I Once Was Lost

Sermon text for August 8, 2010:
Luke 15:1-10
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, Colorado

One day my grandmother came running into the house with a look of panic etched on her face. She was normally very self-possessed, almost to the point of stoicism, but not this day. “I’ve lost my wedding ring!” she cried. The whole family joined her in the garden where she had been busy with one project or another. But the ring was gone and my grandmother was beside herself. She had lost the most important link between her and her beloved husband. We didn’t find her ring that day, and for years afterward I looked for my grandmother’s ring whenever I worked in the garden.

Things get lost and sometimes we find them again. Sometimes people get lost, leaving us to search and hope and pray that one day they also may be found. And that is what the parables in Luke 15 are all about. They are about losing, frantically searching, and finally finding. Losing, searching and restoration. In these parables God is depicted as the One who searches frantically for the one who is lost, until at last a relationship is re-established. And once that which was lost is safely returned there is great joy and thanksgiving. The good news of the parables is that God is a faithful, persistent searcher.

One of my favorite poems is by a man named Francis Thompson who spent many years as one of God’s lost ones. He lived in the London gutters as a drunk and junkie who regularly abused heroine, cocaine and alcohol.

A failure in academic pursuits that would have lead to credentials in theology or medicine, Francis tried to find solace in drugs. Finally, for all intents and purposes, he became one of God’s “lost ones”. But God would not let him go and pursued him wherever he went no matter what he did. Thompson’s poem, “The Hound of Heaven”, describes God’s pursuit:

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbéd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.'"

In many ways the poem is an echo of Psalm 139 which asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit and where can I flee from your presence?”

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three parables with the same meaning. Our focus today is the parable of the lost sheep which depicts God as an active persistent searcher who does not stop looking until that which was lost is found.

The parable begins by posing the question, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” And the answer is a resounding, “No one! No one would do that!” Let’s see if we can put the question in a modern context.

Imagine that you are at a Rockies game and you have a hundred one-dollar bills with you. You realize that somewhere between entering Coors Field and finding your seat, one of the dollar bills has gone missing. The parable asks, “Who among you would not leave the ninety-nine dollars on the ground while you search for the one which is missing?” And the answer is ….? No one! That’s crazy! No one would do that – except God. Jesus asks us to believe that we are so important to God that God will go to ridiculous, even laughable lengths to return us to the fold. God will go far beyond what anyone thinks is smart or prudent. God cares so much, that God will do anything – even pursuing us down the nights and days, even when the nights and days turn into years. God enters the contours of our minds and joins us in tears and in laughter in order to return us to the family.

“Which one of you who has one hundred sheep and loses one will not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one who is lost until he finds it?” No one! Only God!

Which one of you who has one hundred dollars and loses one will not leave the ninety-nine unattended and go after the one which is lost until you find it? No one! Only God goes beyond what humanly speaking is prudent or smart to return the one which is lost to the fold.

Friends, let us rejoice in the knowledge that when we are lost God will search until we are found and then welcomes us back into the family.

Copyright © 2010 by Dwight R. Blackstock

What Does it Mean to Pass the Peace of Christ?

Sermon text for June 6, 2010:
John 20
Preached at Thornton Presbyterian Church, Thornton, Colorado

“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” I believe I first heard these words from my mother when I was a very small boy and even though my mother was completely trustworthy, I knew that in this case what she said was not true. I knew that words could hurt. I don’t remember, but my mom probably told me that “Sticks and stones could break my bones, but words could never hurt me” when my face was burning and my stomach churning because of something someone said to me. Words have the power to hurt and destroy and also to build us up and give us a sense of well-being. I think that a truer form of the saying should go something like this, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can hurt you, too.”

My best guess is that each of us grew up hearing this saying, and most of us have said it to a child, even though we knew it was not true. And so the saying is transmitted from one generation to the next generation.

Words have power. They shape our understanding of the world and of ourselves. A young girl is told that she is fat and spends the rest of her life trying to become thin. On the other side of the equation, lovers say “I love you” for the very first time and suddenly they feel like they can do anything! They are unstoppable. For better or for worse, words have power over us.

Jesus may be the greatest wordsmith of all time and he definitely understood the power of a word. When he speaks, lives change. His words are like a gift all wrapped with a bow. And his word defines how we think and what we do.

