/Sermons/2002

Listening September 8 2002.rtf

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 04:58:11 GMT

Listening

Exodus 24:9-18
Sermon by Dan Schrock
September 8, 2002

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

The LORD said to Moses, ``Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'' So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. To the elders he had said, ``Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.''

Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. (NRSV)

At 6:00 PM on Saturday, January 28, 1989, I arrived at the Lombard Mennonite Church in Lombard, Illinois, entered what was called the Fireplace Room, sat down on a folding chair, and had a vision.

I wasn't exactly trying to have a vision. Along with about a dozen other young adults who were also sitting in a circle with me, I was just trying to quiet myself and listen to whatever God wanted to communicate to me. The twelve of us had been doing this every Saturday night for the past few months, gathering quietly at the church for one hour of listening prayer. Our purpose was to practice a way of praying that had been almost entirely absent in the churches of our childhood. Although prayer had been prominent in our childhood churches, it was prayer of only one kind, the kind where we talk and trust that God is listening. But we wanted to try the other major form of prayer, the one where we shut our mouths and listen to what God says to us. Since the twelve of us in that room had almost no experience with listening prayer, we agreed that we needed a full hour each week just for the practice. And besides, we reasoned, there are 168 hours in a week. If God is as important to us as we claim, then even one hour of listening to the Holy One is just a mere pittance.

So there I sat, trying to quiet my raging mind and listen to whatever God wanted to communicate to me. But I was having a very hard time of it. For 45 minutes I squirmed around on that folding chair, my brain refusing to settle down and focus on God. Scores of other things flitted through my mind and demanded attention. I remembered I needed to add eggs to the grocery list. I fretted about the pile of unfinished tasks that had accumulated at work. I ruminated over my lack of clarity about vocational direction. Then there were the emotions careening though me: slow, seeping anger I had for my boss; affection for Jenny; the sometimes bittersweet, sometimes vexing, sometimes intimate feelings for some close friends, admiration for my pastors.

And then suddenly, after 45 minutes of desperate but futile attempts to quiet all these thoughts and emotions, I finally managed to relinquish the cacophony and settle down into silence. That's when, without warning, the vision came to me.

To understand the vision better, perhaps you should know a little about what was going on in my life at the time. By this time I had already been to seminary and was now working in a job that I needed to leave soon because it was not right for me. God was clearly not calling me to stay in that line of work for the long term. But what else could I do? Being a pastor was an obvious option for one who had been to seminary, but one which I stoutly resisted. I thought I had the wrong personality type (I was too shy and withdrawn); and I certainly did not want to get crucified like so many pastors in my youth had been. No way did I want to be a pastor, even though a lot of people around me were suggesting that that's precisely what they thought I should do.

As I said, after 45 minutes of restlessness, I finally settled down into blessed silence, a state of being that the 20 ^th century British and American poet T.S. Eliot calls ``the still point of the turning world.'' That's when God spoke to me through a vision.

In this vision I found myself on a wide plateau high on a mountain, with the sun rising across the sea to the east and birds darting about merrily. In the middle of this bucolic scene sat a small white chapel of the type that you sometimes see in New England, with a spire rising from the front and center of the building. I walked into this chapel, strolled up the center aisle to the worship table at the front, and knelt down to pray. After a few minutes, the risen Christ entered the sanctuary from a side room to my left. A woman whose name I will not reveal this morning also appeared from a room to my right and knelt down beside me. Then Jesus walked over to the two of us, took our hands in his, told us to rise, and motioned us to walk with him up onto the platform behind the pulpit. Taking our hands again, he blessed the two of us and charged us to be faithful ministers.

Suddenly I realized this was our ordination and installation service to pastoral ministry. At first I felt honored, surprised, shockedand then I rebelled. I insisted this could not be. I argued vigorously with Jesus. No! I don't want this!

I don't know if you have ever tried to argue face to face with the risen Jesus Christ. For me it was and is impossible to stand up to that man for very long. In this particular case, Jesus was kind but firm, giving me a look that said, ``Stop it, Dan. I am going to do this, and I am going to do it right now because the time has come. I want you to cease and desist this instant.'' So I capitulated, and Jesus finished the ordination service.

In the weeks following this experience, I asked others close to me to help discern whether or not this was an authentic call to become a pastor. They agreed unanimously that it was, and a year and a half later on Pentecost 1990, I was ordained.

When do you listen to God? How often do you listen to God? In the range of habits that makes up your spiritual life, where have you inserted the spiritual posture of listening? Is listening to God a part of your praying? How do you listen to God in scripture? In worship? In service to others? And in all of this listening, what have you heard?

For four years, I belonged to a small group whose primary purpose was listening to God. The primary purpose was not sharing, not fellowship, not Bible study, and not intercessory prayer, as worthwhile as all those things might be. Our only goal was to hear whatever God wanted to say to us. Each time we met, we spent an hour listening silently to a short passage of scripture that one of us had selected beforehand. For the first 20 minutes, we listened for a word or phrase from the passage that caught our attention, that shimmered and danced and seemed to have some energy, as if it were saying, ``Here, pay attention to me! I have something to tell you!'' It might be a word like feared or bowed or pointing , a phrase like in a loud voice or looked at her .

For the next 20 minutes, we listened silently for a feeling or an image that passage evoked in us. It might be a feeling like hope or sadness or desolation, an image like a tulip opening up to the morning sunlight or like broken down cars in a junkyard.

For the final 20 minutes, we then listened silently for what God might be saying to us through this passage. Usually God spoke in short, pithy statements. Over the years, some of the messages I heard were cast your net on the other side or fear not, for I am with you or I am bigger than this storm . That group was easily the most worthwhile small group I've ever been in, largely because we learned to cease the chattering of our tongues, to quiet our inner conversations, to focus on God, and to listen.

The Bible has oodles of stories about people who listened to God. One of the most dramatic comes from Exodus 24 during the wandering in the wilderness, when Moses, along with 73 other leaders of Israel, climbs up the local mountain in order to listen to God. Part way up the mountain, they are granted a vision of God: there God stands in front of them, under whose feet is something like clear sapphire. Silently, while watching this God, they eat a meal which God has presumably provided for them.

After the meal God invites Moses to climb higher up the mountain. So Moses leaves the others and climbs higher. When he arrives at the summit, the cloud of God's glory descends from the heavens to cover the mountain. God's appearance is like fire, devouring and purifying firedancing, passionate, overwhelmingvisible to people all the way at the bottom of the mountain. For six whole days, Moses stays there at the summit, in complete and utter silence, waiting for God to speak. On the seventh day, God starts to speak, speaking and speaking and speaking until Moses' ears and mind and heart and soul are full of the words of the Lord. Forty days and forty nights Moses stays put on the summit of that mountain, saying nothing, doing nothing except listening. And God pours forth speech into Moses, seven whole chapters of speech without interruption, all the way to chapter 31, verse 18, when God finally says enough and joins Moses in silent communion.

What is the content of this speech? What does God say to Moses? For the first time, God speaks into Moses the image of a tabernacle where Israel might worship God in the wilderness, and instructions for how to build it. For the first time, God tells Moses about the Ark of the Covenant, the table for the Bread of the Presence, the lampstand, the altars of Burnt Offering and of Incense, the bronze basin, vestments for the priesthood, how to ordain priestsdetail after glorious detail, revealing for the first time the means and mechanics of Israel's worship, the sum and substance of praise, speaking into existence a new reality decisive for Israel's future: spoken words as fierce as water raging downstream, spoken words as gentle as rain on parched ground, spoken words to alter ex-slaves into the people of God.

Oh people of God: when do you stop chattering? Where do you sit, or lie down, to quiet your inner activity? How are you listening to God? And what words does God speak in your inward ear?
www.geocities.com/tuorfa =--> Listening

Noticing September 15 2002.rtf

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 04:58:14 GMT

Noticing

Mark 13:32-37
Sermon by Dan Schrock
September 15, 2002

``But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awakefor you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.'' (NRSV)

In the first chapter of his book, Jeremiah tells how he became a prophet. The conversation between him and God goes something like this.

``Jeremiah, I appoint you to be a prophet to the nations. Before you were born, while you were still in the womb, I consecrated you to be a prophet.''

``Ah, Lord God, I can't be a prophet! I'm still a boy! I don't know how to speak eloquently and persuasively yet.''

``Hogwash, young man! Your age is irrelevant! You will go to whomever I send you and speak whatever I tell you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.''

Then the Lord God reached out and touched Jeremiah's mouth. ``There,'' God said, ``I put my words in your mouth. I appoint you over nations, to pluck up and pull down, to build and plant. Now that I have called you and consecrated you, let's begin our work. We have a lot to do, you and I, and we shall start like this. Jeremiah, what do you see? Look in front of your face; what do you see?''

``Well, that's kind of obvious, God. I'm standing here beside an almond tree, so I see one of its branches.''

``Excellent, young man! You see well, for I am watching over my word to perform it. Let's try again. Turn a little and then tell me what else you see.''

