Interpreting God

Interpreting God

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

March 22, 2014

OT: Jonah 3:1-5, 10.

NT: Luke 21:5-11

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the evil empire, an arch-enemy of Israel. Jonah was a Jewish prophet. God ordered Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach doom. Jonah refused to go because he worried God would not carry through with his threat of doom. Under considerable duress, Jonah finally went. He preached doom in the streets of Nineveh. The people reacted by doing a searching moral inventory and renouncing their evil ways. Doom did not happen. Jonah was embarrassed and angry. God was happy. God's purpose in Jonah's prophecy was not to predict the future but to change it.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a prophet named Jonah. He was a respected leader in the kingdom of Israel. Israel was prosperous. The kingdom was a major regional military power. I presume that a major theme in Jonah's preaching was the importance of honoring God all the blessings God was pouring on the nation. Life was good.

Then, out of the blue, God gave Jonah an unusual message.

“Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are." Jonah 1:2

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. Assyria was an evil empire, and an arch-enemy of Israel. Asking Jonah to go preach doom against Nineveh would be like asking a good, flag-waving, gun-toting Southern Baptist preacher from Atlanta to go to Moscow and preach the downfall of Mr. Putin in Red Square. Or like asking an Iranian mullah to travel to Washington, D.C. And wave an Iranian flag out on the Mall while preaching the imminent doom of America.

Jonah understood his assignment. He was used to getting messages from God. He was a prophet, after all. So Jonah set out on a journey. But instead of heading north to Nineveh, Jonah traveled west to the port city of Joppa. There he found a ship leaving for Tarshish.

(Tarshish was a city in Spain at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea. If you sailed very far beyond Tarshish you'd come to the edge of the world where sailors who ventured too far fell off the world into an abyss populated by dragons and monsters.)

Jonah bought a ticket and went on board and settled in, determined to get as far away from Nineveh as possible.

The crew finished loading cargo, lifted their lines and sailed out of the harbor into the Mediterranean. The sails pulled into the sky. It was a beautiful day.

I'm guessing Jonah breathed a huge sigh of relief. Stiff-arming God is a pretty nervy thing to do. God had given Jonah a direct order and Jonah had said no. He had to worry at least a bit how that was going to go. But here he was on board a west-bound ship, putting miles between him and this crazy mission of preaching doom in Nineveh.

Then the blue skies turned gray. The brisk wind became a howling hurricane-force gale. The sailors dropped all but a tiny fragment of sail, just enough to keep the ship from broaching. Still the force of the storm threatened to break the ship apart. The sailors were praying to their gods for help. They threw the cargo overboard, hoping to lighten the ship and reduce the strain on the hull.

At some point in this all-hands-on-deck drama, the captain noticed Jonah's absence and went looking for him. He found him sound asleep down in the hold. Jonah must have been exhausted. I'm thinking it was the emotional strain of thumbing his nose at God. He must have lived in terror over the recent days, wondering what God was going to do to him for refusing the mission. When Jonah finally got on the ship and it left harbor, the load left his shoulders. He was home free. No shouting doom in the streets of Nineveh.

Now, the captain shakes him awake. “Hey, what are you doing? We're about to sink. How can you sleep? Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives."

A little later, as doom appears inevitable for the ship, the crew cast lots to see who had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots pointed straight to Jonah.

"Why has this awful storm come down on us?" they demanded. "Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?"

9 Jonah answered, "I am a Hebrew, and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."

10 The sailors were terrified when they heard this. He had already told them he was running away from his god, but they had not realized his god was the Lord of earth and sea and sky. This was serious!"What were you thinking?” they demanded.

And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, "What should we do to you to stop this storm?"

12 "Throw me into the sea," Jonah said, "and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault."

This is the second act of defiance in this story. Jonah defied God's order to go to Nineveh. Now the sailors defy the prophet's instructions about saving their lives. Instead of throwing Jonah overboard they work all the harder to get the ship to the land.

Despite their desperate efforts, the storm inexorably eats their ship. They can feel it breaking under them.

Finally, they face the inevitable. Jonah is going into the water with them or without them. If they don't toss him overboard, the ship is going to sink and they will all drown together or they can throw him overboard and take their chances that the storm will calm and they will be saved.

They still hate what they are going to do. These pagan sailors cannot casually sacrifice another human being even if doing so will save their own lives.

They prayed to Jonah's God. "O LORD, don't make us die for this man's sin. And don't hold us responsible for his death. O LORD, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons."

Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once!

At that point, the sailors became true believers! What kind of God could turn a raging storm into sweet calm? They offered a sacrifice to Jonah's God and pledged themselves as his devotees for the rest of their lives.

But what about poor Jonah? Is this the end of his story? Is the moral of the story: disobey and die? You better do what God says or else? God gave Jonah an assignment. Jonah ran away. God tracked him down and nailed him.

If we stopped the story right here, it would make a great “fire and brimstone” sermon. Resist God's leading and DOOM! Refuse to go where God sends you? DOOM! You can run from God, but you cannot hide. So watch out! Is this the moral of Jonah's story?

Not quite. The sailors threw Jonah overboard. Jonah disappeared. The sea became calm. That's all the sailors knew. It was enough to make believers out of them. Meanwhile, God had a great fish waiting for Jonah. The fish swallowed Jonah. And Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of that fish.

I love what artists do with this. My favorite painting the fish's stomach is pictured as a large cave. Jonah is sitting on a large turtle shell. You can see the fish's backbone over Jonah's head. Jonah is not happy!

After Jonah had been there for three days, he decided he better talk to God.

As my life was slipping away, I remembered the LORD. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. (2:7)

God spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah up on shore. Once Jonah got his bearings, I'm guessing he wondered, “Now what?” God did not leave him guessing.

Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time: "Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you." (3:1-2)

Jonah did not mess around this time. No more fish rides! He headed straight to Nineveh and began preaching. "Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!"

Astonishingly, instead of lynching him or stoning him or ignoring him. The people listened to his preaching and believed him. Even the king of Nineveh believed Jonah. He made the dramatic gesture of stepping down from his throne and putting on burlap cloth himself. Then to push it as far as possible in that society, he sat on an ash heap.

He called his nobles together and they had a decree published throughout the city: "No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. 8 People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. Everyone must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. 9 Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us."

A question for you: Does God ever change his mind? Was this statement by the King of Nineveh a wise statement or a foolish statement? 

Did Jonah's message include any wiggle room in it? Did he say God is going to destroy Nineveh UNLESS you change your ways? No. Jonah's message was simple and emphatic. Forty days from now DOOM upon Nineveh.

The King of Nineveh set out to change God's mind. He enlisted his people in the effort. And amazingly, it worked.

When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

God changed his mind. The prophecy did not happen.

Jonah got very upset with God.

"Isn't this just what I said I left home? I knew this would happen. That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.

Then Jonah speaks his bottom line:

Just kill me now, LORD! I'd rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.

Here is the moral of Jonah's story. God's highest value is the well-being of his children. Jonah's highest value is reputation—God's and his own. The book leaves us with the question: what is our highest value? Are we more like the prophet? Or more like God?

Another way to ask this question: Are we more worried about God's reputation than God is?

When people ask me my opinion about the return of Jesus to set up his kingdom of everlasting righteousness, I always tell them that I hope is today. This afternoon. Often Adventists will assure me that this cannot be. Jesus cannot come this afternoon.