Jesus said, “My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) A few days later on Easter the fearful disciples were huddled together when Jesus appeared before them and said, “Peace be with you". And then as he was about to send them out into the world with the gospel message he said again, “Peace be with you.”

The disciples were rightly afraid. Their life expectancy was low and yet Jesus said, “Peace be with you”. “Peace be with you.” And then He sent them into the world saying, “As the Father has sent me, so do I send you.” The rest is history.

I do not believe that the disciples could have moved the world with the story of Jesus without first receiving the powerful word of peace. With the peace of Christ, the disciples experienced what the Hebrews called “shalom”, a profound sense of well-being; the promise that no matter what the future brought they would be okay. Shalom, peace, is the inner sense of harmony, equilibrium and balance. The disciples were still anxious, but the reality of peace was stronger than the annoyance of anxiety.

And something wonderful and unanticipated happened when the disciples shared the gospel: those who believed the story were also given the gift of peace. And the chain of peace is unbroken from the days of the disciples, all the way down to us. It is the gift of peace – the internal sense of well being that allowed countless people to face persecution and endure crippling personal tragedy. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Peace be with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Peace, my friend. Receive my peace.”

I believe that the gift of peace is a part each of us, though the gift might be terribly obscured. As Christ lives within us, we hear him say, “Peace be with you.” The problem is that many of us have never been taught that peace is a part of our Christian DNA, so the gift may go largely unnoticed and unused. And part of our job is to allow God to recreate us so that peace is part of everything we do.

The story is told of an old man who was a skilled sculptor who liked to work with wood. One day he found a gnarly piece of wood in the wood pile near the back door. It was chipped and weather beaten. When he brought it into the house, his wife just rolled her eyes. “Here he goes again”, she thought. He was always saving a piece of wood that she wanted to use to warm the house. But after so many years she knew that she faced a losing battle. Besides she loved to see her husband’s creations. The old sculptor took the log into his workshop and started to work. First he ran his hands over the surface of the log until he found an image inside that no one else could see. His fingers – scratched, scarred, and gnarly like the log – sensed the image hidden inside. Using only his old pocket knife (the one his father gave him when he was a boy), he slowly began to cut into the wood. And bit by bit the invisible image began to emerge.

Before too many hours passed the gnarly log was transformed into a beautiful figure. The artist was pleased with what he had done and called his efforts good.

Most of us are somewhat gnarly and weather beaten. But hidden deep within is the very image of Christ himself who speaks to us saying “Peace be with you.” Shalom, my brother. Shalom, my sister. “My peace I give to you.” And since the beginning of Christianity, faithful followers of Jesus have greeted one another in worship saying, “The peace of Christ be with you.”

Some people do not realize that the passing of the peace is giving the substance of Christ who dwells within us to the neighbor and friend sitting in the pew. For them the passing of the peace is a friendly, “Hi, how are you?” But generations of Christians have believed that the Christ who dwells within us reaches for the Christ who dwells within the others.

Some years ago I was in Nicaragua and I worshipped in a Catholic Church with families of many men who had died in the U.S. financed Contra war. As the worship began I felt very uncomfortable and very self-conscious. Then came the “Passing of the Peace” and suddenly I found myself surrounded by mothers, and sisters and brides of men and boys who had died in the CIA-financed insurrection. But there was no accusation, only words of love: “God bless you; the peace of Christ be with you.” I knew that I had received something real. “The peace of Christ be with you, also” I said in return.

So, passing of the peace is giving and receiving something real, a sentiment with substance. My friends, may the peace of Christ be with you.

Copyright © 2010 by Dwight R. Blackstock

From the Bottom of the Lamp

Sermon text for September 6, 2009:
John 9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, Colorado

I was standing in a souvenir shop in the Palestinian settlement of Selwan, just outside of Jerusalem. Among the trinkets were some genuine antiquities: Roman coins and ancient vases. A few feet away, and down about thirty steps was the pool of Siloam. I was perturbed because I couldn’t quite remember the significance of the pool. Its greenish sluggish water didn’t seem very noteworthy, but the name rang a bell and I knew I should know about it.

