sometimes we have to tell our loved ones it’s O.K. to let go---that we are going to be O.K., and that they are O.K., and that everything is in God’s hands.  We give them permission and they give us permission to “let go and let God”.  That can be a blessing.  What is a curse, is to hold on, and on, unless there is a specific purpose.  I remember how a lady had a heart attack and was lying in the cardiac unit in Charlotte.  They called me.  I got there first.  She was still holding on.   Then, not long after me, her daughter got there.  We went in to say goodbye to her mother together.  Right as we were exiting the door, I heard the flat-line alarm go off.  I had worked in a hospital, and had been around it often.  The daughter had not.  We set down in the waiting room, and it wasn’t but just a couple of minutes they came and told us she was gone.  She was holding on, and there was a purpose.  When she knew her daughter had come, she let go.  

One day we will have to let go too.   They say that 90 percent of health care costs, come in the last year of life.  Do you know why?  We want to finance immortality.  But this can't be done.  Sometime or other, we all have to let go and let God.  And isn't this what Jesus is getting at?  Whether it be letting go of loved ones, letting go of dreams, letting go of worlds or ideas---they will have their rise and their growth, but they will also have their decline and their fall.  This is not at all 'fun' or 'pleasant' to think about, but the surprise of our text is that right here when “things” are falling apart, end, and come crumbling down something good, great, powerful and even more glorious is taking place.  This “ending” is not a time to bow or bury your head and die, but Jesus says, that with God, even endings can be times of new beginnings:  “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not.”   “For the powers of the heavens, will be shaken.. But “then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”.   “Now when these begin to take place, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Who would have thought, that when things fall apart, new things can come together—be renewed, reborn, or made new?  Who would have thought it, but this is exactly the new world the Bible invites us to enter and to prepare ourselves for.  The Bible calls us to trust in a God that allows worlds to come and go, but he is also the same God who builds new ones and shows us how to save ourselves for them.  But these new worlds that God can bring to us are not automatic.  They don’t come on their own.   They only come when we prepare for them and ready ourselves for them.   If we hold on, or if we don’t anticipate this new world, we can be find ourselves “trapped” in the old one, when the new one has arrived.

One of the terms we hear a lot these days, is the title of a T.V. show, called “The New Normal”.  Now, there’s a lot of me that would protest to the this idea of “The New Normal.”  I’m sure I’m showing my age and my own personal prejudices when I share with you how much I despise that idea.   The whole concept frightens me.  But these new “normals” do come, don’t they?  When we lose a loved one, or spouse, there is a “new normal”.   When we recover from surgery, things are not the same, but there is a “new normal”.   When elections are lost or won, there is a “new normal”.   But even this “new normal” might not last that long until it also quickly becomes an “old normal”.   The “new normal” of our time, can last about as long as a new cell phone or computer.   It is quickly outdated.  

What Jesus wants his disciples to understand is that when things fall apart, there is not simply a “new normal” but there is a new chance to get “near” and close to God’s Kingdom, which is still always coming, but not yet here.  God’s kingdom is not a new normal, but the absolutely new “abnormal”.   It is the very ‘odd’, surprising, coming completely new world, we can 'only imagine', but we do have glimpes of when it ‘peaks” through the endings we face in our own lives or worlds.     

Lately, there have been several new claims, even by medical doctors about the afterlife.  Several doctors have claimed to have died and visited a “world” beyond this world.  There messages are reassuring to many, but they are not new.  Such visions are as old as the Bible and even before.  Humans have always been able to get glimpses of new beginnings, new worlds, and new normals or abnormals, if you want to call them that.  When we allow God to give us those visions, or when we stay alert,  we humans have a way of finding hope, seeing, lifting up our heads, and finding redemption, even in the midst of crumbling, falling, and dying worlds. 

But Jesus reminds his listeners, that this redemption is not ever automatic.   We must prepare ourselves for what might come.  We have to learn to read the signs.   We have to be “on guard” with our hearts.   We can’t let the worries of this life, “weigh us down” and make us hold on to the very things that are falling apart.   To hold on, we can get trapped, and end up waiting to what is going down, to snag us and take us down with it.  No, you need learn to “let go”, “flee”, to “stay alert”, keep praying, and “to find the strength to escape all these things”.  