Why? Because some of the bad stuff prophesied in the Book of Revelation has happened yet. Jesus cannot come until after “the time of trouble,” or “the great tribulation.” We have to have more wars, famines, pestilences, and false prophets. There has to be a national law compelling false worship from everybody. When people talk like this I wonder if they have considered the implications of the book of Jonah. Prophecies of doom are quite negotiable. Every terrible prophecy in the Bible is optional.

God is far more interested in saving people than in making himself look good by making sure predictions of doom actually happen. When we partner with God, we will quit insisting that doom must happen. Instead we will join with God in doing all that we can to avert doom, to minimize suffering, to promote righteousness, to enhance human well-being.

In Jonah's story, it is the pagan sailors who are most like God. In the face of an explicit statement by the prophet of God announcing divine judgment against Jonah and offering them a way to save themselves and consign Jonah to the judgment of God, they refuse to throw him overboard. They do everything they can to save him. They work to keep Jonah in the boat, even at great risk to themselves.

This is a model of the work God has given us.

What are you doing to avert doom?

You have something to contribute to the kingdom of heaven. I saw this vividly this week.

I participated with other family members in the funeral for Karin's uncle, Kenneth Stringer. Uncle Kenneth was brilliant, a master of numbers. His contribution to the Kingdom of heaven was to work with mathematician Frederick Stephan of Princeton to develop statistical sampling methods for auditing. This is not exactly the kind of missionary work I grew up imagining. It is not doctoring, nursing, preaching or teaching. But it did create reliable, powerful tools for helping foster accountability in the handling of huge sums of money. And accountability is part of the very foundation of good and just society.

In the funeral we talked a bit about Uncle Kenneth's intellectual genius.

Then we turned to another group of people who were present. None of them is famous for the books they have written. None of them have plaques and awards from prestigious professional societies hanging on their walls. But for the last five or six years they have been the absolutely indispensable caregivers, first for Kenneth's wife, then for Uncle Kenneth himself.

Cousin Bob told us that staff at two different hospitals told him they had never seen such compassionate, competent care.

As I thought about these two different visions of service—one arcane, abstract, and highly paid—the other concrete, direct and poorly paid, who could say that one is more valuable than the other. Both kinds of service contribute to the great goal of God which is highlighted in Jonah's story: the amelioration of human suffering, the advance of human well-being.

May God stir our hearts to participate with the sailors and God himself in doing our utmost to save and bless all we can.

Keeping Sabbath, a Divine Honeymoon

This is a revised manuscript for the sermon preached at Green Lake Church, Sabbath, March 1, 2014.

This manuscript is much closer to the sermon as it was actually preached than the original manuscript published on this blog.

Text: Exodus 20: 8-11

Synopsis. Sabbath zealots—people who are hyper strict in their observance of the Sabbath—are indispensable to protecting the specialness of the Sabbath among us. Even if we are not strict observers of Sabbath, whatever measure of respite we experience in our Sabbath-keeping is a gift that flows from the vigor and carefulness of the zealots. Sabbath is like a honeymoon, too precious to be littered with the affairs of ordinary life. It calls for planning. It makes life-shaping memories.

Visual set up: I set a small glass bottle of whipping cream, a mixing bowl, a bottle of vanilla and a hand-crank egg beater on a small stool.

I own 20,000 acres of forest land east of Enumclaw. My favorite spot on the entire property is a rocky prominence at the top of massive cliffs overlooking the White River. You hike through the woods for several miles, then the trail winds through a dense thicket of small trees and you come out on this rocky point. It's a perfect lunch spot.

If you are hiking with me and we sit on the rocks there and eat our lunch, and if after you have eaten your apple you pull back your arm to throw your apple core out into the great void, I will leap from my and fly through the air and snatch that apple core from your hand before you can let it fly. I'll smile and say, “I'll carry that out for you.”

Usually when you come to this overlook at the top of the cliffs, there is no litter. One reason is because I'm a litter zealot. If you are hiking on my property with me, I won't let you toss out anything. Apple cores, orange peels, egg shells? I'll carry that out for you. Every time I climb to this spot I scour it for trash. A tiny corner of granola bar wrapper. A cigarette butt. Orange peels. Banana peels. I pick them all up. Once I spent ten minutes picking up egg shell that had been left by someone who had eaten a hardboiled egg. Not just the big pieces. I picked up the tiniest bit of crushed shell, so that when we left the point was pristine.

Oh, this 20,000 acres I own—it's national forest land. We all own it, but I prove my ownership by being a litter zealot. A litter fanatic. Maybe, a litter-Nazi.

I know that most of you think I'm crazy for being so nitpicking that I won't even toss an apple core—and won't allow you to do it either if we are hiking together. But I also know that you like the culture litter zealots like me have created. You can't help thinking people like me are fanatics, people who pick up every piece of litter they come across on the trail, people who urge you to “pack out” the chocolate square you dropped in the sand, people who leap up and grab the apple core from your hand when you go to toss it into the trees. People like me are crazy. We are extremists. But we are indispensable agents in shaping Northwest culture.

I was reminded of the value of that culture Tuesday afternoon. I was talking with Ken up at Zoka's. He and Susana have just returned from three months in Mexico. The countryside around their village is beautiful. The food was fantastic. The people are friendly and helpful. The air was warm. The sky was blue. It was paradise. Except for one striking, disturbing aspect of life in rural Mexico: litter. There was garbage everywhere.

Why? Are the people there defective? No. Are they blind? No. Why is there garbage? Because of the culture. There is no compelling social drive against littering. So there is garbage everywhere.

It is the same according to my friends who live there.

It is somewhat like that in north Georgia. My dad used to live there. When I'd go for a visit, we sometimes drove to national forests in the area. It's beautiful country, but I was astonished at the trash. Every trail head had piles of garbage. Even miles from the trail head, the trails were marred with beverage cans, food wrappers and other stuff. It was jarring. Why would people do such a thing? Do the people in Georgia have more evil characters than the people of Enumclaw? Why is it that the national forest trails between Enumclaw and Mt. Rainier are almost entirely trash free and the trails in the national forest in north Georgia were heavily littered?

The difference is culture.

Whenever I come back to the northwest after hiking in the South, I always have a renewed appreciation for a culture that resists littering, a culture that supports clean trails and the protection of and respect for the natural world.

I don't expect you to agree with me about the importance of carrying apple cores out of the back country. But my zealotry, and the zealotry of others like me, keeps the center of the bell curve of Northwest culture far away from the litter-tolerance of Mexico, India and north Georgia. And you enjoy the benefit of a litter-free back country because of the power of that culture.

* * * * *

(Recall the visual mentioned above: the cream, beaters, bowl, and vanilla.)

Yesterday I was at Cypress Adventist School. I told the kids I was going to buy something special at QFC (a grocery store) that afternoon for supper. This special something came in a small glass bottle. Then I was going to Tracy's Produce to buy strawberries. Could they guess what was in the small bottle? They guessed pickles and mayonnaise. So I drew a picture of the small bottle on board. Someone guessed milk. I said that was close. Then they guessed yogurt, ice cream, buttermilk, butter. I said, “Yes, you are getting close. It's a dairy product.” One of the second graders guessed orange juice. I agreed that orange juice is very tasty and sometimes comes in glass bottles and is often in the dairy section of the grocery store, but that wasn't it. I tried giving them another clue. “At your house this treat probably comes in a metal can with a nozzle on top.”