I picked up a small oil lamp from the shelf. It looked like Aladdin’s lamp except that it was smaller and made of clay. It was the kind that was used in Jesus’ day to offer light to a small house. I turned the lamp over and on its base was a tag that gave a price and identified it from the “first century A.D.”, and I began to remember. In my imagination I could see a scene I had never seen before. Travelers walking through the valley approaching the steps which would take them through the gate into Jerusalem. A blind man, spiritual kin to Bartemaus, begging for a handout. People pointing at him and whispering, speculating on the terrible sin which either he or his parents committed so that he was born blind. Feeling good about themselves because no sin-triggered malady had struck them.

In a strange way the ancient lamp was still giving off light. As I watched the crowd, a man who just had to be Jesus came walking by, surrounded by Peter, Andrew, James, John and all of the disciples. Upon seeing the blind man, one of the disciples asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. “Master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

The blind man showed no outward sign of aching deep inside, but I knew the pain must be there. How many times had he heard that same question? How many times had he endured pious speculations about the state of his soul? I hurt for him, but he gave no hint that the words had pierced his heart one more time. He merely stood there passively, with his hand outstretched to receive a coin, his back bowed so that his whole body looked like it was pleading for mercy.

Jesus knew what the disciples and the Pharisees did not, that illness or debilitation is not the result of God’s punishment. It may be the consequence of bad choices, but never of God’s wrath. And I could see in Jesus’ eyes that he felt the blind man’s pain even more than I. He turned toward the beggar and surprised everyone within hearing distance by saying that God did not cause his blindness, but God would return his sight.

Jesus bent down and spit on the dusty ground and made clay of his spittle. He put the clay over the beggar’s eyes and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. I watched as he felt his way down the path until he came to the pool. And then it hit me, it was right here on this spot, that the blind man received his sight. As he washed away the mud, suddenly he could see. But he could not foresee what would happen next. People he had known all of his life were so surprised that he could see that they didn’t recognize him. And it meant nothing when he told them that a man named Jesus healed him. It was like they themselves had a blind spot. But they weren’t nearly so blind as the Pharisees.

The man’s friends took him to the Pharisees who were curious at first, but who gradually became upset and finally outraged by his story. It wasn’t right to do any work on the Sabbath, including making mud or healing people, and so they hammered away at the man asking him the same questions over and over. They insisted that Jesus could not be from God because he broke the law of the Sabbath. And I noticed that every time they questioned the man, he gained more strength and more spiritual insight. It seemed to me that with every question, he stood up just a little bit straighter. But with the Pharisees, it seemed the opposite happened. The more they looked for the truth, the less they could see, and with every question they became more hardened in their position.

For all their twenty-twenty vision, they could not see the truth. I wanted to help them, or at least warn them that they were making a terrible mistake in the name of faith, but of course, I couldn’t. Faith in a god who plays by human rules blinded them. It was like somebody drove a hot spike through their spiritual lenses and left them groping in the darkness. And the saddest part is that they didn’t even know they couldn’t see. The vision they created for themselves, this figment of their own imaginations, gave them all the light they could handle. And I was sad when in their blindness they excommunicated the man whom Jesus healed. I was sad for them and I was sad for the man. In the name of righteousness and faith, the Pharisees turned their backs on the miracle of God. And the beggar? Just when he had the chance to become part of the community, he was driven away.

In truth, I had seen more that afternoon than I wanted. The lamp in my hand was still shining brightly after laying buried for centuries; its only oil was the Word of God and my imagination. As I watched, I saw Jesus approach the man whom he healed. He was rejoicing in sight, but mourning being cut off from the community. It was then that Jesus gave him a chance to join an even larger community, in effect to become a brother to each of us who trust God for sight. He asked if the man believed in the Son of Man, and he responded, “I believe”.

As I put the lamp back on the shelf I began to reflect on the vision I had seen. I wondered how many times I had helped drive someone from the fellowship of believers because I couldn’t see the truth. I wondered where are my blind spots? I thought about the things that I think are non-negotiable, that may cause God to cringe.

I thought about the times I took a stand that I said was on principle, or faith, but really might have been about ego, or position. I thought about the people that the church says are outside of God’s love, or those whose sin we speculate about, and I wondered if maybe some of them are here to show the glory and power of God.

