Typical deep south shack in 1969.

In 1986, Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, published a book, No More Shacks.   On the front cover he proclaimed, “All of God’s people should have at least a simple, decent place to live.”

Millard grew up in the Deep South (Alabama) and after meeting Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms in 1968, Millard and Linda gave away their fortune and moved to Koinonia.

Believe it or not, this was someone's habitation in 1969.

Millard was well acquainted with southern shacks like the one above.  Many were left-over sharecropper shacks from the days of hidden “slave” labor that still gripped pockets of the Deep South.  While most, if not all, would be deemed uninhabitable, the majority were still called home by mostly “disenfranchised” black families. 

Typical interior with no insulation from the cold or heat.

All of these shacks had things in common: uninhabitable; no running water or indoor toilets; often no heat or electricity and no real protection from the elements of heat, cold or rain.  Millard and Clarence wanted to do something about that deplorable living environment.  So, in 1969, on a small tract of pine forest on Koinonia Farm, they built what would become the first habitat for humanity “prototype.”  It was a very simple, but decent cement block home on a concrete slab with indoor plumbing, electricity and a centralized, non-ducted space heater.  It became the blessed home of Bo and Emma Johnson and their children. 

Bo was a gregarious former sharecropper who became Koinonia’s farmer extraordinaire – raising pigs, cattle and chickens and growing soybeans, corn and peanuts.  Their home was built for about $4,500 with monthly no-interest mortgage payments of about $20.  In 1989 Bo and Emma were able to burn their 20-year paid-in-full mortgage.

No more shacks.

This simple start became the impetus for what would become the ministry of Habitat for Humanity seven years later.  And the rest they say is “history.”

[The photos above were taken by Jim Gauss in April, 1969 when he visited the bayou town of Beaufort, South Carolina.  The experience led him to get involved with Koinonia and Millard Fuller two years later.]

It is a pleasure and an honor to be invited to preach again here at Americus First Presbyterian.

This morning I’d like to tackle a tough subject: “How do we (Presbyterians) get through and beyond conflict?”

Good things can come out of conflict.  I know this personally.  I met Cori in a conflict resolution class at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.  There she was sitting next to her boyfriend and I guess I created a conflict for her.  Not all conflict ends up bad.

Conflict is a normal human experience.  Jesus dealt with conflict.  The history of the church is one of conflict.  Our professor, John Paul Lederach, pointed out to us that the English language is filled with words for conflict.  When it comes to fightin’ words, we are like the Eskimos who have so many words for snow.  In Southwest Georgia we just have one word.. snow because it dosen’t happen very often.  But the Eskimos live with snow so they have many words for the different types and varieties of snow.  Think about all of the words you know of that are synonyms for conflict:

fight, warfare, battle, clash, collision, combat, competition, contention, contest, emulation, encounter, engagement, fracas, fray, rivalry,  strife, struggle, tug-of-war, war, disagreement, discord, affray, animosity, antagonism, bad blood, brush, difference, disaccord, disharmony, dispute, dissension, dissent, dissidence, disunity, divided loyalties, faction, factionalism, flap,  friction, fuss, hassle, hostility, interference, meeting opposition,  ruckus, run-in, variance

We have far fewer words for peace:

agreement, calm, stability, harmony, accord, amity, cessation, conciliation, friendship, love, neutrality, order, pacifism, peacefulness, quiet, reconciliation, serenity, tranquility, treaty, truce, union, unity

Professor Lederach shared with us that when his team does a mediation for parties in dispute, they usually spend 80-90% of their time getting the parties to agree on the ground rules of the mediation and usually about 10-20% of the time actually dealing with the dispute.

Fortunately, we Presbyterians have ethics and rules for sorting out our internal disputes and how we conduct the business of the church.  The United States government was modeled after our church polity.  I’m not sure if that should encourage you or discourage you, but our new members already have an advantage understanding our church governance because they are somewhat familiar with how things work.

Part one of our Constitution is our Book of Confessions and Statements of Faith.  From a historical perspective, these statements could be labeled a “Book of Conflict” because they were written by the church in response to a current challenge or heresy.  But they are not infallible documents.  From time-to-time the church has felt the need to amend and even apologize for earlier statements.

Here’s the context some of our major confessions were written in:

• Apostles Creed was written in 180 AD in response to the Marcian movement
• In 325 AD the Nicene Creed was written in response to the perceived threat of heresies of the day
• The church felt the need to respond after the rise of Hitler in 1933, and outline the relationship of loyalty to Jesus and the State
• The 1967 Confession was written to take a position during racial tensions
• The Brief Statement of Faith was written in 1985 following the 1983 reunification of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian denominations (PC USA and UPCUSA)   and outlines our faith with gender inclusiveness and our relation to with the Creation.

The simple truth is that Presbyterians believe many things.  We are a politically, economically and theologically diverse denomination.  And sometimes we have to correct out former statements of faith.

We have had to apologize for the anti Roman Catholic tones in the statements written in the 16h and 17^th century.  We have dropped the “double predestination” doctrine of the Westminster Confession and we have corrected the errors of the 1560 Scotts Confession which banned women from Preaching and administering the sacraments.

Presbyterians are thinking Christians.  Millard Fuller was fond of saying “If two people agree on everything all the time, one of them is not thinking.”  Here’s what the Book of Confessions says about our Constitution:

• To be an ordained Presbyterian is to promise to be “instructed,” “led” and “continually guided” by the confessions o f the church—not just by one’s personal theological and ethical preferences or even by one’s own personal understanding of God or Jesus Christ or Scripture.  The church should not “bind the conscience” of those who disagree with its confessions and interpretation of their meaning. (preface xxvi)
• The confessions are serious statements and are “not to be taken lightly.” While neither the General Assembly nor any presbytery or session should demand adherence to any specific list of beliefs or doctrinal formulations as if the content of the faith could be reduced to a few selected and precisely worded statements of doctrine. (preface xxvii)

And then it proceeds to say that it is up to the General Assemblies, synods, presbyteries and sessions to determine on a case-by-case basis if a candidate for ordination adheres to the standards of the confessions.  Those that object to a confession may be pointing out a deficiency or an error in the confession and their voices are to be heard and the church is always to be reformed (sempter reformanda).

So I want to narrow down all these confessions and statements and offer a simpler statement of ethics for the church today.  Listen to the words of Dr. Ronald Stone, who wrote a great book called “Ultimate Imperative – An interpretation of Christian Ethics”:

Christian ethics for the church starts with Jesus’ own ethic of love of God and of neighbor.

The rest is commentary for better or worse.

Ron is a family friend and he taught me about the great ethicists of the Christian Church.  The complexity of his thinking and his keen understanding of Presbyterian church history still leaves me amazed at the simplicity of his summary and the dismissal of other lessons as simply commentary on Jesus’ foundational principle.  Let me read Ron’s statement again since it is the point of this sermon that I want you to take home with you:

Christian ethics for the church starts with Jesus’ own ethic of love of God and of neighbor.

The rest is commentary for better or worse.

If you wonder where Jesus came up with his ethics, we can look at The Old Testament Lesson in Leviticus 19:18 for his source material.

One half of a millennium later Paul summed up this universal principle of love of God and neighbor in several of his writings:

Galatians 5:14

1 Corinthians 13:13

John offers similar guidance:

1 John 4:7

1 John 4:16

1 John 4;20-21

So this my friends is what we Presbyterians believe.

Each Sunday, before his sermon, Pastor Dave prays for Illumination for us:  “Come Holy Sprit, come… convict us.”  From one Pittsburgh Theological seminarian to another, Dave is right.  A good sermon doesn’t just make us feel good, but it should leave us feeling convicted and even obligated by the ultimate imperative of love of God and neighbor.  Believing alone doesn’t get us right with God.  As Ron Stone says, “All ethics is social ethics.”

Being a preacher’s kid, I grew up cynical and disgusted with the church.  All I could see was hypocrites.  If you had asked me if I wanted to work in the church, I would have said, “What are you crazy?!!!”

But, God has a sense of humor and today I find myself today in a position as Director of the Fuller Center’s  Faith Builders program.  I spend all day talking with church leaders, encouraging them and learning from them.  I’m no longer cynical any more.  I see the many good things so much clearer thanks to Habitat and The Fuller Center.

For example, our own church is building a house for a man with a disability.  And just last week, our session voted to fund a house for a family in Haiti. None of us know this Haitian family, but God knows them and that’s all that matters.  We love God and we love our neighbors.  By our First Presbyterian house sponsorships we are demonstrating that no matter how bad the recession gets, God can not go bankrupt.  This is a sermon all Christians need to hear and I am so proud of this congregation.  That’s why you will find brownies with the coffee this morning as a thank you from our family and the Fuller Center for responding to the Haiti recovery effort.

So how do we resolve conflict?  To begin with we need to change our perspective on conflict and our perspective on who we are dealing with in any dispute.  We need to argue with each other as if we are going to spend the rest of eternity with those we disagree with. This is God’s promise and this is God’s way.  This should be liberating, but too often we resist this Good News and want to see our enemies shunned, fired, excommunicated, banished, or destroyed.  Jesus knew this when the lawyer in Luke’s version got hung up on the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

When I was at Almost Heaven Habitat, I used to secretly find the most conservative volunteer and match them up with the most liberal one of the bunch and I’d put them on a roof together.  Their differences disappeared as the work day went on.  More often than not, they were surprised to find out that they actually liked each other.

I selected the story of the Good Samaritan for us this morning because I know we are thinking Christians.  I’m glad it’s in the bulletin because I want to have you do an exercise.  Next year is going to be the 100^th birthday of Clarence Jordan.  I know some people are still mad at him, but he was a thinking Christian.  In his Cotton Patch Gospel, he took the story of the Good Samaritan and changed the names and the locations to make it more relevant.  He changed the journey of the man from Jerusalem to Jericho and made it a trip from Atlanta to Albany.  He had the guy beat up in Ellaville.   And the man that rescued the victim wasn’t a Samaritan.  Clarence didn’t know any Samaritans and he never met anybody in Sumter County that ever had a single problem with a Samaritan.  It just wasn’t a relevant problem and Clarence thought the story should be relevant.  He knew that his audience had struggled with race and so he changed the story a bit and made the “good” Samaritan a black man.

Here’s what I want you to do.  Make the story relevant.  Take your pew pencils and scratch out the word “priest” and “Levite” and “Samaritan.”  Now, do this in your bulletins, not your pew Bibles.  I don’t want to get a bill from the session for this morning’s lesson.  And think of a person you have had conflict with in your life and make that person the hero of the story.  If this exercise doesn’t make your stomach queasy and your palms sweat, you are not making it relevant enough.  That’s the power of Jesus’ story.   And the next time you have a disagreement, pull this bulletin out and do it again.  If you are a Republican, put in a Democrat as the hero.  If you are a Democrat, put in a Republican as the hero.   Write in whomever you couldn’t imagine spending eternity with because Jesus, says this is how things get worked out in the Kingdom.

I could run down a laundry list of the things that are tearing apart Christians.  You could too:

Creation vs. Evolution

Science and Faith

Belief or disbelief in miracles such as the virgin birth

The existence or nonexistence of hell and a satin devil

How we baptize

How we do communion

Flags in the church

Who we can ordain

What music we should sing

Can we have instruments in the church, if so what kind?