``Well, I see a boiling pot over there on the fire, tilted away from the north.''

``Well done, Jeremiah! Out of the north disaster will boil over onto the inhabitants of the land.'' (Adapted from Jeremiah 1:4-14.)

This story illustrates the importance of noticing. After God calls and consecrates Jeremiah, the very first thing God wants him to do is to look, to observe, to pay attention, to notice. If we want to live in relationship with God, noticing will be a crucial part of how we recognize the movements of God around us. Noticing is a basic practice of the Christian spiritual life.

Jesus himself acknowledges the importance of noticing. According to the gospel of John, one of the very first things Jesus says to Andrew and one of the other disciples is ``Come and see'' (John 1:39). In other words, ``Come along with me; join my movement; follow me around Galilee for a while. And watch! Look at me; observe what I do and say. I have things to teach you, but if you want to learn them, then pay attention to me. Notice.''

And that's just what the disciples do, not only the male disciples like Peter and Andrew, Nathaniel and Thomas, but also the female disciples like Mary Magdelene, Salome, and Mary the mother of James. They all follow Jesus wherever he goes. They watch him send evil scurrying; they watch him strengthen weak and wasted limbs; they watch him create inexhaustible supplies of bread and fish. But it is not enough for them only to watch Jesus. He also wants them to watch the little things in the world around them. So he teaches them to notice everyday things like yeast and seed. ``Look around your kitchen,'' Jesus says, ``and notice the yeast you use to bake bread. The kingdom of God is just like that: it begins small and eventually leavens the whole world. Or see that farmer over there planting seeds? That too is like the kingdom. Just as some of those seeds will grow and some of them won't, so too will some of your efforts for God bear fruit and some of them won't.''

Jesus also trains them to pay attention to the drama of human relationships. ``God,'' he says, ``is like that dad we heard about the other day, the one who had two sons, the younger of which demanded his inheritance, ran away and squandered it. When that boy came home, dragging his tail between his legs, his dad welcomed him with open arms, even threw a party for him. Well, God forgives just like that. Or the story about that businessman in this morning's edition of The Jerusalem News, the one who was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and was attacked by robbers. Did you notice that article? All sorts of supposedly good and holy people like pastors and priests drove right on by, even though the man was lying on that road half dead. A Samaritan, of all people, helped him! Stopped his car, got out his first aid kit and did triage, then drove the man to a medical clinic in Jericho and told the doctor on duty to spare no expense in fixing him up. Even gave the doctor his Visa credit card number! Now that's being a good neighbor!''

And then there's the event that Jesus wanted these disciples to notice most of all. ``I'm going to Jerusalem in a couple of weeks,'' he says, ``and you're coming along with me. If you haven't been paying attention yet, I definitely want you to pay attention when we get there. The powers that be are going to arrest me. They will try me on spurious charges, and then they will crucify me. As you well know, the Romans periodically crucify people for supposedly being seditious. So in one sense, my crucifixion will not be anything too terribly unusual. But what will be unusual is how I die and why I die. Even more unusual is what will happen three days after I die: something you've never seen before. So for the love of God, notice what happens!'' (See Mark 8:31-9:1; 9:30-32; 10:32-34.)

To underscore the necessity of noticing, in Mark 13, Jesus encourages us to be alert for the return of the master. Now surely one of the things Jesus is referring to here is his own second coming, which may happen at any time. But Jesus may also be referring to ordinary, day-to-day events that are always happening to us and that reveal the presence of God in our daily activities. The key Greek word in this passage is blepo , which can be translated as ``beware'' or ``look'' or ``watch.'' It means using your eyes to perceive, notice, and observe what goes on around you, both in a physical and in a spiritual sense. The idea behind this word is that we use our physical eyeballs to look at objects, people, and events in the world, and then also use our inner eyes to see the spiritual realities that lie behind those objects, people, and events. In its ordinary meaning in the Greek language, the word blepo does not refer to events at the end of history, but rather to the ordinary, day-to-day looking that we do at home and at work. Jesus wants us to practice the art of noticing signs of the kingdom in our daily lives.

The art of noticing is possible because God is around us all the time. That's what the doctrine of omnipresence means. God is never absent, but is always present, moving, acting, revealing, calling, prodding, showing, inviting. To word this a little more starkly, God is always in our face; and the only question is whether or not we are paying attention. Or if you wish, change the metaphor: God is always closer to us than our own breathing; and the only question is whether or not we notice it.

Noticing is a basic component of many of spiritual practices such as Bible study, service, prayer, and worship. It's an inner attitude or habit that we carry around with us all the time. The simplest way to notice is simply to stop for a moment and ask yourself questions like these: What is unusual here? What's going on in this experience, in this relationship, in this Bible passage, in this institution, in this church, in this company, that is odd? What's happening here that's not supposed to be happening, or that we didn't expect to happen? What doesn't fit? What's weird? What is surprising? Asking these kinds of questions is the first step in noticing. The second step, of course, is to ask whether this unusual thing might be the Spirit of God at work. Is it possible that this unusual thing is the Spirit of the Living God at work?

We are all familiar with the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3, which happened while Moses was going about his daily work of tending sheep. Some Jewish rabbis have offered an interesting interpretation of this story. They speculate that on that particular day a lot of people walked by that burning bush, but failed to notice what was going on. They just weren't paying much attention. To them it was merely another small brush fire which in the wilderness would soon burn itself out. True, brush fires didn't happen every day; but they were frequent enough not to cause a big stir in anybody.

Until Moses came alongand he, of all those people, was the first to notice what was really happening. The rabbis say that it's as if Moses was shuffling along the path leading his sheep, glimpsed this thing in the corner of his eye, walked a few more feet, and then suddenly stopped, slapped his forehead, spun around on his heel, and exclaimed, ``Whoa, there! That's odd. A bush on firebut the fire is not turning the bush to ashes. A fire where the fuel is not burning up. This is weird!'' Only at that moment was God finally able to speak to Moses, because God finally had Moses' attention. The burning bush that did not burn up was the bait God used to catch Moses' imagination, to bring him up short and create space in Moses to receive direction. And of course that little conversation between God and Moses beside the burning bush changed the direction of Moses' life.

I conclude with a story from my own experience.

About two years ago I began a process of spiritual discernment to find out whether God might be inviting me to begin working on a doctoral degree. Three questions were crucial to this discernment process. First, what kind of doctoral degree: a Ph.D., which is primarily a research degree; or a D.Min., which is primarily a degree somewhat like a M.D. or a J.D. for the practice of a profession, in this case the profession of pastor? Second, what subject area should the degree focus on: worship, New Testament, preaching, English literature, communication, or something else? Third, which institution: Ohio State University, Indiana University, Princeton, Notre Dame, Drew, Emory, or somewhere else?

After about a year and a half, I finally discernedor thought I discernedthat God was nudging me to do a D.Min. in preaching at either Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary or at the consortium of seminaries in Chicago. I was excited by this plan and very much looked forward to implementing it. When we moved here in Indiana, I was going to apply to one of those two institutions and begin working on preaching.

But after we arrived here in Goshen, I began to notice something totally unexpected. I noticed that I no longer had energy for a D.Min. in preaching from any institution. It felt unappealing, unexciting, drab. Since just a few months before I had been excited, I did not know how to interpret this new lack of energy. But I tried to remain attentive, to see what would happen next.

By early June I began noticing several small things which I will not describe here in detail but which seemed in retrospect to be connected: a particular advertisement I saw in The Christian Century , a late-night conversation with one of my relatives, and especially a dream I had early in the morning on June 7. I concluded from all this that in contrast to what I had earlier thought, God was in fact hoping that I'd begin working on a D.Min. in Christian spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary outside of Atlanta. When I explained all this a few days later to Jenny, she was at first skeptical, then she too turned positive by this new sense of direction. Without going into great detail, I also tested this idea with Anita, the elders, and the PCRC, all of whom approved it without reservation. At a wedding last month I bumped into some friends who had already heard about my change of plans via the grapevine. ``A degree in Christian spirituality fits you perfectly,'' they said. ``We always thought your idea of focusing on preaching was a little ridiculous.''

The Spirit of God is always moving around us, closer than our own breath. So let us noticeand in the noticing, let God speak.
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1 Corinth

Defending the Reputation of Yahweh August 18 2002.rtf

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 04:48:57 GMT

Defending the Reputation of Yahweh
1 Samuel 17:41-47
Sermon by Dan Schrock
August 18, 2002

Among some African-American youth, there is a verbal game called ``playing the dozens.'' In a typical game of the dozens, two people face off against each other in the presence of a crowd. The game begins when one contestant insults the other contestant's intelligence, appearance, or family: ``Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper.'' The second contestant then hurls an insult back at the first contestant: ``You're so dumb, you think Taco Bell is a Mexican phone company.'' Back and forth the verbal sparring goes: ``Your family is so poor, your mother calls TV dinner trays her good china.'' ``You're so stupid, you asked for a price check at a 99¢ store.'' ``Your breath smells so bad, people on the phone hang up.'' ``Your grandmother is so old, she wrote the forward to the Bible.'' ``Your parents are so poor, they got married for the rice.'' ``Your mother is so old, her Social Security number is in Roman numerals.''