Maybe God placed this story in the Bible to convince us that we are never so blind as when we choose not to see. At the very least we should take from this story our need to read God’s word with great humility, because sometimes God surprises us in ways that we can hardly imagine. Maybe our prayer needs to be: “God, give me a lamp to light my way. Shine brightly into the dark corners of my soul, and illuminate those parts of me that have made you in my own image, so that I can see who you really are. O God, help me let you be God.”

Copyright © 2009 by Dwight R. Blackstock

Grace Abounds

Sermon text for August 30, 2009:
Romans 3:22
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, Colorado

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” With these words, the Apostle Paul begins his letter to the Church at Rome. Grace is so important in Romans that some call it the gospel of grace. “Grace to you …” says Paul. And with these words he offers something that he believes is more than just a word; it is a gift that is real and tangible. For him grace can never be theoretical and it is our job to understand grace as the very real gift of God to all who believe.

2009 is the 500th birthday of John Calvin who reclaimed the word and experience of grace for the Church. The medieval Catholic Church had all but forgotten about grace, opting instead for a “works righteousness” theology, which is the idea of paying for God’s love by giving money or doing good deeds. But Paul and Calvin believed that God’s love comes to believers, simply because God wants to love us. It is totally independent of anything that we might do. And that is grace!

A few years ago a brilliant young American woman opted to go to work in one of the black townships in South Africa after she graduated from college. She was one of those bright and shining stars who was so talented that she had myriad options available to her as she finished her undergraduate education. He parents were understandably very proud. But they were also very concerned when she announced she was going to work in South Africa. It was so far from home and once there, their daughter would be beyond their help.

One day the parents’ worst nightmares became reality. A group of young men who lived in the township where their daughter worked got drunk and murdered her. Imagine the anger or even the hatred that the parents must have felt. When the young men went on trial the parents were in the courtroom and surprised everyone by testifying for the defense. Their daughter’s life, they said was all about peace and love and she would not want her murderers to die for their crimes. She would not even want them to remain in prison for the rest of their lives.

That is grace. Totally unexpected, unimaginable, unwarranted good will.

A few years ago a man took over a one room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, and ultimately killed five Amish children. Coming on the heels of Columbine, all of America was up in arms. People uniformly called for harsh penalties for the perpetrator of this horrible crime. He did not deserve to live. But to everyone’s surprise the Amish parents announced that they had already forgiven the man who so coldly murdered their children.

That’s grace! Totally unexpected, unimaginable, unwarranted good will.

Sometimes grace comes from the most unexpected places, and even from people whom we judge to be evil. Until President Clinton brought reporters Una Lee and Laura Ling home from North Korea no one would have believed that grace could come from the likes of North Korean Leader Kim Il Jong, a man maligned as a comic dictator and a murderer of his own people. It is a script that only God could write and it matters not at all if Mr. Jong received something in return for granting amnesty. The American women who were afraid they might never see their families again were granted amnesty and set free through no act of their own.

That’s grace. Totally unexpected favor.

These stories seem extreme and leave us in utter disbelief. How could parents forgive the ones who murdered their children? How could parents of a murdered daughter testify for the defense? How could someone who threatens the stability of the entire world be gracious? But these situations are only surprising if we have failed to understand our own nature and our relationship with God. From a biblical perspective we cannot be surprised. For God, this is just business as usual. God has a way of doing the unexpected. God consistently picks the wrong people for the job and shows love to those who are unworthy.

That’s grace! Totally unexpected, unimaginable, unwarranted good will.

When we talk seriously about grace we discover that few people believe in it. It is beyond the comprehension of most of us. When we talk about grace, people generally fall into one of two groups. One group feels so superior that grace, the unmerited positive favor of God – is unnecessary. Put simply, these people don’t believe in grace, because they believe that they deserve whatever good thing God offers.

Those in the other group don’t really believe in grace either. They don’t believe in getting something for nothing. They want to earn, or pay for God’s positive regard because that way they control the outcome.

