Jim Elliott
Sermons for 2010
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Easter 2 Year C
April 11, 2010
So, what did y’all do this past week? I know, we all celebrated Easter last Sunday. Whether we were here in the early morning darkness for the Great Vigil or we came to one of our other services or whether we were elsewhere with family and friends, I’m sure that most if not all of us celebrated the resurrection of our Lord in some form or fashion last Sunday. But what did you do in the week following your Easter celebration?
I know that many of us, the Elliotts included, were on spring break this past week. This year, the Elliott family, minus our son Gus who is at the University of Georgia, went on an excursion of sorts for our spring break. Our son Alex is a high school junior and will be deciding in the coming year where he will attend college. So, in an effort to assist Alex in deciding to which schools he will apply, we decided to go on a college road trip for this year’s spring break.
So, on this past Monday morning, we packed the car and Susan, Alex, Carter and I headed out on our college quest. Twelve hundred miles later we arrived home safely on Friday evening, all a little road weary but certainly no worse for the wear. We drove across the better part of Alabama, a goodly portion of Tennessee and made our way home by crossing most of the state of Georgia from north to south.
It was a fun trip and an interesting trip and I think we all learned some things about the colleges we visited. But it wasn’t until we got home that I realized something. I realized that we left home knowing where we were going but not really having any idea what we were looking for.
Certainly, Alex was looking for a college he might like to attend. But what would it be that might be attractive to him about any of these institutions? Susan and I hope he will find a place where he will be happy and have a successful college experience. But what is it about any particular school that brings those hopes to fruition?
Then I realized something else about the trip after we got home Friday evening. I think I knew it all along the way. But it wasn’t until we got home that I was able to put my finger on it. As we drove across Alabama and Tennessee and Georgia, I had this sense that something was missing. I had this sense that something was over or had come to an end or somehow just wasn’t as it should be.
And then it dawned on me! Where was Easter? During all of those miles that we drove, I saw little if any evidence that Easter as we know it is ongoing. To be sure, we drove past dozens of churches, big and small but there was no real evidence of Easter. The world just seemed to go by, oblivious to the reality of the Resurrection.
Of course, there was the occasional country church marquee that still read “Jesus is risen” or the like. But I had the sense that those signs just hadn’t yet been changed to whatever the message of the week might be. This trip ended for me with the foreboding sense that for most of the world through which we traveled, that Easter had come and gone and it was simply on to the next thing.
But we know differently, don’t we? We know that Easter is indeed our very beginning! We know that with the resurrection comes new and unending life for us and for all of the faithful. We know that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega! We have faith that the risen Christ is our beginning and our end – who is and who was and who is to come again.
But how do we, you and I, and all of us, how do we keep Easter alive? How do we keep the inertia of the world from simply taking us on to the next thing, whatever that might be? How do we begin again this resurrection journey not only knowing where we are going but also knowing what we are looking for? The answer, I think, is faith.
I think we have to be like the ten that very first Easter. Even when we are unsure and afraid, as they were, we must rejoice when we hear the voice of Jesus say to us, “Peace be with you.” And when he says to us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” we must go forth into the world in which we live proclaiming the risen Christ as redeemer of all.
And we have to be like Thomas! Yes, all of us are Thomas, aren’t we? Not quite sure. Demanding strict proof, as we lawyers say. Always wanting to be certain. But even Thomas, doubting Thomas, upon hearing the voice of Jesus, exclaimed “My Lord and my God!”
So what’s that mean for us? I think it means when we come to this altar today, and indeed every time we come here, we must know, not just where we are going, but what we expect to find here. In our faith, we know that what we find here at this altar is the body and blood of the risen Christ, the food and drink of new and unending life. We know that what we receive here is the gift of the Holy Spirit – God’s gift to the faithful which strengthens us to do the work he gives us to do.
