Brave Enough to Do Right

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, May 11, 2013

Texts:

Blessed are the persecuted. Matthew 5:10

Students are to be like their teacher, and slaves are to be like their master. And since I, the master of the household, have been called the prince of demons, the members of my household will be called by even worse names! Matthew 10:25

As teenager I was inspired by the stories of the Protestant Reformers as recounted in Ellen White's book, The Great Controversy. I especially thrilled at the scene of the grand showdown between Martin Luther and the representatives of the Pope at the council convened by Emperor Charles V.

Religious controversy had been swirling through the German territories. Luther was the most prominent of a growing chorus of voices protesting abuses of power and spiritual corruption in the Roman Church. The pope had already condemned Luther for his outspoken challenges. Everyone figured it was only a matter of time before he was seized and burned at the stake. But in a surprise move, the Emperor summoned him to appear before the grand council in the city of Worms. Luther's friends urged him not to go. They figured he would never get back out of town alive. But the emperor had given Luther a safe-conduct pass along with the summons to appear. Besides, Luther refused to be intimidated.

On the appointed day, he was conducted to the assembly hall. There he stood directly in front of the emperor. Luther knew he had sympathizers in that vast assembly. But they were mostly minor princes, younger nobility, people with dreams but little power. When push came to shove, Luther was going to be on his own. The prosecutor pointed to a stack of books placed front and center and asked Luther two questions: Was he the author of these books? Would he retract what he had said in them?

Luther readily answered the first question. Yes, he was their author. Regarding the second question about retracting or recanting, he asked for a day to consider.

The next day, he was back before the vast assembly of bishops, priests, nobles, theologians, lawyers, dignitaries and, of course, the emperor. It was a dazzling company of watchers. The brightest minds in the region. The most powerful personages. Many of the powerful people there had already been emphatic in their calls for Luther's arrest and elimination. He was dangerous.

The prosecutor demanded that Luther give a final statement as to whether or not he would recant what he had written. He gave a carefully worded answer. The papal prosecutor was not satisfied. He wanted a simple, direct, up or down answer. So Luther gave it to him:

"Since your most serene majesty and your high mightinesses require from me a clear, simple, and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of God, I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me. Amen." GC 160.

As a teenager reading this, I cheered. I dreamed of standing boldly for truth and righteousness like Luther did. I dreamed of possessing the courage and intellectual ability Luther exhibited.

Now, I dream of this kind of holy boldness for a younger generation.

I think Jesus was encouraging that kind of thinking when he declared,

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who are so committed to righteousness, that even persecution cannot seduce them into capitulating.

We don't talk much of persecution these days because deadly persecution is not part of our every day world. Here in the United States you do not put your life at risk for voicing the wrong ideas. You might get fired. You won't get killed.

Of course, if we lived elsewhere, it might be a different story. In February of this year, the mutaween, the Saudi Arabian religious police, raided a private worship service and arrested 53 Ethiopians. Three of the leaders were charged with trying to convert Muslims, a charge that can carry the death penalty.

Being a Christian is dangerous in Saudi Arabia. In 1997 the kingdom executed two Filipinos who had become Christians while in prison. They had gone to jail for some ordinary crime. There, they were converted and would not keep quiet about it. So the kingdom executed them. Persecution is real in Saudi Arabia. It's against the law to have a Bible, to pray together in your home. The kingdom is so sick, they have a special police force dedicated to forcefully eradicating every hint of creative religious thinking, every expression of spirituality that is not already approved in the policy books of Wahhabism. Still guest workers from other countries secretly practice their faith.

Jesus sees this secret worship and blesses it. God disagrees with the mutaween. The religious police persecute. God blesses. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia imagines it can preserve truth through force of police and prisons and executions. The kingdom is wrong. Eventually, it will crumble.

What is the righteousness Jesus blesses?

The book of Matthew comes back to this theme over and over again. Righteousness means doing right. Telling the truth. Practicing faithfulness at home. Avoiding scorn, ridicule and hostility. Loving even our enemies. All this is epitomized in Matthew 25 in the story of the sheep and goats. The final destiny of people hinges on how they have responded to the down-to-earth needs of the people around them. Taking care of people is the essence, the very heart of righteousness.

The Book of Micah puts it this way:

He has shown you, O Man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? Just this: to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Jesus blesses people who are so radically committed to this practice of righteousness, they will persist even in the face of persecution.

Part of walking humbly with God means learning, moving forward in our knowledge of truth.

By definition, church doctrine is conservative. It is a record of what the great majority of church leaders believed at a particular point in the past. Doctrine becomes the foundation of persecution when someone in the church learns something new. By definition you cannot have a “new understanding” without departing from what is already believed.

The history of the Christian church includes many episodes of persecution because of this conflict between learning and doctrine.

Not every new idea is a good one. Doctrine plays a useful role as a sea anchor to keep the church from being yanked this way and that every time someone new writes a book. But doctrine is also the fundamental tool used by those who persecute. So we need to be careful.

One of the primary reasons Jesus was persecuted was because he defended people the religious authorities condemned. The religious leaders scornfully condemned “tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus went to dinner with them. Jesus even partied with them.

The religious leaders delighted in condemning people caught in sexual sin. Jesus refused to condemn and instead pointed to a better life. (John 8)

At the time of World War I, people who opposed the war were arrested and jailed. You weren't allowed to speak out against the war.

During the Vietnam War, in the Adventist Church there was the same generational divide that characterized the rest of the country. Older members thought that Christians ought to support the government. Young people thought they ought to oppose the war. Young people who spoke out against the war were scolded and even punished by church leaders and teachers. But the young people were right.

In the run up to the Iraq war, those of us who publicly opposed the war were scolded as unpatriotic, as appeasers. Time has proven us right. It was right to speak out against an unjust, unjustifiable war.

I appeal to you young people to brace yourselves to speak out for compassion and mercy, to speak against violence, greed, tyranny. Keep speaking even when you are told to be quiet. Keep speaking even if it costs you.

The heart of righteousness is not sinlessness. It is compassion and truth, justice and mercy. Avoiding sin is a way-too-meager objective. Those who talk and dream of sinlessness will unavoidably be distracted from the real work of righteousness. Jesus did not bless those who avoid sin. In that case, his blessing would have applied primarily to dead people. They are perfectly sinless. But, of course, they are utterly incapable of righteousness, i.e. doing right. Jesus blessed those who do right. Only we the living can even attempt that.

A special word about the persecuted. Not all people who are prosecuted (yes, I'm deliberately changing the word) are guilty. Some of them are blessed of God, because they have not done wrong.

I have friends who are physicians who have been sued for malpractice. The truth is, they are guilty of only two things: 1. They aren't God. 2. They have given excellent care.

I would tell them, “Don't worry about it. You know you didn't do anything wrong. You know you gave good service.” But the lawsuit is there. It eats at them. It is an assault on their sense of dignity and competence.

If you are a medical person: Hear the words of Jesus: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessings on you for continuing to serve humanity in a role where the threat of suit is never far away.

I know of scientists who have been persecuted for doing right, for speaking the truth as they see it. In secular universities, sometimes scientists are mistreated because of their devout Christian beliefs. In Adventist universities, scientists are sometimes mistreated because of their commitment to science. Especially in the area of earth science, if you speak the truth as most Adventist scientists see it, your job will be in jeopardy.

If you are a scientist, I want to join Jesus in blessing you in your commitment to righteousness, your commitment to the pursuit of truth.