Amazingly, but not accidentally, yet intentionally and deliberately, we can “escape” these things that are ending, dying, or falling apart, by getting ourselves ready to “stand before the Son of Man”.   We must prepare hearts to be with Jesus, the eternal one, when any of the temporary worlds of our life, even the world of our own life, comes to end.   Nothing in this world is forever, and neither are we.  Nothing is forever, except the eternal “words” of God and the “world” of the kingdom that comes near in Jesus. 

When we stay close to Jesus, we keep this end in view and we keep seeing the coming new world, which can’t help but break through when our worlds end, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of Our LORD, and of his Christ.   This kingdom is always just around the corner, for both me and for you.  “Be on guard”.  “Stay alert.”  “The Son of Man is coming in a cloud with power and with great glory.”  “Raise up your heads, redemption is near.”  Amen.

Is Your Sin My Business?

A sermon based upon Ezekiel 33: 1-20

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

November 18^th, 2012, Disciple Series, 11 of 17.

During our mission work in Germany, my family were making a visit to a family in the city.  It was a snowy day.  But since it snows a lot in eastern Germany, you go on about your business no matter the weather.

On this day, the snow had already accumulated on the car, and I reached to scoop a big handful to throw a snowball at my 5 year old daughter.  Just as I released my load, I heard a voice from above saying to me in German: “Machen Sie Dass Nicht!”  “Don’t do that!”   I turned to look up and a woman was leaning out of an apartment window about 4 stories up.  She saw me scoop up the snow off the top of the car.  As I realized what was happening, I answered back to her in German,

“It’s O.K. ma’am.  It’s my car.”    Hearing my answer, she closed the window and I proceeded to make my visit.

What business did that lady have policing the city streets telling me what I could or couldn’t do?    I couldn’t imagine something like this happening in America.  This lady really felt it was her social responsibility to protect everyone’s car down on the street.   Wouldn’t we frown upon anyone sticking their nose in our business?  

This brings us to today’s message: Is it my business as a preacher or as your pastor to tell you when I see you commit a sin?  The shoe fits the other way too, doesn’t it?  Is it your business to tell me if you see me in a sin?  Is your sin my business?  Is my sin your business?

WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT?

The most automatic response would be: “Mind your own business, preacher!” But before we all get “huffy” about it, let’s consider what God is telling the prophet in today’s Bible lesson. 

“The word of the Lord” has come to the prophet Ezekiel in a very peculiar way.   God begins this conversation with a story.  He wants the prophet to imagine what it would be like if a sentinel, a look out, were standing on the city wall and sees the enemy coming.  Most of the people in ancient world lived outside city walls and would enter when danger came.  What should that sentinel do if he sees danger coming?  Should he go about minding his business or should he sound the alarm?  The answer is obvious. If the sentinel does his job it is his business to give the warning.  Should the people not heed the warning and get slaughtered, it’s not his fault.  The guilt for their blood will be on their own heads because they choose not to take the warning seriously.   If, however, this sentinel does not do his job, when the enemy comes to kill them and they have not been rightly warned, God says, “I will require their blood, their innocent death to be upon the sentinel’s hands.”       

Ezekiel may have been thinking: Who is this Sentinel who is supposed to warn the people about their greatest enemy---not an enemy out there, but their own sin that is “lurking at the door”?   God answers: “So you, O mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel” (vs. 7).  God has made telling Israel about their “sin” the prophet’s business.   We might imagine Ezekiels’ reaction: “But…Lord, I know I should warn these people about their sins, but couldn’t this get dangerous?  It’s not only the enemy who has swords. Besides, who am I to define some of them as  the “wicked ones’ ( 33.8) as opposed to others as the “righteous ones” (33.12).   Can I or anybody, but you really get this nail this down? I know that their sin will hurt them, but their sin can also hurt me.  Are you sure this is my business, Lord?  This whole “sentinel” business can be more than just a little bit tricky! “    

A couple of years ago, it was around November, the weather was getting cooler.  Teresa and I were headed out the back door after the final worship service at Flat Rock on that bright, crisp day.   As she opened the door to walk through doorway, I looked down and a small brown and black looking snake was lying right on the threshold where the sanctuary and hallway meet.  I hesitated about whether or not to warn her.  I knew that if I warned her, she might overreact and accidently step on the snake.  If I didn’t warn her, she might step on the snake anyway, and I would feel bad because I should have told her.   What would you do?   Do you keep quiet and hope she misses the snake, or do you warn her and hope she will not step on the snake in all the excitement? 