Still no one had any idea. Finally I said to the guy who had guessed ice cream, “Take the “ice” off “ice cream” and you'll have your answer.” He still didn't get it. A girl sitting next to him shyly whispered, “Cream?”

“Yes!”

We all laughed together, but I could tell the kids still had no idea what I was talking about. They had no mental connection between a viscous liquid in a glass bottle (or carton, for that matter) and the sweet, white fluffy stuff they could imagine squirting on strawberries.

Now, just for fun, allow me to take a poll: This past Thanksgiving did the white fluffy stuff you put on your pumpkin pie come from a can or did it come from bowl where it had been whipped and sweetened by one of the cooks in your house? (Note: To my astonishment, it appeared a majority of Green Lake Church members actually whip their cream rather than squirting it from cans. This has no theological significance; still it is amazing and wonderful!)

In March, whipped cream becomes part of the religion at our house. Whipped cream in the old sense of the word. Real cream, poured from a bottle into a bowl, whipped until it begins to have some body, sweetened with a little sugar, flavored with vanilla, then whipped again to perfection with soft peaks. And if the kids are home, you can't use an electric beater. The whipping has to be done by hand.

That's part of the magic.

Friday night feasts are a tradition at our house. And they are more than that. Friday night supper forms the very heart of our religious practice. As a clergy family, our Friday night feasts are more constitutive of our religion than is Sabbath morning worship. Right now, the three of us at home—my wife Karin and I and our daughter Bonnie—all have professional duties on Sabbath morning. Worship services are our job. But Friday night—that's different. Friday night we are not on stage. We are not performing. Friday night we feast, savoring the freedom and richness of Sabbath.

If we have the right combination of people, after dinner, there will be live music, people playing instruments, people singing. Other times the music comes from the CD player.

Most of the year, dinner is “haystacks.” (This is a traditional Adventist meal, basically a taco salad—rice, beans, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, olives, sour cream, salsa, chips. Did I leave out anything?) But in the spring, sometimes it's strawberry shortcake.

When our kids are home from wherever they have scattered around the globe, on Friday mornings, the first topic of conversation is supper. Who's cooking? What are we going to eat? What time are we going to eat? Who's doing the shopping? No one asks IF we are going to have supper together. No matter how chaotic the rest of our lives, we know that on Friday night, it's time to feast. Together. Leisurely. It's our tradition.

It is also our religion.

We learned it from our parents, yes. But if it were only a family tradition, I doubt that we would have maintained it. It is the demand of our religion to keep the Sabbath holy that creates this sweet open space in our lives. Time for feasting, for worship, for visiting with friends, for hiking, for enjoying sunsets. The experience of Sabbath is wonderfully rich. And this richness is the fruit of our religion.

The Sabbath is a central element of religion in the Bible—something that has pretty much disappeared from Christianity. Among most Christians, Sabbath-keeping has been transformed into going to church. That is, Sabbath-keeping means attending a religious performance.

Imagining Sabbath-keeping as going to church is like imagining whipped cream as something you squirt out of a can. Whipped cream from a can is convenient, but it is hardly the full experience.

Worship together is a rich part of Sabbath-keeping. But it is only a part of authentic Sabbath-keeping. According to the Bible and Adventist practice (which we learned from the Jews), Sabbath is an entire day that begins at sundown on Friday.

The ancient tradition of keeping Sabbath is one of the great treasures of the Adventist Church. For us Sabbath is a commandment, an obligation, a tradition, a habit that makes life sweeter, richer. Sabbath is a central element of our church culture. And culture matters.

* * * * *

The Bible begins with the story of the Sabbath. God spends a week creating the world, then . . . what? God keeps Sabbath. Here at the beginning of the Bible there is no command to keep the Sabbath. There is actually no explicit reference to human activity at all. There is the simple statement that God kept Sabbath and in doing so created the foundation for our weekly rhythm. Humans keep Sabbath because God keeps Sabbath.

This week I began reading a book on the Sabbath written by Joseph Lieberman, the senator for Connecticut who ran for vice-president in 2000. Lieberman, an observant Jew, makes exactly this point. Yes, Sabbath-keeping is a special treasure of the Jewish people. But even in the Hebrew Scriptures Sabbath is declared to be the treasure of all humanity, not only the treasure of the Jews.

Sabbath is not created by Sabbath-keepers. Neither the Jews nor Adventists nor the Seventh-day Baptists originated the Sabbath. When we keep Sabbath we are participating in a transcendent reality. God spend six days working, then rested and made the seventh day holy. Sacred. The primary meaning of these words is “special.”

Sabbath is not more righteous than other days. It is not more moral or more ethical. It is special. Different. Extraordinary. Without the frame of regular time, there can be no special time. Without a customary routine, what would be the definition of different? Sabbath interrupts the flow of ordinary time. That's what makes it extraordinary. This interruption is an invitation from God for us to leave our ordinary lives and step into a special place. In the protected place of Sabbath, we can give special attention to God, to one another. It is time for us to explore the big questions of life and philosophy—or to leave such questions alone and simply savor the richness and sweetness of the gifts that are ours. It's time for us to be with one another in a unique way.

How to keep the Sabbath?

The first Sabbath, the one described in Genesis One, was a honey moon. If we use that as an analogy, it suggests great anticipation and planning. Good food and good times. Intimacy and leisure.

So our Sabbaths should feature good food and good times. Intimacy and leisure. This is what we aim to experience in our Friday night feasts. A friend of mine, Tony Romeo, posted a video of Friday night at the Romeo home. It is a boring video. It's three generations of Romeos sitting around the wood stove, talking, dozing, rocking, playing with toys. It is companionable time, genuine leisure, a perfect picture of Sabbath-keeping.

Which brings me back to my story about litter zealots. If a culture is going to successfully resist the creep of litter across the face of nature it must have zealots like me, people who take their commitment to a litter-free environment to the extreme. Without outliers on the extreme end of non-littering, the press of litter would eventually make Washington look like Georgia. That's not good.

The same applies to the Sabbath. As a church we enjoy the freedom Sabbath brings to our lives, freedom from the pressure to achieve, perform, accomplish. Freedom from the authority of the boss. Even freedom from the pressure of genuinely important stuff. Keeping Sabbath holy means enjoyment of holy leisure. Some of us are very strict Sabbath-keepers in the tradition of the Puritans. Some of us, are rather casual in our Sabbath-keeping.

Here is my point: wherever you are personally on the scale of carefulness or casualness in your Sabbath-keeping, all of us are dependent on the zeal of strict Sabbath-keepers to keep Sabbath alive in our community. It is the zealots that prevent the creep of ordinary life and work from slowly obliterating the special freedom and leisure of Sabbath.

Let's be clear, the sweet experience of the Sabbath is not generally available to people apart from religious authority. There is a growing literature from modern writers talking about Sabbath keeping. Many of these writers are not members of Sabbath-keeping communities. And if they are not, their sweetest passages are full of longing and nostalgia. When they write about their actual experience of Sabbath-keeping it is meager and impoverished. They are like losers writing about the glory of victory. They think they can imagine how sweet it would be if only . . . But they are not actually living the sweetness they imagine.