And so, whether we are driving through central and northern Alabama, across the Cumberland Plateau or from the gold mines of north Georgia to our historic former state capital, or wherever it is that our busy lives take us, let us be ever mindful not only where we are going but what it is that we are looking for.
If we are faithful, it is the risen Christ that we seek, wherever we go. In our faith, we are witnesses to His resurrection, no matter where we are. Through our faith, we hear him say to us “Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have come to believe”. And because of our faith, Jesus says to each of us, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
“I send you to tell all the world, Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”
AMEN!
Palm Sunday Year C
March 28, 2010
Early yesterday morning, I sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and my laptop computer to check my email. I received a somewhat cryptic message asking for prayers for an old friend from North Georgia because his parents had died. The message was unclear and was especially baffling because it suggested that both of my friend’s parents had died just the day before.
My friend’s folks were prominent people in the sense that they had in years past been in politics and in public service and were quite well known in their community and in the political arena. It was then that I thought that, given their notoriety, surely there would be something in the news about them if they had both died on the same day.
So, I went to the font of all information, Google News, and indeed found a couple of dozen electronic news stories reporting the deaths of these two folks on Friday. All of the articles said essentially the same thing. They said that this seventy-something couple had been found dead in their home in North Georgia on Friday and that law enforcement authorities were investigating the case.
As I considered what I was reading, I recalled some class that I took in high school in which I learned that every good piece of journalism should include the five W’s and should answer the questions “who, what, when, where and why”. And as I thought about these news stories about the death of my friend’s parents, I realized that each of the stories had the who, the what, the when and the where but not one of them included “the why”.
Each story told who these folks were, including names and ages and said something about their “station in life”. All of the stories said something about what had happened, namely that they were no longer in life. Every piece answered the question when by indicating that their deaths had taken place on Friday. And each of the articles told where these things had happened by stating that the couple had been found in their home in North Georgia.
But not a single article answered the question to which I most wanted an answer. Not a single one of them told me why. None of these news stories could tell me or anyone else who read them why these seemingly senseless deaths had occurred. Nowhere in the vast expanse of the information superhighway could I find out why my old friend’s parents had been so senselessly taken from him and his brothers and sister and all of their families. Why? Perhaps we will never know.
As I sat at our kitchen table yesterday in the early morning darkness and thought about my friend and his parents and their death and the senselessness of it all, I couldn’t help but think about Palm Sunday. I couldn’t help but think of the narrative that we would read this morning from Luke’s gospel and wonder whether it really tells us anything about the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
To be sure, Luke’s gospel tells us a great deal about the crucifixion of Jesus but does it answer the question “why”? Does it tell us why Jesus suffered this seemingly senseless and shameful death? Consider this with me if you will. If all we know about the death of Jesus is what we learn from Luke’s passion narrative, then we really cannot know why Jesus died.
Certainly, as Christians we should have some good understanding of why it is that Jesus was crucified. We should all have some understanding of Jesus as the Christ and what that means to us and for us. But think with me for just a few minutes. If all we know about the death of Jesus is what is told to us in this Palm Sunday reading from Luke, then it seems to me that we can’t really know, truly know, why Jesus died.
Knowing the “who, what, when, where” and even the “why” seems easy. Luke tells us. Luke tells us that this Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Celebration of the Passover. There is a festival atmosphere as Jesus rides into town. But the crowd gets ugly, as crowds are wont to do. The crowd gets ugly and this Jesus is accused of blasphemy. Jesus is accused of sin against God – a sin punishable by death! Jesus is given a trial, albeit a trial without any justice – certainly without any justice as we understand it. And Jesus is convicted and sentenced to death and he is executed.
But if all we know is what Luke tells us, like some sort of news story or article, then I don’t think we can truly know why Jesus died. If we really want to know why Jesus died, why he was crucified and suffered a criminal’s death, we have to know more. If we really want to know why all of this happened, we have to know the whole story – “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey might say.