What do you think I did?  Well, what would you have done?  Knowing how much Teresa feared snakes I didn’t want to say anything. Knowing how much I needed to warn my wife about the snake I told her, but it was right after her foot barely missed the snake.  I took the gamble not to forewarn her, and fortunately, for her sake and mine, it worked out. She missed the snake.  Then I told her I saw it coming.  She responded sharply, “Joey, why didn’t you tell me!”  As soon as it came out of her mouth, I knew that was coming.  I just smiled, very thankful it all worked out, both in her favor, and in mine.   What would have happened if I had yelled “snake!”

You and I have the same hesitation to tell each other about our faults, failures, and sins, don’t we?  We especially have that “hesitation” toward those we love.   We want to warn them.  We want to alert them.  But because we fear what their reactions might be, we let things go.   We navigate carefully.   Who am I to judge?  Who are you to point the finger?  You know something needs to be said, but you don’t want to be the one.  You don’t want to lose the relationship.   So, what do we do?  In most cases, we just wait and see what happens.  We pray that when they take the next step, they will miss the snake.

FOR OUR OWN GOOD

But Ezekiel does not have the luxury of waiting to see what may or may not happen.  The snake has already bitten Israel.  They are already in Exile.  They have already lost their nation.  There is no way back.  They believe God’s judgment has already come down on them as a people and come down hard.  But the question still on their minds is what’s next?    It’s the same kind of question many have today, as our own nation suffers economically with way too many innocent victims.  Why me?  Why now?  Does God blame us all for us for what a few of us have done?  This question always looms in the background of Ezekiel’s message.

  

Ezekiel’s job, as a sentinel, is called to shift the responsibility from the nation as a whole to the individual person, now living in exile.  It was Ezekiel’s particular “calling” to sound the alarm so that in the midst of terrible national collapse, individuals might have the opportunity to heed the warnings and ‘save their (own) lives”, even though the nation could not be saved.   It’s too late for the nation, but it’s not for people to turn back to God.  For God is not in the hurting or the killing business, nor is God in the condemning or judging business, for its own sake.  God is in the saving business. “The LORD takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel.” (v. 11).  God wants individuals to heed the warning for their own good.  God wants to save people, one person at a time.  But to do this, each person must realize their own person responsibility for their own sin.  Hope begins with each person making their own sin, their own business.

It is no different for us today.  Most people are smart enough to know that you can’t get up in the morning and simply live your life as you please.  This is not life, but its fantasy.  But it’s the very kind of fantasyland the wealthy Florida polo club owner believed he had while driving under the influence.  Have you heard his tragic story on the news as it has been covering his trial?   When he rammed an innocent victim into a swamp and walked away and letting the other fellow drown, he was thinking that nothing would happen to him.   He went only living as he pleased without realizing the consequences, he and others would suffer. 

I know that fellow was drunk, but he’s still trying to get away with it now that he’s sober.   He is still trying to escape taking responsibility.  He even adopted his girlfriend to give all his money to her in hopes of protecting his fortune.  Oh, yes, he’s a smart guy.  But is he really that smart when he thinks he will answer for nothing or can buy his way out of anything.  If he keeps on denying what he has done, if he keeps trying to escape the consequences, what he doesn’t realize now is that one day, somebody will one day knock on the door of his heart and say “Hello!”, but there will be nobody at home to answer.  Perhaps that’s already happened.  If you lose your sense of value, your responsibility for life, your ground of rightness and goodness, and most of all, you lose a willinginess to face up to your wrongs, you may hold on to all your stuff, you may give your girlfriend your money to hold, you might even save your physical life and can buy your way out of jail, but what you will lose in the end is what you need the most and can’t ever buy back--your spirit, your mind and your soul.  “What is the profit,” Jesus said, “if a man gains the whole world and then loses his soul?”  What will you give to God, when you have no soul left to give?”  

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God warned people, that as individuals they cannot keep on living just anyway they want to and still receive God’s blessings of life, hope and love.  Life has a moral dimension.  Faith is a promise you must keep.  The life we live, choose, and the decisions we make (or don’t make) will have real consequences.  Our personal decisions not only make us who we are, our choices can also make us into people we may have never intended to be---taking us places we never intended to go.  So, when Ezekiel is called as a sentinel to warn the people, he is called to confront them with their sin to help save them from their sin.  God does not want for the people to die in their own selfish, wayward, wrongful choices.  God has made their sin his business and the business of his prophet for their own good---so they can make their sin, their own business too.  Through the prophet God says: “If they turn from their sin and do what is right----they will surely live, they shall not die.  None of the sins they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right, they shall surely live. (14-16).