On the other hand when you read literature about Sabbath-keeping written by Jews or modern Adventists, you usually will find their sweetest passages to be descriptions of actual life in their homes.

I have never known any one personally nor have I read about someone who had a rich, sustained experience of Sabbath-keeping apart from a religious community. I do not mean that individuals cannot keep Sabbath by themselves. I'm not arguing that solitary Sabbath-keeping is illegitimate or unreal. I'm arguing that people who keep Sabbath alone—if they do it with any frequency—are sustained in their individual practice by their sense of social or spiritual connection with a larger community—church or synagogue—that practices Sabbath keeping and teaches the moral obligation of Sabbath-keeping.

Our own children demonstrate that fact. My guess is that the children who grew up here in Green Lake Church would describe their childhood memories of Sabbath as sweet times. They enjoyed the Friday night feasts and the Sabbath-afternoon walks. But no matter how rich and sweet and pleasant those childhood experiences were, if those now-grown children are not involved in an Adventist church or Jewish synagogue, they no longer keep Sabbath.

Sabbath is a fragile, delicate treasure. It takes an entire church to keep it alive. And an essential element of that “entire church” are the Sabbath zealots.

Without Sabbath zealots pushing against the creep of a 24/7 world, Sabbath-keeping will disappear before the convenience of uninterrupted busyness. Like cream in a bottle, the entire concept of Sabbath sacredness (specialness) can get lost in the “progress” of life. But this kind of progress impoverishes.

A few concrete suggestions:

If you have children, pay attention to them. I often hear adults talking about kids being buried in their phones, texting instead of talking. I suggest banning electronic communications from the dinner table on Friday night. But that is not enough. That's the negative. Positively, let's make sure we listen to the young people at our tables. Listening has astonishing power. Do not exhort, cajole, instruct. Listen.

One question that I get repeatedly is about eating out on Sabbath. Should we or shouldn't we?

The Sabbath zealots argue eating out is a violation of Sabbath. We are enjoying our rest at the expense of others. We are participating in commerce. Our actions are affirming a 24/7 kind of society.

Those who argue in favor of eating out, will argue that this is the way the entire family, including mom, can relax together. It gives a defined time and space of leisure that they are unable to achieve at home.

I won't try to settle those arguments. I will say this: If you go out to eat on Sabbath, recognize that your pleasure is at the expense of people earning minimum wage, probably working two or three jobs, often working seven days a week, with a sick kid at home. All of the Adventists I know who eat out on Sabbath earn far more than minimum wage. Their life is materially better—vastly so—than the people who are serving them. You are sitting there enjoying your Sabbath bliss. And the dish washer has seen a day off in three years.

If you really believe it is appropriate for you to provide for your personal rest or the rest and fellowship of your family by eating, make sure you pay appropriately. Tip 40 percent.

That way, at least you can't be accused of having cheap opinions. If you believe in Sabbath and you believe in the value of eating out, put your money where your mouth is. Tip at least double what would be expected in ordinary time. Make the Sabbath service of your servers special by paying for it—generously.

In this world it is not possible for literally everyone to enjoy the rich blessings of Sabbath leisure. Adventists have always been aware of this because of our involvement in health care. In our world, it's not just medical care that must continue on Sabbath, bus drivers and police, power plant and network operators. Given the pressure of a 24/7 society, our activism in support of the Sabbath is all the more crucial. Among us, some people will need to work on Sabbath. That's an unavoidable fact. And given that fact, it is all the more vital that we encourage and honor our Sabbath zealots.

We don't want our children to be as ignorant of Sabbath bliss as they are of cream that comes in a bottle. We don't want them to have memories of Sabbath blessings that are no longer available because there is no church community supporting Sabbath practice.

God calls us to a weekly honey moon. A weekly experience of holy leisure and intimacy. If you are a Sabbath zealot, good on you. We need you. Keep up your good work. If you are one of those people who will toss orange peels off a cliff and hide discarded egg shells in the bushes behind the overlook, don't mock the zealots. Remember, the only reason the overlook, the special place, is unlittered and uncluttered is because of the carefulness and service of the zealots.

Together we will keep alive this very special treasure—a weekly honeymoon with God.

Holy Brains

Holy Brains

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

For March 8, 2014

This is a preliminary version. I expect to revise it later this evening or in the morning. Any critical comments before tomorrow morning are most welcome.

Mark 12:28-34

Synopsis.

Intelligence has enabled humans to produce a surplus of food, cure disease, ease pain, create the wonders of technology, invent calculus, write stirring literature and music. It is one of the greatest gifts. Used appropriately, human intelligence is the source of wonderful blessings. Misused it can wreak havoc. God calls us to cultivate our minds to the highest possible level and to use our intellectual prowess for good.

I called my sister in Boston this week. She works for a pharmaceutical company named Genzyme. I asked her which of her company's products has the best story. She told me to check out Cerezyme.

With the help of google, here's what I found.

Cerezyme is used to treat a genetic disorder called Gaucher's disease. Some of the problems this disease causes are anemia, fatigue, enlargement of the liver and spleen. It causes the bones to weaken. Patients have lots of trouble with their shoulders and hip joints.

For a hundred years after it was discovered, there was no treatment. The best doctors could do was to keep you company through the heart-breaking course of the disease.

Then some really smart people, researchers, figured out what was happening. The problem was a lack of a particular enzyme, glucocerebrosidase. If you don't have this enzyme, another chemical (a lipid, a fat) called glucosylceramide, accumulates in the bone marrow, lungs, spleen, liver and sometimes the brain.

Wow. How did they figure that out? Can you imagine the brain power involved in designing the experiments to figure this out?

Other really smart people figured out how to make a substitute for this missing enzyme. If patients are given this substitute they live normal lives. The problem becomes entirely manageable. They can live normal lives.

Information source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/263370.php

That's the power of holy brains.

Intelligence is one of our greatest treasures. With our brains we can change the world. We can cure disease. We can make things better.

A few weeks ago, I invited a friend to go out to dinner with my daughter and me. I paid with my credit card, then John insisted on paying me for his share of the meal—with Bitcoin. If he had offered me cash, I would have been more stubborn in resisting his offer. But this was too cool.

I, of course, have no idea how Bitcoin works. I just handed him my phone. He downloaded and installed a program. Then he did whatever you do to pay someone with Bitcoin. When I checked yesterday, my vast portfolio of wealth now includes Bitcoin worth approximately $14.98 (as of 3:45 p.m., March 7, 2014).

When I stop and think about this transaction, I am dazzled at the brain power that brought it into existence.

How much intelligence went to work creating the internet and the devices? How many thousands of hours of sharply-focused brain power went into creating the code that makes Bitcoin work?

I read an article in Newsweek about Satoshi Nakamoto. The author of the article believed Mr. Nakamoto was the prime creator of Bit Coin. Mr. Nakamoto refused to talk to the reporter—or anyone else for that matter. So the reported talked to everyone he could find who might know something about him. I loved this description of Satoshi by his brother: "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."

Source: Leah McGrath Goodman. Newsweek, March 6, 2014.

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

I laughed with delight when I read that. Here is a smart aleck who is really smart.

In the creation story, God told Adam and Eve to fill the earth and “subdue” it. They were to bring order to it. That is they were to use their minds and their muscles, their brains and their brawn to make things better. Can you imagine that? Even in God's perfect world, humans were supposed to use their brains and their brawn to make it better.

