to return to your place in the text.To read endnotes, click on the the note number, then click on the
"...let us consider how to provoke one another to love and
good deeds." As one of my colleagues says, his congregation
lives out the first HALF of that verse. Another wag has
wondered, not that the church shoots itself in the foot so often,
but how it can reload so quickly. Too bad. We know that is not
the Lord's will for the church.
Part of the problem may be that we forget what brought us
here in the first place. The writer to the Hebrews has just
given us this soaring reminder of the magnificence of Jesus
Christ - his once-for-all sacrifice, the final conquest of every
enemy, the presence of the Holy Spirit who reminds us of the
covenant, and the surpassing confidence we can have as we
approach the throne of grace. WE ARE GOD'S PEOPLE!!! Now, let
us get to work.
I especially love the reminder our lesson offers about the
way we go about the discipling process: "...not neglecting to
meet together..." Come to church. Come to church. Come to
church. I realize that I am preaching to the converted here,
because you ARE in church, but if you have ever needed an
occasional reminder about why we bother to get up and get going
on a Sunday morning when it would be just as easy to worship with
the Fellowship of St. Mattress or the Congregation of the Inner
Spring, here it is. We gather together from week to week to
remind ourselves WHO we are and WHOSE we are and WHAT we are to
be about. Yes, the ideal is to provoke one another IN THE RIGHT
WAY -- or as the New International Version has it, "spur one
another on" -- "to love and good deeds," and to ENCOURAGE one
another. YES! We need all the help we can get.
For what it is worth, if we are occasionally DIScouraged by
the fact that some of those who should be here are not, the
problem is not a new one. Even back in the New Testament days,
some must have chosen to sleep in. As the text has it, "...not
neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some." Too bad.
They do not know what they are missing. We are provoked or
"spurred on." We are encouraged. Ideally, we find both as we
gather.
In what direction are we being spurred on today? Well,
considering the important day that awaits us next week in
Consecration Sunday, a brief word about stewardship is
appropriate. We might wish we needed no reminders, but since
money/possessions IS such a dangerous commodity (as Jesus over
and over and over affirmed) and can so easily control US rather
than the other way around, we need that word.
This past Sunday was the day for Stewardship emphasis in the
New Jersey-shore congregation of one of my good friends. The
preacher that day told of the show business beginning of the late
George Burns - in case you did not know, it was in a Presbyterian
church. It seems that, when little George was seven years old,
growing up in New York City, he and three friends had a singing
group they called the Peewee Quartet. Each year, a department
store in the city would sponsor a talent contest as part of their
annual picnic; local churches were invited to send one act each,
to compete in the contest. There was one particular church in
George's neighborhood that had no one to send, so the pastor
asked young George if he could arrange for the Peewee Quartet to
enter the contest on behalf of that congregation. The boys
agreed, and not only did they enter, they won first prize. The
church received an elegant purple communion-table cloth, and each
of the boys received a new watch, each one costing the (then-)
princely sum of 85 cents.
George ran home to his mother, who happened to be hanging
laundry up on the rooftop. "I don't want to be a Jew any more,"
he announced.
"And why not?" she responded, without seeming flustered in
any way.
"I want to be a Presbyterian," George went on. "I've been a
Jew for seven years, and I've never gotten anything. I've been a
Presbyterian for fifteen minutes, and already they gave me this
watch."
"Fine. You can go off and join the Presbyterians," said his
mother, wise in the ways of the world, and not especially
concerned at the request. "But first help me hang up this
wash."(1)
Does young George strike a familiar note? Do we come
asking, "What can the church do for me? What can I get out of
it?" This is backwards, of course. The gospel begins with
GIVING -- "For God so loved the world that he GAVE..." -- and we
respond by giving of ourselves (including our money) in return.
That giving then supports ministries of all sorts - ministries of
teaching, preaching, healing, feeding, services of amazing
variety - with the result that great work is accomplished in the
name of Jesus Christ. And that work happens because we give.
OK, enough with the provoking to love and good deeds. What
about the second component? What ENCOURAGEMENT is here for us
today? Lots, I hope. The lesson from Mark's gospel offers us
something powerful. It begins as Jesus and the disciples are
leaving the Temple - one of them remarks what a magnificent
edifice it is. This was the third go-round for the Jerusalem
Temple: the first had been planned by King David and constructed
by his son Solomon and was exquisite in every way. Sadly, that
structure had been leveled by Nebuchadnezzar when the nation was
carried off into exile in Babylon. Once God's people were
allowed to return to their homeland, a second temple was built,
but it paled in comparison to the original, and folks were
embarrassed by it. Even so, for 500 years, that had been the
center of Jewish worship. Along came the Romans and, at the
pleasure of Caesar, Herod the Great as king in Israel. Herod
knew that the Temple was not all the Jews wished it were, so, in
an effort to curry favor and, at the same time, leave a monument
to his rule, he embarked on a Temple renovation and expansion
project that would make it bigger and better than it had ever
been. His most notable contribution was the magnificent
stonework of the Temple platform which was greatly enlarged.(2)
Beautiful. But Jesus said that it would not last; "Not one stone
will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." Quite
something to imagine when you realize that the stones were about
the size of a mini-van. And with the benefit of our
perspective...20/20 hindsight...we know he was right.