``The dozens'' can be played on street corners or subways, pizza parlors or playgrounds. It is a game of wits, requiring emotional strength and intellectual agility. The audience is crucial to any game of the dozens. The audience is first of all necessary to witness this face-off; indeed, if no audience is present, contestants have no reason to play the game. The audience, secondly, is responsible for recording the verbal history of the battle, and for spreading reports of the battle throughout the community. Third, the reaction of the audiencetheir guffaws and approbationdetermines who ultimately wins the game.

What is fundamentally at stake in the dozens is one's personal reputation in the eyes of the community. The winner leaves with enhanced respect and social standing, while the loser walks away disgraced. In one game of the dozens played in New York's Frederick Douglas Projects, one of the insults``You're so fat, your blood type is Ragu''was so inventive that it continued to haunt the victim for a long time afterward. ¹
The dozens is not unique to African-American culture. Variations of this game were also played in cultures of the ancient Near East. In the gospels, for instance, Jesus and the religious leaders frequently engage in verbal sparring contests over interpretations of the law. In the typical pattern of the game, which New Testament scholars sometimes call riposte and counter-riposte, the religious leaders come to Jesus and ask a question intended to trap him and make him look bad in the eyes of the crowd. As you know, Jesus always comes up with a creative answer that shuts up the religious leaders and delights the crowd. Jesus was so skilled at this game, and won so much honor and respect by playing it, that it's clearly one of the reasons why he was killed. Verbally and intellectually out-maneuvered in every contest with Jesus, the religious leaders finally eradicated him in order to restore their own reputation.

But Jesus and the religious leaders of his day were not the first Jews to face off with riposte and counter-riposte. Listen to our scripture passage from 1 Samuel 17:41-47, which tells about the contest between David and Goliath:

The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, ``Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?'' And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, ``Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.''
But David said to the Philistine, ``You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD's and he will give you into our hand.'' (NRSV)

This contest began when the Philistine army and the Israelite army met in a valley between two mountains, with the Philistines setting up camp on one mountain and the Israelites setting up camp on a second mountain just across the valley. It appeared that there would be nothing new or different about this contestuntil the Philistines unveiled their secret weapona giant named Goliath. And oh, what a giant he was! Some manuscripts of 1 Samuel say Goliath was 4 cubits and a span tall, while other manuscripts say he was 6 cubits and a span tall. That translates to somewhere between 6'9'' and 9'9'' tall, in an era when most human beings measured less than 5'6'' tall. No matter which of the manuscripts is right, Goliath seemed truly giant.

Goliath was fearsome: a battle champion, a finely-honed killing machine with awesome defenses from head to foota bronze helmet, a bronze coat of mail, and bronze grieves. Offensively, he put fear into even the most hard-bitten Israelite warrior: his javelin was made of bronze and his spear had an iron head weighing 15 lbs. As he strode out in broad daylight, he defiantly challenged the army of Israel: ``Chose your best man and send him down here in the valley to fight me. If your man wins, we Philistines will serve you. But if I win, you will serve us.''

But the Israelite army had no warrior like Goliath. Every Israelite soldier knew it and King Saul knew it. When he was younger, King Saul might have taken on the Philistine champion in hand-to-hand combat, for it was said of Saul that he was a head taller than other men. But Saul was getting old, past the peak physical prowess for a warrior; so Saul did not volunteer himself. The more significant problem was that Saul was scared. He and God hadn't been getting along very well lately, which meant that Saul was no longer sure whether God was actually with him or not.

So Saul and his army brooded in their tents, caught between two unpalatable choices: either send out a warrior to fight Goliath, and face certain defeat; or pack up their tents and leave, without answering Goliath's challengea course of action that would have heaped ridicule on the heads of Israel.

So there the two armies sat for 6 weeks, stalemated. Each morning Goliath came out to re-issue his challenge; and each morning the scorn spread across his vast face. You can easily imagine the guffaws in the Philistine camp. Each morning the Israelites dreaded waking up, forced once more to face national humiliation.
But that was not the worst of it. The worst part was that Yahweh, the God of Israel, was also being humiliated. Oh yes, this was a deep humiliation for Yahweh, at least in the eyes of the watching world. For centuries, Yahweh had been trying to establish a reputation among the nations as a God of power and justice. Do you remember when the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, how Yahweh and Pharaoh struggled against each other for superiority? How Pharaoh thought he was invincible, and how Yahweh sent plague after plague to humiliate Pharaoh? Well, you know how that story turned out: Pharaoh found out pretty quickly who this Yahweh was and what Yahweh could do.

That's how Yahweh built a reputation, first in Egypt, then in the wilderness, and finally among all the nations who lived in the region of Canaan. The nations round about caught on fast that Yahweh, this God of Israel, was not one to be trifled with. Israel's God was exceptionally powerful. Israel's God could do unusual things their gods couldn't do. So far no other god could thwart this Yahweh. Yahweh, it seemed, had a decisive edge in everything. The nations had learned to fear and respect Yahweh.

But now, in the name of the Philistine god, Dagon, Goliath was ripping Yahweh's reputation to shreds. It was the fundamental duty of each god, you see, to defend and preserve his or her nation, to fight for his or her nation on the battlefield. So if an army was losing on the battlefield, it had to mean that nation's god was inferior. Therefore since Israel could not answer Goliath's challenge, Israel's God, Yahweh, was getting a thorough dunking in the pool of international respect.

And then one day an unknown teenager walks into the camp of Israel, and hears Goliath's challenge. When this teenager sees that no one in the Israelite army answers the challenge, he is scandalized; and he begins to ask why a big bully like Goliath is so successful in humiliating Yahweh. Where did this teenager get such chutzpah? It certainly wasn't because he had any experience as a professional soldier! Maybe it came from the many bears and lions that he and God had killed together. More likely it came from the relationship of intimate trust between him and Yahweh. Whatever the reason, as soon as this confident teenager enters Saul's tent, even before the King had a chance to speak, he says: ``I am David, and I will fight this Philistine.''

King Saul tries to arm David in the conventional way, matching Goliath's bronze helmet and mail with a bronze helmet and mail for David. Saul assumes that this battle will be won by conventional military might. That is normally what kings and presidents dothey think you win a conflict with superior firepower. But David, fresh from the sheep fields, is free to think in new ways, to think of a third or fourth or fifth option for resolving the problem. So David refuses all the King's defensive and offensive military technology. David wants to enter this contest just as he is: vulnerable, weak, and apparently powerless.

This unorthodox strategy amuses Goliath. When he sees David, he laughs with scorn. Calling upon Dagon and other Philistine gods, Goliath insults David, swearing to feed him to carrion birds and scavengers.

David insults Goliath right back: ``You come to me with conventional military weapons, with javelin, spear, and sword. But I come to you in the name of Yahweh, the God whom you have been insulting for the last month and a half. Today Yahweh will be victorious, and I will feed you to the carrion birds and scavengers. Why? So that all the nations and their puny gods will know that Yahweh does not tolerate insults to the divine reputation.''

And in the twinkling of an eye, a small stone leaves David's sling, smacks Goliath on the forehead, and kills him.

And that's how Yahweh, your God and my God, restored the divine reputationwith a teenager who had the courage to resolve the problem in an unconventional, unorthodox way.

Note
¹ ``Some History about Playing the Dozens,'' at http://www.online-magazine.com/snaps.htm. See also ``The Dozens,'' at http://www.africana.com/Articles/tt_019.htm.
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Have a Messy Christmas
Luke 1:26-38
Sermon by Dan Schrock
December 22, 2002
4 ^th Sunday of Advent

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ``Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.'' But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ``Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.'' Mary said to the angel, ``How can this be, since I am a virgin?'' The angel said to her, ``The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.'' Then Mary said, ``Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.'' Then the angel departed from her. (NRSV)

Most of us have high expectations for Christmas. We think Christmas should be perfect.

One writer observes that in American culture much of the burden to have a perfect Christmas falls on women. Flogged by women's magazines to create the merriest Christmas ever, exhausted mothers shuttle frantically from baking cookies in the kitchen, to buying presents in the shopping mall, to mailing packages at the post office, to watching Johnny's play at school. By the time Christmas Day actually arrives, the house must be perfectly clean from basement to attic. The tree, the nativity scene, the lights, and the Christmas cards must all be neatly in place. Then there's Christmas dinner: not only should it taste fabulous, and not only should there be lots of variety, but it should also look every bit as beautiful as the pictures in the magazines. On top of all this, when the meal is finally ready and the guests are seated, the hostess is supposed to look rested and play the role of witty conversationalist.