When we come to the Gospel stories about Jesus, we find the same vision. This time the problems are glaringly obvious. Jesus steps into a world where people are hurting. They suffer from physical disease, mental disease, hunger, pain, disability. Jesus goes about making things better. Then he commissions his disciples to carry forward his work.

Today, our worshiped has featured Cypress Adventist School. Faculty and staff, students and parents, we are delighted to have you with us today. We thank you for your work all through the school year. Supporting education is one way we show respect for the amazing gift of intelligence.

God wants all of us to do all we can to cultivate the gift of intelligence he has given us. Then God calls us to participate with him in making the world a better place, a more beautiful place, a healthier place. A happier place.

I was in a book and map store in Wallingford on Thursday morning. It's a dazzling place, full of all kinds of information about all kinds of exotic places all around the world. I was looking for a map for a backpacking trip in Grand Canyon this spring. The young woman helping me asked a few questions about Grand Canyon and we fell into conversation. It seemed pretty obvious that working as a clerk in a map store was not her highest ambition, so I asked her what her dream job would be.

“I'd like to work for a nonprofit in the developing world doing something to improve people's health.”

I asked about her major in college: It was international finance.

The most powerful force in changing the health of communities is raising their economic well-being. When the economy of a society goes up, every other measure of well-being also improves. Which brings together to brilliance of the software engineers who created and sustain Bitcoin and the brilliance and education of the scientists who provide a substitute for the missing glucocerebrosidase in people with Gaucher's disease.

What are you doing with your intelligence? What are you doing to participate in cultivating the intelligence of our young people?

Are you contributing to tuition assistance funds at Cypress Adventist School or other schools where our young people are learning?

Would you do a good job as a volunteer tutor?

Are you providing hospitality support for our student outreach programs, led by Pastor Andreas?

Once a scholar asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment. Jesus' answer:

“The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

The lawyer replied,

The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

Our minds, our intelligence, is the most powerful tool humans have. The religious question, the spiritual question is this: what are we doing with the brains God has given us?

Are we making our world better, more beautiful, happier. This is the work of holy brains. For smart people, it is an essential part of loving God and loving people. Don't waste the brains God gave you.

Keeping Sabbath

Keeping Sabbath

Sermon manuscript for

Green Lake Church, Sabbath, March 1, 2014

Texts:

Exodus 20: 8-11

Luke 13:10-17

Synopsis. When we embrace the Sabbath commandment as authoritative for us, we are liberated from all sorts of other relentless authorities. We are free to ignore the need to achieve, perform, acquire, produce, accomplish, earn. For a day we are free to enjoy, savor, relish, contemplate, consider, worship. The benefits of Sabbath are fully available only to those who embrace its authority. And the benefits are fully worth the cost.

Yesterday I was at Cypress Adventist School. I told the kids I was going to buy something special at QFC (a grocery store) that afternoon for supper. This special something came in a small glass bottle. Then I was going to Tracy's Produce to buy strawberries. Could they guess what was in the small bottle? They guessed pickles and mayonnaise among other things. So I drew a picture of the small bottle on board. Someone guessed milk. I said that was close. Then they guessed yogurt, ice cream, buttermilk, butter. I said, yes, you are getting close. It's a dairy product. One of the second graders guessed orange juice. I agreed that orange juice is very tasty and sometimes comes in glass bottles, but that wasn't it. I tried giving them another clue. “At your house this treat probably comes in a metal can with a nozzle on top.

Still no one had any idea. Finally I said to the guy who had guessed ice cream, “Take the ice off ice cream. And you'll have your answer.” He still didn't get it. A girl sitting next to him shyly whispered, “Cream?”

“Yes!”

We all laughed together, but I could tell the kids still had no idea what I was actually going to buy. They had no mental connection between a viscous liquid in a glass bottle (or carton, for that matter) and the sweet, white fluffy stuff they could imagine squirting on strawberries.

Now, just for fun, allow me to take a poll: The last time whipped cream was served at your house, did it come from a can? Did it come from a bottle or carton and require whipping?

In March, whipped cream becomes part of the religion at our house. Whipped cream in the old sense of the word. Real cream, poured from a bottle, whipped until it begins to have some body, sweetened with a little sugar and vanilla, then whipped again to perfection with soft peaks. And if the kids are home, you can't use an electric beater. The whipping has to be done by hand.

That's part of the magic.

Friday night feasts are a tradition at our house. And they are more than that. Friday night supper forms the very heart of our religious practice. As a clergy family, our Friday night feasts are more constitutive of our religion than is Sabbath morning worship. Right now, the three of us at home—my wife Karin and I and our daughter Bonnie—all have professional duties on Sabbath morning. Worship services are our job. But Friday night—that's different. Friday night we are not on stage. We are not performing. Friday night we feast, savoring the freedom and richness of Sabbath.

If we have the right combination of people, after dinner, there will be live music, people playing instruments, people singing.

Most of the year, dinner is “haystacks.” (This is a traditional Adventist meal. It's basically a taco salad—rice, beans, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, olives, sour cream, salsa, chips. Did I leave out anything?) But in the spring, sometimes it's strawberry shortcake.

When our kids are home from wherever they have scattered around the globe, on Friday mornings, the first topic of conversation is supper. Who's doing the cooking? What are we going to eat? What time are we going to eat? Who's doing the shopping. No matter how chaotic the rest of our lives, we know that on Friday night, it's time to feast. Together. Leisurely. It's our tradition.

It is also our religion.

We learned it from our parents, yes. But if it were only a family tradition, I doubt that we would have maintained it. It is our religion that creates this sweet open space in our lives. Time for feasting, for worship, for visiting with friends, for hiking, for enjoying sunsets. The experience of Sabbath is wonderfully rich. And this richness is the fruit of our religion.

The Sabbath is a central element of religion in the Bible—something that has pretty much disappeared from Christianity. Among Christians Sabbath-keeping has been transformed into going to church. That is Sabbath-keeping means attending a religious performance.

Imagining Sabbath-keeping as going to church is like imagining whipped cream as something you squirt out of a can. Whipped cream from a can is convenient, but it is hardly the full experience.

Worship together is a rich part of Sabbath-keeping. But it is only a part of authentic Sabbath-keeping. According to the Bible and Adventist practice (which we learned from the Jews), Sabbath is an entire day that begins at sundown on Friday.

The ancient tradition of keeping Sabbath is one of the treasures of the Adventist Church. For us Sabbath is a commandment, an obligation, a tradition, a habit that makes life sweeter, richer.

One way to think of the Sabbath is see it as a central element of our church culture. And culture matters.

I was reminded of the power of culture on Tuesday afternoon. I was talking with Ken up at Zoka's. He and Susana have just returned from three months in Mexico. The countryside is beautiful. The food is fantastic. The people are friendly and helpful. The air was warm. The sky was blue. It was paradise. But there was one striking, disturbing aspect of life in rural Mexico: litter. There was garbage everywhere.

My dad used to live in north Georgia. When I'd go for a visit, we sometimes drove to parks and national forests in the area. It's beautiful country, but I was astonished at the trash. Every trail head had piles of garbage. Along trails we would come across beverage cans, food wrappers and other stuff. It was jarring. Why would people do such a thing? Do the people in Georgia have more evil characters than the people of Enumclaw? Why is it that the national forest trails between Enumclaw and Mt. Rainier are almost entirely trash free and the trails in the national forest in north Georgia were heavily littered?