Should we go to war

Capital punishment

Abortion

And on and on.

One of my Facebook friends is a Quaker pastor named  Philip Gulley.  He is the author of the fictional Harmony Series and on February 5^th, his latest book came out called “If the Church were Christian—Rediscovering the Values of Jesus.” As one reviewer said, the chapter titles alone are worth the price of the book. It would make a lively Sunday school class study because even if you don’t agree with everything he says, many of his prescriptions are very helpful.

Among the chapters Gulley penned are:

If the Church Were Christian…

• Affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness
• Reconciliation would be valued over judgment
• Gracious behavior would be more important than right belief
• Inviting questions would be valued more than supplying answers
• Encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity
• Meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions
• Peace would be more important than power

Each one of these chapters could be the source of many good sermons and I’ll save them for another day and leave you with a true “who is my neighbor” story that just came to me from a missionary, named Paul Barner, who serves in the Philippines.  I don’t know if I’m related to Paul, but this story has bowling in it.  Bowling is one of my favorite activities so maybe we are related.  He sends me diary updates each week and this one is called “Do I have to eat this?”

When the 7 Kiwanis Clubs of Davao City offered to take 55 kids from the mission bowling, they decided also to treat them to a free lunch a commemorative t-shirt to remember the event by.

After a delightful morning of bowling built up a sweat for the kids, their stomachs were grumbling big time to be filled.  In front of each child was placed a plate and a piece of crispy fried chicken, rice and Coke from a local restaurant called Jollibee.

The kids dove into their treat…. All but one.  When the Kiwanis president, Ronald asked if there was a problem, the boy asked if he really had to eat the chicken.  “Why is there a problem?” asked Ron.  The other Kiwanians were looking on in curiosity.

“NO problem with the chicken, sir,” replied the child.  “But this is a whole piece… just for me?  This could feed my whole family at home.  Do I have to eat it now, or can I save it so my parents and brothers and sister can eat as well?  We don’t have meat very often.”

One of the Kiwanis directors said, “My heart was so very touched.  I had difficulty swallowing my own meal, thinking that there was an entire family out there which shared the equivalence of what I had just as my own lunch.”

Then her face brightened up.  “We can do more. I KNOW we can do more for these kids!”   The directors put their heads together and decided to sponsor a medical/dental clinic for the mission that summer.

Paul concluded, “It’s amazing how the thoughtfulness of one little boy at lunch time resulted in a blessing that would serve 500 kids and their families this summer.  It reminds me of another little boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fishes, in Jesus’ time!  Both are miraculous workings of God through his peoples’ hearts and lives!”

Be gracious and watch for signs of the people sitting in the pews next to you loving God and loving neighbor.  Bring your friends and inspire others to come by your acts of hospitality worthy of the little boy in the Philippines who had so little but gave so much.

Amen.

¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5.10-12

With this final Beatitude, Jesus transitions from these introductory insights into the Kingdom life to the first imperatives of his Sermon. “Rejoice. Be glad.” The cause for this jubilation? The inevitable revilement — and for some, persecution — that necessarily follows discipleship. Following Jesus naturally puts one at odds with the world’s power brokers. Jesus repeats this theme to his disciples in their final time together before his death:

¹⁸“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

John 15.18-21

I heard somebody say once that Jesus needs better PR. If you’re looking to start a movement, this isn’t how you go about doing it. If you’re going to deliver a manifesto about the true meaning of life — which is what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount — you don’t begin by talking about impoverished spirit, meekness, and martyrdom. But that’s exactly how Jesus begins this seminal teaching. The way of Christ is fraught with peril. For some, it will even cost them their lives. For this very reason, Luke will record two separate encounters in his Gospel where Jesus implores would-be followers to “count the cost” before enlisting (9.57-62; 14.25-35).

Jesus doesn’t mince his words. The way of Christ is the way of the cross. No servant is greater than his master. As they’ve done to Jesus, so too will they do to those who dare follow after Him. This truth calls me to evaluate my own engagement with the world. We used to tell the teens in the youth group, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” In anticipation of what Jesus is about to say next, we might ask: Am I losing my saltiness? Am I shining His light? It is precisely this kind of deep reflection that this final, climactic Beatitude calls for.

But to be even handed, we must also acknowledge the very truth this final Beatitude reveals: that there is in fact a blessing in store for those who choose the path of persecution, rejection, and revilement. By taking up our cross and following Him — even following Him to death, as Thomas once quipped (John 11.16) — we find blessing and joy that He has called us to shine His light into His world.

Clarence Jordan writes:

It seems to me that he said something like this: “Folks, this is it. You think you’ve already been through a lot. You’re just getting started. As you walked up these steps and came into my kingdom, I made it clear to you that you were thereby making an all-out commitment. I charge you now to be faithful to it, cost what it may. But don’t let them scare you or bully you or make you back down. Rejoice that you’ve been counted worthy to be on our side. You’re in a great company of prophets whose glorious past stretches back to the beginning of time and whose future has no end. So go to it. I’m with you.”

As we reflect on our engagement with the world, we dare not lose sight of the fact that our guide along the Way has not abandoned us nor forsaken us. Rather, He is right where He promised to be — with us every step of the way, marching alongside of us, leading the way to the Kingdom, still carrying His cross, imploring us to step where He has faithfully stepped first.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. — Matthew 5.9

We often define peace as an absence of violence. This is not a terrible way to define peace, just an incomplete one. The Hebrews used their word for peace (“shalom”) to describe a state of wholeness and completion. Shalom is about living and living well, both vertically (with God) and horizontally (with others). Jesus has this in mind in Mark 12 when he teaches the two great maxims of life lived well: Love God (Deuteronomy 6) and love others (Leviticus 19).

With his teaching on peacemaking, Jesus appears to be making a politically subversive statement. Residents of first century Palestine were surely aware, as was the rest of the world, of the imperial propaganda with regard to peace, the “Pax Romana” as it has come to be known. Roman peace was the product of power. Assault, conquest, assimilation; this was the imperial formula for peace and a reflection of the sovereign rule of Caesar, a “son of God” in his own right. In contrast, the peace Jesus offers takes the form of powerlessness: turn the other cheek, go the second mile, lay down your own life, take up your cross. Jesus counters the empire’s vision of peace with the peace-producing love of the God He reveals.

But Jesus is also speaking a direct word to the Zealots in his audience, the revolutionaries bent on birthing God’s kingdom reign through militarism. Righteous indignation no doubt fueled the Zealots’ desire to prove that they were the true “sons of God” through armed hostilities. But Jesus will speak the same prophetic word to these brethren. The peace spoken of by the prophets will not be brought about by the sword and “eye for an eye” foreign policy; God’s sovereign peace can only be achieved through revolutionary love and self-sacrifice.

Clarence Jordan clarifies this well:

It is the Father’s nature to make peace. He is called the God of peace. His Son was called the Prince of Peace. Paul says, “He is our peace.” The consuming desire of God seems to have been voiced by the angels at the birth of his Son: “…on earth, peace!”

I write this just a few days removed from two tragedies in our community. Two weeks ago a ninth grade student shot a fellow classmate in the back of the head in the hall of their middle school. Last Friday, a faculty member at a local university murdered three colleagues and critically injured several others. This is where our definition of peace as absence of conflict breaks down. Clearly the weeks and months leading up to these events were devoid of such senseless violence, but for these two shooters, shalom has surely been absent for quite some time. We long for something more: something more than a monastic existence, reading Scripture on some remote mountain top, cut off from the rest of society; and surely something more than the godless humanitarianism that drives many of our celebrity telethon aid-relief campaigns. Deep in our marrow, at the core of our being, we long for each of these spheres — the vertical and the horizontal — to intersect, for things to be right with God and with others. This is the peace, the shalom, of which Jesus speaks. More than that, this is the peace which he lived to reveal, which he died to achieve, which he rose to bequeath to our weary souls.

Dear Liberal Preacher,

Where are all the clergy in the current debates on HEALTH CARE REFORM and the sacramental nature of ALL marriages….gay or straight?  Like where is our backbone!??

Scott

Dear Scott,

Clergy have to make a living.  They have to put food on the table, for themselves and their family if they have a family.  Some Christians say they like for their toes to get stepped on by the preacher during the sermon.  I actually heard a Christian say that today.  It’s not true. 

So preachers like to stick to heaven and hell and psychology sermons.  Typically, the hell remarks aren’t directed to the flock who are “saints.”  Preachers, you might, say preach to the choir.  If sin is preached on it’s the safe sins.

But it’s not just preaching.  Do something Jesus did or said to do and you are out the door.

On the other hand, I know of one preacher at an uppity church who instead of preaching from the pulpit preached in front of the first pew.  This style of preaching didn’t quite fit the socioeconomic image of church members and his marching orders were delivered shortly thereafter.

It doesn’t take much to upset the Christians so preachers tend to lose their backbones.

I don’t say that judgmentally because I’ve got a wife who has a job and I’ve known that if I get kicked out I will be able to eat beans, and I really like beans.

It raises several questions:  Can paid clergy preach prophetic sermons?  Will preachers always be the world’s greatest wasted resource?  Can you be a preacher and not be impotent or gagged?

Another question I have is:  Do we set church up so very little Jesus said to do ever gets done.  We build buildings, which the early church didn’t.  We have to pay for our big buildings.  We need rich people with money to pay for our buildings. Jesus said rich folk have the hardest time understanding and living kingdom of God values.  So……….

Clarence Jordan in his book The Substance of Faith:  Cotton Patch Sermons says, “I preached the word of God in south Georgia, and I didn’t think I would survive the ordeal . . .”

Say a prayer for preachers and churches.

I’m with you, I think health care reform needs to happen and all people, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, should be treated equally.

May the world and churches be filled with more Christians like you!

Chris

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. — Matthew 5.5

The Beatitudes operate on a counter-intuitive level. At first blush, we might wonder if Jesus has missed it on this one. The meek? Inherit the earth? I don’t think so, Jesus. We look around and it doesn’t seem as if the meek are inheriting much of anything. And the earth? It belongs to the power brokers, the ones with clout to throw around and muscle to flex and wealth with which to acquire…qualities that aren’t exactly synonymous with meekness.

It’s an unfortunate association that we often make between the terms “meek” and “weak”. Weakness, of course, implies a lack of power. But meekness is different. Meekness is controlled power. It’s about restraint, submission. There’s an association between meekness and the bridled thoroughbred; the power remains, but it has been harnessed.

In this way, meekness is about not going around doing everything you’re capable of doing simply because you can. If we all went around doing everything we were capable of doing, the result would be anarchy. Take traffic laws, for instance. Do I have the power to disregard stop signs, red lights, speed limit signs? Well, sure. But if we all went around driving this way, there’d be no order. There would be chaos. To drive this way isn’t good for me or anyone else. When we yield our power in that circumstance, we are creating a better society. We all know this to be true.

Why, then, do I find it so difficult to submit myself to the will of God? Why do I continue to white knuckle certain areas of my life, refusing to submit myself fully to God? Why do I think that unrestrained power in another area of my life is any less harmful than it would be on the highway behind the wheel of my truck?

