Understanding the Jesus of the Gospels

Sermons from the Gospels

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  • Who Will listen if Someone Is Raised from the Dead?

    Luke 16: 19-31

    Offered by Elder Mel Prestamo PCUSA to the congregation of the Wharton United Community Congregation

    Today’s lectionary begins with another of Jesus’ many parables which in one way or another deal with affluence and wealth.

    This series of parables begins in Luke 12 with a person calling out to Jesus from the crowd that was following him – to order his brother to share the inheritance from their father’s estate. Jesus doesn’t give the man the answers he is demanding but rather answers him by telling the people the parable of the rich fool who built barns in which he could store up his surplus wealth. In that parable, on the day he completes his buildings God calls him to his death. The rich man is called a fool for having wasted his life storing up wealth in this world but not storing up riches in the next.

    Next, we see Jesus as a guest at a wedding feast. There he observes how the people arriving at the celebration – jockey for position to be seated at places of honor closest to the host. He teaches the parable of the wedding guest who enters a banquet and immediately sits at a place of high honor only to be delegated to a lower seat when the host sees a more important guest arrive. The host goes to the first guest and tells him to give up his place to the newly arriving guest. The first guest is now disgraced at being demoted and removed from a place of honor at the table to be relegated to one farther away from the host. Here, Jesus admonishes the people at the feast for allowing their haughty egos to get the better of themselves. They arrive expecting that they should be honored to the high level in which they view themselves.

    In Luke 15, we have the parable of the Prodigal Father. Here we have a young man who is situated in the lap of luxury living within the wealth and comfort of his father’s house. Desiring more – what – wealth, prominence, a higher degree of importance in life, whatever it was – he desired more. He makes a decision to leave the father’s household taking with him as much of his inheritance as he can amass and then goes off to squander it making poor life decisions that eventually separate him from the love of God and father.

    In a twist, this young man repents and returns to his father desiring to be forgiven. And in Jesus’ story the young man is received back into the father’s household and is lavishly showered with gifts from the father in the form of rings, and robes, and sandals. A happy ending? Not yet. Jesus introduces us to the older brother who is now called upon to share in the father’s celebration and greet his wayward brother back into the joy of the father’s household. He refuses. He chooses not to share the inheritance that he was blessed with. He chooses rather to keep his brother at arm’s length, apart from the graces and forgiving love of the father. This is another example of a lesson when Jesus uses characters who refuse to share the earthly wealth that they have been blessed with.

    Next in Luke 16, we have the story of the steward who is a scoundrel and a rascal and who defrauds his master by embezzling from the business dealings which he had been entrusted. Jesus weaves this story to show to his disciples just how devious and evil people can become when dealing with great wealth. Now part of Jesus’ message here is to say to his disciples that he would like them to work as hard at procuring wealth in the kingdom of heaven as these rascals are at achieving earthly wealth. Ultimately in Luke’s text he remarks that the Pharisees, who were lovers of money were ridiculed and embarrassed by Jesus telling this parable. Again, Jesus takes his followers to task warning them not to place a love of earthly things above building a righteous relationship with God. In all of these stories, Jesus is admonishing his followers to keep God first.

    Now, we come upon today’s lectionary, and it is a famous one. It is the parable of Lazarus and the rich man who always dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

    Before we go any further, it is important to understand what these descriptive words of Jesus meant in the culture of his day. First, only royalty dressed in purple robes. This rich man is not described as being a prince or a king so to find him dressed in purple robes and fine linen raises an eyebrow that perhaps he was purposefully flaunting his wealth so as to impress.

    He feasted sumptuously every day. This is another highly unusual way to describe a Palestinian since regular folk didn’t engage in feasting every day– not even the rich did that. People in Palestine only feasted at important galas or events like weddings. Eating sumptuously – again was something that didn’t happen every day. Preparing fatted calves and eating meats were reserved for special occasions – not every day. But as we note in this parable, this rich man did this every day. In the culture of the day, this would have been considered an abhorrent display of gross self-indulgence. But that is how Jesus describes the rich man.

    As an aside, I might suggest to you that Jesus may have been making reference to King Herod. Who was not a legitimate king of Israel but rather a Roman appointee. And as we have seen in the other Gospels, Herod was prone to lavishly outlandish parties and celebrations. But that would be a message for another time. Let’s return to Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

    Now we have this poor man, Lazarus. First note, Lazarus is the ONLY person ever named in any of Jesus’ parables. We’ll have more on that later.

    Lazarus is pictured as living at the entrance of the rich man’s gate. What do we know about Lazarus? He is covered with sores. Dogs licking his wounds are his only comfort. He looked to satisfy his hunger with scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. But he was not even given that. It doesn’t seem that even the rich man’s scraps were shared.

    And now here’s another item to be aware of. By Jewish law, the rich were not supposed to consume all of their resources. For instance, at harvest time, they were obliged to leave a portion – 10% – of the harvest behind to allow the poor to come after the workers and glean from the harvest something that they could subsist on. You remember the Old Testament story of Ruth gleaning wheat from the fields after Obed’s workers had completed their work at the harvest.

    But the rich man in Jesus’ story consumed everything and what may have been scraps left over from his sumptuous feasts were not shared. Now, understand the people hearing this story would not have been in any way sympathetic to the rich man. He is by all telling an obnoxious blob that consumed everything around him.

    Something to consider here. First, the poor man Lazarus lived at the rich man’s doorstep. Coming and going, the rich man would have to step over this poor man. There was no way that the rich man could not have known about his plight. So it wasn’t that this man’s poverty was far off, unseen and that the rich man was unaware of its existence. No. It lived on his doorstep, and he ignored it. This, to the listening ears of the people would have been as I said before – abhorrent – a total breakdown of Jewish law.

    So now, what happens? The poor man, Lazarus, dies and is carried away by angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also dies. But he is buried. Notice the difference between the two. The rich man is buried in the ground – his body to rot away back into dust. Lazarus, on the other hand, is carried up by angels to be with Abraham. The only other Biblical character that is treated in this manner was the prophet, Elijah.

    Back to the story. In Hades, [Hell] the rich man is tormented with thirst by the fires of hell. He looks up and sees Abraham far off across a chasm with Lazarus standing by his side – presumably enjoying the comforts of the afterlife.