The difference is culture.

Whenever I come back to the northwest after hiking in the South, I always have a renewed appreciation for a culture that resists littering, a culture that supports clean trails and the protection of and respect for the natural world. I've become a bit of a litter-Nazi. If we're hiking together and you're tempted to discard your apple core, I'll offer to carry it out for you. Because I have seen what happens to natural areas when the barrier against littering is flimsy.

One of our vital missions as a Seventh-day Adventist congregation is to keep alive the sweet tradition of keeping Sabbath.

The Bible begins with the story of the Sabbath. God spends a week creating the world, then . . . what? God keeps Sabbath. Here at the beginning of the Bible there is no command to keep the Sabbath. There is actually no explicit reference to human activity at all. There is the simple statement that God kept Sabbath and in doing so created the foundation for our weekly rhythm. Humans keep Sabbath because God keeps Sabbath.

This week I began reading a book on the Sabbath written by Joseph Lieberman, the senator for Connecticut who ran for vice-president in 2000. Lieberman, an observant Jew, makes exactly this point. Yes, Sabbath-keeping is a special treasure of the Jewish people. But even in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, Sabbath is declared to be the treasure of humanity, not only the treasure of the Jews.

Sabbath is not created by Sabbath-keepers. Neither the Jews nor Adventists nor the Seventh-day Baptists originated the Sabbath. When we keep Sabbath we are participating in a transcendent reality. God spend six days working, then rested and made the seventh day holy. Sacred. The primary meaning of these words is “special.”

Sabbath is not more righteous than other days. It is not more moral or more ethical.

It is special. Different. Extraordinary. Without the frame of regular time, there can be no special time. Without a customary routine, what would be the definition of different? Sabbath interrupts the flow of ordinary time. That's what makes it extraordinary. This interruption is an invitation from God for us to leave our ordinary lives and step into a special place. In the protected place of Sabbath, we can give special attention to God, to one another. It is time for us to explore the big questions of life and philosophy—or to leave such questions alone and simply savor the richness and sweetness of the gifts that are ours. It's time for us to be with one another in a unique way.

So how to keep the Sabbath? Two pictures:

The first Sabbath, the one described in Genesis One, was a honey moon. If we use that as an analogy, it suggests great anticipation and planning. Good food and good times. Intimacy and leisure.

Some our Sabbaths should feature good food and good times. Intimacy and leisure. This is what we aim to experience in our Friday night feasts. A friend of mine, Tony Romeo, posted a video of Friday night at the Romeo home. It is a boring video. It's three generations of Romeos sitting around the wood stove, talking, dozing, rocking, playing with toys. It is genuine leisure.

The second Bible passage I would reference is the story in Luke 13. A woman is bent over double, crippled with severe scoliosis. Jesus meets her in the synagogue and heals her. When he is challenged, he responds should this daughter of Abraham who has been bound for 18 years be released on the Sabbath?

Sabbath is freedom.

Freedom from the pressure to achieve, accomplish, perform, produce, earn, master, practice. These are all good things. But if they are never interrupted, our lives are impoverished.

We can experience this freedom only if we embrace the restrictions, the traditions, the rules of keeping Sabbath. Let's be clear, the sweet experience of the Sabbath is not available to people apart from religious authority.

Modern writers who address Sabbath keeping write their sweetest passages full of longing and nostalgia. They are like losers writing about the glory of victory. They think they can imagine how sweet it would be if only . . . I have never known any one personally nor have I read about someone who had a rich, sustained experience of Sabbath-keeping apart from a religious community.

Our own children demonstrate that fact. My guess is that the children who grew up here in Green Lake Church would describe their childhood memories of Sabbath as sweet times. But no matter how rich and sweet and pleasant those childhood experiences were, if those now-grown children are not involved in an Adventist church or Jewish synagogue, they no longer keep Sabbath.

Sabbath is a fragile, delicate treasure. It takes an entire church to keep it alive.

Like cream in a bottle, the entire concept can get lost in the “progress” of life. But this kind of progress impoverishes.

A few concrete suggestions:

If you have children, pay attention to them. I often hear adults talking about kids being buried in their phones, texting instead of talking. I suggest banning electronic communications from the dinner table on Friday night. But that is not enough. That's the negative. Then make sure we listen to the young people at our tables. Listening has astonishing power. Do not exhort, cajole, instruct. Listen.

I hearing a young woman describe her strategy for captivating any guy who asked her out. At dinner she would ask a couple of questions and then listen. Once the guys realized she was listening, they would talk all night, utterly enchanted. Maybe we could learn something.

If you go out to eat on Sabbath, recognize that your pleasure is at the expense of people earning minimum wage, probably working two or three jobs, often working seven days a week, with a sick kid at home. And there you sit enjoying your Sabbath bliss. You better pay for it! Instead of tipping 20 percent, tip 40 percent.

In this world it is not possible for literally everyone to enjoy the rich blessings of Sabbath leisure. Adventists have always been aware of this because of our involvement in health care. In our world, it's not just medical care that must continue on Sabbath, bus drivers and police, power plant and network operators. Given the pressure of a 24/7 society, our activism in support of the Sabbath is all the more crucial.

We don't want our children to be as ignorant of Sabbath bliss as they are of cream that comes in a bottle. We don't want them to have memories of Sabbath blessings that are no longer available because there is no church community supporting Sabbath practice.

God calls us to a weekly honey moon. A weekly experience of holy leisure and intimacy.

God calls us to a weekly experience of freedom—a release from pressure. God invites us to experience in a special way his grace, his favor, his presence.

Then God calls us to act as his agents keeping alive the richest, sweetest experience Sabbath.

Hearing God

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church for Sabbath, February 8, 2014-preliminary version published on Thursday to be revised on Friday.

Texts:

1 Samuel 5

Isaiah 56

Joel 2

Acts 10

Sermon

A few weeks ago, a smiling young woman met me at the door after church with a wonderful story. When she was a child she knew she was special because God talked with her. She had frequent, prolonged conversations with God. To her this was incontrovertible evidence of “specialness.” Other kids might have imaginary friends. She did not need such childish props because she had an actual friendship with God.

Her remarks reminded me of stories told by others here at Green Lake Church, people who have direct experience with hearing God speak.

I was also reminded of a passage in the autobiography of George Fox. Three hundred years ago, he wrote,

On a certain time, as I was walking in the fields, the Lord said unto me, “Thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, which was before the foundation of the world” and as the Lord spoke it, I believed, and saw in it the new birth.

Another time:

As I walked towards the jail [to visit some people who were imprisoned for their religious beliefs] the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “My love was always to thee, and thou art in my love.” And I was ravished with the sense of the love of God, and greatly strengthened in my inward man.

George Fox heard God speak. He taught others to pay attention and seek to hear God for themselves. It was not enough to be an expert on the words of the Bible. Fox insisted that genuine religion consisted in a direct, personal engagement with God. God spoke to the apostles and prophets in Bible times. And he still speaks. George Fox went on to found the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers as they are commonly called.

Puritans and other Protestants were fiercely critical of the Quakers. Real Christianity, they argued, consisted of studying and obeying the Bible. If you start imagining God talks to you directly, you'll end up with all sorts of problems and craziness.

Maybe, but consider the fruit of George Fox's work.