HAVING IT YOUR WAY

God makes sin his business, the prophet’s business and even our own personal business, because God wants to save.   Confronting our sin is for our own good. But there is one more question needing to be answered: How did they get in this mess in the first place?   In their difficult, broken, tragic situation, they are saying what many say: “This is just not fair!”   It’s not our fault all this has happens.  If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s God’s fault.  “The way of the Lord is not just (v. 17).”    If God had not brought us out of Egypt…If God had not misled us in the wilderness…If God were not punishing us…If God were not so hard on us….  It is “the way of the Lord” that “is not just”.   How do you answer that prophet?

When I was a teenager, one of the biggest theological debates we could ever have was about a certain doctrine “predestination”.   The question that focuses around predestination is how much are our steps planned by God, verses how much are we responsible for our own steps.  In those days, some people believed God was caused everything.  Others believe God gives people free will and that we are responsible for the steps we take ourselves.    

I have a close friend who is a Baptist pastor in Blowing Rock, right near Tweesie Railroad amusement park.  Once he told me about his ‘Grandaddy’ Potts who was raised Presbyterian.  His grandfather came to this country from Birmingham, England and they must have been staunch hyper-Calvinist Presbyterians who had strong beliefs in predestination.  But one thing that often trumps religion is love.  His grandfather became a Baptist when he married.   Later in his life, when Granddaddy Potts was in his 80's, he fell down the steps of his church.

He was coming out of church one Sunday after worship at Riverbend Baptist Church near Bristol, Tennessee.  Riverbend is a country church with high concrete steps.   Granddaddy Potts took a terrible fall and hit his head.  He spent several days in the hospital and weeks resting at home.  A few months later my pastor friend, his grandson, paid his granddaddy a visit.  They went riding around together looking at the places in the community.   His grandson said,  "Grandaddy, I was sorry to hear about your accident and I hope you are doing OK."

His answer was a bit disconnected from my offer of concern but very much what he had on his mind.  He replied, "Well, it had been fore-ordained since the dawn of eternity that I would fall off those steps on that day."

His grandson said, "Granddaddy, I really do not think God goes around thumping old men off church steps." (Granddaddy was a straight talker about what he is thinking so it is best to talk straight to him as well.)

He said, "I can prove it to you."   (The grandson was thinking, "This is going to be good.")

He said, "If I had had anything to do with it, it wouldn't have happened." (sic)

The grandson decided to leave it right there.  There was nothing to be gained by going into a theological argument over predestination.  Granddaddy had his own mind and you could not change it. 

Do we blame God for the things that happen to us?   Just as Granddaddy Potts said, “If I had anything to do with it, this wouldn’t have happened.”  That’s what many in Israel persisted on saying, even when it was clear they were suffering from the consequences of their own sins too, not just their nations sins.  But the people kept on denying their responsibility, and many of died without hope, not because they had failed, but because they would not see their own sin and do the right thing and turn from it and turn back to God. 

Ezekiel would say to them and to us: You just can’t blame it all on God.  You just can’t blame it all on Politics, Wall Street, Your parents or anyone else and move forward.  If you want to move on from this terrible place you find yourself, you must say, along with the spiritual, “It’s me, It’s me, O God, standing in the need of prayer.  It’s not my brother, not sister, but it’s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.  This is where grace begins, where hope begins, where the new day begins, not with denial, but with the acceptance of our own responsibility in what happens to us.   Interestingly, even the righteous are not let off the hook in this.  The prophet says, “The righteousness of the righteous will not save them, when they transgress” (v. 12).   Ezekiel continues: “when the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit sin, they too will die for it (v. 18).  

This most serious message from Ezekiel is that if we fail to heed the warning God brings to us through his prophets today, God will let us have it our way.   This sounds cruel at first, but surprisingly, it also the most hopeful message, full of all kinds of new possibilities.  For you see, just as God lets his people suffer the consequences of their own actions, so that “the person that sins, shall die” (v. 18:20), the LORD also says, “yet if they turn from their sin and do what is right….they shall surely live, and not die.  None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them….” (v. 15-16a!)   If we will make God’s business, our business, if we take warnings seriously and turn from our path of self-destruction, we can still save our lives, even though the world crumples around us.   Hope is never completely lost, even if one person will make God’s business, their own business.  God’s message of warning can be good news, but the question to Israel and to us is: Which way do you want it?  Which way do you really want?  God will let you have it your way.  But it's the prophet's business to help you find another way. It's my business to try to get you make your sin your business and God's.   This is, according to the prophet, the only way you or I can live.   Amen.