    The rich man calls out for mercy. Send Lazarus to dip a finger into cool water and touch his tongue to relieve his thirst. Abraham responds, “No can do, brother.” There’s this chasm between us so that none can cross over. Besides, you enjoyed your luxury in your former life now its Lazarus’ turn.

    Another thought – there is a chasm between us, Abraham says. This is more than a description of what separates Hades from the heavenly Kingdom of God. It also describes how the rich man lived his life of luxury totally separated and apart from the needs of the poor and this poor man that he crossed over without giving him a moment’s thought in his former life.

    Then the rich man asks that Abraham send Lazarus to warn his brothers so that they won’t suffer the same fate. Abraham replies in the negative, again. “They have Moses and the prophets. They should listen to them.” But wait. The rich man says, “If someone goes to them from the dead, they will listen and repent.” Yeah – No, Abraham answers again. “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced it someone rises from the dead.”

    Woo! There’s a lot going on here. First, consider this. There has already been a Lazarus raised from the dead. We get the accounts of it in the Gospel of John not Luke, but the timeline is very close to the same – at the close of Jesus’ ministry on the road to Jerusalem. Jesus is called to the home of Mary and Martha because their brother Lazarus is dying. When Jesus arrive, Lazarus is already dead. Jesus calls Lazarus and raises him from the dead. But do the Pharisees and Elders of the people believe in Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah. No. They don’t believe even when someone is raised from the dead. In fact the opposite is true. They immediately plot to murder both Jesus and Lazarus.

    Not only that, but Jesus is also referring to his own resurrection and that the Jewish elite – Herod and his ilk and those leaders collaborating with the Romans –  will not believe in his truthful message either even though he validates it with his rising from the dead.

    But at the heart of the parable that Jesus is teaching is that the rich have ignored their responsibility to the rest of society – to those less fortunate, to the poor. The King [Herod] who lived to enjoy lavish feasts, the Pharisees, the Scribes who took advantage of the weak by using the law against them – who Jesus had accused of feeding on widows and children – these were all the prominent and wealthy people of Palestine who had lost their connection with the people and with God. They were building up their own barns to store up their earthy wealth forgetting and ignoring their need to build up their treasures in heaven.

    There was a Rabbinical teaching at the time. It was, “The rich help the poor in this life and the poor help the rich in the next life.” The rich, Jesus was saying, had forgotten what the blessings that God had bestowed upon them were to be used for.

    The religious leaders of the people had stopped building up their store houses for the next life. They were concerned with how to survive and take advantage of their rank, position and privilege so that they could prosper in this life. They had forgotten the One who had blessed them with their positions of authority and were abusing the trust of the people and not responding to God’s expectation that they be good stewards of God’s Garden – of God’s creation.

    They were not being good stewards of the Creation entrusted to them by God and they were ignoring their responsibilities by abusing the weak and broken people who God desired they care for.

    So, what does this lectionary passage teach us – or more importantly, ask of us?

    First, I think, it is that the needy are not far from our sight but very close to our front door. We are not to ignore them, stepping over them and creating a chasm between them and us holding them off at a distance. This would be a break down of our role as good stewards of God’s Garden.

    Next, the people were told you have Moses and the prophets, and they should heed their messages. But more importantly for us, we have the Christ Jesus. If the lessons of the Old Scriptures are not clear enough for us, Jesus is wielding a blunt hammer, and his message is clear. What we have been given in this life is a gift from God. We are to be good stewards of it and make those gifts grow by nurturing and caring for them. However, we are not to forget that the source of those gifts is the Holy One and all of it [and us] belongs to God, exclusively. We cannot hide it away, hoarding it up in barns for ourselves. It must be shared with those who are the least among us. Remember, when we do it for the least of these, we are doing it for him.

  • The Dishonest Steward or To Whom Do You Belong?

    Luke 16: 1-13

    Offered to the Rockport Presbyterian Church on Sunday, September 21, 2025

    by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This parable in Luke is a difficult one to understand – especially if we run Luke’s text all together as the lectionary does. If we look at this reading today as one single unit it is most difficult to get a grip on what Jesus is saying in this one parable. So, let’s break this down.

    First, let’s take a look at what precedes today’s lectionary. It is the very famous parable of the Prodigal Father. I often refer to Luke fifteen as a Bible within the Bible. You can look at Luke fifteen as a microcosm of the Bible itself. Consider this, you have an idyllic circumstance of the younger son living at home with the Father in a lap of luxury and comfort. Somewhat akin to the circumstances of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Then the younger son opts to leave the loving embrace of the Father to go it on his own. Sound familiar? Once out in the world – without the protection of the Father, he sinks into debt and a malaise which finds that he has sunk so low in the muck of his life that he can no longer look up to see the grace of the Father. Then after a long time of squandering his life and resources, he finally does looks up to see that the love of God and the love he had experienced in his Father’s house are the only true goals in his life. Then, he realizes that his salvation from the depth and degradation that he has created in this life is in returning to the loving embrace of his Father. It parallels Israel’s journey as we understand it through our Scriptures, does it not? And perhaps, it is beginning to sound like some of our own personal life journeys? I know it does mine.

    Then in the prodigal parable, the Father lavishly showers love and forgiveness over the penitent son and welcomes him back into the Father’s house. But – and this is a very big BUT – there is still a debt to be paid. That is where the happy ending of the parable collides with the reality of what our sin costs. The older brother in Luke fifteen refuses to welcome back his wayward younger sibling. He refuses to forgive. He refuses to share his inheritance.

    That is where the parable of the Prodigal Father ends.

    Now remember who it is Jesus is telling this parable to. It is the Scribes, Pharisees, Elders of the Temple and the Chief Priests who disapproved of Jesus sitting with and teaching the tax collectors and sinners who had been drawn to him. So, it is on the heels of this teaching and the lesson that his audience of religious and political leaders were rejecting that Jesus turns to his own disciples and begins today’s lesson.