As if it were not enough to have all these secular expectations for a perfect Christmas, Mom has an even heavier agenda if the family goes to church. There are pageant and choir rehearsals, extra worship services, and still more cookies to whip up and bake. Then comes perhaps the most difficult burden of all, created by generations of scandalized preachers: the admonition to reject the tinsel and bauble and to put Christ back into Christmas. Not only are we supposed to create the perfect family holiday, but the perfect spiritual experience as well. ¹

The first Christmas was not perfect. It was messy. It began when a stranger came to an unmarried teenager to tell her that God was giving her an unplanned, out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Some months later this teenager's belly began to get bigger, and you can just imagine how people in her village started to gossip.

``Who do you think is really the father of that girl's child? Anna told me, who heard it from Miriam, who got it from Mary, that she says the father is God! God! What a story! That girl has certainly gone around the bend altogether. Does Mary really think we are going to believe a story like that? So really, who was it? Was that young man Joseph doing things he shouldn't be doing just yet? Or was some other young buck fooling around with Mary? And if it wasn't Joseph, will he accept the baby and raise it anyway? Oh, what a scandal! What a mess!''

At the end of the pregnancy, things got messier. A government decree forced Mary and Joseph to leave their home town of Nazareth and travel 90 miles south to Bethlehem. None of the gospels tell us what mode of transportation they used to get there; but given the fact that Joseph and Mary did not have very much wealth, they might have walked most of those 90 miles, rather than riding on a donkey as Christmas art usually portrays them. Be that as it may, the timing of this government decree couldn't have been worse for Mary, because her contractions started by the time they got to Bethlehem. Since telephones, advance reservation systems, and credit cards hadn't been invented yet, they had no way of calling ahead and reserving a room at the Holiday Inn with their Visa card. So when they arrived in Bethlehem, they had to look around and see what was available. Not much was. All they could find was a smelly cave with farm animals, manure on the floor.

The contractions intensified. Mary would have preferred to have had this child in her own home with her own midwife from Nazareth to assist in the delivery; but that was not to be. Poor Joseph scurried around the village and did manage to find a midwife from Bethlehem; and while she proved to be competent during the delivery, neither Mary nor Joseph had ever laid eyes on her before.

They named him Jesus; and for lack of a decent crib, wrapped him tightly to keep his spine straight, putting him to sleep in the feed trough where the sheep and goats sniffed him to see whether he might be something to eat. As one day folded into the next, his diapers got messy and needed to be changed. He woke everybody up in the middle of the night because he needed to be fed. He had to have his nose wiped because he caught a cold. As if these inconveniences were not enough, Matthew writes that this small family soon fled for their lives to Egypt, and that soon after they were on the road, Herod's soldiers came to the village, killed, and vanished into the twilight with the blood of babies dripping off the ends of their swords.

Despite all the messiness caused by this infant son of theirs, Mary and Joseph certainly felt joy, because after all the birth of a baby usually does bring joy. So joy? Yes. But perfection? Absolutely not. There was not much about that first Christmas that we would call either a perfect family holiday or a perfect spiritual experience. Instead, the first Christmas included a dubious moral situation; several last minute changes of plan; giving birth in an unpleasant and unsanitary environment; and slogging through homelessness, terror, violence, and uncertainty about the future.

In other words, what went on that first Christmas was the messiness of ordinary human living. At bottom, that's what Christmas isa celebration of God in the middle of messy human living. When we say God came to earth in the form of Jesus, we are saying that God chooses to get involved in the messiness of human life. At Christmas let us face the truth: we are not perfect; our holiday parties are not perfect; our families relationships are not perfect; and our Christian discipleship is not perfect.

Consider family life. How many people truly look forward to spending Christmas with their extended families? Some do. Some of us look forward to a satisfying, rewarding Christmas holiday with our family. But others do not. For them, Christmas family gatherings will be less than perfect. Say, for example, that you are the youngest child in your family. You might genuinely like your older brothers and sisters; but even now as an adult you still carry around inside a painful residue from growing up, a residue that built up over the years for two reasons. First, you tried so hard to be like your older siblings but often failed. Consequently you still feel a little inferior, and it hurts. Second, because your siblings were older and more vocal, they usually set the pace for your family, running roughshod over your interests. And now when you get together with them at Christmas some of those old feelings return. For you, family life at Christmas is messy, complicated.

Or say that you are a parent and your children are all coming home for Christmas. Always, no matter what the circumstances, you have loved each of your children from the bottom of your heart. But some of them have not turned out like you expected. Maybe some of them have not yet accepted the faith that you hold so dear, and you grieve in silence. Maybe one of them has chosen a line of work that you feel is ethically questionable, even morally repugnant; but you bite your tongue. Maybe one of them married a person you thoroughly disapprove of; but they made their choice and now you and they have to live with the consequences. Life with your children is a little messy.

Or say you're relatively alone this Christmas, or at least you feel alone. Maybe you never married or you're single again. Maybe one of your parents or siblings or children died this year and this will be your first Christmas without that person. Maybe you never had children, either because of choice or inability. Regardless of the specific circumstance, there's a hole in your heart at Christmas, and you don't know what to do with that hole. Your life is messy too.

The joy of Christmasand there is joy!lies in the fact that God enters this messiness. God joins us, lives with us, and works through the grand messes of our lives. At Christmas maybe our model can be Mary. In none of the gospel accounts does God ever ask Mary to create the perfect environment for the Savior's birth. All God asks is for Mary to make some room, first in her womb, then in her family, and finally in her heart and mind. Mary gets ready for God's coming not by making frantic preparations but by sharing space. The joy of God then comes to her in messy, hidden ways; but from first to last God is there and God is directing the sequence of events. In the conversation with Gabriel at the beginning of the pregnancy, it's clear that the only thing God asks of Mary is her permission. ``Mary,'' asks Gabriel, ``will you put herself in God's care, give God room to act, make yourself available for whatever God is planning?'' At the end of that conversation, Mary simply says, ``Yes, I'll go along with it; I'll do it; may it be to me as you have said,'' even though she is far from certain how all this is going to turn out.

From Mary's point of view, nearly everything about this son of hers will get a little messy. Not only was his birth messy but also his growing up. Remember some of his strange behavior when he was 12 years old, and again when he got to be an adult. Remember the weird things he said in public. And remember his very public dying in Jerusalem's garbage dump, which surely brought Mary intense anguish. Only after his resurrection could any of these events possibly have made sense to her, which means that for 30 some years, Mary endured the messiness of her son Jesus, trusting that somehow God would turn the mess into salvation.

At Christmas, God is not asking us to be perfect, or to have the perfect family, or to create the perfect Christmas. Instead, God is merely asking us to say yes. ``Yes, God, you can come. I'll make space for you. I don't know what you have in mind. I don't know what you will do when you come. I don't know what the consequences will be. But I'll receive you, and make a home for you in the middle of all this messiness.'' ²

When God comes into our lives, the arrival is often like the arrival of a baby. It's never precisely what we expect. It will probably be complicated and troublesome and messy and full of hard workand maybe, someday, cause us terrible anguish. But the joy of Christmas is that God is here with us, molding our messiness into salvation.

So go ahead. Relax, and have a messy Christmas.

Notes

1. Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, ``Expecting,'' Christian Century , December 8, 1993, 1235.

2. Pritchard, 1235.
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To Host the Holy

Exodus 36: 8-9 and 20-30; 40:34-38
Sermon by Dan Schrock
August 25, 2002

All those with skill among the workers made the tabernacle with ten curtains; they were made of fine twisted linen, and blue, purple, and crimson yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains were of the same size. (36:8-9, NRSV)

Then he made the upright frames for the tabernacle of acacia wood. Ten cubits was the length of a frame, and a cubit and a half the width of each frame. Each frame had two pegs for fitting together; he did this for all the frames of the tabernacle. The frames for the tabernacle he made in this way: twenty frames for the south side; and he made forty bases of silver under the twenty frames, two bases under the first frame for its two pegs, and two bases under the next frame for its two pegs. For the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, he made twenty frames and their forty bases of silver, two bases under the first frame and two bases under the next frame. For the rear of the tabernacle westward he made six frames. He made two frames for corners of the tabernacle in the rear. They were separate beneath, but joined at the top, at the first ring; he made two of them in this way, for the two corners. There were eight frames with their bases of silver: sixteen bases, under every frame two bases. (36:20-30, NRSV)

I know a man who took good quality pine boards, and with tape measure and saw, hammer and nails and glue, built himself a small table 2½ feet high and 1½ feet square. The table top was made of ½'' plywood, smoothed and sanded. Then he took a finely knit white cotton tablecloth and draped it over the table he had built. Next he took lengths of 1'' x 4'' red oak boards, and using the same tools built two candle holders designed to hang on the wall. Each holder measured 18'' high, with a 4'' horizontal board nailed into the vertical board, into which he then drilled a hole large enough to hold a candle. Finally the man stained and varnished what he had made.

When he had finished building, the man took the table draped with the cloth, and carefully carried it into a small closet next to his study. He hung the candle holders on the wall of the closet and affixed new candles into them. He carried a chair into one end of the closet, and placed it facing the table on the other end of the closet. Into the closet he also put matches for the candles, a hymnal, a recorder, a Bible, and a book of prayers.