As Jesus and his friends continued to walk and talk
together, they made their way across the valley and finally
rested in one of their old haunts on the Mount of Olives. Off in
the distance, the Temple dome dominated the landscape, and the
sight prompted the conversation to continue: "Tell us, when will
this be (this 'not one stone upon another'), and what will be the
sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
A fair question. There is something fascinating about
prophecy. All of us wish we had a glimpse of the future.
One of my cyberfriends this week reported on a tv preacher
recently talking for an hour about his new book that supposedly
explained everything we needed to know about the coming of Jesus
and the end of time. "You must have this book," he said over and
over again, a telephone number (not even toll-free) constantly
flashing at the bottom of the screen. Seems that he was the only
one who had prophetic insight into world events, and for a mere
$14.95 we could have the benefit of his wisdom. We would not
survive the coming terrors unless we had this book. My friend
called the number and suggested to the poor operator that if this
preacher really thought this was so vital to the survival of the
planet, and that the end was so near, he would be giving the book
away! I mean, he won't need the money, right? It's all coming
to an end anyway. Who needs a bank account? True, it costs
money to print, but he will not have to pay for it if it goes as
he says. The woman on the other end of the line was not amused.
"Sorry, sir," she said, "but I don't know much about theology,"
to which my friend responded, "Neither does the writer of the
book you're selling."(3)
Predictions of the future? Here are some from folks we
could surely trust:(4)
Uh-huh. So what WILL the future hold? According to Jesus,
some pretty nasty things: wars, earthquakes, famines. Well, we
know Nasty. Can you say down-size? Can you say El Niño?
Hurricane? Tornado? Can you say sickness? Death? Can you say,
"Bad Things Happen to Good People?" Yes, we can say all those
things, even though we would rather not. We need no apocalyptic
visions of flaming catastrophe to understand Nasty. The question
is how can we handle Nasty?
Jesus offers advice: "Beware that no one leads you astray."
When life is falling apart - and it sometimes does, even for the
best of us - when it seems as though one stone is crashing down
upon another, we are liable to listen to any voice that promises
to help. The word is be careful. Be careful.
But then Jesus speaks what strikes me as an incredibly
comforting word; he says, "This is but the beginning of the birth
pangs." Indeed. God's people understand this, even if we forget
it at trying moments. Birth is a painful process, for both
mother and child. Yes, many transitions are painful, but we know
that blessing awaits when the process is complete. What sustains
us in the dark moments is our faith.
Have you ever heard someone say as much? "I would never
have made it without my faith." Probably more times than you
could count. And in what fertile soil was that faith nurtured
and grown? The church.
The church. WHEN YOUR CHURCH PROVOKES YOU...say, "Thanks be
to God." Because that is exactly what your church SHOULD do.
1. Carlos Wilton, via PresbyNet, "Preaching Stewardship," #1285, 11/11/97 2. Holman Bible Dictionary for Windows (Hiawatha, IO: Parsons Technology, 1994) 3. Bass Mitchell, via Ecunet, "Sermonshop 1997 11 16," #35, 11/11/97 4. Nate Castens, via Ecunet, "Gospel Notes for Next Sunday, #800, 11/14/97 5. Robert Bellah, quoted by Jerry L. Van Marter, "Church Is Best Equipped to Rebuild Communities," PCUSA NEWS, #4041, 2/12/97
...And let us consider how to provoke one another to
love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together,
as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,
and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
And now you know where the strange sermon title comes from.
True enough, the church often DOES provoke us in the wrong way.
You may have heard me tell of my father's response when, years
ago, I asked him what the hardest part of being a minister was.
I had posed the question just after he had conducted the funeral
of one of the great saints of his congregation and thought he
would respond with something such as that experience. Not at
all. He said the toughest part of being a minister is going to a
board or committee meeting, watching people behave in a manner
absolutely contrary to everything you have tried to teach and
preach, and then wondering whether or not you have made a
nickel's worth of difference in anyone's lives. Now, with the
benefit of some years in the same effort, I know what he meant.
...And let us consider how to provoke one another to
love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together,
as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,
and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
History offers no parallel to the church. When the world is
out of joint, when people's minds are disordered and their hearts
are failing them for fear, when it seems as though not one stone
is left on another, then the thing of supreme importance is the
living church, with all of her sanctuaries of worship and her
avenues of service, where men and women come to have their faith
strengthened, their thoughts clarified, their ideas uplifted,
their convictions born, and their characters created. In an age
when communities of all kinds are crumbling and individualism is
the prevailing ideology, only the church "can offer a community
that was here before any of us were born, that will be here after
all of us die and that binds us to one another because it binds
us to Christ."(5)
Amen!
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