    In essence, Jesus is turning to his disciples and saying look at these scoundrels. Look at how successful they are in what they do and how they go about their business in this life. Look at how dedicated they are in procuring their earthly wealth and building up their positions in this life and how they succeed in accumulating wealth and friends in this world. Oh, if only you all were as proficient in storing up riches in the next life as they are in accumulating wealth in this life. Let’s see how Jesus goes about teaching this lesson.

    The first thing to understand is that Jesus is using a grouping of characters who are the choicest set of rouges you will ever see in a Gospel story. It is clear that Jesus is comparing these rouges in this parable to the leaders who had rejected and refused his teachings. They were clearly represented by the older brother in Jesus’ parable. They, too, refuse to celebrate in the Father’s joy at the return of his lost children. I think Jesus may be accusing them of refusing to enter the Father’s house, as well.

    So now in today’s lectionary, Jesus begins by taking at this unusual set of rogues and weaving them into a new parable. But first, who are they?

    First there is the steward. This steward was a slave who had been put in charge of his master’s estate. The master in this case may have been an absentee landlord. The slave was appointed to manage and oversee the various parts of the estate that were rented out to other small farmers and the like who used and developed the resources on the estate. We can assume this by way of the reports that the master received that the steward had been dishonest and made a career of embezzlement.

    Then we have the actual debtors who owed the rents that needed to be paid to the steward on behalf of the master. How are they rogues? Well, when the steward realizes that he has been ratted out and caught in his duplicity that he must come up with a plan to ensure his future comforts. So, he reaches out to the various debtors to his master, and he concocts a scheme to defraud the master of the true amounts owed to him. He, along with the debtors adjust the books so to speak as to the true amounts and weights due as payments for their rents so that they would only pay a portion of their true debt.

    Why does the steward to this. First, it is to cause the debtors to be grateful to him so that if and when he is turned out of his master’s house, he would have people indebted to him and willing to welcome him into their homes. Second, and an even more devious part of his scheme, it would mean involving them in his crime so that if it came to it, he would be able to blackmail them into providing the future comforts he would be looking for.

    Now the master. He himself was a rogue of sorts, as well. Instead of being outraged at the steward’s actions to defraud him yet again; instead, he applauds him showing admiration for his shrewdness. For someone to appreciate such blackness of heart, one’s own heart must be equally as black.

    So in this parable of rogues, thievery, and the blackness of hearts, what positive lesson is Jesus trying to impart to his disciples.

    It’s difficult to discern because of the way that Luke retells this parable especially when you consider Jesus is directing the lesson directly to his disciples. Why is Jesus using a story with such a set of rogues to teach his disciples some positive life lesson. The difficulty arises in part because there are four different lessons in this parable. Let’s look at them.

    First in verse eight there is the lesson that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of the light. What is Jesus saying?

    In holding up these rogues as examples, Jesus is saying that they are shrewder and more adept in taking advantage of the riches available to them in this world than his followers are in building up riches in heaven. I will paraphrase Bible scholar William Barclay’s comments this way, “…if Christians were as eager and ingenious in their attempts to attain a righteous relationship with God as those with more worldly concerns are in their attempts to build up earthly wealth then we all would be much better persons. If only we would give as much attention to the things concerning our souls as we do the things of business, we would be much better human beings.”

    Barclay’s comments help to open this parable up a bit for us to see where Jesus is going.

    Next in verse nine, we learn that material possessions should be used to cement the friendships where the real and permanent value of life lies. This happens all the time in real life, does it not? We make contracts and agreements with people around us that build relationships that become strong bonds that help us as we navigate this world and its perils. Jesus is extending this principal into the eternal world that is to come.

    This can be done in two ways.

    First, it could be done in such a way as it affects our eternal lives and souls. The Rabbis of Jesus’ time had a saying, “The rich help the poor in this world, but the poor help the rich in the world to come.” It was a Jewish belief that charity given to the poor would stand to a person’s credit in the world to come. The ancient Jews believed in a Book kept by God that detailed the good and evil things we do in our lives, and they believed that when the rich helped the poor it added credits to their ledger. Now, we as Christians know this not to be the case. We know that we cannot by our own actions earn our way into the Kingdom. We believe that only the sacrificial blood of the Christ is able to wash us clean of our inequities. But nonetheless that was the thinking at the time.

    Second and more to the point, our wealth can be used to affect and change the things in this world. In other words, our wealth can be used to make the lives of the less fortunate in this world easier. Barclay puts it this way, “Possessions are not in themselves a sin, but they are a great responsibility, and those who use them to help friends and neighbors in need have gone a great distance to discharge that responsibility.” The point being, it is not evil to be wealthy if we understand what the purpose of our wealth is and how we should use that wealth.

    Now to verses ten and eleven. These lessons are – that how we fulfill small tasks in this world is the best proof of our fitness or unfitness in fulfilling bigger tasks. That is true in how we promote people in jobs in this world – that is, we promote someone to a more difficult job position once they have proven they are capable of success at easier tasks. But Jesus extends this principle to life eternal. Let’s paraphrase Jesus’ words.

    Upon this earth we are charged with caring for things over which we are only stewards – God’s garden, God’s creation. When we die, we cannot take any of this with us. They are only on loan to us. We are only stewards. However, if we are good stewards over God’s creation in this life then we will be given what is really important – a life eternal with the Father in the Father’s house. In other words, what we are given in heaven depends on how we use and care for – how we steward – the things of this world.

    The final lesson comes to us in verse thirteen. It is the one we are probably most familiar with. No slave can serve two masters. How does the King James version  put it? “You cannot serve God and mammon.”

    Now understanding this is helped when we realize that back in the day a slave was the possession of their master, exclusively. A slave had no spare time of their own. Every moment of their lives belonged to the master. They had no time that was their own. Every moment of every day belonged to the master. Now that is different from today where many of us have secondary part-time jobs. We try to find ways to augment our incomes using our off hours filling them with outside work. Not so with the slaves of Jesus’ time and more importantly it is not true of our relationship with God. Once we choose to serve God every moment of our time and every atom of our energy belongs to God. We are God’s, exclusively. We belong totally to God or not at all.

    So, let’s start drawing some conclusions from today’s lessons.