In 2 Kings 2, Elisha has just received a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. How does he use this power? He calls down a pack of wild she-bears to maul 42 children that mock him and call him “baldhead”. There’s simply no way to sugarcoat this story: unrestrained power is a dangerous thing.

2 Samuel 11 tells the same story. Why did David take Bathsheeba? Because he could. Plain and simple. And the story is repeated throughout scripture. Solomon’s uncontrolled passion; Moses striking the rock; Peter striking Malchus. The figures and circumstances change, but the point is the same. Unrestrained power is a very dangerous thing.

We get to Jesus and we realize that it was never about power anyway. With Jesus, it’s about being strong enough to assume powerlessness. That’s the message of the cross. There’s something profound here – that God’s most definitive act in the world was not an act of power, but an act of powerlessness. And by submitting ourselves to His power, we become inheritors of the earth.

From Clarence Jordan:

…a surrendered human will is the agency through which God’s power is released upon the earth. They become God’s “workhorses” on earth. Through them God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven; through them the kingdom of heaven comes to earth. That’s why you can’t stop them. That’s why they “inherit the land,” that is, the promised land or the kingdom. Only the meek, “the terrible meek,” the totally committed meek, are considered worthy of an inheritance in the new land, the kingdom of God on earth.

There is indeed a blessing for those who surrender their will to the will of God.

Luke 1:39-45 (The Cotton Patch Gospels)  Soon after this, Mary quickly packed up and went to a town in the hills of north Georgia. She arrived at the home of Zack Harris and greeted Elizabeth. And do you know what happened? When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb gave a kick. And Elizabeth bubbled over with Holy Spirit and shouted as loud as she could, “Praise the Lord for a woman like you! And praise the Lord for your baby! How did a thing like this ever happen to me—the mother of my Lord coming to me? Because listen here, when the sound of your greeting entered my ears, the baby in my womb kicked for joy. It’s a wonderful woman who has believed that the words spoken to her from the Lord will become a reality.”

Luke 1:46-55 (The Message) And Mary said,
   I’m bursting with God-news;
      I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
      God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
      I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
   What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
      the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
   His mercy flows in wave after wave
      on those who are in awe before him.
   He bared his arm and showed his strength,
      scattered the bluffing braggarts.
   He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
      pulled victims out of the mud.
   The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
      the callous rich were left out in the cold.
   He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
      he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
   It’s exactly what he promised,
      beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Our text this morning gives us back-story on the Hollywood version of Christ’s birth.  Before there were shepherds in the fields abiding; before an angel of the Lord appeared and they were sore afraid; before there was a star or wise men or a wicked, old king; before there was any of that, there were just two women –  two mothers-to-be.  One of them was young and unwed, the other well past the age of child-bearing.  These things made them marginal, if not downright scandalous.  They were the kind of people most societies, including our own, tend to ignore out-of-hand.  And yet, in one of those delicious ironies salted throughout the Bible, these two women raise up the two persons who end up turning their world upside-down.

The younger one, Mary, has just received word from an angel that she will be the mother of God’s special agent, the Christ.  She decides to go visit the home of her cousin, Elizabeth, up in the foothills of Judea, some 80 miles away.  Elizabeth’s husband, Zachariah, was a worker at the temple in Jerusalem.  Not too long before, it was his turn to go into the spookiest part of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to offer a blood sacrifice that would turn God’s wrath away from the people for another year.  When Zachariah came out again, he could no longer speak; he had seen an angel of the Lord in the Holy of Holies, but doubted its word, so the angel struck him dumb until what that messenger of God said would happen – that his wife would have a son – happened.  Shortly after that, Elizabeth discovered she was going to have a baby at an age when such things just don’t happen to a woman.  So Mary decided to visit her cousin, to share her own news and to encourage Elizabeth.

The scene opens with Mary’s arrival.  She greets Elizabeth and, suddenly, the whole thing turns into a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.  Everyone stops what they’re doing while the two main characters let loose with a couple of songs.  First comes Elizabeth’s song, kick-started – quite literally – by the new life inside her doing gymnastics on her bladder.  That somehow clued Elizabeth in to what Mary hadn’t even had a chance to tell her yet.   There was definitely a connection between her baby, who grew up to be John the Baptizer, and Mary’s baby who, as we all know, was born on Christmas day.  Elizabeth’s song, then, starts with a spontaneous “Woo Hoo!” for cousin Mary and the child she would bear.  Of course the implication of what she’d been singing must’ve sunk in pretty quickly because her next line went something like this: “Holy Hannah… you’re gonna be the mother of God’s special agent…  OMG!  And I know you!”  I can just imagine a few squeals between the two of them at that point that would’ve been right at home in the movie, Legally Blonde.  By the way, there’s a subtle dig at Elizabeth’s hapless husband in the last line of her song.  “Thank God, you believed the angel, Mary.”  What went unsaid was, “Unlike certain other people around here!”

Now we get to the set piece, the song that gives the whole scene its meaning.  We call this the Magnificat.  “Magnificat” does not mean a huge pet of the species Felis silvestris, but rather it means “expand” as in, “Let me expand on just how great God is.”  Just as the baby within would soon start expanding, Mary swelled up with song that God is both great and good.  She sang:

      I’m bursting with God-news;
      I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.

Mary’s song, the Magnificat, begins on the theme of undeserved favor, of how mind-blowing it is to be chosen by God.  Elizabeth had touched on that, too: How did a thing like this ever happen to me—the mother of my Lord coming to me?  But if Elizabeth was awed that she had a front-row seat, Mary was absolutely overwhelmed to be the person actually up there on stage.  “Can you imagine it?  God is bringing deliverance… through me, a young person in a society that values age; through me, a woman in a culture where men are the only ones who really count; through me, a single person in a world where marriage is the expectation for adult life.”   

Notice the tone of this Magnificat, this “expanding.”  Like so many of the songs sung by women in scripture, it presents a view of life from the underside, expressing the hope and faith of persons who live at the margins and on the edges of society, always just a hair’s breadth away from total and complete powerlessness.  Mary sang this as a young, unwed mother-to-be, someone whose prospects were not exactly what you would call bright, whose only hope was in the faithfulness of One who delivers the oppressed. 

    What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
      the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
   His mercy flows in wave after wave
      on those who are in awe before him.
   He bared his arm and showed his strength,
      scattered the bluffing braggarts.
   He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
      pulled victims out of the mud.
   The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
      the callous rich were left out in the cold.
   He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
      he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.

Does it strike you as odd that Mary went straight from happiness to vindictiveness in her Magnificat?  She goes from what God has done for me will never be forgotten, straight to [God] scattered the bluffing braggarts [and] knocked tyrants off their high horses.  I suspect it sounds odd to us because we’ve all grown up with a view of ourselves as individuals.  We like to think we are in society voluntarily under a sort of “social compact,” as Voltaire put it.  Yet Mary sensed a deeper truth that what was happening to her was, in some way, actually happening to her people and, indeed, to all people.  Mary may not have been, as we say today, “politically aware,” but she knew that the undeserved favor she had received as a marginal person was a sign of undeserved favor for all marginalized people.  She knew that being chosen to bear the Christ child wasn’t so much a mark of distinction for her as it was a sign of God’s intention for all.

So… what about those oppressors?  Whatever else it may be, the Magnificat is the song of a prophetess, a woman who looked at the world, with all its hurt,  and said, “This is not acceptable;” a woman who, nevertheless, saw God already at work in that world not only knocking tyrants off their high horses, but pulling victims out of the mud.  She saw that God will seat the starving poor when, at the end of the world, everyone comes to the banquet, but that God will leave the callous rich out in the cold.  This is Mary’s God-news and it becomes our good news only so long as we’re not one of the callous rich. 

So I have to ask – I don’t want to, but I have to ask – which of the two must we not be: callous or rich?  You see, I am keenly aware, as are many of you, that compared with most of the 6.8 billion people alive today, I am rich, even though I never feel like it.  And another thing I realize is that being callous can be as simple as not paying attention to what is going on with those other six billion plus lives.  And whenever I consider my situation, whether as a “rich” or as a “callous” person, it comes to my mind that, according to Mary’s song, Christmas may just be the end of the world for me, or at least the end of the world as I have known it. 

For example, I read somewhere that, given our current technology and population, it will not be possible for everyone in the world to have the same standard of living you and I currently enjoy.  The resources for it are simply not there.  That puts us in the position of either choosing to live simply so others may simply live or choosing to turn a blind eye to the misery of people for whom Christ died.  Either way, Christmas spells the end of the world for us, but… and here is the good news for all… Christmas isn’t just the end of the world for anyone.

 Christmas is the beginning of a whole new world, a better world, a Magnificat world in which “God will dwell with us and be our God, and we shall be God’s people.”  Christmas is the beginning of a world where “God will wipe away our tears, dispel our doubt, remove our fears, and lead us out[; where] God will heal the broken-hearted, open the eyes of the blind, release the captives, preach the good news to the poor, and usher in the acceptable year of the Lord.”  This Christmas let us work and pray for a world in which “God will bulldoze the mountains and fill the valleys, … make the rough places smooth and the crooked ways straight [and] stand all people [up] on their feet so that all humankind may see God’s glory together.”[1]  Amen and amen.

1. Richard Stearns – The Hole in our Gospel

Stearns, a former corporate CEO and current President of World Vision argues for a holistic gospel that most evangelical Christians fail to emphasize, a gospel of good news for the poor, the orphaned, and the forgotten. By asking the question “What does God expect of us?”, Stearns presents a whole gospel that moves us beyond altar call “pie in the sky by and by” forms of Christianity to a vibrant engagement with the world to bring the Kingdom of God to the here and now. No other book I read this year ate my lunch more than this one; even more, no book prompted me to take action in the name of Christ quite like The Hole in our Gospel. Reader beware.

2. Rob Bell – Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Bell has a real gift for situating the Old Testament’s story of Israel in a way that has relevance and resonance for today. But he also writes a word to challenge today’s church to answer the call to be a light to the world, to actively participate in the ministry of Jesus to bring healing to the nations. He also does a great job of articulating the New Exodus theme that is woven throughout the Biblical narrative. A great read.

3. Eugene Peterson – The Jesus Way

I’ve been reading Peterson’s series on spiritual theology for a couple of years now, so it’s no surprise that this text — his examination on the way in which Jesus is “the Way” — makes my list. Peterson has such a gift for language, but his exegetical prowess is also considerable; I found his contextualization of several key OT figures (Abraham, Elijah, Isaiah, etc.) to be incredibly insightful.

4. Steve Stockman – Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2

I’ve long been drawn to the music of U2. The simmering spirituality of “Where the Streets Have No Name”; the existential angst of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”; the boundless hope of “Walk On” — U2 has a way of blurring the traditional demarcations of sacred and secular. Stockman, writing as a fan on behalf of fans, peels back the music and lyrics to take his readers to a deeper place, the bedrock convictions that drive both Bono’s social activism and the band’s demonstration of “market place faith”. I read this one in anticipation of the concert in October; even though I didn’t make it to the show, this was still a great read.

5. Clarence Jordan – The Sermon on the Mount

I’ve read several great texts on the Sermon on the Mount this year (including a re-read of Glen Stassen’s excellent commentary Living the Sermon on the Mount), but Jordan’s simple, concise material has been absolutely incredible. His scholarship is only enhanced by his ethos; I know Jordan lived what he preached. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff.