A few days afterward, the man's pastors came to his house, walked with him into his study, and with prayers of blessing consecrated this prayer closet, this prayer chapel, which the man had built. Nearly every day thereafter, the man went into his chapel, lit his candles, played hymns, and prayed with scripture. In that place he hosted the presence of holy and mysterious God.

What have you done to host the Holy One? Where have you constructed a place for meditation, worship, and spiritual renewal? How did you consecrate it? And what has God done to you and in you in that place?

The latter part of the book of Exodus describes in fine detail how the Israelites built a tabernacle in the Sinai wilderness in order to host God who had liberated them from slavery in Egypt. For six chapters, from chapter 35 to chapter 40, Exodus records in detail after intricate detail how the construction foremen, Bezalel and Oholiab, built this tabernacle. There were 10 linen curtains, each 4 x 28 cubits, woven with cherubim designs, finished off with blue, purple, and crimson yarn. Then they built acacia wood frames measuring 1½ x 10 cubits, with two wooden pegs and two silver bases under each frame. But that's just the tabernacle itself. Bezalel and Oholiab also oversaw the building of the ark of the covenant, the table for the bread of the Presence, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering, the court of the tabernacle, and the vestments for the prieststhe construction of each one described in minute detail.

When you first read these chapters, you might ask why the author recorded all this excruciating detail. This is holy scripture, after all; so why use up all that ink and parchment on details that posterity may or may not be interested in? What's the spiritual meaning of all this? Why be so long-winded? Why not come right to the point and state the meaning succinctly in one paragraph?

And then you realize, maybe, that six chapters of details are there to point out that if we want to host the presence of Holy God, then careful preparations are in order. It takes a bit of work to prepare for God. It takes a bit of effort to host God. The details are important. That's the spiritual meaning of all this. Sustained spiritual growth comes with sustained spiritual habits. And forming sustained spiritual habits takes detailed preparation.

The place you construct for meditation, worship, and spiritual renewal may not be in the closet of your home. It could be in your basement, in your back yard, or a cabin in the woods. I once knew a science professor who for a long time felt distant from God, even though he had been baptized and went through all the motions of going to church, serving on commissions, singing and praying in worship. The longest distance he felt in his life was the distance between his faith and his work. What did God have to do with teaching? What did biology have to do with God? Finally he hit upon the idea of putting a simple wooden chair in the corner of his laboratory to represent the presence of Jesus Christ. Every morning when he got to school, he glanced in the direction of that chair in the corner, nodded toward it and briefly smiled, as if the risen Jesus himself were sitting on it. Occasionally as he lectured throughout the day, he'd glance at the chair to remind himself that Jesus was there, watching and listening. At the end of the day, just before flipping the lights off and locking the door, he'd glance at the chair in the corner and whisper ``thank you.''

The place where you host the holy might constructed of wood or fabric, but it doesn't have to be. I have known many people who constructed their place out of hymns. One of them was my mother. I did not often see her read the Bible, much less study it; and did not often hear her pray, at least not out loud. So her primary way of hosting the holy was neither reading the Bible nor speaking audible prayers. Yet she was clearly Christian. So how did she host the holy? Mainly through this. This is my mother's personal hymnal, which she used from the time it was first published in 1969 until the new blue hymnal was published in 1992. Perhaps you can see from where you sit that it's well used. In fact, it's falling apart. The corners are rounded from use; the fabric on the cover is frayed and separated from the cardboard underneath; and the spine is so deteriorated that she had tried to repair it with scotch tapea repair job which itself has since come apart. Inside is a system of personal notations. As she learned new hymns, she'd circle the hymn number at the top. If the same tune appeared elsewhere in the book, she wrote the number of that other hymn under the title of the first hymn. She also made a number of notations in the indices in the back. This functioned as my mother's prayer book. In hymns, she reached out to God and God graciously responded. In hymns, she and God danced.

And so it was for those Israelites in the wilderness. After they had lovingly constructed the tabernacle, after all designing and measuring and sawing and weaving and metal working, the presence of God came to take up residence in this tabernacle they had made. Listen to the closing words from the book of Exodus:

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey. (NRSV)

The cloud and fire and glory of God: strange and wonderful things happened to Israel after they built this tabernacle. Maybe that could happen to you, too. After you've hosted the Holy One long enough in your life, strange and wonderful things may start happening to you. One woman who intentionally started to host the presence of the living God in her life said this: ``I don't quite know what's happening. Utter strangers smile at me on the street and say `hello' as if they knew me.'' Well, even if this woman did not notice anything different about herself, others did. Her face often radiated a benign smile, not like the fixed smile of a person who's trying to be ruthlessly cheerful, but a soft, pliant, and unconscious smile. Her eyes sparkled with a contemplative, non-invasive interest. The effect? Other people were drawn into her physical-spiritual presence, which of course was the presence of none other than God. ¹
In other words, hosting our holy God may affect the way we appear to other people. In the 13 ^th century, eyewitnesses saw a brilliant light surrounding Francis of Assisi when he preached or engaged in worship. In the 16 ^th century, eyewitnesses saw a similar light around Ignatius of Loyola when he preached and worshipped. The same was said of Francis de Sales in the 17 ^th century, Seraphim of Moscow, and Giles of Assisi. ²
Such stories come not only from Europe, or from the Middle Ages. In the early 1960s, the Anglican missionary William Austin took a spiritual retreat at a Trappist monastery here in the United States. During this retreat Austin and some friends took a walk and got lost on the vast monastery grounds. So they called out to a monk who was working in an adjoining field and asked him for directions. Here in Austin's own words is what happened next:

As the young man turned and began to walk toward us, we all fell silent, awestruck, because he was radiating a barely perceptible but very tangible Light. He gave directions like any ordinary person, then turned back to his task, still shining. When we came [back] to the motherhouse, we stammered out our astonishment to the guest master, who just laughed and said, ``Oh yes, that would be brother G.'' ³

The goal of the Christian life is not to achieve these kinds of dramatic physical manifestations. But when we host our holy God, who can predict what God may choose to do in us? Who knows what might happen?

Notes
¹ Robert C. Morris, ``Holy and Glorious Flesh: The Transfiguration of Desire,'' Weavings , July/August 1999, p. 36.

² Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1993), pp. 505-507, quoted in Morris, p. 36.

³ Morris, p. 37.
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The Church as Family November 17 2002.rtf

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 05:02:22 GMT

The Church as Family

Matthew 12:46-50
Sermon by Anita Kehr
November 17, 2002

While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (NRSV)

I wonder: What is the purpose of church? Why do we gather together as congregations? Why do we focus on Christian community?

Let me propose an answer to this question with a statement that I believe I have said from this spot at least once before: The purpose of the communitythe purpose of churchis to nurture souls: to invite faith and then to cultivate growth in faith. The church is not an end in itself; it is not the goal that we're aiming toward. Instead, the church community is the means to an end; it is one important way that we move toward the goal of inviting and nourishing faith. It is a vehicle for carrying out the mission Jesus gave to us: to go into all the world, making disciples, baptizing, and teaching. And for the very reason that community is a tool rather than the finished product, using the metaphor of ``family'' for the church can help us to embrace the mission and purpose of the church community. The family is also a means to an end: the purpose of families is to nurture and encourage growth in the members of the family. Families are not formed for the sole sake of forming families!

Now let me be real honest with you. At this particular moment in both Mennonite and wider Christian history and thought, using ``family'' as a way to talk about church is discouraged. When it came time to write my seminary ``integration paper,'' the composition that was supposed to show that I had learned how to apply my education in Bible study, theology, and church ministry, I chose to write on this topic: using the family as an important guiding image for the church. As I shared my choice of topic with other students and with professors, I regularly got negative responses. Some folks were subtle, and others were pretty straightforward. And in the years since, I have continued to hear objections, all of which cluster in several different areas. Today, I'll raise two. First, some have said that using family language for the church must bring exclusivity; there is no way that a congregation that views itself as a family can be inviting or missional. Second, many families are dysfunctional and have deeply hurt their members; why in the world would we want to use that image for the church? We'll come back to these objections, but first you have to know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about church family.