    First, if you come into this place and profess a faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master, you belong to God, exclusively. And if you belong to God exclusively you cannot put the things of this world – its wealth and resources – above God. You cannot exclusively belong to God while dedicating yourself first to accumulating riches in this world. You must first dedicate your life to building up a righteous relationship with God so that you will have a place in eternity in God’s house.

    You are called to be good stewards of the gifts and talents that God has bestowed upon you, yes. But you must realize that you cannot take the things of this world with you into the next. Also, you are called to be a Good Steward of the tasks appointed to you in this life so that you can prove you are worthy of greater things in the next. You are called to be as shrewd in using the resources gifted to you by God to build up a righteous relationship with God as non-believers are in using the wealth they accumulate in this world to build up their comforts here. What does that mean? Simply this, we must use our gifts and talents to make this world a better, softer, and easier existence for those in need around us. That would be the work of a good steward who belongs exclusively to his master, God. That is how we go about completing the tasks in this life that will build a righteous relationship with God that assures us a place in God’s house for all of eternity.

    This is how you can know to whom you belong.

  • Sir Give Us This Bread

    Offered to the congregation of the Long Valley Presbyterian Church on July 25, 2021

    by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    As we prepare to look at this passage in John this morning, I think it is important to take a step back to understand what John is trying to accomplish in his Gospel. I am sure, that you all already know that the way John’s Gospel tells of the ministry of Jesus is very much different from what are known as the Synoptic Gospels. One of my favorite ways of describing the differences between the four Gospels is to say that Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us what happened; John tells us why it happened. This telling of the Feeding of the five thousand is a perfect example. In Matthew, he devotes 9 versus to the event; [that is Matt 14: 13-21]. He simply tells us it happened. John devotes 14 verses in chapter 6: 1-13 but follows it up with 38 additional verses [22-59] to provide meaning and understanding. After 70 or so years of mulling and thinking about Jesus’ ministry, John has much deeper insight that he meanss to share; and if we are going to benefit and grow in our knowledge of Jesus, then we have to follow John down his very rich and rewarding rabbit hole.

    In the first three Gospels, the writers tell us with a great degree of compassion the story of the life and ministry of Jesus. Mark says that Jesus is moved with compassion for the Leper. Mark also tells us that Jesus had sympathy for Jairus regarding the impending death of his daughter. When Jesus raises the son of the widow, Luke tells us with tenderness how Jesus gave him to his mother. We are told that Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. But in John, the telling of the miracles that Jesus preformed have a different purpose. For John their purpose was not so much to show Jesus’ compassion as it was to demonstrate the glory of Christ and through Christ the glory of God.

    At the Cana, John says to us, “This was the first of his signs … to manifest his glory. [John 2:11] Of the raising of Lazarus, he says it was for the glory of God. [John11:4] For John, it was not that there was no love or compassion in Jesus’ miracle acts but that in every one of them we see the glory of God manifested through Jesus into our human time and space. These miracles were signs that revealed to us a glimpse of who God is. And this is vitally important if we are to understand John. Every one of the miracles that Jesus preforms opens up for us a glimpse into who God is. And the critically most important element of these signs, is that these glimpses of God are ONLY opened to us through the Christ.

    So, with that as our backdrop, let’s take a look at the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

    Right at the top, I am going to suggest to you that there are three ways in which we can look at this miracle. The first would be very plainly that it was an outright miracle where sparse and meager gifts were turned into a magnificent meal. And certainly, the text stands on its own in substantiating that view. The second is that it might have been a sacramental meal; that is like our communion the elements are tiny parcels of the bread and wine and that is what everyone received. That is just an OK explanation for me. But the third is a much more compelling explanation for me.

    We are told in the story that the “Passover Feast was near.” What does that tell us? Well, it means that thousands of Jews were on the road on their way to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. Remember it was a requirement of the Law that anyone within one day’s journey must make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A census taken by Roman historians revealed that the population of Jerusalem would swell to over 2 million people during the time of Passover. Now, what is important to understand, is that these people didn’t have fast food restaurants or convenience stores along the road where they could stop off to get food for their journey. No, if they were making this trek, they would have to plan to bring enough food for themselves when they needed to stop and eat. And that’s what we see when Andrew finds the young boy who had five loaves of Barley bread and two fishes. This meager meal is what the lad had brought along for the journey for his own nourishment. It is reasonable to assume that many of the people in the crowd that day had done the same to one extent or another. Perhaps, Andrew went through the crowd and was turned away by vast numbers who indeed had something to share but refused, and it was only this boy who was willing to give of what he had.

    Andrew brings this boy and his offering to Jesus. Jesus tells his disciples to tell the crowd to sit on the grass. Jesus begins by giving thanks to God with a traditional Jewish prayer of thanks. “Blessed are thou, O Lord, our God, who causes to come forth bread from the earth.” Now one of two things happens at this point. We can either imagine the loaves and fish regenerating themselves over and over and pilling up before Jesus so that there suddenly appeared enough food to feed all; OR, we can envision Jesus solemnly praying to God and that prayer was as much praise as it was a request that the hearts of those in the crowd who had food to eat would be moved to come forward and share. Then we see a similar miracle. This one is not simply that Jesus replicated and reproduced vast amounts of food but that his prayer has silently moved the hearts of the thousands of people and they came forward to share. This version exposes for us an even greater glimpse into the majesty of Jesus and God. That Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit can reach into the hearts of people and move them to preform great works of sacrifice and sharing. Either way, we see a miracle of Jesus’ doing.

    What we see is a meager gift offering that a believer brings to the Christ and how in Jesus’ hands miracles happen. For John, this is an opportunity for us to see the glory of God. This is a chance for us to see how Jesus uses our gifts and offerings, the personal offerings that each of us place in the basket each week. On the surface, our own individual gifts may seem small and inadequate. But in his hands – in God’s hands, miracles can and do happen.

    It is to the glory of God that Jesus provides food to feed the people. Either way that you view how the miracle happened, it is to the glory of God. In this instance we see a glimpse of the God that feeds the people. We see the God that nourishes and sustains us.

    How?

    OK. Answering this question is when we get down to the nitty gritty. And to understand what’s going on we need to go further on in the text to verses 22 and beyond.