6. George Robinson - Essential Judaism

I’ve long been fascinated by the Hebrew scriptures and customs. This year, I set out to immerse myself in a deeper understanding of the Jewish faith, both ancient and contemporary. This text was a fascinating read that gave me a greater sense of appreciation for the customs, rituals, beliefs, and narratives of the Jewish faith.

7. Donald Miller – Searching for God Knows What

I picked this one off my shelf a week ago, thinking I’d read it a few years ago. Turns out I was wrong; I’ve never read it. I did read Blue Like Jazz a few years back and loved it, but somehow I missed this one entirely. Miller just has a way of communicating that really resonates with me.

8. Randy Harris – God Work

Harris, professor of theology and ethics at Abilene Christian University, was one of my teachers in my undergraduate days at Lipscomb. Known throughout churches of Christ for his quick wit and a gift for thoughtful expression, Harris has collected some of his more recent sermons / teachings in written form under the title God Work. The attempt to make theology accessible to the masses is one that I deeply appreciate. I couldn’t help but both laugh and reflect as I read this great little book.

9. Joseph J. Ellis – Founding Brothers

I’ve become something of an American history nut in the past year or two, so it was no surprise that I was able to devour Ellis’ examination of the ordinariness of the interconnections between the extraordinary men of the Revolutionary period: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, Burr, Franklin. Ellis has a gift for taking these mythical, historic figures from our collective consciousness and making them imminently human to us. If you love American history, you’ll love this book.

10. N.T. Wright – Simply Christian (re-read; originally read in 2006)

I put the re-reads here so as to distinguish between the “first timers”. This is sure to go down as one of this decade’s classic Christian texts. Wright does away with the “insider language” that corrupts so much of Christendom’s jargon and expresses the faith in beautifully evocative terms. This would be a great book to offer a seeker looking for an explanation of Christian faith and doctrine. Simple, concise, profound…Wright has given us a treasure in Simply Christian.

11. Sam Walker – Fantasyland (re-read; originally read in 2006)

Each summer, I read a baseball-related book. This year, I decided to re-read one of my favorites from a few years back, Fantasyland. To say this is a baseball book, though, is something of a misnomer; it’s actually a fantasy baseball book. The only thing geekier than playing fantasy baseball is reading books about fantasy baseball. Or re-reading them. Anyway, it was just as lively, hilarious, and endearing the second time around as it was back in 2006 when I first read it.

12. Eugene Peterson – Christ Plays in 10,000 Places (re-read; originally read in 2008)

It says something that as soon as I finished this text, I flipped back to the first page and instantly began re-reading it. Peterson’s book makes my ’09 list for myriad reasons: his eloquent articulation, his detailed exegesis of some of Scripture’s paradigmatic texts (Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, John, Mark, Luke / Acts), and the anecdotal material he deftly weaves into his writing. But what I most appreciated about this work was its pastoral tone. It really blessed me at a time when I needed it the most. And that’s the norm, rather than the exception, when I read Peterson.

It is hoped that a less well-known part of the story will also be covered: the story of Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm. If you visit the Koinonia site today, this is the introduction you find:

We join with the nation and friends all around the world as we mourn the loss of Millard Fuller, a great pillar of our time. He will be buried today here at the farm at 11 a.m., with the memorial service to follow later in the month.

Millard came to Koinonia in the early 1960s at a crucial time in his life and his marriage. He immediately became good friends with our founder Clarence Jordan. He often said that he learned most everything from Clarence while sitting across from him, helping to milk the farm’s cows.

Together with Clarence and our neighbors, Millard started Partnership Housing, which grew up to be Habitat for Humanity International. In 2005, at the age of 70, Millard and Linda founded Fuller Center for Housing to continue working to provide adequate housing for the world’s poor.

Millard wanted to be buried in the same manner as was his spiritual mentor and friend Clarence. So, like our founder Clarence, Millard will be buried on Picnic Hill in a shipping crate with no significant marker for his grave.

Who is Clarence Jordan?

The New Georgia Encyclopedia describes Clarence Jordan
(1912-1969):

A white Southern Baptist minister, co-founded Koinonia Farm in Sumter County and translated many New Testament books into the “Cotton Patch” versions, colloquial interpretations set in the American South. Jordan committed his ministry to racial reconciliation and economic justice. A gifted preacher and teacher, he was a popular and frequent speaker at progressive religious gatherings across the United States from the 1940s through the 1960s.…

Jordan decided to incorporate his agricultural training into his ministry and established Koinonia Farm as a Christian community in which members pooled their resources into a common treasury and treated all persons as equals, regardless of race or class. Koinonia taught local farmers, black and white, advanced farming techniques to increase production and profit in an effort to break the cycle of poverty that trapped so many local families….

The farm’s racially integrated working and living environment also invited such severe violence, prosecution, and economic boycott during the Jim Crow era of the 1950s that the community became nearly dormant. In 1968 Koinonia Farm reincorporated as Koinonia Partners and launched an ambitious but pragmatic low-cost, interest-free house-building program that eventually evolved into Habitat for Humanity.

What is the Cotton Patch Gospel?

In all of the complex history of English-language translations of the Bible, few reach the relevance of Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch Gospel. This was more than just writing in a regional vernacular. Setting the Gospel in the South placed the Christian story in his own home, which he loved, and which he understood was a place that needed to hear the story with fresh ears.

Here is part of the Nativity story from the Cotton Patch Gospel, this from the book called Jesus’ Doings (aka Luke):

Chapter 2

It happened in those days that a proclamation went out from President Augustus that every citizen must register. This was the first registration while Quirinius was Secretary of War. So everybody went to register, each going to his own home town. Joseph too went up from south Georgia from the city of Valdosta, to his home in north Georgia, a place named Gainesville, to register with his bride Mary, who by now was heavily pregnant.

While they were there, her time came, and she gave birth to her first boy. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in an apple box. (There was no room for them at the hospital.)

Now there were some farmers in that section who were up late at night tending their baby chicks. And a messenger from the Lord appeared to them, and evidence of the Lord was shining all about them. It nearly scared the life out of them. And the messenger said to them, “Don’t be afraid; for listen, I’m bringing you good news of a great joy in which all people will share. Today your deliverer was born in the city of David’s family. He is the Leader. He is the Lord. And here’s a clue for you: you will find the baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in an apple box.

Read the Cotton Patch Gospel online.

See information about the documentary Briars in the Cotton Patch: The Story of Koinonia Farm.

A Biblical scholar and a prophetic man of action, Clarence Jordan lived out the New Testament in the soil of rural Georgia. A visionary during the struggle for the civil rights of all God’s children, Jordan and his wife Florence co-founded in 1942 an inter-racial and income sharing community in the Sumter County town of Americus. They named the community Koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship or communion.

On the farm, which Jordan described as “a demonstration plot for the kingdom of God”, white and black families worked side-by-side to make a living, following Jesus. The residents of Koinonia experienced a great deal of opposition, persecution and violence (bombings, shootings and beatings) from other Christians who professed to worship the same Lord.

Despite these obstacles, Koinonia continued to flourish as a living symbol of social change, even becoming the birthplace for the internationally renowned organization Habitat for Humanity. The community exists today as Koinonia Partners, a Christian organization that provides assistance to rural neighborhoods in Sumter through mission work that strengthens families and empowers the community.

Clarence Jordan, who died unexpectedly in October 1969, was a powerful preacher who wrote his own version of the scripture for his sermons because he wanted to take the text out of the “long ago and far away” and place it in the “here and now”.  Jordan’s version of the New Testament, The Cotton Patch Gospel-which is planted in the cotton fields of Georgia and the South instead of ancient Palestine-still speaks loudly today as it did 60 years ago.

So I invite you to listen again to Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus’ parable of the “Laborers in the Vineyard” this time as it is told by Clarence Jordan:

“The God Movement is like a farmer who went out early in the morning to hire some field workers. Having settled on a wage of ten dollars a day, he sent them into the cotton field. Then about nine he went to town and saw others standing around idle. So he said to them, ‘Y’all go on out to the fields, and I’ll pay you what’s right.’ And they went. He did the same thing about noon, and again around three. Then about an hour before quitting time, he saw some others just hanging around. ‘Why have y’all been knocking around here all day doing nothing?’ he asked. ‘Because nobody has hired us,’ they answered. ‘Okay, then y’all can go out to the cotton fields too,’ he said.

At the end of the day the farmer said to his field boss, ‘Call the workers and pay them off, starting with those who came last and continuing to the first ones.’ Well, those who came an hour before quitting time were called up and were each paid ten dollars. Now those who got there first thing in the morning supposed that they would get much more, but when they were paid off, they too got ten dollars.

At that, they raised a squawk against the farmer. ‘These latecomers didn’t put in but one hour, and you’ve done the same by them as you did by us who stood in the hot sun and the scorching wind.’ But the farmer said to one of them, ‘Listen, buddy, I haven’t mistreated you. Didn’t you and I settle on ten dollars a day? Now pick up your pay and run along. I’m determined to give this last fellow exactly the same as you. Isn’t it okay for me to do as I please with what’s mine? Or are you bellyaching simply because I’ve been generous?’ That’s the way it is: Those on the bottom will be on top, and those on top will be on the bottom.”

This parable that Jesus tells has always been both difficult to hear and preach.  The message is just as challenging for those of us gathered here on this cool November morning as it was for the folks who sat listening to Jesus on the warm sandy ground of ancient Judea.

I worried all week about how a sermon on this parable of the “Laborers in the Vineyard” might be perceived in the current economical and political climate, especially if you know or have a good guess of who I voted for in the recent presidential election.  With concepts like socialism and redistribution of wealth and government intervention swirling around, it would be easy to immediately associate the parable, the sermon and the preacher with “radical leftist propaganda” that has no place in the church or society.

This parable is most definitely not a message about socialist doctrine or Democratic economic policies or government regulation.  The parable is also not a morality tale about border laws and the intense debate over illegal immigration.

Rather, this parable is about something much more important and bigger than the stubborn held political beliefs and economic theories that divide us.

And I can assure you, that political ideology is not my motivation for preaching on this parable.  Instead, my inspiration comes from God’s Spirit and a call to preach on a story that can speak to the depths of our hearts about the practice of giving and sharing in this post Stewardship season.

With Wall Street on a downward spiral and corporate America slashing jobs left and right, the mere mention of money these days causes much anxiety and frustration. Even good intentioned requests of money through church pledge cards and offering plates is enough to make members squirm in their seats.

Discerning how we should give and share with others seems unreasonable when there is plenty of worry that there may not be enough resources for our own survival.  And it seems extremely offensive to be asked to give and share with those who don’t deserve a reward, whatever the reason, much less hear a parable on the topic.

Author and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor once noted in a sermon: “The parable of the ‘Laborers in the Vineyard’ is a little like cod liver oil: You know Jesus is right, you know it must be good for you, but that does not make it any easier to swallow…the parable is one of those stories of forgiveness so radical that it offends, because it seems to reward those who have done the least while it sends those who have worked the hardest to the end of the line.”

The last will be first and the first will be last.

Those on the bottom will be on top, and those on top will be on the bottom.

