Last time I was here was the weekend of the birth of my Grandson – 6 years ago. So much has happened since then. Covid – change in pastors, and so much more.
Through it all we pray and hope that Jesus has walked with you and me and that we have noticed his presence and we have shared him with others.
I don’t often share personal memories in sermons but today there is a relevant thread.
I started seminary in the fall of 1976. Young, newly married, first apartment, and starting seminary. Preaching Class. I had grown up my whole life in the church and heard sermons every Sunday. (cause I had to be dying to not go to church) But now I was to be the preacher and say something profound in a sermon. My first sermon - I was assigned Jeremiah 31:31-34 for Lent 5
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
A few years later, I graduated from seminary and received my first call in this synod. I went to my first congregation where I began visiting an active member of the congregation, dying of cancer. Her death was my first funeral, the little country church was packed. Again to preach and say something profound. Text – Lent 5 John 12:23-25, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
I don’t remember much about either sermon, but these texts for Lent 5 always stuck with me – because in the end it didn’t matter much what I said, what matters is – Did the hears see Jesus? Did they know Jesus’ presence, compassion, love, grace?
The history of the protestant reformation has a written record, but also a record by artist Lucas Cranach. He was a friend and colleague of Martin Luther, lived in Wittenberg, and was also under the protection of Elector John of Saxony; he was the Elector’s court painter of Saxony.
He has a painting that also was reproduced by virtue of the newly invented printing press – which catches the essence of preaching, and this text – We wish to see Jesus. It shows Martin Luther preaching, and the congregation listening, but between Martin and the congregation, is Jesus on the cross. The point is: as Luther is preaching, the congregation is seeing Jesus, not Luther. That is the goal of preaching – helping everyone – including the preacher to SEE JESUS!
Today is the last regular Sunday in Lent before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. We read from John, Jesus has been anointed by Mary Magdalene, entered Jerusalem with palms, and now begins his last teaching before the LAST SUPPER.
Some Greeks – foreigners, seek to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew tells Jesus.
The Greeks were thinkers. They had witnesses the rituals and sacrifices in the temple. They had experienced all the rules and regulation that the priests and religious leaders has put in place. They had come to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. They had heard about Jesus, and this new thing God was doing, and they asked to SEE JESUS. They did not want another ritual, they did not want another sacrifice. They wanted to see Jesus.
The ancient scriptures have a way of still being relevant today.
The Greeks were troubled by all the things religious leaders and worshipers were doing in the temple that did not relate to God. TODAY we have rising numbers of people – either nones (who have no religious preference, or – spiritual, but not religious, those who don’t find Jesus in today’s church, or those wounded by the church.
People are still looking for Jesus.
Lots of things happen in today’s churches, and not all of it points to Jesus.
We have the rise of Christian Nationalism on one hand and on the other hand we have churches working on issues of justice, that can’t articulate the rational about how that relates to Jesus.
If the preaching of the church, if the ministry of the church, if the outreach of the church does not point to Jesus, then what is its purpose?
In all we say and do, it is about Jesus.
Just like when two children are talking about the children’s sermon. The pastor asks questions, and one kid says to the other – the answer is always Jesus.
Our Presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton once said, “We have to be able to articulate Jesus or we look like the action wing of a political party. “
It is not just about SEEING JESUS from afar. It is about seeing Jesus, knowing Jesus is present in the world, knowing Jesus cares and loves us, and knowing that forgiveness, grace, and acceptance are offered to us without us having to deserve, pay, inherit, or earn it. The price is paid, the cost carried by Jesus.
It is not just seeing a visual picture of Jesus. It is about seeing and hearing Jesus in our words and our actions. Seeing Jesus in the face of the refugee, the homeless, the abused, the grieving, the hunger… Them seeing Jesus in us and hearing Jesus as we reach out to those in need and to all of us as we seek to navigate this crazy world.
WE TOO need to see Jesus. There is a crisis of mental stress in the world, loneliness, fear, anxiety, and all the rest. We need to see Jesus in our lives, in the community, in the world – in church, in preaching so we can be empowered to continue to be Jesus and share Jesus with others. And find see Jesus and his work for ourselves, to remind us of God’s grace, love, forgiveness, and hope.
My guess is that the Greeks that come to see Jesus are looking for something more. Something that would transform them. Something that would change their life, help them lose their current life and gain something new!
That is the heart of Jesus response to them and the crowd.
One of my favorite theologians, Frederick Buechner, put it this way:
Doing the work you're best at doing and like to do best, hearing great music, having great fun, seeing something very beautiful, weeping at somebody else's tragedy—all these experiences are related to the experience of salvation because in all of them two things happen:
(1) you lose yourself, and
(2) you find that you are more fully yourself than usual
A closer analogy is the experience of love. When you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love who is. You forget yourself. You deny yourself. You give of yourself, so that by all the rules of arithmetical logic there should be less of yourself than there was to start with. Only by a curious paradox there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself.
The experience of salvation involves the same paradox. Jesus put it like this: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
You give up your old self-seeking self for the love of others and thereby become more yourself at last. You must die with Christ so that you can rise with him, Paul says. It is what baptism is all about.
You do not love God so that, tit for tat, God will then save you. To love God is to be saved. To love anybody is a significant step along the way.
We do not love God and live for GOD so we will go to Heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for GOD is God’s Kingdom here, now. A taste of heaven.
It is a gift, not an achievement.
You can make yourself moral. You can make yourself religious. But you can't make yourself love.
"We love," John says, "Because GOD first loved us." (1 John 4:19)
Jesus is in Jerusalem, he is looking ahead to the Last Supper, his arrest, dying on a cross on Good Friday, and then the gift of NEW LIFE that comes on Easter morning as the stone is rolled away.
Jesus demonstrates God's love for us, giving his life so that we might have life. It takes a life time then for us to contemplate that love and transform ourselves to be giving that love away.
I am here today to make a presentation after lunch on the demographics of your community. What are the folks that live here like, folks who drive by, who see the church, but may not know what goes one here.
The projections say that of the folks that drive down Dobie Road, 61% either do not know that life giving love of Jesus, have drifted away, or have been wounded by a church – especially churches that rely on legalism and shaming – instead of sharing the life giving love of Jesus. That is your mission field, sharing Jesus with one another, and finding connections to share that love from here out into the lives of the people that drive by every day. Let them see Jesus!!