Eccles. 11:1-8; Gal. 5:16-24; Matt. 16:13-20

When Presbyterians are the butts of jokes I often hear about the “frozen chosen” or how we are always doing things “decently and in order.”  We get stereotyped as rules-people, people of the Book, stiff, orderly, dry, etc. etc.  Some of these may have a grain of truth to them, but most are silly.  One thing that is true, and may lead to these kinds of stereotypes, is that we do have a whole Book of Confessions, a Book of Order, and other guiding handbooks, all on top of Scripture as our authority.  We have lots of “rules” if you want to perceive them that way.

Some of my friends from other traditions boast that they come from a tradition that has no confessions.  But that is when I have to laugh.

Being Christian, by nature, means being confessional.  Today’s passage in Matthew contains one of the first and most powerful confessions in the Christian tradition.  “‘But who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”

And in many ways, this is at the heart of each one of our confessions in the Book of Confession.  They boldly speak of who we are, what we believe, and what we declare to do.  One of the most powerful ingredients about that is a confession of Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

What does it mean to declare Jesus as the Messiah?  For me it centers on trust.  We are not going to invest our trust in a political system.  Historically, through our confessions we have in essence been saying, “No, the Queen of England is not going to tell us how to follow Christ” (Scots Confession), and “No, Hitler isn’t going to define our beliefs” (Barmen Declaration). Christ is going to do that!

We believe that Jesus is in charge of our lives.  We believe that if this world is going to be saved from itself, the answer is not ourselves, or any social, political, or cultural solution.  No, the answer is to look to Christ for our direction.

We are not going to invest our time and energy into building up the systems of this world, but God’s system.  This is a major shift from American culture.  I often chuckle when people refer to the US as a “Christian nation”.  How is that now?  Granted this country was founded on many Christian principles, but that does not mean it is a theocracy or that we, as a nation, subscribe to Christianity.  On the contrary, the US, like any political entity, is made up of humans in their brokenness.

We as Christians must constantly struggle to see beyond culture to the kingdom of Christ, where the poor are the rich, and the meek shall inherit the earth.  God’s ways are not our ways, and the Bible is sprinkled with regular reminders of that, Old and New Testaments.

And so we confess.  We strive to put our trust and our support in that which is above and beyond this world.  We confess into the beyond.  And Jesus says to us, “‘But who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”

-Matt

Eccles. 9:11-18; Gal. 5:1-15; Matt. 16:1-12

In our passage today Jesus uses the metaphor of yeast, but maybe not the way you are expecting.  The Pharisees and Sadducees come to test Jesus and to look for a sign from heaven.  Jesus leaves that conversation and reminds the disciples to beware of the yeast of the Sadducees and Pharisees.  It’s easy to confuse this metaphor of yeast with that of bread & yeast, which the disciples fall into, reflecting us back to the feeding of the five thousand and four thousand.

Yeast: it grows and leavens.  It is a living organism that multiplies.  In the feeding of the five thousand and the number of baskets gathered afterward, we see the signs of heaven that Jesus institutes.  The “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” is one of exclusion and reverse growth, not expanding God’s grace, but reducing the grace of God to rules and “don’ts”.

The ministry of Jesus is clear.  More than just feeding the poor, it is a message of good news and inclusion that brings in even the Gentiles, the farmers, the sick and afflicted.  It brings in the people from the fringes of society.  How bold.

We just had a presbytery meeting.  Indian Nations presbytery has had it struggles over the years.  Trust is low.  All we do is fight.  I also routinely hear people upset about the General Assembly’s decisions, our highest governing body which is about to start meeting.  So schedule in the annual belly-aching.  Here it comes!

I, on the other hand, have always trusted in our process, and trusted our presbytery and General Assembly.  I have met commissioners and delegates over the years.  These are often people wise beyond their years.  They have seen and understood the yeast of Jesus’ gospel.  My prayer with all our leaders, and whatever level they serve, that they are ready and willing to put their faith into action.

Now is the time to speak and act boldly like Jesus – to step out in our faith.

Sometimes leadership means bold steps.  It means stepping out and often taking unpopular stands.  It means standing against the political sways to and fro.  It means listening to Christ’s clear call to share the gospel in all times and places.

The yeast of the gospel has spilled over into our lives.  It drives us to praise and thanksgiving.  But it also drives us to continue on a road of inclusion and grace, welcoming the stranger, the poor, the afflicted, the brokenhearted.

Is Jesus’ gospel a “social gospel”?  You bet it is.

-Matt

Eccles. 8:14-9:10; Gal. 4:21-31; Matt. 15:29-39

Those of you that know me, know I love to eat.  I love food and the power of food to draw people together in grace.  Perhaps that is why I resonate with Jesus’ ministry so much, often involving food.  Today in Matthew, Jesus cures many and feeds many more.  We follow a God who doles out grace.