    In the following verses, we learn that Jesus had snuck away to avoid the crowds because they were moving to assert him as king after he had fed them. So, the next day the crowd searches and finds him in Capernaum. They ask him when did arrive and how. Jesus’ response is to plainly say to them that they are searching for him not because of the signs that he had performed, the glimpses of God’s glory that he gave them, but because he fed them. Jesus says to them, “Do not search for food that perishes, but for food which lasts and gives eternal life, that food which the Son of Man will give you; for the Father, God, has set his seal upon him.”

    What is Jesus saying here? He reads the crowd plainly and he calls them out for their shortsightedness. He knows they are nothing more than groupies following the latest pop star. And he says it directly. I’ll paraphrase it here, “the only reason you are here is because I fed you. I have shown you Signs of God, but you have not preceived them. You have come for bread to eat; but the bread that you search for will perish and leave you hungry tomorrow. I can give you so much more. The bread that I can give you will feed you forever and give you eternal life.”

    And what is their response? In verse 30 we read, “What signs are you going to perform that we may see and believe in you?”

    Are you kidding me? Are you blind? Well, yes. Many of them were. Jesus fed 5,000 people the day before and you come asking, “What signs will you perform?” He has raised people from death. He has cured the blind and the leper. And you ask, what sign will you perform?

    They go on to speak of bread feeding miracles in Jewish history that is when Moses fed them manna in the desert. In other words, “we have seen this trick before”. But Jesus counters saying, Moses did not feed you the manna, God did. Further, “The bread of God is HE who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Now, it appears that they are beginning to get it. They respond, “Sir, give us that bread.” But their response is as if to say, “Where is it? Where can we buy it?”

    Jesus responds by saying to them it’s right here in front of you, “I am the bread from heaven.”

    Now this creates up a fire storm of questions in the crowd. Who is this guy? Isn’t he not the son of Joseph who we have known as a boy? How can he say, I come down from heaven?

    But Jesus persists. “I am the bread of life. He who believes will have eternal life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they died. This is the bread of life come down from heaven that you may eat of it and not die… Anyone who eats of this bread will live forever.”

    Now we have to pause a moment and understand what Jesus means by “Bread”. It is not any earthly type of food manna or otherwise. What Jesus is speaking of is the “WORD” of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. From John 1, “The Word was in the beginning. The Word was with God. The Word was God.” Jesus has come to reveal to us the sustaining and lifegiving love of God. Hearing the “Word” of God spoken by Jesus is feeding on the Bread that will give us eternal life.

    So, when we look back at the feeding of the 5,000, we need to realize how temporary that earthly food was. And Jesus points that out to them. They were fed yesterday and here you are today looking to be fed again. He tells them, you need to be looking for something more substantial. You need to be looking for the bread that brings you closer to knowing who God is, closer to having an intimate relationship with God, closer to knowing the Name of God.

  • All Are Welcome In my Father’s House

    Gospel Lesson: John: 14-1-14

    Offered to the Highlands Presbyterian Church on November 7, 2021 by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This morning is Reformation Sunday and perhaps a preacher with a stronger background in the Reformation and Martin Luther would be speaking to you today about the great history and theological meaning of the Reformation. Or perhaps, because of the secular calendar and today being Halloween, a more clever preacher might have developed an entertaining Ghost and Goblins message. I tried; it didn’t work for me.

    This past Monday in our church calendar was All Saint’s Day. So, I have decided today to focus on it and its meaning to our collective church. On our church calendar, tomorrow is All Saint’s Day. Being raised Roman Catholic, our parish always made a big deal about it. It was a special day set aside to remember all the Saints that have gone before us. But after years of the RC experience oddly enough, it was a Presbyterian pastor that brought out some real meaning of the day for me and I hope that you all will enjoy what we have planned a bit later as we remember the Saints in our lives that have gone before us.

    In the Gospel passage from John that we read today, Jesus discusses with his disciples where he is going and that they can’t go with him, but they will follow him there. It’s a bit confusing. Well, take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of Andrew, Thomas, Peter and John. They were more than confused. At the prospect of being separated from Jesus they were terrified.

    In this passage, Jesus is talking with his disciples at a time of great uncertainty. Jesus has spent a great deal of time trying to explain to his core group what will be happening to him. He would be betrayed and handed over to the authorities, beaten and ultimately put to death. Their reaction was a stunned silence. A fear of abandonment struck them deep within their hearts. After all, they have invested three years of their lives in following the person they believed to be the Messiah. Now whether they thought he would reconquer Jerusalem and take it back from the Romans or in some other way, establish a kingdom, didn’t matter. They had invested time, heart and soul into him. But now, instead of riding on to great victory, they are being told that he will be leaving them; and not because he’s found a more worthy group; but because he is going to be put to death. Imagine their shock, their utter feeling of despair. Instead of being part of a glorious kingdom that would be established on the earth, they are being told that he would be leaving them. It must have caused a great feeling of anxiety and fear in them and left them looking out over an abyss of uncertainty.

    Have we experienced this type of circumstance? Have we sat talking to a loved one; one who was not long for this world? Where we faced the abyss of uncertainty that death causes, of being left behind, alone? It is hard to have a rejoicing heart, celebrating with God that a child is joining God in heaven. For us who are left behind in this world, it is hard to have comfort in their glorious resurrection.

    It is at times such as these that we need to know that we are safe and secure; that we are cared for. Who is it that holds us in his hands and guides us through the pain of loss? It is the Christ. It is our faith in him that gives us the assurance that he has gone to the Father and that he prepares a place for us and is waiting to receive us.

    So, Jesus said to the disciples as he says to us, “Don’t be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me.” At times of great uncertainty, there is only one thing that we can do; that is, to stubbornly hold on to our trust in God. There are times when we have to believe what we cannot prove and we have to accept what we cannot understand. If in the darkest hour, we believe that somehow there is a purpose in life and that purpose is LOVE, then even the unbearable becomes bearable and even in the darkest hour there is a glimmer of light.