THE NABOTH INCIDENT

A Sermon based upon 1 Kings 21: 1-29

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

November 11,  2012, Discipleship Series #10 of 17

“He had a pistol in his pocket, and he was planning to use it.  He was mad at his wife.  Real mad.  And he was going to settle their differences—for good!  He would just shoot her and be done with it.

Seeing the man’s anger, a friend begged him to settle down long enough to listen to one recorded sermon.  After much protest the man reluctantly agreed to listen.  At the close of the message, he went home, got down on his knees and asked his wife’s forgiveness.  They were reconciled.  On the following Sunday, the man went to church, confessed his faith, and was later baptized (From Payday Someday and other sermons by Robert Greene Lee, Broadman and Holman, 1995).  

It is documented that more than 8,000 people came to faith after hearing R.G. Lee’s classic sermon “Payday-Someday”.   It was Lee’s literary masterpiece.  For more than 30 years he preached this sermon every year at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.  Lee preached the sermon over 1,275 times in churches, at revivals, in baseball parks and football stadiums.  I heard him preach the sermon one the last times at Calvary Baptist Church in Shelby, N.C., just before his untimely death as a result of a mugging assault in 1978.  

Near the close of his sermon, Lee wrote these unforgettable words:  “God’s justice does not slumber.  Even though the mill of God’s justice and righteousness grinds slowly, it grinds to powder.  The judgments of God travel slowly, but they always crush completely.” ( p. 48).  

Lee’s expressive language belongs to another era.   It is not easy to preach about judgment or justice today.  Most avoid these subjects.  The feeling is that people have enough to worry about.  People need uplifting, encouraging, and optimism.  “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” the saying goes.   Advancing God’s cause through addressing the requirements for justice is too complex and too demanding.  The idea of judgment is simply too depressing.  It’s seems easier to ignore such talk, unless that is, your name is Naboth. 

THE EXCESSIVE DESIRE TO HAVE

In our text from 1 Kings 21, Naboth is a nobody.  People like Naboth may be somebody to their own family, but they are “nobodies” to the privileged somebodies of the world—the upper crusts, the up and ups, the shakers and movers----those who hold power and position. Naboth did not have big money, personal privilege, nor did he hold any important position.  All Naboth had was a small vineyard in Jezreel, which just happened to be next to the palace of a King.

King Ahab was one of the privileged few who could have anything and everything he wanted.  He was born with a royal silver spoon in his mouth, as part of a family that had great material success.  His Father Omri was one of the select Israelite Kings who made his mark on the history of the ancient near east.  Omri is given a mere 13 verses in the Bible, but he was a king with an international reputation.   Even today, he is one of the very select few of Israel’s Kings who was noticed outside of biblical history.  He was a successful military leader, expanded the borders of Israel, and began impressive building programs in the north which rivaled or perhaps even exceeded Solomon in the south. He was a ‘ruler far more important and dynamic than the Bible suggests’ (NIDB, p. 330).      

Ahab was Omir’s son.  He was a child born into privilege, prestige and prosperity.  Children who are born into privilege often feel entitled to have all the things they want.   They have never lacked for anything, except maybe love.   So to cover the insecurity of not having what they needed most, they feel the constant need to continue to acquire and secure things.  For Ahab, the thing he ‘needed’ was the vineyard next door to his palace.  He wanted to plant his vegetable garden there.  It was convenient.  It was fertile.  Mostly, it was a plot of land which reminded him daily of something he didn’t have.  

Ahab could not stand not having what he wanted, so he approach the owner to make a deal.   “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it….”  “I will give you a better one for it…”  “Or if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money”  (21.2).   The business deal is a good and fair offer but there is only one problem.  The land was not merely a piece of land to Naboth.  “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance” (21.3b).  It was land that had been in Naboth’s family for years, perhaps granted as part of the original “land of promise”.   This may be only substantial thing of value Naboth has in his possession.   “I can’t let you buy it.  It’s not for sale.  I can’t part with it.  It’s worth much more to me than money.” 