Quakers were the first Christians to insist that all people were created equal. Not just all educated, wealthy White males, which is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote the opening of the Declaration of Independence. Quakers believed all people were created equal. Americans and Nicaraguans. Russians and Chechnyans. Palestinians and Israelis. People with fine clothes and impressive titles and nobodies. Quakers were perhaps the first group of people to see that a person on trial was no less worthy of respect than the lawyers and judges of the court.

Quakers—in stark contrast to the ancient Puritans (and their modern descendants like Mark Driscoll and Sam Pippim) believed that every person—male and female—was animated by God and could be called by God into public ministry.

Quakers were the only American religious group with significant membership in the South to abolish slavery among themselves before the Civil War.

Quakers led the way toward the humane treatment of the mentally ill and criminals.

For three hundred years Quakers have maintained a testimony against war as a tool of foreign policy.

Quakers could and did cite Bible verses in support of every one of these advanced moral perspectives. But they did not come to these exalted moral perspectives from reading the Bible. After all those who argued in favor of the exalted status and privileges of the aristocracy, those who defended slavery and advocated the subjugation of women, brutal treatment of the insane, torture for criminals, and war all based their arguments on the words of the Bible. Words on the page were not and are not enough to inspire a bold, new moral vision.

Quakers, following the example and teaching of George Fox, practiced listening for God's voice. And the entire world has benefited from their listening.

Dramatic moves forward among the people of God come as a result of hearing a new word from God. It is when we hear God for ourselves that we receive the wisdom and the courage to act.

We see the same thing in the Bible stories themselves.

In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer named Cornelius, who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. 2 He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God. 3 One afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him. “Cornelius!” the angel said.

4 Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What is it, sir?” he asked the angel.

The angel replied, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! 5 Now send some men to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.”

7 As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, one of his personal attendants. 8 He told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.

The description of Cornelius as a “devout and God-fearing man” means he had embraced Jewish theology with its central vision of a single deity who was fundamentally good. This, in stark contrast to the other views common at that time which imagined a supernatural realm populated by competing, amoral gods. Cornelius was a good man, that is he was moral. He was devout, that is he worshiped the God of Judaism. But he had not officially converted. He was not a proper Jew. So there was an impenetrable wall between him and Jewish people, including Jews who were devotees of Jesus.

So God takes action to destroy that wall.

The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, 10 and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. 12 In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. 13 Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.”

14 “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.”

15 But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” 16 The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.

17 Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house. Standing outside the gate, 18 they asked if a man named Simon Peter was staying there.

19 Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. 20 Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.”

21 So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?”

22 They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.”

Going into a Gentiles house was forbidden. Especially eating there. The voice of God is directing Peter to violate well-established religious rules. Peter would have never done it without direct guidance from heaven. So God gave him direct guidance.

23 Peter invited the men to stay for the night. The next day he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa.

24 They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter pulled him up and said, “Stand up! I’m a human being just like you!”

27 So they talked together and went inside, where many others were assembled. 28 Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. 29 So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. Now tell me why you sent for me.”

30 Cornelius replied, “Four days ago I was praying in my house about this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes was standing in front of me. 31 He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God! 32 Now send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”

Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. 35 In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. 36 This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism. 38 And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 “And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross,fn 40 but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, 41 not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. 43 He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”

This sermon could have never happened if Peter had not heard God speak. Peter could not have gotten this sermon out of the Hebrew Bible. There are passages in the Hebrew scriptures that can be adduced in support of what Peter preached. But no one understood them the way Peter preached it that day. Peter himself would have never believed God included the Gentiles in the promises of God apart from the personal words of God to him and to Cornelius.

Acts 10 goes on to report further validation of Peter's sermon.

Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. 45 The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. 46 For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

Then Peter asked, 47 “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” 48 So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterward Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.

Classic Christian orthodoxy imagines that God did his best work 2000 years ago then went silent. God had nothing more to say. Our only access to God is through studying the words in the Bible.

Classic Adventist orthodoxy agrees that after the New Testament was written God went silent. God had nothing more to say. But then in the middle 1800s God finally spoke again. This time God spoke through the words of the Adventist prophet, Ellen White. But once Ellen White died, God again went silent. We are left with only words on pages.

I disagree.

Yes, God spoke. Through the ancient prophets and the scribes who wrote the Bible. Supremely through the words and example of Jesus. Through the words of the apostles. Through the words of Ellen White. Yes. Yes.

And God still speaks. And it is our privilege and responsibility to listen. To hear.

We do not all have the same gift of hearing. Prophets are unusual people. Reformers and visionaries are not ordinary people. They have special gifts. George Fox was not an ordinary person, not as a kid, not as an adult.

We cannot all hear in the same way. So as I have mentioned before, again today, I challenge you: If you have a gift for hearing God's voice, listen carefully. Share with us what you hear.

Ask God what vision he might have for Green Lake Church. Given our resources—a beautiful building, a highly visible location, a theology that is not contaminated with the horror of eternal hell fire, a belief in the radical commitment of God to human well-being, a varied congregation with all sorts of abilities and connections—Given our resources and our privileges, what is God calling us to do?

When someone says they have heard from God, how do we know if it really was God?

The Bible offers some guidance on this. First: God's highest principles are mercy and peace. When people imagine they are hearing God and they call us to be active in condemning and attacking, we do well to reject their claims.

One of the more troubling bits of sociological research in recent years is the finding that conservative Christians are more likely to approve of torture and war than even the general public. How tragic. They clearly are NOT hearing God's voice.

Peter and Cornelius opened the way for the inclusion of all humanity in happy purposes of God. George Fox heard God's voice and created a movement that has elevated humanity in all sorts of ways. Ellen White heard God's voice and led our church toward a deep appreciation of the human body and an emphatic rejection of the monstrous ideas of predestination and eternal hell fire.

What now? What is the new thing that God would like to do through us here in this place, in this time? If you have a history of hearing God, would you spend some time specifically inviting God to speak to you again and give you a vision that is worthy of the best energy of the Green Lake Community?

Really, Really Smart

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church

Sabbath, February 1, 2014

Synopsis: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was the most successful man of his era. Bill Gates, President Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Pope Francis all rolled into one. Naturally, he was impressed with himself. Then he had a dream. Then he lost his mind. Then he lost everything. Then he became wise.

Based on Daniel 4.

King Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart. He just wasn't quite smart enough.

His armies were unstoppable. They conquered the entire region of Mesopotamia and Palestine. Nebuchadnezzar filled his capital city, Babylon, with gold and grand architecture.

He funded the arts and philosophy and math and science.

He imported the royalty of every nation and tribe in the region and gave them significant jobs in his government. This worked both to unite the empire and to bring into its very heart the unique strengths of all these various cultures.

Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart.

As if all these achievements weren't evidence enough, there's this: Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon wrote an entire chapter in the Bible. Can you believe that?

In the Bible, the King of Babylon is usually pictured as the ultimate bad guy. The prophet Isaiah paints such a diabolical picture of the King of Babylon that Christian commentators have long used it as a description of the devil himself. In the book of Revelation, Babylon stands for the forces of evil that attempt to obliterate God's people.

When I pastored in Babylon, New York, back in the 80s, the largest church in town was a Presbyterian Church. It was a grand, classic building with a towering white steeple on Main Street. Members there told me they had a hard recruiting quality pastoral candidates, because no self-respecting Presbyterian minister wanted to pastor in Babylon!