Some of you have experienced difficulty because of your commitment to Sabbath-keeping. My father tells the story of being admitted to medical school at the University of Tennessee, decades ago. A week after classes began, the dean called him in. “McLarty, I see you're an Adventist. Yes, my dad said. Well, I'm sure you won't have any problems. We've had other Adventist students here. But I want to let you know that we have one class that has labs on Saturdays. It's the only class that you'll be required to attend on Sabbath here. The other Adventists have accommodated to our schedule and I'm sure you will, too. But I thought I should let you know.”

Dad argued. He checked with other people. There were no options. The dean's word was final. Either Dad participated in these Sabbath labs or he would not graduate. Dad had to drop out of medical school. It was a crushing disappointment. For the next few years he worked at jobs that paid ten cents an hour.

He was finally accepted into med school at Loma Linda. But for several years he paid a high cost for doing what he believed was right.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Righteousness, doing right, practicing mercy and justice, telling the truth can sometimes carry a high cost. Do it any way. And carry in your heart the assurance voiced by Jesus: You are blessed. You have a special place in God's kingdom.

The Uncountable 144,000

The Uncountable 144,000

Sermon Manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, April 20, 2013, International Sabbath

Revelation 7 describes a very, very special group of people. They are the treasures of the kingdom of heaven, the jewels of family of God. Against a backdrop of doom and despair, John describes the secret heroes of the book of Revelation.

Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds so they did not blow on the earth or the sea, or even on any tree. And I saw another angel coming up from the east, carrying the seal of the living God. And he shouted to those four angels, who had been given power to harm land and sea, "Wait! Don't harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of his servants." And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God—144,000 were sealed from all the tribes of Israel:

This special group, the 144,000, receive extraordinary protection by the angels of God. God marks them with his own special tattoo. Don't anyone mess with these people. They are God's special friends.

The specialness of this group is highlighted by the context John sets them in. The reason they need protection is they are surrounded by doom. Notice what John wrote just before introducing this group:

Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?" Revelation 6:15-17

It's the end of the world. Everyone is doomed. Everyone—kings and servants, big shots and little people, rich people and poor people. It's all over. The doom is so severe, so all encompassing, the prophet asks what appears to be a rhetorical question: Who could possibly survive? It seems no one. Then John introduces the 144,000. Not everyone is doomed. Not all is lost. God has a special group of people that are protected through the grand cataclysm.

One way to understand how special this group is is to calculate percentages. 144,000 is only about 16 thousandths of one percent. (If I did my math right. You should always double check my arithmetic.)

Another mark of their status: They are Jews. And, of course, the Jewish people are God's special people all through the Bible from the days of Abraham on. Naturally, here in at the end of the Bible they are still pictured as enjoying the benefits of being God's special people.

Further, they are not “Jews” in general. They are carefully enumerated by their tribes. 12,000 from each tribe.

But this is where the vision gets tricky. The angel announces to John the precise numbers for each of the twelve tribes making up this 144,000 who will be spared the great doom. The funny thing about these tribes is that nine of them had become extinct hundreds of years before John's day. When the angel tells John that God going to protect 2,000 individuals from the tribe of Issachar, John immediately wonders, how is he going to do that? They are already extinct? This is crazy.

How can God protect people who are extinct?

The answer comes in verse 9. John has been told about this group. He has heard the number, 144,000. Now he is invite to see the group. When he looks, he does not see 144,000 people neatly divided into twelve groups.

After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:9

It turns out that the 144,000, the special people from the special tribes of Israel are actually symbols of an uncountable crowd. The number-144,000-turns out to be not a measure not of their number but of their specialness to God. Who are the people God prizes and protects? People “from every nation and tribe and people and language.”

The number is not meant to scare us because it is small compared to the billions who live on earth. It is meant to reassure us because most of the people it includes are invisible except to the eyes of faith. Humanly speaking the tribes of Issachar and Zebulum are beyond hope. They are extinct. But not to God. God is still watching and counting for the purpose of including.

It is one of the important messages we can draw from the Bible.

Jesus spoke to the Jewish people, people specially chosen by God and tried to teach them that their special status did not set them the rest of humanity. Instead their special status was intended as a message to the rest of humanity of God's true intentions.

God showed his special concern for Israel by sending them prophets. Two of the most famous in the Old Testament were Elijah and Elisha. Their ministries greatly enriched the life of the Jewish people in the northern kingdom of Israel. Still some of their most dramatic miracles were for foreigners. Jesus reminded his audiences of that fact. How many lepers were there in the land back in the days of the Prophet Elisha? Jesus asked. No one cited a number, but the assumption was that there were a bunch of them. And who was the only leper Elisha healed? Naaman the Syrian. There were many widows in the days of Elijah the prophet, but the only widow associated with Elijah's ministry was a pagan widow from the non-Jewish town of Zarephath.

God's care for Israel was a sign of God's regard for all humanity. The Prophet Isaiah wrote that the temple in Jerusalem was to be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:7).

The temple was a special place. God promised to be present there in a special way. Is special presence in the Jerusalem temple was a sign of invitation. It meant that the temple belonged not to the Jews but to humanity. This truth is highlighted in Psalm 87.

On the holy mountain stands the city founded by the LORD. He loves the city of Jerusalem more than any other city in Israel. O city of God, what glorious things are said of you! Interlude I will count Egypt and Babylon among those who know me— also Philistia and Tyre, and even distant Ethiopia. They have all become citizens of Jerusalem! Regarding Jerusalem, it will be said, "Everyone enjoys the rights of citizenship there." And the Most High will personally bless this city. When the LORD registers the nations, he will say, "They have all become citizens of Jerusalem." The people will play flutes and sing, "The source of my life springs from Jerusalem!"

Thinking internationally this psalm teaches us to see Russians and Finns, Chinese and North Koreans, Iraqis and Iranians, Saudis and Brazilians, Somalis and Kenyans, Chechens and Brits as all the special people of God.

Thinking more locally, this psalm teaches us to include Democrats and Republicans, Paul Ryan and President Obama among the people of God.

As Adventists we think of ourselves as the remnant of God, as God's special people. To the extent that that is true, to the extent that the specialness of Jerusalem applies to us, it is a call to remember that just as God promised in Psalm 87 to ultimately regard Babylonians, Egyptians and Philistines as native-born citizens of Jerusalem, so we can expect that God will include our theological opponents, our social opponents, perhaps even our moral opponents as native-born Adventists.

To the extent that this is the church of God, we are not the owners, we are the custodians, the trustees, charged with making clear to every tribe, language and people the welcome of God.

God Is Love

Four Treasures of Adventism

A lecture series for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

NOTE: I am not preaching this morning. The sermon at Green Lake Church will be delivered by Andreas Beccai, our youth pastor. Since I'm posting this a week early, criticism has the real potential of influencing the final form.

Lecture Two: God Is Love

Sabbath School, April 6, 2013

God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 1 John 4:8-11

Apophaticism

Theologians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition have developed an approach to theology called apophaticism. Apophaticism is the conviction that humans cannot make any deeply meaningful, affirmative statement about God because of the inherent limitations of human language. For example, if I say God is love, that would be a false statement because my understanding of love is so meager and so defective that my words distort more than they inform.*

This idea can be very seductive, especially for religious people who are philosophically inclined. We know there are vast oceans or even galaxies of unknowing surrounding us. It is indisputably true that the more we know, the more aware we can be of what we don't know. We can even cite Bible passages that caution us about the limits of our capacity to define God.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

Apophaticism is a good thing when it reminds us that human language is inadequate to voice the full truth about God. There is a proper humility for those of us who attempt to speak truthfully about God. We cannot escape our own skins, our own personal and cultural histories. The Bible itself contains stories of people who had emphatic opinions about God—opinions that were judged to be false. (See the complicated stories in 1 Kings 13 and Jeremiah 28.)