First of all, family implies a common ancestry or parentage. In the church, among believers, that common parent is God. We were created in the image of God, loved by God, and when we turn and receive God's grace and forgiveness and salvation, we are given son and daughter status by God. We're adopted by God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. The common commitment to God through Jesus Christ then becomes the primary and defining commitment within the church. We heard those words in the text that Steve read for us this morning. (review) All other relationships and commitments become secondary to the relationship with and commitment to God. This is a hard word, but this same call to humans to give their first allegiance to God above all other commitments runs throughout the Bible, beginning when God calls Abraham to leave his native land and family in order to receive God's promise. When Jesus says that obedience to God is the only criterion for membership in the family of God, he is directly following the tradition and message of the prophets of the Old Testament. (Anchor Bible Commentary: Matthew , p. 162)

Second, when I'm talking about church family, I'm noting that it is in the context of families that individuals develop their identity. In biological families, children take on the worldview and cultural expectations of their parents, brothers, and sisters. They learn about themselves by interacting with the rest of their family. They may certainly rebel against what they've learned, but they're rebelling against the way that their family has attempted to shape them. The church family nurtures the parent/child relationship between God and human. In Genesis 1, we read that humankind was created in the image of God. While this particular scripture passage does not use the language of parenthood for God, there are parenting implications. In a fundamental way, children are nurtured to be like their parents, although they do not become their parents. By grace through faith we, as Christians, are nurtured in our church family to become more and more like our heavenly parent. We are nurtured into a sense of Christian identity. We learn about and take on a worldview that is shaped by our relationship with God through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our identity as Christians is also nurtured by our accountable relationships with brothers and sisters in the faith. We are caring for the souls of our brothers and sisters.

Third, when believers share that over-arching commitment to God through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they are able to maintain commitment to one another, even when holding different understandings of how that commitment will be lived out. That common commitment allows believers to form relationships and networks of support for one another and to explore the diversity of gifts within the church family. At the same time, focusing on that commitment to God allows Christian communities to set appropriate boundaries and to provide a clear definition for the meaning of ``Christian.''

And finally, when I think these first three understandings of church familythe common commitment to God through Jesus, the development of Christian identity, and the way that commitment and identity can maintain relationship in the midst of diversitythen it seems to me that a church family should be a place of invitation, welcome, and hospitality. All of us enter the church in the same way: through the saving work of Jesus. We are adopted into the family of God at the point that we turn to God in repentance and accept forgiveness and grace. This adoption is open to everyone; no one is excluded from entering the Christian family. And, as a family, we expect growth and change. If, in ten years, my biological family is functioning just the same way as it is now, with Bryan and me, Maya, Elias, and Hannah all living in our house south of Goshen, I'll be a little worried. I hope and expect that our family will change. In ten yearsat least in theorytwo of the children should be done with college and the last one should be nearly finished. They will be establishing their own households, married or single, bringing their own friends into the network of our family. The dynamics of our relationships will change. While I'll always be the mother of our children, I'll have to respect their autonomy in a different way than I do now. Bryan and Iagain, in theory should have a bit more space in our lives. If our family does not change, and does not keep on changing, then we are not in a healthy situation.

The same is true of the church family. We invite men and women to faith, and as they receive adoption into the family of faith, we develop new sister/brother relationships. We nourish faith in one another, and that resulting growth may lead to sending out some of our brothers and sisters to other settings and work. The mission of our church family is to invite others to experience the hospitality and mercy of God that we ourselves have experienced. We cannot be a family that shuts our door to strangers and turns the lock to protect ourselves from the outside; instead, we must be an open-door family, one that invites and welcomes and nourishes and supports and serves.

So, if the church family is formed by the common commitment that members have to God and if it then forms the identity of its members as Christians, if that common commitment provides both freedom and boundaries and if the health of a church family is measured by its hospitality, mercy, and dynamism, then why shouldn't we talk about the church in the language of family? However, the opposite question is also pertinent: If there are many, many biblical metaphors for the community of faithimages like the kingdom of God; the new creation; the new humanity; the people of God; the shepherd and flock; salt, light, and city; a spiritual house; the body of Christthen why even bother with the concept of the church family or the family of God? The answer to both of these questions, I think, has something to do with the objections that are raised to the image itself as well as with our own cultural moment.

Our time in U. S. history is one in which individualism, isolation, and fragmentation governs our cultural way of life. We do not like anyone else telling us what we should or should not be doing. We are willing to be responsible for ourselvesusuallybut to be responsible to anyone else, to answer to anyone else for what we believe or practice, is a lot less appealing. The idea of developing primary and accountable relationshipsfamily ties voluntarily with people who are not from our biological family seems foreign. At the same time, however, because of this individualism, isolation, and fragmentation, there appears to be a deep cultural thirst for connection, for belonging, for a place of loving acceptance. Why can't we, as believers, take seriously that mission of providing connection, belonging, and acceptanceproviding familyto a lonely world?

The objections to the language of family applied to the church grow out of our time and culture as well. The first and most frequent onethe accusation of exclusivitygrows out of a fear that calling the congregation a church family will mean that it is a closed system: one in which few enter and fewer yet will ever leave except by death. However, we've already seen that a healthy family constantly changes and grows. A church family must be nurturing and caring as well as inviting and hospitable.

The exclusion of single persons in a ``church family'' often emerges as a clear concern. How do singles fit within a church that uses family imagery as a guiding model? My response is that persons who have fewer other primary family groupsat least where they're living and workingcould, potentially, experience the most connectedness and nurture in a congregational setting. Remember, the relationship that forms the church family is the common commitment to God through Jesus Christ. That relationship is not limited to persons who are married. Single persons should be able to experience love and comfort and nurture and support in congregational family. They should also be able to offer love and comfort and nurture and support within that family. And when they're not included fully, then it's because the congregation is focusing on the biological family networks rather than the common commitment to God, and a reorientation is necessary.

The second objection that is raised is the common dysfunction of biological families and the inappropriateness of applying a dysfunctional image to the church. Surely there's truth to that objection: families have been dysfunctional as long as there have been families. Look at Cain and Abel. Research as well as plain old observation has shown us that great harm can be and has been done within the relationships that should be the most nurturing and empowering.

Our churches have, as well, faced the reality of dysfunction and abuse. We have seen both inappropriate authoritarianism and inappropriate passivity. We have seen the schisms and divisions that litter our church history. Some of us have wondered whether healthy church life is even possible.

To face the ills and sins of our families and churches is important. Pretending that these things do not exist solves nothing. However, the fact of dysfunction does not rule out the legitimacy of using the image of family for church life. The church must be able to offer hope and a new, supportive family network to survivors of abuse and dysfunction. Christians are called to form communities marked by counter-cultural standards for relationship: mutual respect, love, and concern. The church can help survivors recover the ability to trust as they experience care from their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers in Christ. Care for all members of a congregation must be marked by integrity and accountability. And when it is not, then the church is sick and needs help and healing.

And, in a backwards sort of way, the image of family can be helpful to us as growing and maturing Christians. Without condoning any sin, we recognize that we live in a fallen world. My biological family growing up was not perfect; the family that Bryan and I have formed is not perfect; and I do not know any perfect family. (If you know any, I'd be glad to meet them.) As families, we do the best we can with the knowledge and understanding we have at our disposal. In the same way, I've never seen a perfect church. The church is called to do the best it can with the knowledge and understanding and maturity it has at its disposal. If we are careful to put neither ``family'' nor ``church'' on a pedestal of perfection, we will be better able to offer appropriate grace to one another and even to ourselves.

Now, you may wonder where I'm going with this. Why are we talking about the church family after a sermon on singleness and a service of marriage re-covenanting and before next week's sermon that will explore the concept of households as a way that we organize ourselves sociologically? Here's what I want to say. It is so importantwhether you're married or not, and whether you have a good relationship with your biological family or notit is so important to develop primary relationships with Christian brothers and sisters, basic relationships of trust and accountability, of love and respect, marked by hospitality, welcome, and service. These are basic and foundational relationships, as foundational and formative as the relationships within biological families. Singles, marrieds, expanded households are nurtured within the network of these relationships. We become brothers and sisters to one another; indeed, we read all those ``one-anothering'' scripture passages in Paul's letters and we are to behave with one another, to call each other to become new creatures. It is within these relationships that we receive nurture for our souls and where we offer invitation, nurture, and support of the souls of others. Within these foundational family relationships, we begin to fulfill the very purpose of Christian community.
www.geocities.com/tuorfa =--> The Church as Family

How to Overcome an Enemy

Romans 12:14-21
Sermon by Dan Schrock
June 23, 2002

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ``Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'' No, ``if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.'' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (NRSV).

When have you feasted your worst enemy? When have you spent the better part of a day in the kitchen, cooked a lavish banquet of filet mignon and lobster tail, potatoes Anna and steamed fresh asparagus with Hollandaise sauce, fresh bread and molded butter, baked Alaska and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee; set out your best tablecloth and your best china, and then sat down to eat this lavish mealwith your most bitter, virulent enemy seated right there beside you? When have you invited your enemy into the privacy of your home and blessed them with a feast?

We rarely invite enemies to our house. Most of us more often invite friends and family to our house. In a few weeks from now, on the July 4 holiday, quite a few Americans will invite people over to their house for a barbecue in the back yard. The vast majority of these guests will be family members: grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, children and grandchildren and cousins. This is well and good. Family relationships are strengthened by eating together. One might quip that the family who eats together stays together. Eating at the same table creates shared memories, bonds people together, and evokes joy and laughter. Food also puts people in better humor and sooths frazzled relationships. Which means that eating together improves relationships, heals the wounds of broken relationships. Eating together benefits both friends and enemies.

