Day1 Weekly Radio Broadcast - Day1 Feeds

Uh oh!  How many times have you said that? That "oops" moment when you stop and figure out something has gone wrong.  Maybe it's just something minor like putting up dishes in the wrong cabinet or maybe a major, life-changing revelation that things are going down hill fast: with your life, your marriage, your child, your job, bad news from your doctor.  We either fix it fast or worst of all find the downhill slide irreversible, and "Uh, oh" becomes "O God, please help me."  The "oops" moments are rarely positive ones for us on any level. Now we just read an "oops" moment in the life of everybody around Jesus when he miraculously healed the paralyzed man who had no one to help him into the healing waters of Bethesda outside Jerusalem's Sheep Gate, but we probably passed right by what caused the "oops" and didn't notice. The "oops" moment wasn't the miracle.  It was when the miracle happened. Now no doubt by this very active time in his earthly ministry, Jesus had gained notoriety and, most likely, tremendous popularity.  He was an articulate and charismatic teacher for sure.  He was rumored possibly to be the political messiah the people of Israel had dreamed of for the entire time they had shifted from a grand monarchial people to an oppressed minority in and out of exile. With building momentum, Jesus was teaching all over Palestine, working miracles, magnificent healing miracles that were thrilling and made for terrific gossip and had not upset anyone...yet.

Down came the blanket with those creepy, crawling snakes and vultures and other weird animals on it.  In fact, the heavenly blanket came down three times. And each time the blanket descended, Peter said, "No, not me!" Peter's response to God's picnic invitation was not mere squeamishness.  Peter found the menu repulsing.  None of those animals was acceptable food.  Peter's "no" welled up from deep within him.  An observant Jew, Peter had spent a lifetime trying to remain ritually clean.  His "no" to the heavenly invitation was the visceral, reactive, reflexive result of years of religious conditioning.  I learned a little bit about behavioral conditioning from our Golden Retriever, Bailey.  And so I beg your indulgence of another sermon story about a family pet.  Bailey is as lovely and true and kind as any best friend a family could ever have.  An indoor/outdoor dog, Bailey spends most of her time on a porch we enclosed for her.  Bailey's palace we call it. From this porch perch Bailey presides over all the goings-on in our wooded back yard.  She also enjoys the freedom to slip through a doggie door whenever it suits her fancy, to chase a squirrel or answer nature's call.  But there are bounds to Bailey's realm.  Bailey is not allowed outside of the backyard.  For beyond the backyard are the suburban perils of the street, getting lost, and the dreaded dogcatcher.

In this Easter Season we get to know Simon Peter the fisherman better, and we see the Lord Jesus at work.  Today we experience a scene in the life and ministry of Jesus that takes place before the crucifixion and resurrection, and John the Gospeler drops us into a conflict between religious authorities and Jesus--at the holy time of Hanukkah and in the holiest place on earth for Jesus' fellow Jews. We're also dropped into an Easter scene: the story of Simon Peter raising the dead--and hanging out with unclean people among the living. Who is this Jesus to us and to whom does he send his first disciples?  To whom are we sent, and how are we to live among them? The evangelist and Gospeler Luke tells us in his second book, the book that records some of the acts of the apostles of Jesus, that Simon Peter was out and about at the seaport of Joppa near Jerusalem.  There was a disciple whose name was Tabitha or Dorcas.  She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.  She fell ill and died. Her friends treated her lifeless body with prayerful respect, bathing and dressing her body, but not anointing her for burial.  Instead, these widows and saintly disciples sent two men to ask Simon Peter to hurry there. Tabitha, Dorcas, the beloved and fruitful disciple, is raised up by Simon Peter and restored to her friends.  News spreads quickly; of course, and many people who had not had the opportunity to believe in the Lord Jesus now come to belief.  Meanwhile, we are told, Simon Peter stays in the house of Simon the tanner, a man whose vocation of working with the bodies of animals would have made him unclean.  He was not unclean in the eyes of Simon Peter, disciple of the Risen Lord, obviously.

How does the Risen Lord Jesus open our eyes today so that we may become fishermen--fishers of people--and ambassadors of the Gospel of Christ? The miraculous life of Jesus in turning around the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter gives us cause for thought and prayer and for hope and rejoicing. We remember that the zealous Pharisee Saul was so determined to persecute the first followers of the Risen Christ that he pursued women as well as men, and he headed for Syria from Jerusalem lest he miss anyone. He was in no mood for conversion. Then the Risen Lord Jesus opened his eyes to the new way--the new life. I am helped by New Testament Scholar Paul Holloway of the School of Theology at Sewanee to see that Saul was not converted from being a bad Jew to being a good Christian; he was converted by God's grace from being a zealous Jew to being a zealous apostle of Christ to Jews and Gentiles alike. His eyes were opened on the road to Damascus. Having been blinded by the light, he was sent into the city to wait; and after waiting on the Spirit to be given new eyes of faith, new eyes of the heart, so as to see those he knew well in a new light. He was transformed from being an enemy of the fledgling church; in baptism he became a member of the new community of faith. Paul was enabled to see himself through the eyes of Christ, and so he was able to see his fellow Jews in a new light. He was able to see the people of the Gentiles--Greeks, Romans, Syrians, people not so different from you and me--in a new light. To us Saint Paul comes, opening our eyes to the wonder of life in Christ.