But apophaticism can be overdone. All of us humans eventually come to the end of our humility. We can say “I don't know!” and “We can't know!” only so long. Eventually, being human, we cannot help ourselves: we do have opinions, not just mild, casual opinions, but deep-set convictions, about the fundamental nature of reality, about what is true, about what ought to be true.

We believe that truth and beauty, kindness and generosity, honesty and integrity are not just different from falsehood, ugliness, meanness, stinginess, dishonesty and duplicity. We believe these virtues are “better.” They are morally superior to the vices. This notion of morality cannot be reduced to a mere synonym of any other category. The virtues are more beautiful than the vices, yes. But beautiful doesn't quite say what we mean when we say the virtues are superior. The virtues are more desirable, they are more life-enhancing, yes, but when we say they are morally better, we mean something other than desirable or life-enhancing. Morality is a category that cannot be reduced to any non-religious or non-philosophical/theological term. All normal humans have moral convictions, even people who argue for a Darwinian origin of our moral sensibility end up arguing for truthfulness and honesty in dealing with data in a way that presumes a meaning for “moral conviction” that is not accounted for in any naturalistic explanation.

The most basic of all moral convictions for Adventists is simply this: God is love.

God Is Love

Years ago, when we lived in Thousand Oaks, CA, our yard bordered a large city park. We answered a knock at the door one day to find a rather cross Parks Department official standing there. “Did we have a brown dog?”

“Yes.”

“All the garbage cans in the park have been tipped over and garbage is everywhere. Witnesses say it was done by a brown dog that they have seen in your yard. This is not the first time the park has been trashed. We believe your dog is responsible. If you do not keep your dog in, you will be assessed a significant fine. If that doesn't persuade you to keep your dog in, the dog will be confiscated.”

I had one thing going in my favor. One of our neighbors had alerted us that the parks people were after us. And she had told the parks people that we worked hard at keeping our dog in. We did not deliberately let the dog run.

So now, facing the Parks official, I repeated what our neighbor had said. We had been working for months to make the yard escape-proof. We blocked his holes under the fence with logs and cinder blocks. Then he started jumping over the fence on the other side the yard. We knew he was getting out. And after he escaped, he always eventually came home and scratched at the front door. But we had no idea he was trashing the park. We thought he was just chasing gophers in the field next to the park.

The parks official was not amused. We were going to have to do something or face the consequences—a fine and possible confiscation of the dog. I made a counter offer. I would try harder to keep the dog in, though short of chaining him, I couldn't promise he would never get out. But then I offered this: I would check the park daily. If the trash cans were knocked over, I would clean it up. Whether it was Toby or another animal or vandals, it didn't matter. If the cans were knocked over, I would clean it up.

It was a deal.

So for the next few years that we lived there, every time Toby showed up at our front door wanting to be let in, I would put him in his kennel, then go check the park. Frequently, I spent a half hour picking up McDonalds bags with ketchup and food smeared on the outside, cigarette butts, paper plates coated with food on both sides. Napkins. Soda bottles and cans. Wrappers. Watermelon rinds. And worst of all, dirty diapers.

All of you who are dog lovers immediately get this story. If Toby were your dog, you would have done the same thing. Toby's problems were my problems. Part of the meaning of the word “love” is a commitment to the other.

When the Bible describes God as a shepherd and people as his sheep, the Bible is setting us up with certain expectations about God. When Jesus told the story about the lost sheep, his audience was not surprised at the searching of the shepherd. Good shepherds go out in cold, wet, miserable weather to find lost sheep. That's what good shepherds do. And we expect a good shepherd usually to be successful in his search for his sheep.

For a good shepherd, the problems of the sheep are his problems. This has profound theological implications which I will come back to a little later.

The dominant metaphor for God in Scripture is Father.

A couple of paternal pictures from the story of David are deeply revealing. David was apparently not much of a disciplinarian. Maybe this is why he is called the man after God's own heart? David's son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. David was angry but did nothing. So two years later, Tamar's full brother, Absalom, killed Amnon to avenge the rape. Absalom fled the kingdom to escape punishment, and three years later David's pining his absent son Absalom is greater than his outrage over his dead son. Absalom is brought back from Gerar. Things happen and eventually Absalom leads a rebellion aimed at unseating King David and placing Absalom himself on the throne. The rebellion fails. Absalom is killed. And when David hears that Absalom is dead, he collapses into an agony of grief, crying, "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! O Absalom, my son, my son." 2 Samuel 18:33.

In this story, we see the danger of being overly permissive, the danger of an authority figure ignoring injustice. David's inaction against Tamar's rapist set up this entire sorry tale. But it is the final picture of David lamenting over his son, a son killed in his rebellion against the throne, that Christian preachers have come back to over and over again as a picture of the heart of God.

God's connection with humanity is so close, his love is so intense, that when confronted with the bald choice between self-preservation and the preservation of even a rebellious child, God would choose the preservation of the child.

I argue that if we were to see God make that choice, we would not scorn God for being sentimental. We would honor God for being sacrificial. We would understand his sacrifice as the highest imaginable expression of love.

One more picture from the life of David. Some years after Absalom's rebellion, David has become so infirm he is bedfast. At a point of crisis he abdicates in favor of his son Solomon. The abdication is not surprising given the situation, but what is remarkable is the comment of one of his courtiers when David makes the official pronouncement: “And may the LORD be with Solomon as he has been with you, my lord the king, and may he make Solomon's reign even greater than yours!" 1 Kings 1:37

It's fascinating to read this wish against the cultural backdrop of the passage. The king's favorite wife has come in to see him and she has bowed and paid obvious obeisance. Then Nathan the Prophet, who has more than once challenged the king, comes in. He, too, bows and goes through the formula acknowledging David's absolute preeminence. No one is the king's equal. Not a favorite wife, not a famous prophet, not leading generals, not even the high priest. But then someone speaks of the king's role as a father and suddenly the nicest thing you can wish for is to see the king superceded! “May your son be greater than you.”

It's the dream of every dad for his children: May they do better than I have. One of the greatest fears of the very rich is that their children will be less than their parents.

One more biblical picture of God as Father.

When we go through the gospels and notice Jesus' use of this metaphor, what leaps out is his instinctive, unvarying assumption that fathers are trustworthy and generous. Nowhere in all of the father metaphors Jesus uses is there even a hint of sternness or magisterial aloofness. Note these phrases from Matthew 6:

Your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.

Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him.

Look at the birds . . . your Father takes care of them! Aren't you worth much more than birds?

It is God who clothes the wild grass . . . Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you?

Do not worry, saying, "What will I eat?" or "What will I wear?" Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things . . . and he will provide you with them.

Matthew 6

Jesus portrays God as an idealized human father. He is responsive and affirming, aware, not aloof or absent. He actively provides for us. He takes note of our noble deeds and rewards them. He delights in doing us good. The presumption is that the father will make sure life goes well for his children. The primary responsibility for the well-being of the children resides with the father not with the children. And God happily embraces this responsibility.

Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

Then there is the father of the prodigal son. He eats the shame his younger son has brought on the family and welcomes the wastrel home. Then when the older son expresses scorn and resentment toward his younger brother (and by implication scorn for his father who welcomed the jerk home), the father does not rebuke the older brother, but affirms his place—all that I have is yours—and leaves open the possibility for the older brother to yet join the father in celebrating the resurrection of his lost brother.