Of course your most bitter enemy might be a member of your own family. Many years ago I had a great aunt named Maude, who got along just fine with everyone in the worldexcept her two sisters. When she wanted to, Maude could be as sweet and kind as the next person. But when the conversation turned to one, or heaven forbid, both of her sisters, Maude immediately got nasty. She'd launch into a detailed tirade about the latest slight, the latest snub, that she had received from her sisters. Clearly, her sisters were her enemies, whom she had as little to do with them as possible. Our enemy might be a member of our own family.

What is Paul's solution to the problem of enemies? Feed them. Eat with them. Bless them with your food and drink.

In the 6 ^th chapter of 2 Kings, there is a marvelous story about eating with your enemies. Some years ago I discovered that some Christians don't even know this story is in the Bible. I don't recall ever hearing a sermon or having a Sunday school class on this story. It does not appear in the Revised Common Lectionary. We have a children's story Bible at home, but this story is not in it. However, you very likely know this story, because one of the things Jenny and I noticed very early on in our relationship with you is that the level of Biblical literacy in this congregation is significantly higher than in some other congregations we've belonged to. But I'd like to tell it anyway. The story is about international enemies, but applies to many types of enemies. For ease of hearing, I'm going to modernize a few details and extrapolate a few others. For example, the story talks about the nation of Aram, but I'm going to use the word ``Syria,'' because that's the nation which now occupies the land which long ago belonged to Aram. If you want to check the original, you can read 2 Kings 6:8-23 this afternoon.

Once during a war between the nation of Syria and the nation of Israel, the king of Syria called his generals together for a strategy session in the privacy of his royal tent. The king said, ``I have decided that we will move our army to Hazor, and from there attack the Israelis. We move today; order the men to start packing up.'' So the Syrian army moved to Hazor, just as the king ordered.

That same day, the prophet Elisha, who lived far away in the sleepy Israeli town of Dothan, sent a message to the king of Israel: ``The Syrian army is headed for Hazor. Unless you want them to attack you, leave that area at once.'' Now the king of Israel knew from previous experience that Elisha was a man of God, that God spoke regularly to Elisha, and that he, the king, had better pay attention to anything Elisha said. Therefore the king of Israel moved his army away from Hazor. Result? By the time the Syrians pulled into Hazor, the Israeli army was nowhere in sight.

Now this happened several times. The Syrian king and his generals would make battle plans in the privacy of the king's tent, and set out to engage the Israelis in battle, only to find out when they arrived that the Israelis had mysteriously vanished. It did not matter how many spies the Syrian king sent out, or how secretive the Syrians were. It seemed that the Israelis had inside information, as though they had planted a double-crossing spy right in the Syrian king's tent.

Finally the Syrian king got angry and ordered his generals into the tent. ``Which one of you sides with the king of Israel? One of you has to be leaking information! There's no way the Israelis can evade us like this unless one of you is a traitor!

One of the generals spoke up. ``My lord king, none of us is a traitor; no one in our army has been breaching security. The problem is Elisha, an Israeli prophet who lives in the village of Dothan, in the heartland of Israel. I don't know how he does it, but Elisha knows everything you say. He even knows everything you whisper in the privacy of your bedchamber. Then he turns around and informs the king of Israel.''

``We'll fix that guy!,'' the Syrian king retorted. ``Since you know all about this, I want you to take your division and capture this Elisha. Travel tonight under cover of darkness, surround his village, and at first light nab him and bring him back to me! Now go!''

The next morning at dawn, in the village of Dothan, Elisha's personal assistant woke up, got dressed, and strolled out the front door of Elisha's house to enjoy the sunrise. The sunrise was awesome, alright, but so were the Syrian tanks, field artillery, and armored personnel carriers that he saw surrounding the village. The assistant beat it back into the house, yelling, ``Elisha, the Syrian army has trapped us! What shall we do? We're defenseless!''

Elisha sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. ``Yes, Nathan, I know all about it. I knew yesterday morning that they were coming, and I knew they'd be surrounding us when we woke up. Don't worry about it. Let me get dressed and I'll go out and show you.''

A few minutes later with Nathan trembling behind him, Elisha ambled out into the middle of the street, folded his hands, raised his eyes to the sky, and prayed, ``Oh Yahweh, God of heaven and earth, take away Nathan's fear. Please open his eyes so he can see. Amen.''

As Elisha lowered his eyes to the ground, Nathan saw what he had not seen before: the landscape was covered with Yahweh's armies, division after division of heavenly tanks and artillery pieces on the ground, squadrons of fighter jets and attack helicopters in the air, not one of them made from metal, but all of them made of fire, Yahweh's holy fire, each of them piloted by angels, vastly outnumbering that single, puny Syrian division.

At that moment, the Syrian general, with a company of soldiers, dismounted and marched toward Elisha and Nathan, their machine guns ready to fire.

Once again, Elisha stood quietly in the middle of the street, folded his hands, looked to the skies, and prayed, ``O Lord God of heaven and earth, please strike these Syrians with blinding light. Amen.''
Suddenly the Syrians dropped their machine guns with howls of terror, clutching at their eyes, for they could no longer see anything. Tank drivers let go of the controls; gunners unhanded their weapons. Every Syrian soldier was rendered defenseless by blinding light.

Elisha walked up to the Syrian general and said gently, ``Friends, you have come to the wrong place. This is not where you want to be. Take hold of my hand, and my assistant's hand, and we will lead you to the man you are looking for.''

So off they walked down the road, Elisha and Nathan in front, holding hands with a whole division of hard-bitten Syrian soldiers blinded by prayer. Ten miles later, without the Syrians having any idea where Elisha was taking them, the whole procession walked into the city of Samaria, the capital of Israel. When everyone had entered the city gates, Elisha stopped, stood in the middle of the street, folded his hands, looked up at the heavens, and prayed for a third time: ``O Lord God of heaven and earth, open the eyes of these Syrian soldiers, so that they may see. Amen.'' And their eyes were opened!

Just then the king of Israel arrived. ``Elisha, this is great!'' he exclaimed. ``A whole division of defenseless Syrians! I want to kill them! Can I kill them?''

``Absolutely not!'' Elisha retorted. ``You may not kill them. Instead, I want you to prepare a feast for them. Feed them with the best you have, then send them back home to Syria.''

So that's what the king of Israel did. He prepared a feast for his Syrian enemies. Remember now that feasts take a while to prepare, especially when you're feeding an army. You have to butcher sheep and goats and cows and then barbecue them slowly on spits. You have to bake bread, cook lentils, wash grapes and figs, haul out casks of wine from the palace cellar, and set the tables. Even with lots of servants, it still takes hours and hours to get ready.

Therefore the king and his guests had plenty of time to socialize, both before and during the meal. They talked, got to know each other, told jokes, laughed, even played a few games.

You know what? By the time the meal was over, the Israeli king and the Syrian general, who sat beside each other at the table, discovered that they respected each other, maybe even trusted each other, just a little bit. The Syrian captains and lieutenants, sergeants and privates, who were commoners back home, felt honored that for once in their lives, they had been privileged to eat in the palace of a king. And the Israeli servants, who waited on them at the tables, went home that night and told their spouses and children about the miracle of eating.

And that's how the war ended. The Syrians no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.

So, what might happen if you and I feasted our enemies?

Oh yes, would you like to know what happened to my great aunt Maude and her sisters? Late in life, after a long period of refusing to have anything to do with each other, Maude and her sisters agreed to sit down together and eat a meal at Maude's house. At first the meal was strained; but eventually it worked like a charm. From the day of that meal, the three sisters dropped the tirades, drained the bitterness, and lived in peace until death.

Thanks be to God.
www.geocities.com/tuorfa =--> How to Overcome an Enemy

Jesus Method for Dealing with Enemies July 14 2002.rtf

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 04:58:10 GMT

Jesus' Method for Dealing with Enemies

Matthew 5:38-48
Sermon by Dan Schrock
July 7, 2002

This past Thursday, the nation in which we live observed the 226 ^th anniversary of its declaration of independence from England. In the years leading up to that event, the American colonies and England had slowly become enemies, tussling over issues such as taxation and democratic representation. The enemies in that conflict were soon doing what most enemies have done throughout history: they tried to kill each other.

As time passes, we humans have invented more creative ways to kill each other. The ceaseless quest for military superiority has led to new weapons that are able to kill more people in less time. World War I saw the first widespread use of airplanes, tanks, machine guns, and mustard gas, at the time all relatively new inventions. World War II witnessed the first major use of aircraft carriers, rockets, and nuclear bombs. For the first time, World War II also used a newly nasty technique: massive fire bombing of civilian populations, a technique developed by an American, Curtis LeMay. Americans won that war partly because their creativity in finding new ways to kill enemies far out-classed the creativity of either Germany or Japan.

On September 11 of last year we witnessed a new and unimagined level of creativity in killing enemies. Someoneand we may never know whoasked a few simple but terribly creative questions: What would happen if we thought of a passenger jet as a military weapon, as a flying bomb? And what if we flew one of those flying bombs, loaded with fuel, into a skyscraper during work hours? How many people could we kill and how much property could we destroy?