    Here is where we find the disciples. They are being told that they are about to face their darkest hour. And what’s more, they will be facing it without Him. He is leaving them. And their response is to ask that he would take them with him. Jesus tells them, “No. Where I am going, you can not follow.” What Jesus means here is that on his path to reconciliation with God through his pain and death on the cross, there can be no surrogates. He has to walk that road alone. So, he tells them, he will be leaving them; but…But, … “do not be afraid. Believe in God and believe in me.” At the time when we do not understand what is happening, believe in God and believe in Jesus. When the hour is darkest, believe in God and believe in Jesus. When life is unbearable, believe in God and believe in Jesus.

    In Psalm 141, the psalmist writes hundreds of years before the time of the Christ, “O Lord, God; in thee I seek refuge.” If the Psalmist could believe that, how much easier is it for us because we have Jesus. Jesus is proof that God is willing to give us everything that God has to give. Paul writes in Romans, the “God that did not spare his own Son … [God] gave him up for us all. If God did this, will not God give us all things in the Christ?” With that amazing Love to bolster us up, it may not be easy, but at least it is possible to accept what we may not understand and bear the storms of life.

    So, the disciples are facing an abyss of uncertainty. Jesus is telling them that the Son of Man must be raised up on the Cross and that he will be going to the Father and they are stunned with the idea that they will be left behind and alone. Jesus speaks these words of assurance to them and us.

    “There are many abiding places in my Father’s house. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will welcome you to myself, that where I am, there you may be, too.”

    Now the words “abiding places” have differing theological meanings. The Jews believed in gradations of blessedness. The Greeks held that there were stages along the way and we could progress form one level of blessedness to the next. Early Church thinkers spoke of degrees of glory in heaven. There is something attractive about the notion that our souls do not stop growing in closeness to Jesus and in revelation in God but that after death we continue to grow, ever onward growing closer to God.

    But, I would like to stay with the more simple explanation and that is in heaven, there is room for all. Jesus is telling his disciples that we are all living in a world where people close doors on us. Sometimes, those closings can be arbitrary with very little reason. But God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting. Heaven is as wide as the heart of God and there is room for us all. They [we] need not be worried and concerned about the uncertainties; for he will come again and take us all to himself as He has the Saints that have gone before. This is the ultimate triumph of Jesus. He will come again and take us to himself. He has prepared the way. He has blazoned the trail so that we may follow.

    That is the way it would be for the disciples and so it is for the Saints that have gone before us; the ones whose memories we will celebrate today. Jesus has blazoned the trail and prepared a way for them to follow. And they are now growing closer to the Christ and to God in every moment of their everlasting. It is their resurrection to a closeness to God that we will be celebrating today.

    Now for those of us who have doubts, there is Thomas. Thomas was never one to fear of having doubts or asking for explanations. Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.” Then he asks, “How do we know the way?” We should thank God for Thomas as much as for any Saint in history. For Thomas asks the questions for us and his questions give Jesus the opportunity to respond.

    Jesus says to them, “I am the Way, [I am] the Truth and [I am] the Life.

    What better answer do we have for any of our doubts. But for a Jew of the time, it had an even greater meaning.

    Jews talked about the “way” in which we must walk and the “ways” of God. God said to Moses, “You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord, your God, has commanded you.” Isaiah speaks to us, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’” The psalmist says, “Teach me your ways.”

    You know when we are trying to get around in an unfamiliar town and get lost, we may stop someone to ask for directions. And they might say to us, “Well, you go down to your third left and make a right and proceed to the office building and then make two lefts to the next right.” That would not be very helpful. But if they were to say, “I’m going that way. Let me take your there.” That would be the more comforting response. So, it is with Jesus. He does not simply give us advice. He takes us by the hand to show us the way.

    About Truth, the Psalmist says, “Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may walk in Truth.” Truth today has become very subjective. We are bombarded by media, social and otherwise, telling us that we can determine facts for ourselves and decide what is true or not. That we can be our own diviners, that truth is relative, and we can pick and choose what is true. But the Psalmist tells us otherwise. The Psalmist tells us the Truth comes in walking in the “Way” of the Lord. And Jesus tells us that He is the “Way,” so it follows that Truth is in Jesus. You know many a person can say to you, “I am speaking the truth to you.” I could say that I am teaching truth to you here today. But I can never say, no other person can ever say, “I am the Truth.” Jesus is not only the best teacher of truth; Jesus is the realization of Truth. In following Jesus in His Way, we learn Truth.

    In Proverbs the writer says, “He who heeds instructions is on the path of life.” The Psalmist tells us, “Thou dost show me the path of life.” In the final analysis, what we are all seeking is life. You can say that we seek knowledge or love; but that is true only if those things make life worth living. And what is it that makes life worth living for a Christian? It is knowing that Jesus is the Way; that Jesus is Truth and from those we receive Life, a new Life in Christ.

    And Jesus tells us, if you see these things in me, then you have seen the Father. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” What does this mean? Does it mean that anyone that does not confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is condemned to eternal damnation? No, I don’t think Jesus is explicitly saying that. What I believe He is saying is, if you want to know God, if you want to see the Father, then Jesus is your best and only way of doing that. Other prophets, mystics and teachers can lead exemplary lives but none of them can be the Way of God. They can tell you the truth but no one of them is the Truth. They can raise your spirits but none of them can give you new Life. That is what Jesus is for us and for anyone seeking to know God.

    Therefore, do not be afraid. Believe in God. Believe in Jesus. Amen.

  • Who are you looking for?

    Offered to the congregation of the First Church of Hanover Easter Morning March 2021

    Text: John 20: 1-18

    Mary was left alone at the tomb. John, who outraced Peter to the entrance and the impetuous Peter who just rushed in had been there, inspected the inside of the Tomb but then returned to their locked room. But, Mary remained and was left alone at the tomb.

    The men had entered the tomb. What did they find there?

    Peter was the first to go into the Tomb. John was hesitant but then followed Peter in. They looked around. John describes what they found. They saw the linen clothes lying there. He tells us that he saw the napkin which had been laid upon Jesus’ head…still in its folds. What does that mean, “…still in its folds”? It means that everything that they found were just lying neatly there – not in a heap or tossed aside. No, they were still in their folds; in other words, just as they had been on Jesus’ body; they remained in the tomb.