I have a bone to pick with a man named Sam Holbrook. Now, Sam and I have never met. He wouldn't know me from Adam. It's entirely unfair of me to carry around this grudge. And yet here we are, opening week of the 2013 Major League Baseball season and I am still a bit hung up on the way 2012 ended, and it has more than just a bit to do with Sam Holbrook. Last year, my team, the Atlanta Braves, lost the first one-game playoff series in baseball history. In the eighth inning they were trailing the St. Louis Cardinals 6-3 when Atlanta shortstop Andrelton Simmons lofted an easy fly ball into shallow left field with men already on first and second base. Just as the ball landed unexpectedly--and, one might argue, providentially--on the ground between two apparently confused Cardinals, Holbrook signaled to invoke the Infield Fly Rule. Now if you don't know what the Infield Fly Rule is, don't worry, you are in the company of many a professed fan of the game, and as our luck would have it, at least one of its umpires. Suffice to say that in Sam Holbrook's hands, a rule that normally protects the hitting team instead ended Atlanta's best hope for a rally and, by extension, their season; and so even with the new season here, I admit that I do carry a bit of a grudge. Of course I am sure that Sam is a lovely man with whom I would get along smashingly were our paths to cross in any other circumstance, which is why it's vitally important that we not actually meet. The part of me that nurses this grudge, the part of me that wears it proudly as a badge of fandom, the part of me that could just as easily show you the dozen other wounds that twenty-odd-years of Braves baseball have inflicted--that part of me needs an occasional villain, and until further notice, Sam Holbrook will do nicely.

Early one morning I was reading this text preparing myself for this sermon and there it was; I could not get beyond it. It demanded that I address it in the sermon. I had read this text all my life, but it had never captured my attention in the past. The words were demanding my attention. The text tells the story of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb of Jesus early on the first day of the week, and then the text says, "While it was still dark..." I know it was in all likelihood meant by John to be only a reference to the time of day, but for me it opened my imagination to a deeper understanding of the text. Mary had been with Jesus all the way. She had seen lives made new, bodies healed, and eyes opened. She had heard the complaining of the disciples and the criticism of the religious leaders. She saw how the crowds adored him and the rulers hated him. She stood under the cross as they killed him, and her heart was broken. She had seen the adoration of the people when they entered the city on Sunday and their hostility when they stood before Pilate at the end of the week. Now it was all over. She may have thought, "The least I can do is anoint the body with spices. Everyone deserves a proper burial. Her heart was heavy and in her soul, "...it was still dark." That empty, forlorn feeling is perhaps like the feeling that political campaign workers have when their candidate has lost. Someone has to go back to the office and pack up the stuff. Or a football team that has been eliminated in the playoffs. Their season is over...no Super Bowl for them. The only thing to do is to clean out the lockers and head home.

Come with us now to those exciting days of yesteryear. Where out of the past come the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver. "Hi Ho Silver, away! The Lone Ranger rides again!" Now cue the William Tell overture. "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman! Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. And able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" And let's not forget "Jack Armstrong. Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy!" These old radio programs are part of the American landscape; and for those of us who listened to them ardently in some profound way they shaped us. In the evenings, my family would gather around the radio as some families gather around the TV today and listen to the new episode each week. We all had our favorites, and we would make sure it was included on the family program list that evening. The favorite of my mother was a little different than the favorite of the rest of the family. She liked Queen for a Day. My stepfather and I would begrudgingly give up some of our favorites to indulge her. The plot of her program always centered around finding a woman living in difficult conditions and making her Queen for a Day. After she was selected for this honor, she would be picked up by a chauffer-driven limousine and taken to a Beverly Hills salon and given a complete makeover, then she would be fitted with a new wardrobe and taken to a celebrated restaurant escorted by some Hollywood celebrities. For the night she would stay in a penthouse at a luxury hotel, but the next day she would be taken back to her small apartment and returned to her former life. She had been Queen for a Day.