A difficult message.

A shocking message.

A confrontational message.

A  Jesus message.

A message in which Jesus, says Barbara Brown Taylor, is “scrambling the usual order of things, challenging the sacred assumption by which most of us live our lives, namely, that the front of the line is the place to be, that the way to win God’s attention is to be the best person, the hardest worker, the first one in the vineyard in the morning and the last one to leave at night.”

The last will be first and the first will be last.

Those on the bottom will be on top, and those on top will be on the bottom.

Jesus says these things in the midst of two key events in his ministry-one has happened and one is coming next-that will turn the whole world and life as we know it upside down!

Prior to the telling of this parable, a young rich man walks sadly away from Jesus and the disciples because he has just learned that he can’t be a follower unless he sells all of his possessions and gives all his money to the poor.  Peter then says to Jesus, “Look, we (unlike that other guy) have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”  Jesus promises the disciples 12 thrones in the world to come and then adds, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Then Jesus tells the parable that is the subject of this morning’s sermon. Afterwards the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons the best thrones in the kingdom, one on his left and one on his right.  Jesus politely denies the request and explains that his throne will not be a luxurious gold plated seat embedded with jewels, but a simple wooden cross with nails. The disciples, however, have overheard the mother’s request and they become angry at James and John. They all start arguing over who deserves the best thrones in the kingdom.  But Jesus stops them by saying, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.”

The last will be first and the first will be last.

Those on the bottom will be on top, and those on top will be on the bottom.

That is the message and ministry of Jesus.  The purpose of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is not about the establishment of a kingdom and world where the most deserving get all of the power and glory.  The purpose of Jesus-of what God does in and through him–is to create a kingdom community where all people share in the power and glory of God together, forever. And the first to receive that power and glory will be the ones who the world believes are the least deserving…the ones who are pushed out and left alone on the margins of society… the ones who are last.

It doesn’t seem fair to our daily experience of living in this world, does it?  Life is about rewarding those who do the best and work the hardest.  That is what’s fair. Rewarding or treating everyone the same is not fair, right?

Your boss gives everyone the same salary raise even though you think you deserve a bit more because you came in early, left late and took shorter lunch breaks, unlike other employees who did much less work.

Your sibling gets the same amount of toys as you do for Christmas even though you know you deserve more because you weren’t nearly as bad this year as your sister.

Your deceased relative leaves you and your lazy, irresponsible out- of-work cousin a fifty-fifty split of the inheritance even though you feel you deserve more since you left your job and home in another state to take care of Aunt Petunia for a month.

Your math teacher gives free candy to the entire class for passing the exam even though you are certain you deserve more because you studied extra hard to be the only student to get a 100 percent.

Perhaps these examples remind you of situations in your life, or maybe you’ve  experienced something similar to that of the character of Stu Simmons in the 1994 film The War.  The movie is about the relationship between a father and a son.  Stephen, the father, is a damaged Vietnam vet who, because of the violence he witnessed in war, tries to teach his tough and stubborn son about fairness. In this scene, Stu and his father are at a county auction and fair when the large crowds cause the two to get separated.  While looking for his dad, Stu encounters the Lipniki kids who live with their dad in the old junkyard and are known for their bullying and terrorizing of folks in the community:

Like Stu, the laborers who had been working in the vineyard since dawn believe that the other workers are getting a reward they don’t deserve. They are angry that the landowner is paying them the same wages as the crew of workers who showed up a half hour before quitting time:  ”We’ve been here since the crack of dawn! And you’re paying us the exact same wage you paid the crew that just showed up. We deserve more than they do. We’ve been slogging in the heat of the sun all day-these others haven’t worked nearly as hard as we have!”

The landowner listens to the protests and says to them, “Friend, no one has been wronged here today. This isn’t about what you deserve…Do you think I don’t have the right to dispose of my money as I wish? Or does my generosity prick at you?…Quit your bellyaching!”

This isn’t about what you deserve.

Deserve. De-serve.  Not to be served.

This isn’t about deserving.  This isn’t about what one gets. It’s about serving.  It’s about what one gives to others.  That’s the point of the parable which is told in between two events where those who wish to follow Jesus believe they deserve a certain place beside him.

To serve or deserve.  Not who deserves the most because of the amount of labor they did or the quality of their work or service.  But all are served regardless of how much they do or how well they do it.

You see if we focus on the number of hours each set of laborers worked in the vineyard, we become tangled in vines. We become tightly bound by prideful and arrogant notions that the most deserving is the one who works the hardest and longest.  And when we become tangled in the vines of selflessness, we miss the beautiful, luscious ripe grape that’s at the heart of the story.

But here it is:  The parable is about God’s generosity. It’s about God generously serving everyone with a big ole plate of grace!

The gift of grace is an invitation to each and every one of us to be a part of something that is bigger than our selves-the fellowship, the koinonia, of God.

The landowner invited the laborers who are waiting for the opportunity to work together, to be a part of the fellowship of his vineyard.  Five times he went to the market to invite the laborers; he invited them again and again and again.  The landowner’s generosity was overflowing.

Clarence and Florence Jordan invited white and black families who were waiting for the opportunity to work together, to be a part of the fellowship of their farm.  They made several trips into the area towns to invite folks of both races again and again and again.  The Jordan’s’ generosity was overflowing.

God invites us who are waiting for the opportunity to work together, to be a part of the fellowship of God’s kingdom.  God continually comes to us, dwells among us, and invites us again and again and again.  God’s generosity is overflowing.

And God invites not the ones who are more deserving but the ones who are serving.  Each of us is called to serve that grace to others in the name of Christ the suffering servant whose life, death and resurrection makes the gift available to all.

As Clarence Jordan reminds us in a sermon preached decades ago:

“The full-time workers forget that they too had benefited from the employer’s generosity when they were first given jobs. Thus we see that the grace of God is meant to be comforting, but it may be discomforting as well. It demands that we receive it as grace, remember it as grace, and grant to others equal access…When we resent God’s generosity to others, we undermine and refuse the grace that comes to us.”

The last will be first and the first will be last.

Those on the bottom will be on top, and those on top will be on the bottom.

Everyone from last to first and bottom to top will receive the generous gift of grace from God.

And because we don’t deserve the gift, is all the more reason we are called to serve it.

Amen.

Resources:

• The Gospel of Matthew text was read from a new translation “The Voice” a 21^st century scripture project by scholars, pastors, writers, musicians and poets, October 2008
• “The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew” by Barbara Brown Taylor, 2004
• “Cotton Patch Parables of Liberation” by Clarence Jordan and Bill Lane Doulos, 1976
• The War starring Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood, 1994

Exodus 3: 1-15  (The Message)

I want to begin by saying how much I appreciate and feel honored to be invited to share the message this morning.

If you are like me, and have trouble remembering names it might be helpful if I re-introduce our family… this is my wife Cori and our sons Levi and Luke and our daughter Grace.  Cori says that you can remember Levi is the oldest by thinking about the Old Testament.  Luke is in the New Testament.  He is the youngest.  And if you think of song “Amazing Grace” you’ve got it.

Cori and I both work with the Fuller Center for Housing.  Cori works on writing and editing publications and my job is to start new groups in the US and Canada.  I’m happy to report that our young ministry that started in the spring of 2005 is now approaching the 50th signed group which we call Covenant Partners.  This week we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship committing to partner with their congregations.  The Mennonite Foundation is managing our planned giving program.  We are working with Lutherans, Catholics, Independents and even Presbyterians so I’m pleased to be able to report to you that the Fuller Center for Housing ministry is truly continuing on in the rich ecumenical traditions of Habitat for Humanity.

Today I’ll be sharing some stories of Presbyterians who have been inspirational in my life and our work.  It would have been hard for me not to be influenced by Presbyterians because both of my parents are Presbyterians pastors.  My sister Kristen also earned a Masters of Divinity from our Presbyterian seminary and she is now serving as associate pastor at a United Church of Christ church in Phoenix, Arizona.

Still, it is humbling to fill in for Allan… his sermons are so rich, well researched and insightful.  I could have guessed that he went to Princeton just by his great preaching. I teased him a little this week by letting him know that Pittsburgh Theological Seminary was founded in 1792, but the younger “PTS,” Princeton, wasn’t established until 1812.

Let’s take a look at this great story of Moses and the burning bush.

This story is so important to our denominational history that it was added to the seal of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The General Assembly website, in describing many different symbols drawn into the logo states, “The flames themselves convey a double meaning: as symbol of the revelation in the Old Testament when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush and a suggestion of the beginning of the Christian church when Christ manifested himself to his apostles at Pentecost and charged them to be messengers of the good news of God’s love.”

So in this week’s lesson we find Moses, a sheep farmer tending his father-in-law Jethro’s flock.  That’s pretty humble beginnings for the leader of God’s liberation movement and I don’t think this fact would have been lost on Jesus when he was selecting his disciples.

How did Moses get to be a hired hand in his wife’s daddy’s business?   Remember Moses was born at the unfortunate time when a new King came into power in Egypt – a king “who didn’t know Joseph” it says in Chapter 1.  This indicates that for a time there was some racial tolerance between the Egyptians and the sons of Abraham.  But this new king looked around and realized that the Israelites were having a lot of children.  From a slaveholder’s perspective, that would be too many to handle.  Who knows – they might join our enemies or “just walk off and leave us.”

So the king organized a campaign of oppression forcing the Israelites into slavery and hard, back-breaking labor in the fields.  In spite of the king’s attempt to crush the Israelites, they kept having babies.  There were children everywhere!

And when the harsh labor didn’t slow down the number of babies being born, the king of Egypt started a campaign of male “gendercide” against the Israelites.  You remember the story.  A young couple from the family of Levi tried to hide their baby boy from the King’s henchman and one of Pharaoh’s daughters, knowing that she found a Hebrew boy, rescued the baby boy and named him Moses, which means “pulled out,” saying, “I pulled him out of the water.”  In antiquity, it was believed that a person’s self was concentrated in his name.  So the name Moses name is symbolic of “being rescued.”

Moses was raised in Egypt but he kept his identity as a Hebrew.  As a grown man, he saw the torturous slave work his brothers were being forced to do.  One day he saw an Egyptian task master beat one of his Hebrew relatives.  Moses was so infuriated, that after making sure no one was looking, he killed the Egyptian.  Then he tried to hide the murder by burying the body in the sand.  But word got around, and Pharaoh put a price on his head. Moses had to flee.  He ran to hide in the land of Midian.

While on the run, Moses was resting by a well one day and he saw shepherds harassing some women who were trying to water their sheep.  Moses intervened and chased off the men and helped these women give their flock some water.

Their father Jethro was so impressed that he invited this stranger Moses to supper, although he probably did not know that Moses was a murderer on the run.  One thing led to another, as it often does with young people, and Moses not only settled down in Midian, but he married Jethro’s daughter, Zipporah.  They had a baby named Gershom, which means “sojourner,” saying, “I’m a sojourner in a foreign country.”

So that sets the scene.  You have a man that has a troubling past who demonstrated that he has a pattern for getting angry when he sees injustice.  He was living like a refugee.  And twice he escaped his own death, once as a baby and once after he killed a slave master.   As a stranger, with some really limited career options he is working for his father-in-law’s business.  Maybe this is why God had to do something very dramatic to get his attention.