Jesus expects his audience to buy the story. The father's generosity is surprising, maybe even astounding, but Jesus expects his audience to hear somewhere in their own hearts an incontrovertible yes to the father's generosity.

So what?

These pictures of the God who loves—the shepherd who regards the lostness of his sheep as “his problem,” the father who values the preservation and exaltation of his sons over his own, the father who is trustworthy, generous, forgiving—have important theological implications.

Let me address two. First: what grief says about God.

According to popular Christian teaching, when someone dies, he or she goes immediately into the presence of God or enters the torments of hell. In this view, before death, God is limited in his interaction with people by the illusions and frailty of our bodily existence. When a believer dies, death heals this separation and leads immediately to the joy of unhindered spiritual fellowship between God and his children. So, for God, death is a great boon. It is the door through which he welcome his children into sweet, eternal communion with him. We who are left bereft on earth may be wracked by grief, but God's heart is gladdened by the homeward flight of his child.

According to Adventist theology, when someone dies, the person stops interacting with God through prayer, worship and obedience. People are not lost to the heart or memory of God. But as an active, thinking, loving, talking human beings, dead people are as unavailable to God as they are to their grieving friends on earth. In the language of the Bible, the person "sleeps" (John 11:11-14). A dead person has no awareness of time or "waiting." The person remains "unconscious" until the resurrection. At the second coming all God's people are united and taken en masse into the presence of God. They all arrive at the heavenly party together (Hebrews 11:39-40).

In this view, God himself is deprived of the living companionship of a person who dies–just as are the grieving family and friends. Instead of death being a boon to God, death robs God of the worship of his people (Psalm 115:17). When people die, the heavenly Father no longer hears the voices of his children in praise and prayer. He has memories to cherish and a future to anticipate, but he is not in fellowship with their vital, interactive "souls."

In this view, human grief is a mirror, an image, of the grief of God. It is a truism that when children hurt, their moms and dads hurt as much as or more than the little ones. And God, our heavenly parent, hurts for his children. When grief batters our hearts and wets our eyes, God hurts because we hurt. But there is more to God's grief than that. God's grief is not only the response of his heart to the pain that wound us. God himself is wounded by the separation caused by death. Death interrupts God's own conversation with his child. God bears the emotional cost of the system he has designed and allows to continue even in its broken condition. When it comes to enduring pain, God asks nothing of us he does not require of himself.

This perspective of God as a grieving parent has large implications for how we view the "delay of the Advent." Why hasn't Jesus returned as he promised? What's taking so long? Explanations include: God is waiting because he wants to save more people. He is waiting for some predetermined time. He waits for evil to reach its full flower or for the gospel to be preached in all the world or for the character of Christ to be perfectly reproduced in his people.

Each of these theories has something to recommend it, and each has problems. The Adventist understanding of the nature of death does not answer the question, why does God wait? It does, however, change the emotional content of the question. In addition to asking why God doesn't hurry up and rescue us from our trouble (a very good and proper question), this picture of God's grief prompts us to ask, why doesn't God spare himself? If the redeemed between death and resurrection day, then every day God delays the second coming is another day he carries the wounds of his own bereavement. Since God loves every human more intensely than a mother loves her only child, the Adventist understanding of death is a picture of a brokenhearted God.

In the traditional view of death, there is diminished motivation for God to bring human history to an end. Every day God is welcoming children home. But in the Adventist view, every day that passes adds to the grief that weighs on God's heart. God does not ask us to bear burdens he himself does not carry. He does not encourage us to be brave in the face of pain that he himself does not feel.

I remember listening to a funeral sermon at a funeral in Akron, Ohio. On the front row were four or five kids, siblings of an eight-year-old boy who was killed when the front wheel of his bicycle hit a rock threw him in front of a car.

The preacher spoke directly to the young people on the front row. "Try not to take your brother's death too hard. I know you miss him, but God needed him up in heaven and that's why he took him. God must have some very important job in mind for your brother up there. Stay close to Jesus and some day you'll join your brother in heaven, and he'll show you around the New Jerusalem and tell you all about what he's been doing while you were down here working for Jesus."

The pastor was doing what a pastor is supposed to do–mining the spiritual and theological resources of his community for all the comfort and solace he could find. I was not critical of the pastor as a person, but I was appalled at the theology that drove his words.

"So are you telling me," I imagined shouting, "that every time God runs low on kitchen help in the heavenly cafeteria he throws rocks in front of little kids' bike tires? Is God really that hard up for help in heaven? What kind of God is that?"

This view, if true, would mean our deepest wounds bring great joy to God. People who are the most lovable and leave the greatest hole here on earth when they die, bring instant joy in the courts of heaven. We on earth bear all the cost of improving heaven's work force.

The popular view of death does offer some comfort. It places those who have died in a good place far from all pain (though logically, the joy of heaven would be tainted by the awareness that "back on earth" are loved ones still exposed to evil and suffering). This traditional view actually does offer an accurate description of the experience of the person who dies. When a believer dies, the very next moment in their experience will be the resurrection and the presence of God. The time in the grave that is felt all too keenly by grieving survivors does not exist in the experience of the one who has died.

The Adventist understanding of death addresses the reality of pain confronted by those who are still alive. For those who survive the death of a loved one, the "immediate" reality is grief and hurt. And in every death, one of the survivors, one of the mourners, is God himself. There is no benefit for God in the death of his children. He is not knocking off children to fill the heavenly kitchens or choirs. He does not forget our grief in the great joy of his communion with his children who have escaped into his presence from their earthly prisons. Instead God enters the very depths of our grief. In fact, our purest, deepest grief is but a faint reflection of God's grief. If we are able to receive it, the pain of our grief is a stern education about the depth and intensity of God's love.

A second theological implication: I do not expect most (or even many) to be lost.

Can we imagine a “good father” would allow his children to romp in a playground where there was a real likelihood that they would fall into a trap from which that all the resources of heaven would be inadequate to rescue them?

The standard Christian view of humanity is that because of the error of Adam and Eve in the garden all of humanity is naturally damned. A few may accept God's offer of gracious deliverance, but the default destiny of all humans is damnation and only a few will avoid it.

If Toby the dog was confiscated from the McLarty house and sent to the pound and then because no one else wanted him he was euthanized, in our home that would be considered a massive failure—not a failure by Toby, but a failure by the McLarty zoo to find an adequate way to deal with his nature.

If the shepherd did not find the lost sheep, in Jesus' story, it is the shepherd who would be called a failure, not the sheep.

In the story of the prodigal, at the end of the story, the father's heart remains wide open to both sons.

When I was young, I spent a huge amount of energy searching a reassuring answer to the question: will I be saved? Have I been perfect enough? Then later, was my faith sufficiently real to qualify me for salvation by faith? I projected onto God, my sense of never-quite-good-enough that I developed in my family of origin.

Now I am old. The pictures of God as Father are turned on their head. I no longer imagine myself primarily as “son.” I am father, the father three kids or four, counting the one who died, or five counting my daughter-in-law or dozens or scores counting the young people who have have sneaked into my heart.

As father, the question is not what do these children have to do to avoid my condemnation. More meaningful questions would be, What could they possibly do that would cause me to damn them? Can I persuade myself they are so broken the universe would be better without them? Can I imagine sustaining the pain of my own existence in their absolute, eternal absence?