And if we want to know ‘the rest of the story”, the whole story, if you will, we cannot rely exclusively on what it is that this passage of scripture has to say to us this morning. If we really want to know why this happened, why Jesus died this horrible, this unthinkable death, we have to know and to understand, as best we can, the entire story of Jesus.
We have to begin at the beginning. We have to know what John tells us in the prologue to the fourth gospel. We have to know that, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God! We have to know that Jesus was begotten, not made. We have to know that he was born of the Virgin Mary and became flesh and blood and walked among us. We have to know that Jesus taught in the temple and that he did innumerable signs and wonders.
If we are to truly know why Jesus died, we have to know that he healed the sick, that he cured the blind and the deaf and the lame and that he raised the dead. We have to remember that Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus and that he drove the money changers out of the temple.
If we really want to know the answer to the question, “why did Jesus die this horrendous, unspeakable death?”, we have to know and to understand that it is this Jesus who is the great I AM! It is this Jesus who is indeed Emmanuel, God among us.
It is this Jesus who is God incarnate. We have to know that it is this Jesus that is God made man and come into this world, our world to save us from ourselves and from our sins against God and our neighbors.
And so, as we begin this Holy Week, as we approach the Stations of the Cross, as we come to the last supper and have our feet washed on Maundy Thursday, as we relive again the crucifixion of the Christ on Good Friday and remember that Joseph of Arimathea placed the body of our Lord in the tomb on Holy Saturday, let us remember all that we know of our Lord and Savior.
And let each of us know with confidence why he died this tragic, this horrible, this unspeakable death. He died for us! He died for us so we might live – so we might live in Him and for Him.
AMEN!
Epiphany 4 Year C
January 31, 2010
I know that we are all familiar with phrases, adages or even clichés such as “looks can be deceiving”, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, the ever popular “beauty is only skin deep” or even, “don’t be fooled by outward appearances.” Well, certainly by the time I graduated from high school I had heard all of those sayings and I’m sure some more, that all suggest to us that we not rush to judgment about folks based on outward appearances alone, or perhaps more importantly, on what we think we know about them. In the fall of 1978, after having spent my entire life in the high school football capitol of the world, I left my South Georgia home for college in the piedmont of North Carolina where I enrolled at Davidson College. For those of you not familiar with Davidson, it is a tiny Presbyterian school just north of Charlotte, North Carolina that has long been known as a fine liberal arts college.
When I got to Davidson, not really having thought a whole lot about it, I guess I assumed I would enjoy some small college football games on Saturday afternoons. Notwithstanding the fact that I assumed that both Valdosta High and Lowndes High might well beat little Davidson College on a consistent basis, I thought a little Southern Conference football would be fun to watch.
Well, it turned out I was wrong. While Davidson had a football team and did indeed play on Saturdays in the fall, nobody seemed to really much care about watching the games or even how they turned out. I quickly came to learn that in North Carolina, basketball was the only true sport.
I confess it took me a while to get used to this. I mean, I had grown up in a culture in which basketball was just what you did to occupy your time between football and baseball seasons. Basketball wasn’t really a sport; it was just something to do in the winter when it was too cold to go fishing. But in North Carolina, football was just something to do to keep in shape until basketball season started in November.
Let’s pause for a moment and put this in “historical” perspective. In 1978, cable TV was a relatively new thing and the “big three” networks were about the only channels most of us had. Headline News, CNN and ESPN had not yet been thought of much less made it on the air. We relied completely on the local television channels and the newspaper for our sports information.
Here in Valdosta in the fall, the Saturday morning paper would be dominated, as it is today, by what happened the night before at Martin Stadium and Cleveland Field. But in North Carolina, while there might be some mention of the high school football scores, the news media abounded with information about what North Carolina and Wake Forest and Duke and even little Davidson would have in store when the basketball season finally rolled around. In a word, football wasn’t just second fiddle to basketball; football didn’t even make the band.