Rarely does the church admit mistakes. But since it's Lent, maybe we could. Maybe we could admit that we, the church, have domesticated Jesus. Made a milk cow out of a raging bull. Softened His call. Cheapened His grace. Made confusing His clarity. Worse of all, we've violated the eleventh commandment: Thou shall not make God boring! And if that is so, then, what has it cost Jesus? What has it cost the world and what has it cost us? It's next to impossible to gauge how many people have come through the doors of our churches in earnest only to leave in disappointment. Impossible to gauge the number of people who came in open but left closed. My sense is that there are many. If creeping secularism is the mother of the Spiritual-but-not-Religious Movement, then its Father is dispassionate Christian witness. We should admit that. God will forgive. So what do we do? To whom do we turn? How about St. Paul? You remember his story. He never lacked passion. But his passion was perfected when he met the Risen Jesus on a dusty road. Until then Paul was going nowhere fast. After that meeting, everything Paul says and does is about one thing, trying to throw words and deeds at his experience of Jesus Christ. That's the mark of actually meeting God, things get changed. What we think about God, ourselves and others, all change. Each of Paul's letters are about this. His confidence is the first thing that changes after meeting Jesus. Before, he had confidence in his pedigree, confidence in his willpower to keep the rules. He even had confidence in persecuting the church. But something happened. His confidence shifted. Paul's balance sheet changed. Red has become black. What was gain is now loss. What was foolishness is now foundational. New insight is gained through faithful living. That's the way it happens best. You can almost hear him say, "God is in Christ and Christ is in me. It's true, God is trustworthy." Paul is clear now. There's a better confidence to have. God confidence! "There's value that surpasses all other value," and that is "knowing Christ Jesus...." (Phil 3.8)

I must admit that I have always been fascinated with the 'Parable of the Prodigal Son' and would focus on the black sheep of the family leaving home and receiving the forgiveness of the Father. My fixation on the prodigal was such that I virtually ignored the other characters of the story--especially the elder brother. In this story there has always been a strong, vibrant current in Christianity which underlies the mercy of God and God's joy at a sinner's repentance and more so in the last couple of generations has this current been emphasized. In line with this conscious emphasis, attention has turned to the actions and attitude of the father and results in the question, "Is it not true that the merciful father is the major character of the story?" Indeed, from a literary point of view, the father seems to be the one who links the other two characters of this story and holds everything together. Without the father, there is no forgiveness or banquet or joy. And without the premise of the father's expression of joy over his returned son, there would be no explanation for the reactions of the elder son and the sublime answers to him. As we continue our journey on this Fourth Sunday in Lent, I would like to see the Father as depicted in this parable as God and the active role God plays in the grace God offers to all of us, the prodigal longing to come home. The parable begins with the son holding his hand out, demanding (not asking) that he get his share of inheritance right now, up front. A kid with his hand out isn't an unusual picture, as any parent knows; but in this case it's a particularly shocking one giving the cultural conventions of the time. Jewish law dictated that when the father passed away, the eldest son would get two-thirds of the estate ("a double portion") and the next youngest son one-third. But as Jesus tells it, Dad was still alive and well. So the younger son commits an egregious offense by basically saying, "Pop, I wish you were already dead. Forget the family business and, for that matter, the whole family. I'm outta here."

You have to be careful with people, because if they don't know the answer, they may well just make something up. About two years ago I was with a group on a mission trip to Haiti, and we were flying from one side of the island to another in a little propeller plane driven by a Cuban pilot. The turbulence was horrible and once we landed we were all thankful to finally be on solid ground again. While unloading the baggage, one member of the group says to another, "I wasn't worried. Our pastor was head bowed in prayer the whole flight." And I'm glad that when she saw me with my head bowed on that turbulent flight that's what she thought I was doing--because in reality I was putting my head down because I thought that would keep me from throwing up. Sometimes we make up what we need to hear in the moment--and whether what we make up is the truth or not may not matter--because what we make up may be more comforting than the truth. There was a group of Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices--this phrase isn't as descriptive as it could be--but what we may assume is that they were murdered by Pilate while on pilgrimage to make a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem. And then there were the eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell. When confronted with such bad things, we want an answer; and whether the answer is true or not may not matter because having an answer feels better than not knowing.

Folks who have never been to First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Tennessee, will sometimes ask me what this church is like--is First Presbyterian conservative, liberal, or moderate; what kind of people attend; where will this church be in 15 years? It's hard to answer questions like these, as they are questions about a group of people, made up of individuals who have differing opinions--so what I usually say is something like--there is a man at First Presbyterian Church who felt so led as to pay for the staff Christmas party out of his own pocket because he so appreciated their ministry. There is another person at First Presbyterian who was worried about the state of my robe, and so he took my measurements to a seamstress who made me a brand new one. And earlier this year there was a plan for a month-long fundraising campaign to renovate the local food pantry--only the goal was met by this church after the first week, and so the goal had to be doubled. First Presbyterian is a church full of faithful people--but some are conservative, some are liberal, some love to hunt, some are petrified of firearms, some struggle to be faithful, some hear God's voice as clear as a bell. It's hard to tie down any group of people--we're individuals--we're different; but that doesn't stop us from reaching certain conclusions--about churches, about race, about class, about age. And so the first verse of our gospel lesson is surprising: "Some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you."