God is love. This conviction, illuminated by the metaphors of Scripture and our own deep understanding of parental and shepherd and pet-keeping love, should lead us to reverse our question “who could possibly be saved, given human sinfulness.” Instead we should ask, “Who could possibly be lost given the love and resourcefulness of God?” Then, having dismissed our fearful concern with damnation we are freed to ask really good questions like: what can I do with the life God has given me? What shall I do to make the world a sweeter, more beautiful place? Whom can I touch with help, healing and hope?

Shout Hallelujah

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, March 23, 2013

Based on Matthew 21.
Updated Sabbath morning with at least one important new idea.

A mile or two outside Jerusalem, Jesus pointed to a village a little way off in the distance and said to a couple of his disciples, “Go to that village over there. In the middle of town, you'll see a donkey tied up, with its colt beside it. Untie the donkey and bring the animals to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will immediately let you take them.”

Please, note the details here. Jesus sends two of his disciples to “appropriate” someone else's donkey. He does not tell the disciples to go ask permission. He tells them, “Just go untie the donkeys and bring them here. Oh, and by the way, if anyone should happen to challenge you, just tell them 'the Master needs them.' and they'll let you go.”

Let's change this story around a little bit. One of your kids reports that his brother “borrowed” a bike from a porch a mile from your house. He rode the “borrowed” bike to an event at Gas Works Park, then late that evening, returned the bike to the porch from which he had borrowed it.

Would you be happy with your son?

And what if, when you questioned your son about this, he explained, “I knew they were out of town, so they wouldn't miss the bike since I was only going to borrow it for one day.” What would you say to that?

And what if, when you pressed your son about the importance of asking before using something that belonged to someone else, he said, “Well, when Jesus needed a donkey, he didn't ask.”

One of the markers of the authenticity of the gospels is their stubborn inclusion of narrative details that don't quite fit inside a neat orthodox box.

This anecdote also highlights the fact that the Bible is not designed to be an “Idiot's Guide” to anything. People who try to use the Bible as a literal, straightforward rule book usually come to grief. The Bible intends to connect us with God, to make us wise, to help us see.

It was people who were inspired by the Bible who led the fight against legal slavery in the 1700s and campaigned for the humane treatment of those who suffer from mental illness and fought for justice for Black people in the South in the 1950s. These activists understood this story to be a statement about the lordship of Jesus over all of life.

Jesus is not just Lord at church. He is Lord of the world. His perspective on the value and place of human beings should influence what we pay our dish washers, gardeners and carpenters. Christians believe Jesus has authority over our donkeys as well as our hymnals.

Jesus needed a donkey. He sent his disciples to fetch one.

When the disciples returned, a crowd had gathered. (Actually, there was probably a crowd surrounding Jesus when he sent the two disciples off in the first place. There was always a crowd around Jesus.)

The disciples threw several garments over the colt—that is the male offspring of the mama donkey. And Jesus climbed on. This was a pretty audacious move. I don't know if the disciples were worried—what if this colt bucks him off!!!! I suspect that at least some of them were. They knew about animals. But this colt gave a further demonstration of the universal lordship of Jesus. Instead of bucking, it stood tranquilly under Jesus' weight.

Seeing the donkey happily submit to Jesus, the disciples start shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

The crowd took up the chant. They spread their garments in the road to make a royal carpet. They broke branches from trees and fronds from palms and waved them in the air, shouting, ““Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Jesus began riding toward Jerusalem and the procession snowballed. Dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands of people got caught up in the excitement. It was a wild, crazy, ecstatic parade. The people at the center knew exactly what they were doing. They had been followers of Jesus for years. They had seen his power in miracles of healing and exorcism. They had been mesmerized by his teaching. They were confident he really was the Messiah—the magic, royal personage who had lived at the center of Jewish hopes for a millennium.

Jesus' devotees had been impatient with his reticence. They had long been wanting him to make a move, to assert himself.

When they saw him mount that colt, their expectations ignited. This was the Arab spring, the Boston tea party, the destruction of the Berlin wall, the election of Jean Bertrand Aristide. The excitement was contagious. It was very quickly out of control.

The Gospel of Luke reports that at some point as Jesus neared Jerusalem, perhaps even as he was entering the city, the Pharisees chided Jesus. They urged him to rebuke the crowd for their extravagant language, throwing around titles that belonged rightly only to the Messiah.

Jesus laughed and told the religious scholars, “If the people are quiet, the stones will shout.”

There was no quieting this ecstasy. Jesus did not make the slightest effort to cool it. He rode the enthusiasm like a surfer on a monster wave. Ultimately the wave deposited him at the entrance of the temple, then washed him right inside.

There, church business as usual was going on. Money changers were turning the coins of Roman and Egyptian and Spanish monarchs into the coinage of the temple. Vendors were selling doves and sheep and cattle for sacrifices. All making a tidy profit in the process.

Jesus waded into the scene and began heaving tables over and throwing open gates of animal pens. Money changers grabbed for their bags and ran. Bulls bellowed and plowed through the chaos like bulldozers. Sheep baaed and bleated. Cows mooed. It was a wild and crazy bedlam. The crowd that had entered the temple courtyard behind Jesus cheered and hooted. Maybe they joined Jesus in stirring the chaos. Perhaps they lent a hand untying bulls, opening pens and heaving money tables onto their sides. We don't know for sure.

Above all the commotion Jesus bellowed over and over: “It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves!”

The temple court emptied. Then it filled again. The bulls and cows and sheep and goats and pigeons were gone along with the vendors, money changers, priests and dignitaries. Behind them came a slow tide of disabled people—blind people, lame people. Jesus moved back into his customary role of healer, teacher, soother, ameliorator, reconciler.

Children came running in. Bands of them danced, still singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” For them the party was not over.

Eventually, the religious leaders and teachers of the law crept back into the courtyard. They sidled up to Jesus and protested. “Don't you hear what those kids are saying? Stop them!”

Jesus laughed and said, “And haven't you read what the prophet wrote, 'From the mouths of babes and infants you have brought perfect praise?'” Psalm 8:2.

Those of us who are acquainted with the Jesus story know that the ecstasy of this afternoon was fleeting. We know that Gethsemane was coming and the agony of the crucifixion. Sometimes Christianity is overly obsessed with these dark parts of the story. But that is untrue to the story itself. Jesus himself explicitly blessed the ecstasy of Palm Sunday. Christianity—at least the story of Jesus as directed and controlled by Jesus—included ecstasy. It still does. A religion of principle and discipline, sober reflection and self-criticism has much to recommend it. But if it does not also include shouting hallelujah, if it doesn't include dancing for joy and moments of sheer ecstasy, whatever its merits, it's probably not actually Christian or perhaps I should say, it is at best a truncated Christianity. The gospel story, as validated by Jesus in all four gospels, includes euphoria, ecstasy, excitement, glee.

Of course, we know the world is heavy with darkness. We do not deny it. Jesus identified with that darkness. He drank from it until it killed him. This coming Friday evening we are going to immerse ourselves in that heavy reality in our Tenebrae service. The darkness is real. It, too, is part of our life.

But today, we celebrating the light. We are celebrating with Jesus. We are riding wild donkeys. We are dancing with children and shouting hallelujah.

In a few minutes we will gather at the Lord's Table. And today, as we gather, we will take delight in the gathering with us of babes and infants. Today, it is a festal dinner. It is not the last supper, it is our anticipation of the sweet victory feast commemorating the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven.

We reject the temptation to join with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and look with disdain and imagined intellectual and religious superiority on those who are caught up in the magic and glory of the march of Jesus. Instead, today, we sit with children and together with them celebrate our union with one another and with the Master who will ultimately win.