These stories go well beyond Jesus showing compassion for the people around him.  They testify to the fact that, for we Christians, God is not far away and aloof from us. Jesus shows us that God does not stand outside of life, but is right here with us, beside us in our broken and troubled and suffering world.  Paul reminds us that nothing in existence can ever separate us from the love of God, revealed in Christ.

Ours is not a faith of easy answers and unrealistic solutions.  Jesus entered life and died on the cross for us, showing us that in whatever we experience, in whatever may trouble us, in whatever distress or threat we feel, we need not fear because God is in it with us. God will lift up in our midst what we need to make it through, because God is good.

In whatever crisis or issue we face in life, in whatever trouble may come our way, we learn through stories like today’s that the power of God’s love will provide what we need.  From the midst of the Body of Christ, God will lift up the resources to accomplish his loving purposes.

These stories are also reminders for us.  We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God may give us daily bread.  We learn in these stories that it is we who are to be involved in, not only the receiving of daily bread, but in the giving of it too.

A good image of this is in the context of the Lord’s Supper, especially when we pass the bread around in a circle, or when we serve each other in the pew.  In that image of receiving bread and then turning to share bread with the person to our other side is the reality of God’s gracious action within the meal: each person is fed solely through God’s grace, but each person also plays an important role in making sure God’s grace continues with the others gathered there.

May these stories of curing and feeding enrich and enliven your day.  May they also be reminders that you play a part in God’s inbreaking kingdom.

-Matt

Eccles. 7:1-14; Gal. 4:12-20; Matt. 15:21-28

There have always been those in the church who demand litmus tests for Christians.  They want control.  They want it their way.

Paul is so deeply troubled with the Galatians, some of whom are falling into this camp.  He states in today’s verses: “I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, but I am perplexed with you.”  He certainly isn’t without words.  But some of them cut like daggers.

He also makes it quite clear that the doors of the gospel are wide open.  He is tired of these Judaizers who are demanding litmus tests – namely that the Gentiles come to them (and the House of Israel) rather than coming to Christ, first and foremost.  In the context of this argument, he makes an interesting observation: “They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you so that you may make much of them.”

How true this is!  I look at the current divides over polity, most prominent these days in the Methodist Church, and I talk to my fellow Methodist minister friends and I just grieve with them.  So often in these debates (which for Americans always seem to center around sexuality….What is our obsession with sex, folks???), I see a lot of people spouting off at the mouth and only interested in hearing themselves speak.  There seems to be a lot of building themselves up and not much building up the body of Christ.

Don’t get me wrong.  These issues are deep and troubling.  I am not dismissing them or making a joke.  But I am siding with Paul on this in saying “They make much of you, but for no good purpose.”  Those who disagree with me might say “There IS good purpose to our debates over sexuality, namely saving the sanctity and purity of the church.”

On a good day I respectfully disagree.  On a bad day I say hogwash.  That is exactly the same argument the Judaizers of Galatia were stating.  They wanted litmus tests.  They wanted the new Christians to conform to their standards before that of Christ’s.  The way I see it, they argued this because under Paul’s understanding Christ wasn’t not under their control.  The reality is that Christ broke out of that tomb on the third day, and God was out on the loose.  That scared the hell out of people.  And it still does.

People have been trying to put Christ back in that tomb for 2,000 years.  Sometimes they don’t even realize they are doing it.  They claim to be standing up for right.  It turns out they are only standing for oppression, control, and their version of the truth.  Christ has led some of us to different understandings of the Law.  Look at the dietary laws, as a prime example.

Most recently it has led many of us to new understandings of marriage and covenant.  In the midst of this, it is convenient to talk about sanctity and purity, and on the surface seems like a valid argument.  But Paul knew, and the Presbyterian Church certainly knows, there is a fine line between purity and oppression of a whole class of people.  There are behaviors we want to follow, namely the rule of love, and some leaders in the church simply have their noses out of joint because they can’t control others, can’t abide different interpretations of Scripture from theirs, and they can’t get their way with the required numbers of votes.

Folks, it has never been about one getting one’s way in the church.  It has always been about Christ’s way!  And he lays out the radical and inclusive love of God, and God paving the way to freedom, justice, and peace.   It does not look like a church where everyone is sanctimonious, but a church where God welcomes all.  It is the love that transforms, not the rules.

God has often not played by the rules.  One doesn’t have to look far in the Old Testament to realize that God is not bound by rules; after all, and after all he is the one that set them up!  He set them up for us, not himself!  Examples: He is a jealous God.  He wipes out armies.  In the prophets, he forgives sin at the drop of a hat (quite a bit in Jeremiah and Zechariah, and dramatically in Jonah’s Ninevah), breaking the very rules he established.  Hey, folks, God’s prerogative!  Tough noogies.  God can do whatever God wants.