    If the grave site had been rustled and the body stolen, then the linens would have been tossed aside or taken with the body. Instead, they remained “in their folds” as Jesus had risen out of them. That is what they saw. But John goes on to say, “they did not realize the meaning of scripture, that Jesus should rise from the dead. In fact, as we will hear in Luke’s account of the Lord’s Supper later, the disciples didn’t recognize him until after he had broken and blessed the bread. So, the two disciples returned to their lodgings.”

    John tells us that they saw; they believed but they did not understand. So, they left. They returned to their locked room.

    The one witness who came again and remained was Mary. She sat outside the tomb and wept. After a time, she looked back into the Tomb and saw two Angels at the place where Jesus had been lying.

    They asked her, “Why are you crying?” As if to ask, why are you not celebrating? Mary answered, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid them.” At this time, Mary was looking “backwards” into the Tomb. It was at this moment, perhaps she was disturbed by something, she turns and sees a man; perhaps because her tears and her grief were blinding her, she could not recognize who it was. The man asks her, “Woman why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

    Now, there is a lot of supposition as to why Mary doesn’t recognize who the man is. I suggested earlier that her grief and tears blinded her. We can leave it at that. But we will see in later accounts of Jesus greeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus and in the upper room that at first none of them recognized him. There was something else going on.

    Jesus had risen. But he was not simply was resuscitated or awakened, Jesus had risen into his glory. His glory is that he was now joined with the Father. This resurrected Christ was more than a human being. His flesh and bones had been glorified. His personage was somehow changed. It was Jesus but something was different. The God Head was becoming more visible. And that somehow changed his appearance.

    Thinking it was the gardener, Mary asks the man, “Sir, if you are the man who has removed him, tell me where you have laid him; and I will take him away.” Perhaps at this point, Mary turns back to look at the empty tomb and with her back to the man, she hears a voice call her name, “Mary.” And in that instance, she turns again to the man whose voice she recognizes. Do you remember the parable of the Good Shepherd where Jesus teaches, “my sheep will know my voice.” As she turns, she calls the familiar name she had always called the man with that voice, “Rabbouni.”

    So, let’s take a breadth and step back from the narrative and try to understand theology what John is telling us.

    Mary, at first doesn’t recognize the man that for the past three years has been her teacher. Now, I have allowed the assumption that she was in grief and blinded by her tears. That is a very reasonable. But if you, for a moment, let your mind’s eye create for you a scene. Imagine Mary, in her grief turning and looking back into the Tomb. OK? Now remember and make a connection with Jesus’ question, “Who are you looking for?”

    Mary is looking backwards, away from the Christ, and into the empty Tomb. She doesn’t see Jesus because she is looking in the wrong place and in the wrong direction. She is looking backwards into her grief not seeing the glory and resurrection of the Christ.

    That is a very telling point for the Gospel writer, John.

    He is very clear that he and Peter have entered the tomb and have inspected it but have not understood what they were seeing. They, probably fearful, of all the possible conspiracies that the Jewish authorities might have been planning, ran back to their locked room. They did not see the Christ and he might have been standing there. Perhaps, they would have seen the same gardener that Mary had bumped into. They didn’t see him because they were looking in the wrong place. They were looking backwards into the Tomb and not for the resurrection. They were expecting that there would be death in the Tomb. But death was not there. The Tomb was empty. All that was there now was resurrection.

    Mary almost makes the same mistake. She is grief-stricken; her eyes are filled with tears; and, she is looking the wrong way.

    Then, she hears a familiar voice call her name, “Mary.”

    It is at that moment, when she is called, that she turns again and can see the risen Lord.

    Now, it is the same Christ, that she was blinded to, who she can now see clearly because he has called her by name.

    The writer, John, spends a great deal of time throughout his Gospel tells us that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but that it is us by our actions, refusing to see Jesus for who he is, the Christ, the Son of God that condemn ourselves. That is one of the underlying themes throughout John’s Gospel.

    While Mary is looking in the wrong place, in the wrong direction, we can hear John telling us that we need to be looking for God in only one place and that is in the Christ: not in a dead human form but for the risen Lord.

    We will not find Jesus if we are looking in the Tomb. The Tomb represents all that Jesus has triumphed over and all that should be dead to us. If we are looking backwards into the Tomb, we won’t find him there.

    We have to do what Mary does. When she recognizes him, she grabs hold of him.

    Now in the text, it says that Jesus tells Mary not to touch him. But there are suggestions that this could be a mistranslation and that what Jesus might have said was, Don’t hold me. Or stop holding me. It’s all in how you read the Greek. The difference of one letter can change the meaning.

    But again, using your mind’s eye, imagine Mary’s immediate reaction and that it would be one of impulse. And in that impulsive moment, she grabs ahold of the Lord once she realized who he was.

    This is the reaction we should have towards Jesus. We should not have one of intellectual understanding but one of pure joy and exhilaration; a reaction in which our joy explodes, and we reach out to clutch at our Lord attempting to hold him tightly to our bosom.

    Now, you might understand Jesus saying to Mary, “Stop holding onto me.” You have a task to perform. Go and tell my brothers what you have seen.

    So, that is what Mary does. She runs back to the city, to Peter and John and the rest of the disciples who are still in hiding. She announces triumphant exuberance, “I have seen the Lord.” She announces to Peter and John, look at what you missed because you were looking in the wrong place. “I have seen the Lord.” He called me by my name, and I recognized his voice.

    Like Mary, Jesus calls us by name. We need to listen to hear his voice and when we recognize it, we need to redirect our gaze in a new direction. We need to turn to face Jesus. Not only to know about him intellectually but to grab ahold of him and let him pull us tightly to his bosom and then experience the joy of knowing who he is – the Son of God; the Word of God that spoke Creation into existence and who has died to heal the brokenness of Creation; the Son of the Almighty who has bought our salvation with his blood; conquered death for us; and who has risen out of the Tomb for us.

    The Tomb is empty. He has risen. He is Risen Indeed!

  • Jesus Is the Great I Am

    Offered to the congregation of Long Valley Presbyterian Church on Palm Sunday 2017 by Ruling Elder, Mel Prestamo

    Matthew 21: 1-11

    The prophets of Israel had a distinctive way of getting their message across. It was along the line of: when words fail to move people, do something dramatic. They would say, “If you will not hear, you will be compelled to hear.”