Blessed the Merciful

Preliminary sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

For Sabbath, March 16, 2013

This is part of a series on the Beatitudes. I'll post a revised version tomorrow morning.

Jesus was on vacation. To get away from the crowds, he left the Jewish region of Palestine and headed north into what is today Lebanon. Up into the neighborhood of the Mediterranean coast city of Sidon. It must have been a wonderful release. Just Jesus and the twelve. Talking, processing, sitting around, for a few days away from the incessant pressure of the crowds. Time to eat. Time to sleep. Time to think.

One afternoon when they leave the place where they were staying, a woman starts following them, calling out, “Sir! Sir! Son of David! Master! Have mercy on me! My daughter is haunted by demons. She's possessed and is horribly tormented. Please have mercy.”

The disciples are peeved. How did she figure out who they were? But Jesus is on vacation. It's like his cell phone rings. He looks at caller ID. He doesn't recognize the number. He lets it go to voice mail. His phone rings again. It's the same number. He sends it to voice mail. The phone rings again.

Of course, they didn't have cell phones in those days, so the woman uses direct voice. “Sir! Sir! Master! Have mercy. Demons are tormenting my daughter. Please help!”

Jesus ignores her. The disciples are gratefully surprised by that. But it doesn't work. She keeps calling. She keeps following. They stop for tea at a restaurant. She waits outside. When Jesus and the Twelve come out, she calls out again. “Sir! Have mercy!” The men walk away, carefully ignoring her. She stubbornly follows, calling, “Sir, have mercy!”

The disciples are annoyed. “Jesus,” they insist, “send her away. She's driving us crazy. Jesus, do something.”

So Jesus finally turns and for the first time acknowledges the woman's existence. “Look lady. God gave me a specific commission to serve his lost sheep—the Jewish people.” The disciples are thrilled. Jesus validates their self-understanding, and completely out of character for him, he is getting rid of someone.

The woman understood what Jesus was saying. The Jewish people were God's remnant people. They were the true people of God, the flock of God as the prophets put it. The Jews were the guardians of God's truth, the heirs of God's pioneers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had the true prophet, Moses. Judaism as a religion was well-known throughout the Middle East at that era. Jewish missionaries went everywhere teaching people the special truths that were their spiritual heritage. When Jesus said, “My mission is the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” the woman knew exactly what he meant: She was not his responsibility.

What did she do?

Since he had noticed her, she came right up to him, fell at his feet and begged, “Sir, help me.”

Jesus was tough. This mother was desperate. Her daughter's life had been ruined, devastated by some kind of on-going, chronic demonic action. This mother had tried every remedy available in her world. She had been to priests at temples. She had visited old women in back alleys who were famous for potions and charms. She had prayed and offered sacrifices. Nothing had worked. Her husband had left her, unable to cope with the chaos their daughter created.

She knew she had no claim on Jesus. Jesus didn't owe her anything. But she wasn't asking for something Jesus owed her. She was asking for what she needed. “Sir. Help me. Have mercy.”

Jesus still gave every appearance of tough-minded commitment to his God-given mission to the Jewish people. “Woman,” Jesus said. “It would be inappropriate to take the children's food and feed it to the dogs.”

Again the woman understood perfectly. The attitudes of patriotic and fundamentalist Jews toward people like her—outsiders, single moms, pagans, losers—were notorious. Conservative Jewish people saw themselves as the royal children of the divine king. People like this woman were dogs. Which, of course, needs some explanation.

Dogs in that society did not star in the Seattle Kennel Club show at Century Link Field Event Center. 7000 people would not have come to watch dogs strut their stuff. The status of dogs in the first century world was only slightly higher than the status of Norway rats in our world. Maybe we could compare them to pigeons.

“Woman,” Jesus was saying, “I can't take the kids' dinner and throw it out for the pigeons. That would be crazy.”

At this point, any reasonable person would have taken the hint. This woman had no claim on Jesus. He was on vacation. Jesus had declared his divine assignment was specifically to the Jewish people and this woman was a foreigner, a pagan.

The woman was annoying. She was obviously a bad person. A good person would not have allowed her daughter to become possessed by demons. Jesus had stated that helping her would be the equivalent of throwing the kids' dinner out for the pigeons to eat.

What does she do?

She looks Jesus right in the eyes and says. “You're right sir. You wouldn't throw the kids dinner out to the pigeons. I get that. I accept that. But even a poor man, even stingy man, would not begrudge the pigeons crumbs that would otherwise go down the garbage disposal.”

Finally Jesus cracked. “Woman,” he said, “you're amazing. Your faith is amazing. May it be to you as you desire.”

Her daughter was healed.

This woman's story began with her plea, “Sir, have mercy.” It climaxes with Jesus' words, “Let it be for you as you have wished.” Her request: “Have mercy.” Jesus' response, “Let it be as you wish.”

“Blessed are the merciful, they will receive mercy.” What does it mean to receive mercy? It means to receive what you need, to receive what you desperately desire.

For many religious people, one of our most burning desires is to be sure we are accepted by God.

Many of us Adventists of a certain age grew up in a world filled with withering spiritual uncertainty. Preachers and Bible teachers painted vivid images of us standing before God in the judgment. A video of our entire life played on a giant screen on the wall of the court room. If that video showed a single un-confessed sin we were doomed. We worried that we could never be good enough to be saved.

Then in the eighties, many Adventists discovered the good news of salvation by faith. All you had to do was believe. But, it turns out this good news is only marginally better than the old news that you had to be perfect.

At evangelical churches and colleges young people learn that all you have to do to be saved is believe, and once you believe, you are saved for ever. That should produce a wonderful contentment. However, when you talk with these young people, you find them as eaten with uncertainty and anxiety as the Adventist young people in the days of our most intense legalism.

What's going on?

Here's the problem: as long as the major question in your religion is “What must I do to be saved?” you will find it very difficult to find a settled, lasting peace. Because this kind of religion assumes damnation as the default condition of humanity. God's habit is to condemn. No matter what strategy we use to dodge the condemnation we are still up against the question of whether our dodge is adequate. If you imagine that you escape damnation by having faith, you'll wonder if your faith is genuine. If you imagine that you appease God's frowning eye by perfecting your behavior, you'll always suspect your behavior is not quite good enough.

This traditional spiritual perspective imagines that God operates primarily on the basis of justice. The assumption is you deserve hell. God is watching and he is going to make sure you get nothing more than you deserve. So, you're toast.

This beatitude points us in a completely different direction: Blessed are the merciful, they will receive mercy.

When we practice mercy, we work at discerning the needs and desires of others and doing what we can to meet those needs and fill those desires. We study people to figure out what makes them tick so we can bless them. Sometimes people can be quite articulate about their desire. Like the mother from Sidon. There was no mistaking what she wanted. But other times people are as inarticulate as that woman's daughter was. That girl had no way of even expressing her need or desire. When encounter people like, Jesus invites us to become their agents crying “Lord, have mercy!” on their behalf.

I had a couple of conversations this week that vividly illustrated the wisdom required of mercy. Both conversations were with mothers of disabled men. In both cases, the men are not verbal. So when they are going berserk with an earache, they cannot say, “My ear is killing me.” Are they slapping their head because their ear hurts or they have an abscessed tooth or headache? Or are they exhibiting some kind of psychological problem? These men's lack of speech does not make their pain any less. Their inability to voice their need does not make the need go away.

So their mothers practice mercy. Guided by the instincts of motherhood and the wisdom acquired through decades of care-giving, they attempt to discern the need of their sons and to find remedies. They do their best to make it better. And when they have to go outside their homes for assistance, they become the voices for their sons, begging for mercy from medical professionals, courts, therapists. And ultimately they are the voices of their sons to God. “Lord, have mercy!”