One of the problems with stories of unexpected good favor is that we are unsure how they apply to us. We are good people and nothing like murderers, or thieves. If God is gracious to us it is because we deserve a break. We deserve to be loved. Those other people – and here you can fill in the blank – don’t deserve God’s favor and forgiveness like we do. We have never done anything “that bad.” We try to convince ourselves that we try to be good and are completely unlike those other people who need God’s favor as a gift. And according to any human measure, these feelings are correct. Most of us here are indeed good people. But if we allow God to have a voice in this discussion, his words are jarring and force us into an alternate reality.

Listen again to what God says in Romans. Paul writes, “for there is no distinction since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” “All have sinned”. “There is no distinction.” All have “fallen short of the glory of God.” If there is no distinction between people in God’s eyes, then the myth that one is better than another is destroyed.

On the other hand if each one is justified – that is, made right with God – as a gift through the atoning love of Jesus, we might feel confused. You and I are used to earning our way, but grace is always an unmerited gift. We can’t earn it and we can’t buy it. We are made right with God just because God wants to be in a right relationship with us. If there are times when we deserve God’s wrath instead of love we would be happy writing a check to take care of things. Or we will do penance by volunteering for some job in the church in order to pay our debt. I am sure that God appreciates all that we do for the kingdom, but grace stands on it’s own as God’s gift.

Some years ago a Catholic woman attended one of my new member classes. She was completely baffled when I explained to the class that because of the grace of Jesus – His unmerited favor - we do not have to perform acts of penance in order to be forgiven. She believed that some kind of penance or payment was necessary to earn God’s forgiveness. Her church background taught her that forgiveness was always dependent in part on what she did to earn God’s favor instead of relying completely on the amazing grace of Jesus.

Because of people like John Calvin, Presbyterians believe that God put Jesus forward as a sacrifice of atonement and we are forgiven even before we ask. That is grace, God’s unwarranted, unwinnable, positive regard. We believe that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we are set free to be gracious to others.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ fill your life today and always.

Copyright © 2009 by Dwight R. Blackstock

Grace, Justification and Sanctification

Sermon text for July 19, 2009:
Romans 3:21-26
Preached at Church of the Hills Presbyterian Church, Evergreen, Colorado

Sometimes he felt a soul jarring restlessness somewhere deep inside. He couldn’t put his finger on the problem, but he knew that something was missing, like there was something important he was supposed to do or say, but for the life of him he didn’t know what it was. He remembered very clearly when the restlessness began. It all started because of a sermon that the pastor preached. That Sunday the pastor spoke about salvation. Up until that time he had always assumed that when he died he would go to heaven and it never occurred to him that there was something more than heaven in the Christian life.

On the way home from church that Sunday, he and his wife drove in silence, each one lost in thought. The scripture reading for the day echoed in his mind and seemed to be getting louder and louder as he drove. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” the pastor said. He’d heard that phrase before but this time the words seemed fresh, new and powerful. “All have sinned.” “All have sinned.” “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!” Until that day he had not spent time thinking about sin, or how far his life was from what God desired. Such things simply were never on his list of things to think about. He was a good guy, better than some and not a whole lot worse than others. So why waste time thinking about such things?

Maybe it was the way that the pastor illustrated sin that day that caught his attention. He said that the biblical word that is translated “sin” in our English Bibles is used in other places of a hunter taking careful aim at his quarry only to have his arrow fall to the ground far away from his goal. The hunter missed the mark! If that was so then perhaps sin describes believers continually missing the target or the goal of Christian life. “All have missed the target. All have fallen short of the glory of God.” Now that was something to think about.

The great Reformer John Calvin, whose five hundredth birthday Presbyterians are celebrating this year, helped rediscover the biblical ideal of a goal or a target for Christian living. Calvin thought the target was sanctification, an ideal that was dropped from the conversation of the medieval Church. Perhaps sanctification might be aspired to by a Cardinal or Pope, but it was beyond the imagination of the rank and file members of the Church who knew only what the priests told them. But as Reformers like Calvin and Luther read the scriptures for themselves, a new understanding began to dawn.

The idea of sanctification can only be understood in the context of two other important concepts. The first is “grace” and the second is “justification”. In the third chapter of Romans Paul says that, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” This is an appropriate diagnosis of the human condition. All of us like the hunter with bad aim have fallen short of the life God wants for us, and on our own initiative we will never hit the target. But from the beginning God has had a plan. Further in the third chapter of Romans Paul speaks of believers in this way, “They are now justified by his grace as a gift.” Grace and justification, two important words for Presbyterians.