On September 11 we all found out the terrible answers to those questions. The point is that planning for war is a tremendously creative enterprise. Even as we sit here this morning, someone somewhere in the world is probably trying to invent some new weapon, or new technique, for killing enemies. In the future we will surely witness previously unimagined devilment for doing away with enemies.

A very long time ago on a grassy hillside, a Palestinian Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth proposed a radically different way of dealing with enemies. Instead of killing them, he proposed to love them. Instead of eradicating them, he proposed to transform them. His proposal was wonderfully inventive, displaying a kind of creativity at least as imaginative as anything a military officer ever devised. Listen to what Jesus proposed.

``You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

``You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'' (NRSV)

Let's go through the first half of this text in exegetical fashion, commenting on Jesus' proposal.

Verse 39, which in the NRSV reads, ``Do not resist an evildoer'' is actually a poor translation of the Greek. A better translation of the verb anthistemi , is ``do not retaliate,'' with the sense of not returning evil for evil. The overall meaning of this sentence, then, is that the followers of Jesus are not to strike back at people who do evil things, giving blow for blow, wishing evil for evil, using violence to retaliate against violence. When we understand the sentence this way, Jesus clearly leaves the door open for responding to evil with acts of positive nonviolence. Jesus is as concerned as anyone to resist evil. Indeed, his whole earthly ministry was spent resisting evil. But the issue in this passage is how to fight evil imaginatively, creatively.

Jesus then offers three examples of how he proposes to deal with enemies, and each refers to a specific situation in 1 ^st century Palestinian culture. The first example is what to try when someone slaps you on the right cheek. It turns out that slapping someone on the right cheek had a rather specific cultural context in the 1 ^st century. Slave-owners slapped slaves on the right cheek to subdue them; husbands slapped wives on the right cheek to insult them (alas, 1 ^st century society was still highly patriarchal); parents slapped children on the right cheek to make them behave, and so on. The purpose of smacking on the right cheek was to humiliate you, to put you in your place. In Judaism it was an attack on one's personal honor. So in each case, the person who did the smacking belonged to a higher social class than the person who got smacked.

Many of the people who followed Jesus belonged to the lower class and knew what it was like to be humiliated by the upper class. What does Jesus propose when someone whacks you on the right cheek? Turn your left cheek toward that person. Knowing the cultural message behind this is crucial. Hitting someone on the left cheek was what social equals did. For instance, when one shepherd got mad, he might typically whack another shepherd on the left cheek, a soldier might smack another soldier on the left cheek, and so forth. When you hit someone on the left side of the face, you signaled that the other person was your social equal.

Sometimes I've heard pastors and other well-meaning Christians tell abused women that ``they should turn the other cheek'' toward their abuser. Way too often what they mean is ``go back to your husband or boyfriend, and take whatever abuse he dishes out to you. Be a Christian doormat, and let him wipe his feet all over you.'' I want to say very clearly that this is not what Jesus means. Turning your left cheek is not an invitation for someone to continue abusing you. In fact it means just the opposite. In the 1 ^st century turning the left cheek was a non-verbal invitation for the perpetrator to stop abusing you as a social inferior and to start treating you as a social equal. The simple act of presenting your left cheek was an act of moral courage. It asserted your own dignity and asked the other person to change his or her relationship with you. The purpose of turning the left cheek was to create nonviolent social transformation.

The second example appears in verse 40: ``if anyone sues you and takes your coat, give your cloak as well.'' This alludes to typical 1 ^st century clothing which had two pieces, the outer garment or coat, and the inner garment or cloak. Once again, the cultural context is important. In what 1 ^st century setting would someone take a person's coat, or outer garment? The answer is in a court of law, specifically in debtor's court. Then as now, when you wanted to borrow some money you had to offer something to the creditor as collateral for the loan. For lower class people, the only collateral they could offer was usually their outer garment, because they often owned nothing else. To our ears this sounds strange because no creditor today would accept an off-the-rack fall coat from Walmart as collateral for a loan, but in the 1 ^st century creditors did. When debtors could not repay their loans, creditors would sue them and demand their coats as partial payment for the original loan.

It so happened that in 1 ^st century Palestine a lot of debtors were losing their coats because of a series of related economic problems that made it almost impossible for ordinary peasants to make a decent living. These economic problems included exorbitant interest rates on loans, heavy taxes which sometimes totaled 40-50% of income, absentee landlords, sharecropping arrangements, crop failures, and the like. Because the economy was so bad, debtors often could not repay their loans. So when they went to debtors' court, they usually walked out wearing only their inner garment, or cloak.

Jesus thought this economic system was unjust, because the response he suggests both criticizes the mess economic affairs had fallen into and creates a marvelous opportunity for changed relationships: when your creditor sues you and takes your coat as payment for the loan, then take off your inner garment and walk out of court stark naked. I am not making this up! Jesus is suggesting public nakedness! Why? Because the creditor has already taken everything you own: your house, your land, your tools, and even your coat. So why not graphically illustrate how low and destitute he has made you? Why not take all your clothes off? This is a unique opportunity for you to unmask a whole economic system which claims to be just and fair but in reality is grinding you down into abject poverty.
Now there is another little cultural fact you should know. In Jewish culture, nakedness shamed the person who saw or caused the nakedness, not the person who was naked (Genesis 9:20-27). Therefore walking out of court naked did not bring shame on the person without clothes, it brought shame on the creditor who in reality caused this nakedness. In this way public nakedness graphically showed what debt really does to people. As in the case of turning cheeks, this act of stripping in public was an invitation for the other person to stop treating you unjustly and start treating you compassionately. Like the first example, the purpose of this second example was to create an opportunity for nonviolent social transformation: it asserted your own worth and asked the other person to change his or her relationship with you.

The last example Jesus gives is the one about going a second mile. In the 1 ^st century any Roman soldier traveling anywhere in the empire could force anyone who was not a Roman citizen to carry his backpack for one Roman mile (Greek: milion ), which was 1,618 yards long (142 yards shorter than the modern English mile). The Romans did not invent this practice, but borrowed it from the Persians. So that this law could be applied without an argument about where the mile began and ended, major highways throughout the empire had mile markers at regular intervals. The law had been enacted to move soldiers more rapidly around the empire, on the theory that troops could walk faster and arrive more refreshed for battle if they didn't have to carry their 65-85 pound backpacks the whole way.

Among Rome's subjugated peoples, this law was universally despised. While you were quietly harvesting your barley, a Roman soldier could come up and demand that you carry his backpack a mile down the road. It was a nuisance and a bother. Without any choice on your part, it forced you to drop whatever you were doing and give the empire a half hour of your precious time. Most of all, it reminded you in a visceral way of Rome's superior military power. Jews and other subjugated peoples hated it.

Crafty, brilliant strategist that he was, Jesus suggested a simple response. When you get to the end of the mile, tell the soldier you'll carry his backpack another mile. A crafty and brilliant responsebecause Jesus knew very well that at this point another law took effect which said that no soldier could force the same person to carry his pack two miles in a row; and if the soldier did, then his commanding officer could inflict severe penalties on the soldier for doing so. No soldier in his right mind, therefore, would ever force someone to carry his backpack a second mile. But what might happen, asks Jesus, if someone unexpectedly volunteered to carry the backpack one more mile? It's hard to say, but at least such an act would have caught the soldier by surprise, almost forcing him to look the civilian in the eye, to notice the civilian's humanity, and to re-evaluate the social patterns that had brought them to this point.

In each of these examples, Jesus proposed an inventive, daring, but nonviolent response to enemies which in the 1 ^st century would have been completely unexpected. The element of surprise is an important characteristic of all 3 examples, because surprise has tremendous power for opening up new possibilities in human relationships. These 3 examples are not laws which Jesus promulgates for all times, places, and cultures. No, they are culture and context specific, and probably won't work in any of the situations we find ourselves in here in 21 ^st century America. Instead Jesus intends these examples to be just that, illustrations which are intended to evoke in the minds of his disciples new possibilities for dealing with enemies.

We who belong to Christ are not to kill our enemies. We are to love them, in quirky, astonishing, creative, transformative, wildly imaginative ways. Jesus invites us to use the use the brain God gave us at creation and the Spirit God gave us at Pentecost to invent new, nonviolent responses to evil which no one expects and which carve out unprecedented possibilities for a new world. In our own cultural context and our own social situation, Jesus wants us to live the new world which he came to inauguratethe missional world of God's coming kingdom.
Note: The main line of interpretation for this sermon is based on Walter Wink, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa: Jesus' Third Way (Philadelphia and Santa Cruz: New Society, 1987), pp. 12-34. Wink is professor of Biblical interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary, New York City. For other exegetical details, see Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 277-293; M. Eugene Boring, ``The Gospel of Matthew: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,'' in The New Interpreter's Bible , Volume VIII (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), p. 194; and Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding (Waco: Word, 1982), p. 251. www.geocities.com/tuorfa =--> What the Enemy Least Expects