To be merciful means to provide what is needed without regard to what is deserved. When we immerse ourselves in the practice of mercy, the old question, “What must I do to be saved?” loses its force. We know that we will never be more merciful than God. As we move deeper and deeper into a habit of studying people with the intention to understand and bless them instead of analyzing them and apportioning blame, our view of God will be transformed. We will come to confidence that God is, as the Bible says, full of mercy and abounding in goodness and compassion.

As we move deeper and deeper into our habits of mercy toward others, we will no longer understand even our own disabilities as targets of God's condemnation. Instead we will experience our failures, inadequacies, disabilities as perpetual appeals for his mercy.

Mercy is what makes human communities beautiful.

A healthy society must have structures that support justice. When kids work hard, they should receive the grades they earn. When adults work hard and skillfully, they should receive appropriate remuneration. And there must be negative consequences for failure to work, failure to put out. A workable society needs a criminal justice system to respond to murder and theft and assault. People are capable of doing evil, and society must have a systematic way of restraining and containing evil. Still, a society that becomes obsessed with justice becomes ugly.

Mercy is the supreme grace. Justice is necessary, yes. Mercy is beautiful.

Part of the beauty of American society are some of our institutionalized expressions of mercy. If you find a pedestrian lying in the gutter, the apparent victim of a hit-and-run, you would whip out your phone and call 911. An ambulance will come, even if the victim appears to be a bum. At the emergency room, the victim will receive life-saving treatment, before a payment plan is worked out.

That's mercy. Responding to need without regard to what a person deserves. Doing good because of the goodness welling up from within us, not because of the rights or claims of the other.

Several years ago my son spent a year in a country where there are doctors and hospitals, but all hospital care must be prepaid. He talked about the agony of seeing someone frightfully injured but being unable to obtain hospital care for the person because they didn't have enough money. No prepayment, no admission. It is not rare for people to die outside the hospital because the family could not come up with the money to cover the projected costs of treatment. That's justice. If you can't pay, you receive no service.

Death by poverty is not beautiful even if you can make an argument that it is just.

Mercy: providing what is needed without regard to what is deserved. That's beautiful.

Part of the foolishness of philosophies based on the writings of Ayn Rand is their failure to see that the pinnacle of human development is not an obsession with justice, not even a commitment to justice. Human communities are most beautiful, most noble, most godly when they are suffused with mercy.

One of the most startling challenges in the preaching of Jesus comes at the end of Chapter Five in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Because,

In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Or as Luke reports this saying:

"If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return. "Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:32-36.

Be perfect as God is perfect is the same thing as being merciful as God is merciful. The bargain we make with the world is the bargain God makes with us. The wisdom of Jesus is obvious: By practicing mercy we are setting ourselves up to receive the ultimate, deepest joy. We will get what we most desire.

One of the curious patterns in the gospels is the way Jesus responds to people who are possessed by demons. Sometimes when blind people ask for healing, Jesus challenges them: Do you really want this? (Luke 18:41) Do you really believe? (Matthew 9:28). Several times Jesus told people: “You are healed in accord with your faith” (Matthew 9:22, 29). But when it came to people possessed by demons, Jesus never says a word about faith. Jesus appears to completely ignore anything the people say. He goes straight to their most profound need and releases from the demonic torment.

I understand that as the supreme challenge to us in our relationships at home, work, school and church. Most of you know of someone who appears to you to be evil. They are constantly doing things that annoy you, offend you, make your life difficult. They are easy to hate.

I ask you to consider viewing them through the lens of mercy. This does not mean volunteering for further wounding. If you are being bullied, get help. If you are being abused at home, tell someone. If you are a victim of domestic violence, let someone know. Don't allow yourself or your children to be hit another time.

Having said that, there is more to be said. If we are going to see people as Jesus saw them, we will see their outrageous behavior as evidence of an alien evil which has invaded their lives. It is not the “real them.” Whether you see that “alien evil” as demonic or psychological or neurological, our fundamental response to that kind of human brokenness is to plead Lord, have mercy. Not “Blast them, Lord.”

In our opening story, Jesus modeled responding to people on the basis of justice, propriety and rights. That annoying woman had no business interrupting his retreat with his disciples. As a non-Jew she had no claim on the Messiah. As the mother of a girl possessed by demons she had no moral standing.

As we watched Jesus respond to her on the basis of propriety and rightful claims, we wince. We rightfully expected better of Jesus. Then with his final response: “Woman, may it be for you as you wish.” “Honey, I'll do whatever you want.” Jesus flips the story on its head and asks us: This coming week, will you stand on propriety and rights and protect yourself from all inordinate demands on your forbearance, time and energy, or will you have mercy? Will you stand with the disciples of Jesus passing judgment or with the wise and stubborn mother?

Blessed are the merciful, they will obtain mercy.

Pure in Heart

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, March 9, 2013

A couple of weeks ago, I was above Paradise on Mt. Rainier. We were at 6000 feet, climbing in a cold fog. Visibility was so bad I would have turned around because of the risk of getting lost—except I was with a highly experienced climber who had done this route many times. Then even the guy I was hiking with, Dan Lauren, expressed second thoughts about the hike. Not because he felt unsafe—he never compromises on safety—but just because conditions were so miserable. Middle thirties, wet, wind blowing hard.

As we crested the ridge at Panorama Point, a group of guys materialized out of gloom. They had been high on the mountain over night and were headed down. And they had news.

On the drive down to the park that morning looking at the weather, Dan had discussed taking a lower, easier hike. He thought there might be good weather high on the mountain, but that was very iffy. I told him I was willing to risk going high if he thought we might find sun. I had brought enough cold and wet weather gear, I should be able to handle it.

We got out of car at the Paradise parking lot in a dense blowing fog. Hardly ideal conditions for climbing Anvil Rock up near Camp Muir. We finally decided to go ahead and attempt the higher climb hoping that maybe, just maybe, we'd get above the clouds and fog. We strapped on our snowshoes and headed out.

Our uncertain hope of good weather up high became less and less motivating during the first mile or two of hiking. We had the necessary gear. Extra clothes and food, a shovel. We would be safe, but neither of us really wanted to spend the entire day battling wet and cold with nothing to show for our efforts, but the efforts themselves. We were out on the mountain because of our desire for visions of grandeur. And as we climbed out of the trees the fog was getting denser. The wind stronger.

Then we met the guys coming down the mountain, and they told us that at 8000 feet they had been in blazing sunshine. The pay off.

We slogged on up the mountain with new enthusiasm. We did not suddenly start sprinting up the mountain. We were still in the fog and needed to pay careful attention to route finding. We were still traveling on snowshoes which is not quite the same thing as hiking on a trail. And we were still climbing steeply at elevation, which is not the same thing as jogging on flat trail. It was work. But it was now happy work. We had the promise that it would be worth it.

We still had 2000 feet of snowshoeing up a steep ridge before we reached 8000 feet, 2000 feet and a couple of hours of marching in the gloom and blustery cold. But no problem. We were headed for the sun. It would be worth it.

This is a good model of my understanding of the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God.”

Purity costs hard work. Jesus blesses those who do the work and assures them their work will pay off. They will experience the highest, richest, brightest dream of religion and spiritual life: They will see God.

Purity is not a natural state. It is constructed, achieved, accomplished.