Grace as the unmerited, unbuyable, uninheritable, favor of God always comes to us as a gift. It is God’s unconditional love for us – just because that is what God wants. And we are the happy recipients of God’s desire.

Just because God wants, and because of God’s grace you and I are brought into a right relationship with God, which the bible calls justification. Justification is the beginning of a life long journey that leads us toward sanctification.

Sanctification is the process of becoming holy, and living life in a way that is pleasing to Jesus. Scripture speaks of sanctification in several different ways. In Romans 12 Paul cautions us like this: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you will know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.” Paul knew that it is human nature to model our lives so that we are basically the same as the people around us. It is that quality that enables us to feel at home in the world. But Paul felt that, “fitting in” was a problem and not a solution. He believed that we should be different from others even as Jesus was different from his neighbors, and the Scribes and the Pharisees. Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I had a professor who taught that one of the jobs of the pastor is to help parishioners to become maladjusted in a sick society. Transformation, not conformation. A holy life, not an ordinary life. Transformation. Sanctification. A genuinely Christian life is one that is lived on a pathway toward holiness.

The man I talked about earlier? He’s okay but restless to move faster toward the goal of sanctification. And he is genuinely sorry he wasted so much time trying to be like everyone else, when he could have practiced living as Jesus wants him to live.

Because of Calvin’s rediscovery we can live our lives in the assurance that God desires to mold us so that one day at the end of our journey we will at last be transformed into the likeness of the One who is holy.

A New Testament ascription speaks about that moment this way, “And now unto him who is able to keep you from falling and present you spotless (that’s sanctification) before the throne of his glory. To the wise God be glory and praise now and forever.”

Copyright © 2009 by Dwight R. Blackstock

Calvin's Discovery

Sermon text for June 14, 2009:
Romans 3:21-26
Preached at Genesis Presbyterian Church, Littleton, Colorado

The boy was a vulnerable teen about thirteen or fourteen years old, but he seemed younger than other teens his age. Late one evening he was on a bus traveling from a Christian youth rally with other boys and girls his age. At the rally he witnessed his first ever altar call, and though he would never admit it, the experience had shaken him. “Just as I am without one plea” sang the other kids and their advisors.

As soon as the evangelist issued his call there was a line of kids extending from the back doors of the church, down the center aisle toward the altar. “Now is the time,” said the evangelist “to give your life to Christ. You must hurry,” he huffed, “because you might die tonight. Give your life to Christ so you don’t burn in the fires of hell.” Some of the kids were visibly shaken, crying and shrieking. Some fell to the ground and rolled around. One of the adult advisors told the boy they were “slain in the Spirit”. This was something that never happened in his Presbyterian Church.

The rally broke up late that night and the boy sat by himself on the bus and stared out the window at the dark streets, glad to have some time to himself. All of a sudden, he felt a strong firm hand on his shoulder and one of the adult advisors said, “Son, have you given your life to Christ?” As the boy took time to ponder the question instead of answering immediately, the man called for the bus driver to pull over and soon everyone on the bus stood around him and prayed that Christ would save his soul and spare him the tortures of the damned. When the bus finally stopped in front of his house the boy was humiliated and afraid. “Dad” he said to his father, “Have we been saved?”

“Let the little children come unto me” said Jesus, “and do not forbid them for as such is the Kingdom of God.”

This kind of story makes many of us uncomfortable. It seems unfair to ambush a child in this way. And the story may remind us of similar experiences that we have had. Maybe you were ambushed in an office or classroom, or perhaps in a gymnasium or even on a bus. When I was in seminary a more conservative classmate ambushed me in the bathroom at two o’clock in the morning. He thought he had a magical incantation which if just repeated would assure my salvation.

I think that most of us who care about being Presbyterian are not terribly interested in magical formulas. But that is not true of everyone. Several years ago I taught an adult membership class in which I spent about an hour teaching what Presbyterians call the “essential tenets of the Reformed Faith.” I taught the class the traditional understanding of the essential tenets and when I disagreed with tradition I carefully explained why. When I finished a young man said, “But what do we have to believe?” I said, “I just told you what the church believes and what I believe so now you have to make up your own mind.” “I understand,” he said “but what do I have to believe?” I repeated my answer, and he and his wife left the church.