Lent rolls around every year, but for most Christians, it is less like a birthday and more like a flu vaccination.  We know Lent is necessary, that it's good for us in much the same way cauliflower might be. We've heard all the preachers' clichés as to how it makes the joy of Easter possible, but the truth of the matter is that Lent never comes naturally.  It is hard to explain to our non-Christian friends, because, to tell the truth, we don't fully understand it ourselves. We are prone to engage in its practice without ever asking why we are doing what we are doing. We do it because, well, we've always done it.  We cut out chocolate, lay off the red meat, maybe we stop drinking carbonated beverages for forty days, all to declare ourselves better prepared for the resurrection. To an outsider, it looks more like a diet. But if we don't have a good explanation for our Lenten behavior, if we don't seem to fully understand the focus of the season, it's not completely our fault. It is Jesus' own sojourn in the wilderness that inspires this odd season, and Jesus doesn't seem keen on offering any explanation for what he's doing. Year after year when the first Sunday of Lent arrives, we watch as Jesus wanders off into the wilderness again. And while the Bible is full of spiritual retreats, this one doesn't follow the typical pattern. As a refresher, let's set the scene a bit. The people--Jesus' people--have waited impatiently for a Savior; and while there were some rumors awhile back about a birth in Bethlehem, they've seen no evidence that anything has changed in the world.

"I have been to the mountaintop," said Dr. King, and even people who live in low-lying seacoast towns know what he was referring to. The image of the mountaintop runs through Scripture as that place where the human experience touches the Divine, that symbolic place where God is present and mere mortals can catch a glimpse of ultimate truth. And so we fondly recall those mountaintop experiences that happen on retreat or at church camp, upon some extraordinary accomplishment or in some exotic destination--where the cares of this world seem to recede and we are better able to understand who we are and why we are here on this planet. What were your mountaintop experiences? What insights did you gain? How did those moments change your life? In Exodus, Moses and Joshua ascend the mountain to speak directly to God. Likewise, Jesus takes the leaders of his ragged band up the mountain where suddenly they encounter a transfigured Christ, radiant and filled with light. Two men appear--the apostles assume it is Moses and Elijah, both patriarchs in the Hebrew Scripture who were taken up to heaven but who did not die. Peter doesn't really know what to do so he starts building dwellings. Why? Was he reverting to the comfort of liturgy--a feast of the tabernacles? Was he trying to busy himself with lesser things so that he didn't have to deal with the extraordinary that was happening right in front of him? Was he trying to contain these visions, put them in a box? Protect them from the elements? Capture the moment in a medium that he could understand--symbolic bricks and mortar--maybe a building campaign? Haven't we also undertaken these same avoidance techniques to escape things--even wonderful things--that we cannot understand?

Sadly, I can no longer hear today's text without thinking of the movie Wedding Crashers. In this box office hit, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play best friends who crash wedding parties as a way to pick up women. They do so by developing elaborate cover stories to charm the crowd and become the life of the party. In one of the early scenes, the two are at a wedding ceremony; and when the pastor announces that the bride's sister will now read scripture, Owen says to Vince, "Twenty dollars, First Corinthians." To which Vince replies, "Double or nothing, Colossians 3:12."  The bride's sister takes the podium and begins, "And now a reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians." Like Owen, my money would have been on 1 Corinthians 13. It is one of the best-known passages in the Bible because of its use in weddings. It's easy to understand why. It represents one of the most beautiful expressions of love found in the Bible. And because the passage doesn't reference God or Christ, it is selected for its broad appeal to one's guests, whatever their spiritual orientation. It has become one of those texts that we know exactly when to use. But I wonder if we've fully considered what it's saying to us. I know this is true for me. In the hundreds of times that I've heard or used this text, I've relished the beautiful views expressed about love. But I've never paused long enough to consider two questions clamoring to be asked of this text.

I don't use acronyms very often, but over the years I have found KISS to be a good reminder when I've had to speak about a controversial subject, lead a difficult church board meeting, or meet with folks in conflict.  Used as an acronym, kiss means "keep it simple, stupid." Though at times, what I've said or done may indicate just the opposite, I've never thought of myself as stupid, so I've taken the liberty of making an adjustment.  To me kiss means--keep it simple and straightforward!   That's the way I would characterize what we find in the passage from Luke's gospel.  Often described as his first sermon--the way he began his public ministry--what Jesus said is, indeed, simple and straightforward. Luke's account goes like this: When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. 18He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."