When I was a freshman at basketball crazy Davidson College, there was a senior on the basketball team that gave all outward appearance of having no athletic ability whatsoever. While he was kind of tall, he slouched around campus in disheveled clothes, wore thick glasses and I think he was a philosophy major. And as everyone knows, philosophy majors can’t play basketball. He was the kind of guy that even today would be labeled by all outward appearances as a geek or a nerd and I just couldn’t quite see him on the basketball court, especially against the likes of such schools as Wake Forest, NC State and South Carolina, all of whom we would play that season.
Well, as I best recall it, Davidson was scheduled to play Wake Forest for our home opener and there was much buzz around campus. I went to the game expecting this nerdy philosophy major that was alleged to be a basketball player to get embarrassed by Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse Wake Forest.
I’ll spare you the details of the game, except to say that this guy scored 27 points – in the second half alone – against one of the premier college basketball programs in the country. And just in case you’re interested, ask me after Church and I’ll tell you who won the game.
Okay – I know you’re probably thinking, that’s a good story but what in the world does it have to do with the scripture we’ve just heard today? Well, I think it has a lot to do with what we can learn from Luke’s gospel lesson.
Let’s think about it for a minute. Jesus is in Nazareth – his own home town – the place where he grew up and where the people think they know him. And Jesus tells them: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” But what’s he talking about?
Well, if we go back to last week’s gospel lesson, we remember that Jesus has come home to Nazareth, apparently after having been away for some time, and he’s teaching in the synagogue. And he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And it’s then that Jesus rolls up the scroll, the scroll of the great prophet Isaiah and he tells his home town folk: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And they were amazed. Luke says it right out loud – they were amazed at what Jesus said to them! Perhaps shocked might be a better word to describe their reaction. But why was this so amazing, so shocking to them. I mean they had heard all the signs and miracles he had done at Capernaum. They’d heard the news – they knew the reputation that Jesus had attained.
But they were amazed just the same! They were amazed that this Jesus – you know, Joseph and Mary’s boy – that this Jesus who looks so ordinary and so familiar to them – this Jesus that they think they know – they were amazed that this young man could do these things that they’ve heard. And they were amazed, astounded, even shocked that he would say to them, that he was the very fulfillment of the words of their great prophet Isaiah!
And they don’t believe it. They can’t believe it. But Jesus knows their disbelief. Jesus knows their lack of faith. So he confronts them with something they don’t want to hear. He tells them that God’s saving grace isn’t just for them. He tells them that the people of Israel don’t have some sort of monopoly on God’s love.
Jesus reminds them there were many widows in Israel but Elijah went only to the gentile widow. He says to them that Elisha cured only the Syrian leper while there were many lepers in their own land that were passed by. In a word, Jesus shocks his hometown crowd by telling them that the love of God is for all the faithful, regardless of their physical condition or their family genesis or their geographic location.
But these folks remain blind to Jesus’ true identity. They think they know this hometown boy. They think they recognize him as the child of Joseph and Mary. And they just can’t get past what they are sure they know about him based on nothing more than their own limited experience of him.
What they cannot recognize is that this Jesus that they think they know is in fact God incarnate. What they will not accept is that this Jesus isn’t just the child of Joseph and Mary but that he is indeed the Son of God come to redeem the world. And Jesus tells them just as he tells us here today, that the Good News of the Gospel is for all of us. It’s for the poor, the captive, the oppressed and it’s even for you and for me.
And so, on this fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, let’s not fail to recognize the nerdy college kid for the Honorable Mention All American that he is. Let’s not assume based upon outward appearances that some how we’re really any different from one another. Let’s not forget our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being. And let’s remember what God expects, even commands, of each of us – that we not only love Him with all that we are – but that we likewise love our neighbors as ourselves.
It is through our faith in Christ Jesus that we find our hope for salvation. But let us never forget that it is only by the grace and love of God that Jesus saves us! Indeed, faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.
Thanks be to God! AMEN!