Presbyterians care deeply about our theological traditions. We care enough that we want to wrestle with and be informed by our theology. And more importantly we want to know what the Bible says. Great Reformers like Calvin and Luther helped the Church reclaim some of the Bible’s teachings that were lost under Roman Catholicism.

In Romans, Paul tells us that we are all sinners who have “fallen short of the glory of God.” In fact, our shortcomings are so pervasive that there is virtually no way to distinguish one of us from the other. You and I might compare ourselves to others. “I know I am more faithful than he is” or maybe, “God must have a really hard time with her. Have you heard that woman’s mouth?” And occasionally, “That couple is so good I just can’t believe it.”

But God doesn’t care about these distinctions and comparisons. Because in God’s view we have all fallen short and continue to do so.

Our Fathers and Mothers of the Protestant Reformation were very concerned with the question of salvation, and they did not like the answers they heard from the prevailing Church doctrine. It did not seem right that wealthy people could buy their way into heaven. It did not seem right that someone could buy an indulgence that would forgive a sin that someone hoped to commit soon.

As Calvin searched the scripture for a different way of understanding life with God, three words seemed to jump out at him. The first word was “grace” which is defined as God’s free, unearnable, unmerited favor.” Grace is a gift we receive from God just because giving pleases God. We might say that “grace” is the first word of the Reformation. We are made right with God, because God says so. The second word is “justified” or “Justification”. Calvin believed that when someone became justified, he or she was made right with God through God’s action, not the action of the believers. And all of that because God is pleased to call us friends. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That is an accurate diagnosis of the human condition. But that is not the end of the story. “The free gift of God is eternal life.” God does not wait until we’re good, or until we say the magic words. Or until someone frightens us to death. Salvation is ours because it pleases God. That’s grace. It is also the beginning of the story and not the end.

The third word the Reformers helped us to hear is sanctification – the process of becoming holy. Those who only emphasize confession of faith, miss the point. Christ calls us to practice our faith and make ourselves available for the work of the Holy Spirit so that we can become more like Christ himself.

Do you remember the story of the boy on the bus? The people he was riding with wanted to save him – cause him to be born again. For them, the confession of faith was all that was important. It was an end in itself, but Presbyterian folks have never believed that. The first glimmerings of faith are just that – the beginning not the end.

So now we have two important words: grace and justified. God’s gift makes us right with God which is justification. That is the beginning of the story. But Calvin helped us find another word which speaks of the rest of the story. The word is sanctification, the process of becoming holy or more like God, and that takes a lifetime.

Scripture talks about sanctification in several ways. In Romans 12, Paul cautions believers in this way, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We have a choice. We can be like everyone else or we can allow the Holy Spirit to transform and sanctify us.

In II Corinthians Paul acknowledges that each of us is in a process of falling apart physically. And one day our physical bodies will simply stop working. But even knowing this he says, “…we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” That is sanctification: the renewal of our souls day by day; bit by bit. Grace. Justification. Sanctification. Because of people like Calvin we live our lives with assurance and we praise the one whom scripture tells us is “able to keep you from falling and to present you spotless before the throne of his glory. To the only wise God be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Copyright © 2009 by Dwight R. Blackstock

Transfigured Before Them

Sermon text for February 22, 2009:
Mark 9:2-9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, Colorado

He was about eighteen or nineteen years old when he went to visit a mission station where someone from his home church was serving. Even though he was young, many in the congregation considered him a leader. So it seemed natural that he was chosen to visit the mission and then come home and tell the story.

The young man smiled inwardly when the session chose him, because he had a secret that he could never share with the others. How would they ever understand that his faith was very shaky? In fact he was no longer sure that he believed at all.

He knew the story of Christianity well and even taught Sunday School. But something was missing for him. He could no longer connect the dots. He experienced a disconnect between the Bible story and the experiences of his own life. When he looked at his role models within the church, he couldn’t see Jesus in them either. How could he ever let them know that Jesus no longer seemed real? The people around him seemed to have settled into a comfortable pattern, but reflecting the impatience of youth he needed more. If he was ever going to really believe he needed to see Jesus.