Still, in spite of all this, the prophet Daniel features a document written by Nebuchadnezzar as chapter four of his book.

(This fact should be a sufficient rebuke to those who imagine that God speaks only through “approved channels.” The current president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Elder Ted Wilson, once said publicly that Adventists should read only Adventist books. It was a profoundly wrong statement. He appears to have moved away from that kind of thinking or at least he no longer repeats it in his sermons. God speaks through all kinds of people including the good people of Babylon!)

Daniel Four begins:

King Nebuchadnezzar to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world: "Peace and prosperity to you! I want you all to know about the miraculous signs and wonders the Most High God has performed for me.

In this document Nebuchadnezzar speaks from personal experience. He is not writing mere theological theory.

It's easy for Christians to get caught up in theoretical discussions. The older I get the less I care about the debates that roil theological circles. I am keenly interested in hearing how spiritual life is working for you. Last week when I talked to you about contemplative prayer, I drew on my own experience. There is a book making its rounds among Adventists which is severely critical of contemplative prayer. It's a silly book. The author knows nothing about contemplative prayer. Not directly. He has read a few books. It's like a monk writing about romance, someone who has never had kids writing a parenting book, a tone deaf person writing music criticism.

Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart. In addition he had immediate access to the smartest, most highly educate people of his day. But still he wasn't quite smart enough. So God decided to complete his education.

Here's what happened:

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was living in my palace in comfort and prosperity. But one night I had a dream that frightened me; I saw visions that terrified me as I lay in my bed. So I issued an order calling in all the wise men of Babylon, so they could tell me what my dream meant.

That would have been standard operating procedure in that society. Dreams were considered significant. There was an entire industry of dream interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar continues:

When all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers came in, I told them the dream, but they could not tell me what it meant.

If you're familiar with the stories in the Book of Daniel, this sounds familiar. Once before, the wise men, astrologers and soothsayers had been stumped and Daniel had to be called in. That first time Nebuchadnezzar could not even remember the details of his dream. He demanded that these experts come up with both the dream and its interpretation—an obvious impossibility. At the last minute, just before Nebuchadnezzar has the entire corp of astrologers and soothsayers executed, Daniel finds out about the situation and saves the day.

This time, the king tells the wise men the details of his dream. And this time, it's those very details that render Nebuchadnezzar's wise men mute. The dream is unmistakably bad news. And you did not give Nebuchadnezzar bad news. And live to tell about it. So the kings wise men mumbled their apologies. They could not interpret the dream.

So finally Daniel is called in. Again, Nebuchadnezzar recounts his dream. He saw a massive, spreading tree. Animals and people found shelter in its shade. Its fruit fed the entire world. The top of the tree scraped against heaven. The branches spread across the entire world. It was a grand, munificent scene.

So far, so good. But the dream is not finished.

Next, as I lay there dreaming, I saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from heaven. The messenger shouted, "Cut down the tree and lop off its branches! Shake off its leaves and scatter its fruit! Chase the wild animals from its shade and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Now let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the wild animals among the plants of the field. For seven periods of time, let him have the mind of a wild animal instead of the mind of a human. For this has been decreed by the watchers and the holy ones, so that everyone may know that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world. He gives them to anyone he chooses--even to nobodies.

You don't have to be an expert in dream interpretation to see that this dream is bad news. The wise men listened in dumbfounded silence. When the king pressed them for an interpretation, they hung their heads. They muttered excuses. They cannot tell the king what it means. So Nebuchadnezzar summons Daniel. He repeats the dream and Daniel goes pale. He is stunned, speechless. The king sees it and encourages him, using his Babylonian name,

'Belteshazzar, don't be alarmed by the dream and what it means.'

Finally, Daniel pulls himself together.

I wish this dream applied to your enemies, my lord!

The tree you saw growing very tall and strong, reaching high into the heavens for all the world to see, that tree with fresh green leaves and fruit for all to eat, that tree which sheltered animals and provided nesting sites for birds, that tree, Your Majesty, is you. For you have grown strong and great; your greatness reaches up to heaven, and your rule to the ends of the earth.

This sounds good, but you know the dream doesn't stop there.

You saw a watcher and a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, "Cut down the tree and destroy it. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven. Let him live with the animals of the field for seven times.

Here is what the dream means, Your Majesty: You will be driven from human society, and you will live in the fields with the wild animals. You will eat grass like a cow, and you will be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass while you live this way, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses. But the stump and roots of the tree were left in the ground. This means that you will receive your kingdom back again when you have learned that heaven rules.

No wonder Daniel went pale when he heard the dream. Can you imagine telling an absolute, divine-right king, “You are going to go crazy. You will be deposed from your throne!” Men were commonly killed for far less than that.

Daniel does stop there. He offered the king some advice. The king was smart. Really, really smart. But not smart enough. Daniel provides the missing insight:

Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.'

One of the vital missions of the church is to speak to those in power and urge them to stop sinning and do right, especially for the weak and lowly ones.

I was troubled to read this week a characterization the farm bill that was passed this week in the House. The bill cut food stamp benefits and left in place the massive farm subsidies which go principally to wealthy corporations. That is wrong. Christians should speak forcefully against the use of government to redistribute wealth to the wealthy. That is a misuse of government.

To his credit, Nebuchadnezzar did not have Daniel executed. But neither did he take Daniel's advice.

Nebuchadnezzar continues with his story.

Twelve months later I was taking a walk on the flat roof of the royal palace in Babylon. As I looked out across the city, I said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

While these words were still in my mouth, a voice called down from heaven, 'O King Nebuchadnezzar, this message is for you! You are no longer ruler of this kingdom. You will be driven from human society. You will live in the fields with the wild animals, and you will eat grass like a cow. Seven times will pass over you, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses.'

"That very same hour the judgment was fulfilled, and I was driven from human society. I ate grass like a cow and was drenched with the dew of heaven. I lived this way until my hair was as long as eagles' feathers and my nails were like birds' claws.

For seven years Nebuchadnezzar was literally out to pasture. I imagine it was a walled area, the best asylum that could be provided. Still, it was a prison. For seven years, Nebuchadnezzar lived as a ward of the state. No authority. No freedom. Did he realize he was crazy? I don't know.

After this time had passed, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven. My sanity returned, and I praised and worshiped the Most High and honored the one who lives forever. His rule is everlasting, and his kingdom is eternal. All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth. No one can stop him or say to him, 'What do you mean by doing these things?'

When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud."

There are two morals I take from this story.

The first is that we are to use our powers—our intellect, our social connections, our good luck, our charm, our education to serve. God calls us to act as partners in his work to suffuse the world with grace and peace. Economists, engineers, caterers, attorneys, dishwashers, grandmothers—God needs the work and gifts of us all to do the work of his kingdom. Daniel urged Nebuchadnezzar to avoid doom by turning his energy toward service instead of self-congratulation.

You think you're smart? How are you using your gifts? Are you serving the poor? Really smart people are not infatuated with themselves. They do not limit their largesse to their friends.

The second lesson is to remember all we have is a gift. Money, brains, good looks, social charm, an American passport, health, faith, moral background—however hard you worked, you would be nothing apart from gifts.

When we allow success to call us into stewardship and gratitude, then we are really, really smart.

God will be pleased and we will know ultimate satisfaction.