It’s time for us – once and for all – to trust that this is God’s church, and he can do with it as he wishes.  We don’t need to control it.  We need to let go of control, and get out of God’s way as he shapes us into new people through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our job is to have patience as we remember that God is in charge, and isn’t done with us yet.  I can rest in that.

-Matt

Eccles. 3:16-4:3; Gal. 3:1-14; Mat. 14:13-21

Everyone needs to read our Galatians 3 passage.  Talk about good news!  Galatians is the cure to all misguided churches who need to refocus and correct warped theology, from the churches obsessed with this: “Do you accept Jesus as your personal Savior?” to churches where it has really become this: “Do you accept Jesus as your personal shopper?”  News flash: Jesus is not a genie in a lamp who is here to guide you through the mundane tasks of the day or bless you with riches.

God is looking for transformation!  See Galatians for more details.

Here’s another tell tale sign for misguided churches: litmus tests to be considered Christian.  Usually this is based on works.  Paul says no to all that garbage.  “Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?”

Don’t get me wrong, works certainly are important, and are a natural outgrowth of any church that is following Christ and living into the Holy Spirit.  That’s the result of a spirit-filled faith – good works abound!

The age-old debate about faith and works is one of the topics of Galatians.  And why is it so important?  Isn’t this just some minor theological hair-splitting?  No.  For it takes the focus off of Christ.  Our faith begins and ends with our Lord Jesus Christ.  When works become the gate code into the heavenly kingdom the whole church becomes awash in itself.  Classic narcissism.

We have seen the effects of this happening in our churches today – when one’s status in a church is solely determined by one political stance that is held.  It immediately turns God’s grace on its head and instead implies, “God’s grace is with you as long as you do or say what is right (in my eyes).”  (The “in my eyes” is always the implication, isn’t it.)

If we learn nothing else from Paul, we learn that the details of practicing our faith are the tricky part.  They are not to be taken lightly, but they are not meant to the litmus test either.  Peter and Paul had some very lively disagreements about how they were to proceed as a church.  But we do come to understand that central to all that we do and believe and feel and say must be rooted in Christ Jesus.

The newest “work” to plague the church is the sin of individualism.  This came as a product of the 18^th Century Enlightenment and glorification of individualism.  It’s evil twin brother, and the most obnoxious question in all of Christendom, a plague in today’s church, is: “Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”  I just despise this question.  No where in the Bible does this appear.  Worse yet, this acceptance speech is thinly veiled as a belief, but is, by nature, a work in and of itself.

It is also a thinly veiled threat.  More a threat than a belief or a work.  More of a litmus test than a Spirit-driven experience.  It is more an individual status than a communal experience of grace.  And that is what makes my blood boil when I hear this question, because underneath is the veiled threat of “I have the answer to life’s questions and you don’t.  So come to my understanding of things and we will be good.”  Paul railed against this!  In fact it is a corruption of everything Galatians stood for.  It is OUR faith.

Paul was adamant in the transformative nature of belief.  Belief wasn’t so much an acceptance speech as much as “Have you heard the Good News of Christ Jesus?”  The news of Christ was “good news” first and foremost, and it was also something that spread like wild fire.  It was a turn away from the flesh-based religion of Abraham into a mysterious spirit-filled community.  It was a secret that was heard and experienced, not an AP test to be passed.  It was something to be seen and heard!

This wild fire of good news was not something to be capsulated into a personal experience, but expanded into a community’s transformation into a loving community.  This is the heart of Paul’s argument.  This is the purpose of the law.

So have you heard that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us? (Galatians 3:13)  Have you? Well, pass it along!  Tell everyone you know!

Also, do the Church a favor, and let’s shelve that silly question about accepting Jesus, and let’s instead get to the heart of living the Spirit in community.  Here’s a better question: “Have you ever wanted to get involved in mission, and make the planet a better place?”  Come with me to _________ where we not only help those in need, but you can see the Spirit come alive!”

-Matt

Eccles. 3:1-15; Gal. 2:11-21; Matt. 14:1-12

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.  I time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.”

These words are often heard at weddings and funerals and are a reminder that the good and evil we experience in life are all tempered by God’s time.  Nothing can withstand the trajectory of God’s plan and God’s timing in the totality of life.

Just the other day as I sat with one of our church members going into surgery, I was reminded of the frailty of human life and our utter reliance on God.  Sometimes the things of this world make sense, other times not.  Sometimes things go well, other time they go south.  In all things we realize the things of this life are temporal and transitory, and we do our best, clinging to the one who delivers us from death to life.

Our passage in Ecclesiastes is a stark reminder that life is not meant to make sense, and that each situation must be dealt with with renewed hope and vigor for the future.  It speaks to the present realities and their troubles and pitfalls, for we as a people of God must not dwell on the past or even the present, but must always have hope for the future as part of our equation.

I love the Wisdom literature.

-Matt