He mulled the problem over in his mind as he traveled by train toward the mission. He felt guilty even thinking these kinds of thoughts. What he really wanted was some kind of sign – something that would help him know definitively that Jesus was real and that faith meant something in the real world. And he was traveling to the mission high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains hoping for some reason to keep believing.

He had only been at the mission for a few days when almost imperceptibly his heart began a transformation. The missionaries dealt with violence, illness, hunger and poverty every day, and they seemed to him to be the voice and hands of Jesus. They were both tough and tender at the same time. They could visit families living in filth and squalor without judging and they were able to embrace even the most unlovable people. They rarely used “church talk” yet they expressed Christian faith with real conviction. As he followed the missionaries around, the image of Jesus in his mind was literally transfigured by what he saw the missionaries do. And when he went home he started to see Jesus at work in the lives of people whose faith he doubted only a few days before.

I believe that God provides us with experiences of transfiguration, in which we begin to see Jesus in a new way. And the transfiguration of Jesus within us ultimately brings about our own transformation. If we take time to look, the transfiguration is a continuing process that helps us become more open to the Jesus within others.

Transfiguration! It is a strange story which is told in each of the synoptic gospels as well as in First Peter. The Bible story says that Jesus led Peter, James and John up a high mountain by themselves. There on top of the mountain Jesus was “transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”

While the disciples struggled to understand what was happening, they realized that they were not alone. Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus and the three spoke with one another as if they were old friends. The disciples were literally dumbstruck by what they saw, and they could not speak. Peter was the first to find his voice. “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” he said. “If you wish I will make three dwellings here; one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”. Peter wanted to live in this awesome, holy moment, for as long as possible. It must have seemed to him and his friends as if they could reach out and touch the face of God. Peter wanted to control this experience. He offered to build a dwelling for each of the Holy Men. “Perhaps they will want to stay”, he reasoned, “if I can make them comfortable.” Peter had not yet learned that faithfulness is measured by what we do down the mountain, among the people, and not by how long our special holy moments last.

But we can understand Peter’s yearning. He was a part of something amazing, holy, and glorious and he did not want the experience to end. We also have had moments like this. Maybe the experience relates to faith like when we are on a church retreat. But it might be a special time with family, or even a vacation. These peak experiences are wonderful and painful all at the same time, because we know that we can’t stay there. We know that the moment will end. And like Peter, James, John, and Jesus we have to go back down the mountain to face the realities of life. What we do down the mountain helps us define the validity of our experience of transfiguration.

The Bible says that while Peter was still speaking a “bright cloud overshadowed them” and they heard a voice speaking from the cloud. The voice said, “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.”

In that moment the disciples knew for certain that Jesus was the Messiah. Before they heard the voice of God, they might have speculated, but now his identity was confirmed. Jesus is the Messiah! Jesus is the Messiah! Imagine that, Jesus whose feet became dirty after a long day of walking on the dusty roads; Jesus who at times grew weary of the crowds; Jesus who suffered from hunger and thirst just like the disciples; Jesus stands transfigured and holy before them. And now they know that he is uniquely God’s beloved Son, the long awaited Messiah.

Scholars debate the meaning of this story. But the simplest interpretation might be the best. Jesus who is so genuinely human is also genuinely divine. In the person of Jesus we catch a glimpse of God, and I believe that God understands us differently as well. Because of Jesus, God understands hunger, longing, loneliness, temptation, and discouragement. In the experience of the transfiguration Jesus brings humans close to God and God close to humanity. And that is enough reason to continue telling this story to new generations of Christians.

As we prepare to move into Lent, let us ponder the God who loves us so much that staying in some far away heaven is not enough. Neither is staying in the world’s most beautiful cathedral good enough. God chose to become Emmanuel, which means “God with us”. As we ponder the nature of Jesus in the weeks leading up to Easter, the transfiguration story teaches us about his true nature. While Jesus is completely human, he is also uniquely the Son of God. He is the One of whom God spoke out of the cloud, saying, “This is my son, the beloved, I am well pleased with him.”

Copyright © 2009 by Dwight R. Blackstock