Our reading begins with Moses watching over the sheep on Mount Horeb.

All of a sudden…Moses comes upon a burning bush.  He thinks… well that’s really weird… the bush isn’t burning up!  I’ve got to check this out.”

“MOSES!  MOSES!” God cries out from the bush.  And because Tom has our Sunday School class watching the movie Evan Almighty, I’m sure the voice sounded just like Morgan Freeman.

“DON’T COME ANY CLOSER… TAKE OF YOUR SANDLES… YOU ARE  STANDING ON HOLY GROUND.”

I want to pause here a second… because I learned something about sheep farms.  Several years ago, our family was struggling financially.  A friend from church decided to help us out by letting us rent their old farm house in small town called Broadway, Virginia.  While the house was drafty and leaked every time we got a big rain, the rent was cheap and we were given a chance to get on our feet financially.  It was a beautiful location, and we yes, we were surrounded by sheep.

Now when we think of holy ground, we might do a mental journey to a nice church building; maybe a temple, perhaps a mosque or a pristine cathedral with spiraling towers reaching up to the heavens.

And normally when we are told to take off our shoes it is so that we don’t track dirt and mud in to a nicely furnished house or building.  Indeed it was customary in those days to take off one’s sandals before entering a holy place.

But a sheep farm is probably the last thing we might think of as holy and certainly it is not a place that you would want to go in bare feet.  There are thorns and ticks and piles and piles of … well… sheep fertilizer with flies buzzing.  Yuck!

There are so many angles to this rich story we could look at.  This is the first time we learn the name of God: “I Am who I AM.”  “Yahweh,” which can be translated “He causes to be” with the emphasis on God’s action and presence in historical affairs.

We could look at the burning bush.  I love to think of God sending this poetic symbol to us through the burning bush.  He says, “I’ve provided you with more fuel then you can ever consume in my Kingdom movement.”

We could spend time looking at Moses’ question, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”  As we have seen, this is more than a question of competence and a perception of a lack of leadership skills.  Moses saw in himself as a slave who committed murder, living a life no better than a lowly hired hand.

But God saw things differently.  He saw the potential in Moses.  God intervened in his life to save him as an infant and then as a young man gave him a successful trial as a runaway slave surviving in the wilderness, without any job, without any food without any money….without any dignity…or so it seemed.  God knew that indeed Moses had some dignity because you have to have some sense of self worth to stand up to injustice, stand up for freedom.  God knew that deep in the soul of Moses there was a voice that could cry out, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”  God knew that he could take a murderer and use him as the voice of community order commanding, “THOU SHALL NOT KILL!”

Moses didn’t see it at the time but God did.  And God knew he had to get his attention.

But the question I want to you to leave with this morning is “How do we know when we are on holy ground?”  After all, if God is the creator of the whole earth what makes one place sacred and another place profane?  Sacred over here and over here…. not so much over there.

As I’ve thought about it, I can think of three clues to the answer:

1. In the life of Moses, we see that God can turn the worst messes around for the purposes of advancing the Kingdom of God.  Troubled places can become holy ground.  Think about that for a moment… we have to begin with a mess, with sinners and situations that make us very uncomfortable.  Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

2. What makes a place holy is not that it is set apart from other locations…. a building doesn’t become a “sanctuary” because of its beautiful stained glass windows and fancy woodwork.

Rabbi Brad Artson argues that what makes a site holy has more to do with what we do and the meaning we can focus into a particular moment or ritual.

In reference to Mt. Horeb, he writes, “The sanctity of that site derives from what God and Moses do there, not from the nature of the place itself.”

It is all about a call to action.  So the lesson is, God can take an old messy sheep farm or maybe an old slum neighborhood and declare it to be “holy ground.”  In fact, it is more than just a call to action… it is a specific action that is an act of worship… take off your sandals… why?

We should take off our sandals in response to God who says, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people and I have heard their prayers and cries for deliverance… I know their pain and I’ve come down to help them… at this place and in this time… I’m going to lead them on a journey to a good place to live, with plenty of work and food to raise their families…. It will be a land flowing with milk and honey.

3. And the third clue that a place is holy ground is that it is there, on that particular site that God promises to release the resources necessary to get the job done.  Like a burning bush that can not be consumed by the fire, God has created all the resources necessary to build the kingdom and liberate us from whatever bonds of slavery we are dealing with.  Do you feel called to work on hunger issues?  God has given this planet enough food.  You want to work on housing?  God has given us enough building materials, sand and mortar.  This is a lesson right out of the loves and fishes sermon series Alan has preached on during the past few Sundays.

1988, I found myself in a little community in the mountains of West Virginia.  My dad was serving four small Presbyterian chapels and we lived in a town called Circleville with a population of 76.  The county only had 11 people per square mile.  And there were a lot of sheep farms.

Circleville, WV 1988, Pop. 76

Just out of college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with life so I accepted a job with Dad’s congregations working with the Synod of the Virginias Presbyterian bible camps.  I would go and visit the youth of the county, whether they were Presbyterian or not, and ask if they wanted to go to a week of summer camp for free.  I’d work with their parents to get them registered for the scholarships and then on Sundays, I’d drive them several hours in the church van and drop them off at camp.  I picked them up on Saturdays. The next day, I’d start the process over again with a new group of students.

It was an experience of culture shock for many of the children who had never been out of the hills and hollers of their county.  It was also a culture shock for me.  I had never met so many people living in such pitiful conditions.  I couldn’t believe this was the America I grew up in.

One day that summer, the phone rang.  It was Reverend John Earl, a family friend.  John had just accepted a call moving him from West Virginia to Avondale Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC where he still serves today some 20 years later.  John, said, “In my new church I have a youth group that is really good at going on beach trips and ski trips.  I’d like to get them a little more mission oriented.  Could you find us a house to work on?”

My father replied,” Johnny, Kirk just visited a house that is so bad and the situation is so tough that it will get mission work out of your system.”

I described the family’s situation.  They lived at the end of a dirt road that the locals all called “Snuff Street.”  It was named this because the women had a penchant for chewing tobacco, or snuff.  It was way up in the holler… near the highest point in the state, Spruce Knob.  There were 14 people, three generations, all living in a house with holes in the floor, broken windows, a leaky roof, no plumbing and an outhouse that was filled up and overflowing.  On more than one occasion due to the lack of plumbing and the lack of personal hygiene the children’s body odor was so bad that their teachers sent them out of the classroom.  The children’s mother was mentally handicapped and the matriarchal grandmother ran off any social workers who came by to lend a hand, so the teachers begged us for clothing from the church pantry.  I told John that because of the successful participation of the children in the summer bible school program, I was pretty sure the family would let his youth group work on the house.  But there were no guarantees.

Our first project with Almost Heaven Habitat

The Charlotte youth group came and it was a very meaningful and emotional week for all.  21 broken windows were repaired, a new kitchen floor was put down and we replaced their outhouse.  The Avondale students bought new clothes and new shoes for Timmy and Jimmy and I stored them so they would have them for the first day of school that fall.

I hadn’t been to seminary yet so it didn’t dawn on me to think of Snuff Street or any part of beautiful Pendleton County as holy ground.  But when I moved to Pittsburgh that fall to start classes I couldn’t get the experience of helping that family out of my mind.

A friend told me that I had to go hear a speaker who was coming the first month of school.  His name was Millard Fuller.  Needless to say, I attended Millard’s lecture and set about organizing what became Almost Heaven Habitat for Humanity.  I remember that fall well and how often my mind was racing with ideas about how to help the children and their families whom I had met that summer.

I was like a sponge.  I studied everything I could about Clarence Jordan and every speech I could get my hands on by Millard Fuller.  The four hour drive between Pittsburgh and Pendleton County was never a burden because listening to their sermons on tape; I was beginning to learn that our mountain community in WV could indeed become holy ground.

As people learned about the newly formed Almost Heaven Habitat, they were eager to help.  Volunteers came from all over the country.  Rev. Don Ed was serving a Presbyterian church north of Pittsburgh.  He called and said, “Kirk, our church is too rich.”  I said, “What do you mean by that?”  “We just bought our pastor a brand new Lincoln Continental as an anniversary present.”  I said, “I think I can help you out.”    After a few meetings, the church sent me a check large enough to purchase all the building materials necessary to build a whole house and then they sent 75 volunteers down and they finished it in a week.  Take your sandals off.  This is holy ground.

The first new house was built in one week!

During those years, not only was I falling in love with West Virginia, I was also falling in love with Sumter County and Americus.  Back then I drew inspiration from your community and that hasn’t diminished one bit 20 years later.   I have to admit, although it seems funny now, Cori and I actually visited Americus on our honeymoon and took some building supplies back with us.  The teachings of Clarence Jordan and Millard Fuller gave not only meaning and purpose to my life; I started to understand how God works in peoples lives.  The success of Habitat and how its community-based ministries were being replicated all over the world amazed me.  And I came to realize that God may not always communicate through burning bushes but God is always communicating through what Squire Rushnell calls “God winks,” those amazing coincidences that bring people together for Kingdom purposes.

Never did I understand this more clearly than late one spring in 1991 when one of our Habitat board members asked me to go visit the “home” of Billy and Peg Warner.  They were living in a school bus.  Though Billy had been permanently disabled in a coal car accident, he was trying to build a house for his family using logs he cut from his own property.  Billy was a proud man and wouldn’t take help from anybody.  His brothers were each carpenters and built beautiful hand-made furniture, but Billy wouldn’t let them help.  He wouldn’t let us help either, until I explained the Habitat model to him.  Since it wasn’t a hand-out, it was ok with him.

I was pleased he would accept our offer of help and looked forward to the board approving his application.  Not only did they approve the project, they fast-tracked it.  “Get that family out of the school bus and into their new home before the first snowfall.”  It was June.  We had two unfunded projects started and no one in our community knew how to build a log house!  “Who am I to go to Pharaoh?  Who do you think I am…Millard Fuller?  How am I supposed to get this done?”  The board said, “Don’t worry – God will provide.”

I didn’t know what to tell Billy.  I was thrilled he was approved, but I didn’t want to get his hopes up too high that we could complete the work that year.  I left the board meeting and went home worried about what to do.

I had just poured myself a bowl of cereal when the phone rang.  “Hi, my name is Larry Kraus.  I live in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.  You don’t know me, but I heard your community hosts work camps.  I’m a log home builder and my church has raised some money.  Do you have any projects we could work on?”

Billy Warner's family lived in this bus

God sent an angel to call me that day.  Billy’s family moved into their log home quite literally as the first flurries of winter started to fall from the sky.

We are called as a church community to engage in missions and to join God by helping God’s people in need.

And if you respond to your church’s call and show up at the project, the food pantry, the voter registration, the construction site, and you find that God is adding fuel to the fire, and the volunteers are inspired and motivated to help their neighbors….

You had better take off your sandals.  Not because we have to keep the dirt out,

But because it is hard to put on work boots if you are wearing sandals.

Friends, we still have a lot of work to do.  May God keep the flame burning in each of our lives.