Ahab is used to getting what he wants.  He goes home resentful.  He pouts.  He tunes everybody out.  He lies down on his bed as if he is sick.  He will not eat.   He has everything, but everything he has already does not make him happy.   His wife, Jezebel, comes and asks, “Why will you not eat?”  The King tells his wife what happened. “I approached Naboth the Jezreelite to purchase his vineyard, but he said it wasn’t for sale.”   “What?” his wife answers.  “Aren’t you the King?”  “Don’t you govern Israel?” “Get up, eat some food, and be happy, for I will get it for you.”

Ahab’s wife Jezebel will not take “no” for an answer.  Her words of resolve saying “I will get it for you” has all the dogged determination of a woman who married the most available man because she too wants what she wants. So Jezebel schemes and conspires, sending out letters to the leaders and elders of Naboth’s hometown accusing him of treason.  She has signed all these letters with the Kings seal.    Writing for the King, she demands the town elders and leaders to come together and produce two scoundrels who will bring charges against Naboth that he has cursed both God and the King.  They are to take this ‘nobody’ named Naboth out and stone him to death.  After the deed has been done, she sends Ahab to lay claim on the vineyard.  Everyone knows what’s happening, but no one dares say a word. 

There were people who should have become suspicious of what Bernie Madoff was doing.  But family, friends and even regulators all looked the other way.  Bernie Madoff was a somebody. He was giving other people the possibility of becoming somebodies.  They did not take notice of Bernie Madoff’s scheme because it was such a lucrative plan with much prospect.   Greed, success, power and position can cause ‘good’ people to look the other way.  Wall Street gets by with all kinds of things that could not happen on Main Street.  People of position, prestige and power have their own lawyers write laws to give them advantages others can’t have.  Even whistleblowers are largely ignored or called liars.   It should not be this way, but it is.  Because people want what they want, the world gets lopsided on the side of injustice very quickly.  Who wants to stand up and challenge a somebody who has the power either to make you somebody or turn you into a nobody? Who wants to stand with a nobody who can’t pad your wallet?    

THE DIVINE DETERMINATION FOR JUSTICE

This is where Elijah comes in.  When Ahab goes down to seize the vineyard there is someone already standing there.  It’s Elijah the Tishbite.  Elijah would be a nobody himself, had he not already made himself known to the King, challenging Ahab and Jezebel with the “word of the LORD” (17:8).   Elijah is the first prophet of Israel, but he’s not the last.  It was the prophets  God sent to stand with and for the nobodies being treated unjustly and unfairly by the somebodies of the world.  These ‘somebodies’ don’t like prophets. See how Ahab addresses him: “Have you found me, O my enemy?”   Those who treat others like nobodies make themselves an enemy of the LORD.   “I have found you”, Elijah said.

One of the amazing characteristics of the prophets is that they did not differentiate between the religious requirements to love God or the social requirements to love neighbor.  Over and over the prophets, denounced the Israelite Kings not only for “selling themselves” (v. 20) to false gods (v. 26) but also for “doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (v. 20, 25).  This is the kind of evil that flourishes when people don’t put God first; they end up putting themselves first and hurting anybody who gets in their way.  It was this neglect for social justice which made Amos, the first writing prophet, to thunder God’s word from his farm in Tekoa saying, Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals--  they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way (Amo 2:6-7 NRS).  This is why, the Bible says, God brought judgment down on Ahab and the nation.  The “neglect” for the nobodies by the somebodies brings God’s wrath and punishment.

The prophet Elijah was known to those in power as the “troubler” (1 Kings 18.7), but the truth is that people who forget justice and righteousness are already in trouble.  People who don’t care will be troubled by God.  People who have the power to get what they want but don’t realize that with privilege comes responsibility will become more than troubled---they will meet justice that will not be on their side, which the Bible calls judgment.   This is what the prophets are about. They are in the business of awakening us to God’s absolute claim upon our lives.    For instance, according to a study by Habitat for Humanity, 80% of the world’s resources are in the hands of Christians.  If that is so, why is starvation still so rampant around the globe?  If Christians have all this wealth, why is our world is such economic turmoil?  Do you know who gets hurts the most when the economy goes sour?  It is the poor, the widow and the defensless. Elijah says it is the desire to have more that both starves the poor and destroys economies for everyone.  Could it be that still today, in a greedy grab to acquire more and more, we keep bad company with those of the likes of Ahab, who always want more without a mere thought to those who have much less?