Years ago we bought a house that had been foreclosed. The lawn, if you could call it that, was a collection of tough weeds. I put in a sprinkler system. We planted a weed-free grass mix. How long do you think it stayed weed free?

In your garden, how long does your rose bed remain a pure rose bed with no mixture of other plants?

Purity is not a natural state. Weeds alter the composition of our lawns and gardens, bacteria, algae, and who knows what else transform our birdbaths into the biology laboratories.

Or to approach it from other other direction: how do we come by pure copper? We start by digging tons of rock out of the ground, smash it into bits, put it through several processes to remove the dross and slag and end up with a few pounds of the valuable metal.

Rare earth elements are all the buzz now. To get any of them in usable quantities requires complicated refining. They do not occur as pure masses, but are all mixed up. Purity requires effort.

You see the need for active effort even in something as prosaic as gravel. A couple of miles from our home there is a gravel mine. They're digging in an old moraine. I buy drain rock there and pea gravel and pipe bedding. All of these occur in great quantity in this gravel deposit, but to get pea gravel or drain rock or pipe bedding, they have do run it through a huge separator. The pure pea gravel I need for the dog pens is not natural. In the natural world it's all mixed up with clay and boulders and sand and cobbles. Purity takes effort.

Purity of heart also requires effort. Smart effort. Sometimes intense effort. Effort continued over time. This Beatitude or Blessing promises the effort will pay off. We will hike into the sun of God's presence. We will see God. But arriving in the blaze of light above the clouds requires effort.

Cultivating purity of heart requires active pursuit of goodness and often active resistance to evil.

I am reminded of the occasional laments I hear from a piano teacher. Occasionally, a self-taught or poorly taught student comes to her studio. Some of these students have so much to unlearn. Less than optimal fingering patterns, counterproductive hand positions.

The best piano performance—a pure piano performance—is the presence of wonderful music and the absence of awkwardness and wrong notes. In the same way, purity of heart is both the presence of goodness and the absence of evil.

Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God.

Today we have with us the families of Cypress School. Operating a school is an enormous challenge. It is a long, hard slog up an endless mountain. In Adventist education we have twin objectives: We want to teach, to model, to honor goodness and we want to exclude, to attenuate, to wither evil.

We challenge our kids to develop their minds to the nth degree, to master math and science and language, to cultivate their artistic abilities. We aim to fill their minds with good stuff. The first step toward the exclusion of evil is an abundant supply of goodness.

One of the impressive features of Cypress School is the amount of Bible memorization the kids do. Speaking from personal experience, it was vastly easier to learn memorize Bible verses when I was thirteen than it is now at sixty. Inputting a lot of Bible verses is one method of pursuing purity of heart.

In addition Cypress School deliberately seeks to teach ideas and behaviors that are conducive to moral, spiritual purity. We intentionally, purposefully seek to encourage kids in forming pure hearts.

What does it mean to be pure in heart? It means to be genuinely good, to be full of goodness. Just a few verses after the Beatitudes, the Gospel of Matthew records a number of sayings by Jesus that illuminate this idea of a pure heart:

"But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! "You have heard that our ancestors were told, 'You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.' But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. Matthew 5:20-22

It's a good idea to refrain from punching someone or pulling out your gun and shooting them. But this is not proof of a pure heart. Obviously, refraining from murder is a good thing. If you feel like killing someone, the first step toward a pure heart is to not do it! Excluding murder is absolutely essential for maintaining a pure heart. But it is hardly enough.

Jesus points us deeper: you must avoid name calling! Now, we're getting really challenging. Let me ask the kids, did you call anyone a name this past week? Did you write anything on facebook about someone that was unkind?

Parents, could we play a tape recording of all your remarks to your kids this week without embarrassing you? When your kids brought home a less than acceptable grade? What did you say and how did you say it? When you checked their room for the third time? When they spilled their milk or broke something in your shop? Did you call them names? Did you imply he was an idiot or that you were ashamed of her?

A pure heart does not spout scorn for one's kids.

Words, especially words in private, words at home, words on the internet, reveal our hearts. Sharp and cutting words are evidence of a heart tainted with impurity.

Kids how did you speak to your parents this week? How did you speak about them when they weren't around? Are you working on a pure heart?

To all of us, what did your write this week in email or on facebook or on twitter. Did everything you write evince respect, even for those persons you disagree with? A pure heart does not produce impure speech.

God help us!

One of the most challenging applications of Jesus' call to purity of heart comes in the next verses.

"So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. Matthew 5:23-24.

For a pure heart, reconciliation is a higher priority than going to church! Or to put it another way, a pure heart does not contaminate its devotion to God with a casual acceptance of alienation from people.

Note the hope presented in this text. Jesus does not say, if you've done something to offend someone else, you're damned. He does not say we have lost our membership in the kingdom of God. But he does issue a challenge: Don't go through the motions of worship unless you have attempted the difficult, sometimes painful, sometimes impossible task of reconciliation. Before we can participate fully in the spiritual essence of worship we must seek reconciliation with people. Worship is no substitute for reconciliation.

Worship is much, much easier than reconciliation. At least coming to church and singing songs and kneeling and sitting and listening to a sermon. Those things are a piece of cake compared with reconciliation.

The great danger of coming to worship with impure hearts is that we will use our church experience as a substitute for seeing God. At church we will feel affirmed in our resentment, our disgust, our hatred, our disdain toward others. Our hearing of God, our vision of God is distorted by our own impurity and eventually we make God an accessory of our impurity. We imagine that God agrees with our disgust, our revulsion, our scorn for the people who offend us, annoy us, differ from us.

Beware. We don't want God to see as we see. We want to learn to see as God sees.

Have you ever wondered why people go to churches where the preacher lambasts sin every week? One of the temptations in that setting is to hear all the things that apply to other people. This is one reason preachers in some churches bash homosexuals so often. It's a way to be tough on sin without offending anyone. Because the preacher assumes that no one in his congregation is struggling with sexual identity issues. He's blasting people out there, strangers, people “not like us.” And we are usually far harsher to people we don't see. (That's one reason email is so famously destructive in conflicts. We are looking at words on a screen instead of at the face of a person.)

Of course, this simply means these preachers are blind. They cannot see the hurting people sitting in their own congregation, people who came to church that morning desperate to connect with God, only to be slapped by a message of rejection.

Blessed are the pure in heart. In the context of worship, that means blessed are those who do the difficult, sometimes tiring work of pursuing reconciliation so that when they hear the gospel of peace preached on Sabbath they understand the cost of peace. They prize the glory of peace.

What does it mean to see God?

It is a vision of glory that is ultimately satisfying. I have had enough. I am content. It is an understanding of the universe, the cosmos. You get it.

It's like climbing into the light.

When Dan and I reached 8000 feet, we climbed out of the fog into dazzling brilliant sun. The whole world was lit. Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens. The world was suffused with light. We were filled with light.

When we see God, eventually we are ourselves filled with light. We come to see the world as God sees. We see people with new eyes. Even the most broken person wears the halo of divine affection.

Sometimes church people seem to specialize in noticing the evil in the world. They are full of knowledge about the latest evidence of cultural decay. They are obsessed with evidence of evil. When they look at the world they notice only, or especially, the darkness.

This preoccupation with evil is evidence of impurity in the heart.

When we have pure hearts, we will see God not just on his throne in heaven, we will see him every where we turn our eyes. When our hearts are pure we will not just look in God's direction, we will begin seeing with God's vision.

We will be aware of the existence of the fog, but if we are in the fog we will busy ourselves climbing out of it. Our goal will be a vision of the world full of the glory of God. We will not rest until we are walking in a world of light.