Volunteer Center - Pendleton County, West Virginia

By Mark Sampson,

At the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama boldly declared the ‘end of history.’ The decisive victory of democracy and capitalism over communism was to usher in a new world order marked by peace and prosperity for all. Margaret Thatcher, a few years earlier, had echoed this idea with her dictum ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA), arguing that we have to have to openly embrace capitalism and relinquish government control of the markets. The current state of Iraq and the present economic crisis offer a much-needed cold shower to this particular utopian dream. However, trying to actually imagine an alternative seems a near impossible feat. If the ‘gift’ of democracy to Iraq has failed and if the economic crisis reveals problems that are at the heart of capitalism, what are the alternatives? 

The word “politics” comes from the Greek polis, which means “city,” and the root of “economics” is found in the Greek term oikos meaning household and nomos meaning laws or rules. Politics and economics are concerned with how we order our relationships in community, how we treat creation and one another, and particularly what vision we are aiming for. In a time of despair, those who follow Christ are compelled to respond with hope. This hope looks like us attempting to embody, however partially and incompletely, that incredibly ‘political’ and ‘economic’ reality that is the Kingdom of God. The hope we offer to the world does not primarily lie in attempting to fix the political and economic crisis by rushing in with some array of Christian principles, but rather in the simple visible witness of being the church – prophetically embodying the alternative.  

A source of hope and a picture of what this can look like in bleak times is found in the most unlikeliest of places: a white farmer in the Southern state of Georgia in the 1950’s and 60’s. Clarence Jordan grew up in a segregated rural community constantly on the verge of abject poverty. Clarence was born in 1912 and was the middle child of seven. He studied agriculture in order to assist struggling farmers with new farming techniques. His childhood faith grew in conviction, and he ended up studying at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. His study of the New Testament, in which he earned a PhD, caused him to have significant discomfort regarding the racial segregation around him. His concern was the cultural captivity of Christianity. An example that supports his concern is seen in the president of his seminary, who was fond of speaking of Robert E. Lee as ‘the greatest Christian since Paul’!  

Upon graduating, he moved with his family and another family to a piece of overused and mistreated farmland outside Americus, Georgia and sought to build community. The community was committed to unreservedly sharing all economic resources, to seeing the redemption of the land, and racial reconciliation. They referred to their project as Koinonia. Upon joining Koinonia, new members would make the following pledge: 

“We desire to make known our total commitment to seek, express, and expand the kingdom of God as revealed in Jesus the Christ. Being convinced that the community of believers who make a like commitment is the continuing body of Christ on earth, I joyfully enter into a love union with the Koinonia and gladly submit myself to it, looking to it to guide me in the knowledge of God’s will and to strengthen me in pursuit of it.”

The community began to reach out to black farmers, much to the disgust of the local population. The growing resentment reached breaking point when Clarence openly advocated that the local college accept two black students. The local population boycotted the farm’s products, and on many occasions shots were fired into the farm from the nearby road. Their local church forbid them to attend because, as the pastor remarked, they had ‘differences of opinion over the race question.’ Late one night, a convoy of 70 cars, organized by the Klu Klux Klan, arrived at the farm and demanded that the community leave. The local law enforcement refused to respond to any pleas for help from the community. With the world against them, some in the community wondered whether it was right to leave. Clarence Jordan wrote of this experience,  

“They demand we leave. But how can you leave the place you love? When we first saw the farm it was sick, there were gashes in it, it was sore and bleeding. I don’t know whether you have ever walked over a piece of ground that cries out, ‘Heal me! Heal me!’… They might as well ask us to sell our mother! Somehow God has made us out of this soil; we go back to it; we never lose its claim on us. It isn’t a simple matter to leave.”  

These words resonate with anyone who has pondered the meaning of the ‘groaning of creation’ mysteriously alluded to by Paul in Romans 8. The community persisted, and in light of the local boycott began a mail-order business, growing and shipping pecan nuts to various parts of America. This business was started under the humorous slogan, “Help get the nuts out of Georgia.” This simple community that held fast to its understanding of the Kingdom of God began to have a wider impact. It became a haven for many involved in the growing civil rights movement – a retreat where young activists could recuperate. In the latter days of the community, a disillusioned millionaire named Millard Fuller visited. After witnessing the community’s lifestyle, he decided to give away all he owned. He began dreaming with Clarence of ways to respond to the ever-present poverty in America and throughout the world. These conversations led to a partnership that is known today as Habitat for Humanity. Clarence died only a few years after this project was launched, and if as a last stubborn sign of rejection from the local population, the coroner refused to come to the farm to collect the body. As a result, Clarence was buried in the very land he had poured out his life into.  

The Koinonia farm offers a picture of the embodiment of an alternative politics and economics. This incarnation of the Kingdom of God came at great cost, with constant persecution and the community living on the brink of poverty, yet it offered a tangible sign of the presence of Christ and out of that, gave birth to Habitat for Humanity and helped sustain the civil rights movement. As a means of concluding these thoughts I offer two quotes. The first is from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas and the second from philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. Our hope lies not in politicians, or in the financial markets but in Christ, and therefore kept alive in Christ’s body, the church.

“In the church the narrative of God is lived in a way that makes the kingdom visible. The church must be the clear manifestation of a people who have learned to be at peace with themselves, one another, the stranger, and of course, most of all, God.”  - Stanley Hauerwas  

“What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us… We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another – doubtless very different – St. Benedict.”    - Alasdair MacIntyre  

Mark Sampson is a significant part of the Groundworks Community contributing as a world view communicator on the Make Believe course. He helps give shape to the course as a member of the brains trust helping to contribute to its development.

“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

…Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthews 25: 34-40 (portions)

Lately I have been reminded of Clarence Jordan and his unusually wide range of abilities and interests. A highly educated man with a Ph.D. in Greek, he also had an agricultural degree. Using his exceptional intelligence and his finely honed education, he made the decision to spend much of his life serving the poor.

Koinonia was the name of the farm he founded in Americus, Georgia, a farm that through the ’50s and ’60s served as a community for poor whites and poor blacks. It was a tragic time in this deep south region, for he was met with fierce resistance. It is embarrassing, but honest, to note that much of the fight came from churches in the area. Segregation was firmly entrenched in that southern culture and would not be easily torn away.

For fourteen years, the citizens of Americus, Georgia tried to stop Clarence. They boycotted his efforts in every imaginable way, resorting even to the slashing of workers’ tires. It was anything but godly. It was mean and ugly. With no hesitation and with little restraint the townspeople kept up a steady barrage of fierce resistance.

The dreaded Ku Klux Klan came in l954, armed with guns and with torches. They blasted the home of Clarence with bullets, and set fire to every other building on Koinonia Farm. In fear for their lives, all the resident families fled, except one black family which resolutely refused to leave.

During that dreadful night of attack as Clarence defended his work, he was stunned to recognize some of the voices as belonging to people associated with churches in town. It is reported that among the Klansmen that night was the local newspaper reporter.

The long night was over; the place lay in ruins, burned structures yet smoldering over the scorched land when the reporter came to view the remains. He found Clarence in the field. In his hand was a hoe; nearby were seeds.

“Sorry about your loss,” he said. “I’m here to do a story on the closing of your farm.”

Silent, ignoring the hypocritical man, Clarence kept hoeing. He kept planting.

The reporter prodded, quizzed and cajoled. Without a word, never acknowledging the intrusion of the reporter, Clarence continued to work.

Sneering now, and lifting his voice, the reporter threw his final taunt: “Fourteen years, isn’t it, now? You’ve put fourteen years into building this farm, this place named Koinonia.” Extending his hand, he disdainfully indicated the fuming, smoldering land.

Finally Clarence stopped. Standing tall at his hoe, he turned toward the reporter. It is said he had blue eyes of such intensity they seemed to penetrate those on whose his gaze was fixed.

The volume of his words barely exceeded that of a whisper, but the force of his message was that of a machine gun volley. “About as successful as the cross.” He paused, then said again, “About as successful as the cross.”

“You don’t understand this at all, Sir,” he continued. We’re here to be faithful. We’re here to serve God by serving others. Whether successful or not, we will continue to be faithful.

“We’re staying. Good day.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

My other blog is here.

Staunton Mennonite Church

3/16/08

Matthew 27:11-14; 24-26

11Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” 12But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. 13Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” 14But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

24So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” 25Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

26So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

During the cold winter days and nights, sometimes there is nothing better than to sit down with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.  Now it has been a while since I have read a fiction book, but I know that they can be almost addictive.  It can be hard to put down a good book because you are always wondering what is going to happen next.  I know people that stay inside all day long, or stay up all night long because when they get into a book they just can’t stop reading it.  They can’t wait to find out how it ends.

I asked one of my obviously tired and sleep deprived friends one day why she didn’t just turn to the back of the book and read the ending so that she could go to bed.  And she said to me, “Kevin, there is a lot of important stuff between one cover of the book and the other.  And if I jump ahead and miss out on the stuff in between the beginning and the end, I do myself a disservice, I do the author a disservice, and I even do the characters in the book a disservice.”  The same can be said about another book that I feel strongly about. 

Today is Palm Sunday, the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem where he was essentially being inaugurated as king of the Jews.  Next Sunday is Easter, the day we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.  But we do a huge disservice if we jump from one Sunday to the next and simply skip over the stuff in between.  We do a disservice to ourselves, we do a disservice to the author, and we do a disservice to the characters in this book. 

Today I want to look at one specific day that falls between Palm Sunday and Easter, and I want to ask the question, “Why did Jesus die?”  And we do a huge disservice to Jesus when we skip past this question.  So today I want to look at three reasons why Jesus died.  1. The spiritual reason, 2. The political reason, and 3. The social reason.

 The Spiritual Reason 

The traditional answer for why Jesus had to die can be found in Romans 5:6-8 which reads, “6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”  Paul goes on to say that this death reconciled sinful humanity with God.  Jesus appears to be the suffering servant that Isaiah talks about, bearing the sins of the people.

I hope that none of us denies the need of a savior in this sense.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  A few minutes ago I invited the people here to nail their sins to this cross.  And now look at it.  It is covered with our sins.  We as individuals have sinned through our disobedience to God.  But sin is a lot larger than just the relationship between me and God.  Absolutely, things like gossip, sexual immorality, murder, and hatred are sins.  They do come between us and our Lord.  But there are also sins between us and our fellow human beings that separate us from God.  The sins of war, the sins of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, the sins of allowing our neighbors go hungry, homeless, and dying in the street while I sit at home in my three bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom home, with two of those bedrooms empty, while I feast on filet mignon and fresh shrimp.  I hope that we can all see that sin is more than just something we do that doesn’t affect other people.  We sin in many ways, even when we don’t realize it.

Now I don’t intend to skip over this reason why Jesus died too quickly.  It is huge.  Jesus died because it was a part of God’s plan for redemption of his creation.  The in-breaking of God into this world in the form of Jesus Christ is the pinnacle of salvation history.  We know that, but we can’t reduce Jesus’ death to just salvation from sins.  Because Jesus’ death meant much more than this.

The political reason 

As I mentioned earlier, today is Palm Sunday.  Today is the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people laid palm branches before him and yelled, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  You better believe that this was some sort of a political inauguration.  The people call Jesus the Son of David, that is son of King David, meaning he is an heir to the Davidic throne that was to be eternal.  The word “hosanna” means save us in Hebrew.  They wanted the heir to the throne to come in and save them from the occupation of the Roman Empire.  The Jews saw Jesus as a powerful leader who could overthrow the Romans and help the Jews regain their freedom.