Through the Prophet Elijah, God warns Ahab what will happen to someone who walks over others to get what one wants.  Greed and selfishness will put you on the wrong side of the justice and judgment of God.  “Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you.... Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat....He acted most abominably in going after idols….(1Ki 21:20-26 NRS).  In the end, it is not just Ahab who is determined to get what he wants.  God will get what God wants.  And what God wants will be right and it will be forever.  

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A DIFFERENT OUTCOME

Can people today, who are used to getting what they want conceive of a God who will give them exactly what they deserve?   I wonder.  Most people can hardly even fathom that life is not just about them and what they want.   Few understand the God of Bible as not only the God who loves, but also as the God who also has a flaming love that burns for others.  God’s love burns so hot for all of us that doing right and doing justice is not an option, but a requirement.  God’s will must be done on earth, as in heaven.  The 10 commandments are not 10 suggestions.  The golden rule is the only ‘gold’ that will last.  “The arc of the universe is bent toward justice.”   We will ‘reap what we sow’.  What is done in darkness will come to the light.  “Even though the mill of God’s justice and righteousness grinds slowly, it grinds to powder.”    

I guess we could say that truth has finally become a reality for bicycling legend Lance Armstrong.   Proven guilty of doping, his 7 Tour De France titles are gone, his sponsors are gone, his foundation is gone or going, his reputation is destroyed and one wonders what is happening in his soul this very moment.  Maybe he was a great bicyclist, few would dispute that, but what we all now know for sure, what has finally come out is that Lance Armstrong was never as good as he thought he was.  According to ‘the word of the Lord’ which came to Elijah, most of us are not as good as we think we are.   The only hope for people like Armstong, like Ahab, or like us, is to stop and take a long, long look at who we have become and perhaps most importantly, to take an even more serious that we aren’t who we think or say we are.  The truth hurts, but it could also help.  Ahab could be much more, if he could only hear God’s true word about himself.  It is this ‘true’ word of how things really are that can make us better people.  The Spirit still calls us to listen, to reflect, and to examine our own lives and to realize that God’s love burns hot for all of us.  But it is also a love that will burn us, if we fail to love as God loves.      

The late Chuck Colson told about a man named Jack Eckerd, a gentleman he met while lobbying for criminal justice reform in Florida.  Eckerd accompanied Colson on his speaking tour, always introducing him, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend.  He’s born again and I’m not. I wish I were." Eckerd then sat down, Colson gave his speech, then the two of them got back on a plane and discussed religion.  Eventually, some months later, Eckerd made a decision for Christ.

Shortly afterwards, Eckerd walked into one of his drug stores. He was browsing through the newsstands when he saw copies of Playboy and Penthouse. Those magazines had never bothered him before, but now he saw them with new eyes: he saw them as a Christian. Eckerd went back to his office, called the president of his company, and barked an order: "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores."

The president replied, "You can’t mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books."

Eckerd repeated, "Take ’em out of my stores." And thus, pornography was removed from 1,700 stores across America, all because one man became a Christian.

Hearing about this, Colson telephoned Jack Eckerd: "I want to use that story. Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" Eckerd replied, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook."  That’s one way to describe the biblical imperative for justice and righteousness: "The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook."  Women are not to be treated as boy toys and regaled as sex objects. So Mr. Eckerd decided against using or hurting others, because, as he put it, "The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook."  (As told in a sermon, Justice: A Biblical Perspective, by Robert Setzer, July 2004).

Where do you need to do what is right in your life?  Where can you make a difference for what is just and true?  Where do you need to love?  In what area of your life, if you dared to look or pay attention, might the Lord not let you off the hook?   There are many ways to take a stand for God’s justice--- a justice that will not exploit others for selfish desires or gain, a justice that will not ignore the plight of the nobodies of this world.   Where do we start to do justice?   It starts with an examination of our own behavior---not just who we think we are, but with who we really are.   As Mother Teresa once said, "Today it is very fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them."

Fortunately, the rebuke of the prophetic word did get into Ahab’s heart.   We are told in the text that when Ahab hears God’s judgment against him, he tears his clothes, fasted, and he humbled himself.    The word of the Lord comes to Elijah again: "Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster on his house." (1Ki 21:29 NRS).   Yes, God will forgive us for our sins, but even God can’t undo the consequences of our actions.  If we don’t burn with the same love God has, someone will get burned.  If it is not us, it will be our children.  But of course, that gets you off the hook, doesn’t it?   You don’t have to worry about anybody but yourself, right?   How do you think ‘the Word of the Lord’ would answer?  Amen.