There is even symbolism in the palm branches that the Jews lay before Jesus.  The palm branch is a symbol of triumph and victory (wikipedia).  And just a little tid bit of information.  If we look at one of our coins, who is on them?  The president of the United States.  We also know that it was common for people living in Jesus’ day to put a political figure on their coins.  Caesar was on the Roman money.  About forty years after Jesus died, the Jews revolted against the Romans and they made their own money for a while.  Guess what was on their coins?  A palm branch.  So there is a lot of political symbolism behind Jesus’ triumphal entry.  However, I think it is safe to say that the Jews and Jesus had a little different understanding of what his role was to be as king. 

When we look at our scripture for today, what does Pilate ask Jesus?  What are the charges against Jesus?  Jesus is asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?”  It is my belief that Pilate didn’t come up with this question on his own.  He got this idea that Jesus was claiming to be king from Caiaphas and the other leaders of the Jews, from the same people that brought Jesus to Pilate.  That was the charge that Caiaphas brought to Pilate because they thought that if they wanted this man crucified, they had to make him seem like a threat to the Roman Government.  So they said that he claimed to be king.

Pilate knows that the Jews only handed Jesus over out of jealousy.  He tries to give Jesus a second chance, but the people want his blood.  And Pilate eventually hands Jesus over to be crucified.  Not because he found him guilty, but because he knew that if he didn’t he would have a large angry crowd to deal with.  That is also a good political move, give the people what they want.  Jesus died because he was a threat to the government, or at least a perceived threat to the government.  His death did have a political reason.

 The Social Reason 

So Jesus died for our sins, but is that why he died?  Caiaphas and Pilate didn’t say, “Well Jesus, we don’t want to see you die, but it needs to be done for the forgiveness of sins.”  And though Jesus was accused of being a threat to the government, Pilate didn’t really think he was that dangerous.  So why else might Jesus have died?  Perhaps because he stepped on the wrong toes.

Perhaps before we get too deep into this reason for Jesus’ death, we might need to look at some of the things that led up to our scripture for today.  On Thursday evening Jesus was enjoying his Last Supper with his disciples.  Afterward he and a couple disciples went out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray when Judas and a mob armed with clubs and swords, sanctioned by the high priest and the elders, came to arrest Jesus.  The mob brings Jesus back to Caiaphas’ home to find evidence against him so that Jesus might be put to death.  We have probably all heard the saying that in our courtrooms the defendant is innocent until proven guilty.  Well in Caiaphas’ court Jesus was guilty even if proven otherwise.

The scripture tells us that the whole council before whom Jesus was brought was looking for false testimony to bring against Jesus.  They had people bring false witnesses against him so that they could bring charges against Jesus to the Roman governor.  But Jesus neither confirmed or denied the charges.  He was silent, he knew the council had already made up their mind.  He knew what was going to happen to him.

Then Caiaphas got angry, he got right up in Jesus’ face and he said (v. 62), “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the son of God.”  And finally Jesus gives them the answer they have been looking for.  He answers (v. 63), “You have said so.  But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”  The next day leaders took Jesus to Pilate and make the claim that he was the king of the Jews.  Did Jesus mess with the wrong guy?

Last week I had the chance to read “Cotton Patch for the Kingdom.”  This is a book about Clarence Jordan, a Baptist preacher from Georgia who began a farm in Americus Georgia dedicated to living out the teachings of Jesus found in the New Testament.  Jordan and another man began what they called Koinonia Farm in the 1940’s on a stretched of over-farmed land.  Koinonia Farm was an intentional community where those living in the community shared all they had in their possession right down to their last dollar.  Everyone shared in the chores around the farm.  Everyone had the same wages.  They shared common meals together.

Now that doesn’t sound to intimidating to any of us, does it?  The participating in the community of goods is biblical.  We have evidence of the early church doing this in Acts 4.  Maybe we wouldn’t want to be a part of a community like that, but if someone else wants to, I wouldn’t try to stop them.  But there were many that tried to stop Jordan back in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s.  Because Jordan and the other founders of Koinonia Farm included people any nationality in their community.

It wasn’t considered wrong in those days to have an African-American employee.  But it was considered wrong to eat with an African-American, to socialize with an African-American, or to even pay equal wages to an African-American and a white man.  Jordan did all three, and then some.

Koinonia Farms survived through a lot of persecution from the local farmers around them.  Bullets were fired into the homes on Koinonia Farm, a road side vegetable stand was subject to vandalism on multiple occasions.  And perhaps one of the most painful things that was done to Koinonia Farms was the local boycott on the farm.  Local companies would not sell seed, fertilizers, machinery, or goods to Koinonia Farm.  The feed mills and stores wouldn’t buy their crops and produce.  The boycott years nearly broke Koinonia Farm, and probably would have if other Christians that supported Koinonia’s project wouldn’t have contributed by buying things like pecans and clothing through Koinonia’s new mail order business.

But perhaps the scariest events occurred after the sun went down.  Jordan and his family’s lives were threatened many times.  Jordan tell the story of the night when the Ku Klux Klan showed up at his front door.  They charged Jordan with eating with African-Americans.  And they were going to lynch him.

Jordan didn’t know what to do, so he said the first thing that came to his mind.  He said, “Hello, I’m Clarence Jordan.  I’m a Baptist preacher.”  He stuck out his hand in the direction of another man who bumbled around a bit and said, “My, my, my daddy was a Baptist preacher, too.”

Why did the mob try to kill Clarence Jordan?  Because he was doing something that wasn’t culturally accepted.  He was doing something that made other people in his area feel uncomfortable.  He was standing in contrast to the larger culture around him.  What did Jordan do wrong?  What was the charge against him?  Eating with African-Americans.  Making friends with people he was supposed to hate.  Sounds like someone else that a mob tried to kill.

This brings me back to the question, “Why did Jesus die?”  He died for the same reason the mob wanted to kill Clarence Jordan.  Jesus stood in opposition to the culture that was around him.  The culture of Jerusalem in the 1st century was very much a Jewish culture (duh).  Even though the Romans occupied Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders still set the cultural norms for their society.  And it was the Jewish leaders that Jesus seemed to but heads with most often.  And it was the Jewish leaders that had Jesus captured, tried, and killed.

But why?  What did Jesus ever do to them?  I think I remember Jesus calling the Pharisees “broods of vipers” and “whitewashed tombs”.  These were not terms of endearment.  He was calling these supposedly right living people out on the carpet.  Look at Matthew 23 sometime if you really want to see why these leaders wanted Jesus dead.  They were living the high life.  The Jewish leaders were enjoying the attention they got from the people around them.  The Jewish leaders enjoyed the seat of honor at a meal.  They enjoyed living their self-identified pious life.  And when Jesus came, he brought a new light on these people and their actions.  He challenged their social status.  He challenged what they had come to know and expect.  So the high priest and the elders tried to find false testimony against Jesus to bring before Pilate so that they could finally be rid of this “nuisance”. 

Clarence Jordan was willing to stand up for what he knew to be right, even when the people around him didn’t agree with him to the point that they thought they needed to kill him.  Jesus was willing to stand up for what he knew was right, and it did cost him his life.  And thus we have the definition of what it means to bear our crosses, we have the reason Jesus died.  Now this isn’t some blank check to persecute the Jews, calling them Christ killers or anything like that.  I think the story of Clarence Jordan shows us that even Americans are willing to kill an innocent man for doing nothing other than living as a part of the kingdom of God.

Yes, Jesus died for our sins.  The Bible is very clear on this.  But Jesus also died because he was seen as a threat to the Roman government.  But the reason that Jesus died is also because he stood in opposition to the culture around him.  He was truly a prophet, speaking out against the culture around him, speaking of the way God intended his creation to be.  Jesus came preaching and teaching the kingdom of God.  And he was killed for it.  May we all have the courage to do the same.

If we skip over the middle of a story, we can miss a lot of important stuff. This holy week, let us not skip too easily from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  Because we would hate to do a disservice to ourselves, to God the author, and to the character Jesus.

18.             The beginning of Jesus the Leader was like this: While his mama, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but before they had relations, she was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Since Joseph, her fiance´, was a considerate man and didn't want to make a public scandal, he decided to quietly break up with her. As he was wondering about the whole situation, a messenger from the Lord came to him in a dream and said, "Joe Davidson, don't be ashamed to marry Mary, because the Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. Now she'll give birth to a boy, who you'll name Jesus,¹  because he will deliver his nation from their errors."

22.             This whole event was the completion of what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Listen, a young lady will get pregnant and give birth to a boy, and they'll name him 'God-is-with-us.' "

24.             Then Joseph woke up and did as the Lord's messenger had directed–he married the girl. But he didn't sleep with her until she had her baby. And he did name it Jesus. Matthew 1:18-24

"Tell me who you admire, and I'll tell you who you are."

I had a seminary professor tell me that once. When I thought about it, most of the people I admire, and have admired over the years – I knew. My wife, with her laughter, beauty, and grace. My mother, with the eagerness to see others go farther than she had, and the will that it would be done. My father's gentle spirit. My father in love's faith, and my mother in love's gift of kindness. A teacher or two – Hazel Struby and Kathyrn Futral from Mercer, who convinced me that I could learn math and write prose. Friends in the ministry like Arnold Hendrix who have the patience of Job. And many others.

Jordan

One outside that group who really affected me though I never met him was the late Clarence Jordan. An amazing man – part New Testament scholar, part Old testament prophet – Jordan lived an incredible life. Part of that was his translation or version as he called it, of parts of the New Testament into my native tongue – Southern or specifically, Georgian.

Gospelset

The clip above is part of that. If You want to read more, surf over to Cotton Patch Gospel

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This Sunday, we'll be looking at the story of the Good Samaritan. It's hard for us to imagine how bad the relationships were between Jews and Samaritans in Jesus' day. For those of us who grew up in the South, The Cotton Patch Gospel of Clarence Jordan might be uncomfortable.

I can hear Jordan's reply to that statement. "Good. It ought to."

25.         One day a teacher of an adult Bible class got up and tested him with this question: "Doctor, what does one do to be saved?"
              Jesus replied, "What does the Bible say? How do you interpret it?"
              The teacher answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your physical strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself."
              "That is correct," answered Jesus. "Make a habit of this and you'll be saved."
              But the Sunday school teacher, trying to save face, asked, "But … er … but … just who is my neighbor?"
              Then Jesus laid into him and said, "A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters held him up. When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway.
              "Now it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway. 'When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by.
              "Shortly afterwards a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas.
              "Then a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears. He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his water-jug to wipe away the blood and then laid him on the back seat.   He drove on into Albany and took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, 'You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway. Here's the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes, and if he can't pay it, I'll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.'
              "Now if you had been the man held up by the gangsters, which of these three-the white preacher, the white song leader, or the black man – would you consider to have been your neighbor?"
              The teacher of the adult Bible class said, "Why, of course, the nig – I mean, er … well, er … the one who treated me kindly."
              Jesus said, "Well, then, you get going and start living like that!"

So what are we waiting for?

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Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts: Jesus’ Doings and the Happenings

Clarence Jordan

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