    In a very real way, that is what Jesus did during his last days in Jerusalem leading up to his conquering of death and his Resurrection.

    Like the prophets of old, you could almost hear Jesus saying:

    • You ask, who is this man that feeds thousands. I will show you that “I am”.
    • You ask, who is this man that raises the dead to life. I will show you that “I am”.
    • You ask, if this man is the Messiah. I will show you that “I am!”

    It is in this light that I wanted to trace Jesus’ final days on Earth and how they began with an event that we almost throw off and dismiss in its significance. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to hearing the Passion Week story that the details begin to lose their significance.

    The first event that I was struck by was when Jesus sent two of his disciples to go a take a donkey from the front of someone’s home. He tells them, “Go to the next village and as soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey there… Untie it and bring it here… If anyone asks what you are doing, tell them, “The Lord needs it…”

    Curious, isn’t it that Jesus would instruct his disciples to go and steal a donkey for a joy ride? Of course, that isn’t what is happening. Jesus is instructing two of his followers to go to pick up something for him that he has prearranged. And that is a very important fundamental underpinning of the events that unfold during Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem. The underlying story behind this brief passage is that Jesus leaves nothing to chance. Beginning with the choice of donkeys and the prearrangements to use them is planning down to the minute detail. If you are to understand anything that follows, you must understand this: Jesus has planned it out. Jesus was in charge. That must be the filter through which you see what follows.

    In the same way, don’t miss sight of the symbolism of selecting a foal of an ass that had never been ridden upon. From Numbers and Deuteronomy, we know that the Arc of the Covenant – Israel’s most sacred and prized possession – must be carried in a cart that had never been used for any purpose before. So high was the import of the sacredness of the Arc. The Hebrews would not even allow it to be carried by a cart that was previously used. We can observe the special sacredness of the Jesus’ procession that the ass he rode upon had never been ridden upon before. So, it is not just that the king arrives on an ass in peace, but that the ass that has never been ridden upon. The symbolism is that it is carrying something sacred.

    The construct of the events of Jesus’ last days is meticulous down to minute details like these.

    Let’s talk briefly about day that Jesus chose to make his entry into Jerusalem. He chose the days of the Passover celebration. Now, we have read in our scriptures that there were crowds, HUGE crowds. Just how large were those crowds?

    Earlier this week, I had asked church friend how many people he thought would have been on the road for Jesus’ procession. He thought for a moment and considered Jerusalem wasn’t that big a city and the surrounding towns were just small villages. He suggested: a couple thousand. What do you think? How many?   Here’s an indication. Sometime after Jesus’ resurrection, a Roman official was trying to explain to the Caesar just how important the Passover time was to the Jewish people and how dangerous the time could be. He commissioned a census by the chief priests to count the number of sheep sacrificed in the Temple during the Passover Feast. The count they came up with was 256,000 sheep. Now Jewish law specified that there could be no fewer than 10 people participating in the sacrifice of any one sheep. There could be more. But it could be no less than 10. So, if you do the math and extrapolate for some cases where there were more than 10 people on a sacrifice, the estimate of the census concluded that there was about 3 million people in Jerusalem during the Passover Celebration. This is recorded by the historian Josephus.

    Now when we think of the crowd along the road to Jerusalem on the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem, what number did you imagine? 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000? Well, it is not an exaggeration to suggest there could have been closer to a half million people on the road. Many of them would have been on the road as Jesus began his entry into the city. Picture the scene now. Now, you can begin to envision the likes of a mammoth procession – a ticker tape parade, if you will.

    So, Jesus begins his entry into the city. The crowds are aware of who he is. They have heard of him – this is the holy man that feeds thousands of people with bread and fish; this is the prophet who raises the dead to life. And perhaps, Lazarus walking alongside him. The crowds began to swell. Is this our Messiah, finally? Are we to be freed of the Romans and every godless gentile that infects our city? They rush to see him. Thinking that Jesus is the great leader that will free and save them from Roman domination, they begin chanting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

    That’s another curious thing. For us the word Hosanna has become a word of praise. For Jews in Palestine, it had a different meaning. It actually meant, “Save us!” It was the greeting the people gave Maccabaeus when he entered the city 150 years before after he had expelled an occupying foreign army from Israel. He, too entered the city on an ass as a conquering hero coming into the city in peace.

    The people were calling to Jesus, “Save us!” They called for him to save them from the Romans. Save us from these gentiles that infect out sacred city. Save us from the yoke they have placed upon us just as Maccabaeus had 150 years before. This was a welcome for the conquering hero that the people wanted Jesus to be.

    Now, to be clear, Jesus was not trying to impress the people that he was the next Maccabaeus. On the contrary, the symbolism that Jesus was using was one of contrasts. He comes as a king riding on an ass in peace. But he was not a conquering military hero. He had no army. That was a distinction the people missed.

    That was the scene, the frenzy of the event of Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem. That is what the Chief Priests looked out at from the city walls. That is what they were now being forced to deal with. The people were receiving a conquering hero while the city of Jerusalem, all of Israel and the chief priests were under the denomination of Roman rule. This was an enormous threat to their position of authority, their control of the Temple, and their ability to continue to rule. This Jesus was going to be a problem. And how they were going to deal with him was going to be a thorny issue.

    Now Jesus’ plan continues to unfold. 150 years prior, Maccabaeus expelled the foreigners and went to the Temple to purify it. What does Jesus do? He goes into the Temple and begins to over turn tables and beat and whip money changers. But these weren’t foreigners who were defiling the Temple. These were licensed vendors doing business with the blessings of the chief priests. You’ve got to wince at the irony here. Jesus is purifying the Temple of the defilement not created by Roman rule but that was created by the chief priests themselves. This, as millions of people are coming to the Temple to make their sacrifice. Now this is no small thing. The chief priests had their fingers in every exchange that took place in the Temple. There have been estimates that the Temple Treasury had amassed millions of dollars in wealth. The enterprise they had going made the Temple Treasury one of the richest of the ancient world. And the Romans didn’t touch it as-long-as the chief priests were able to keep the peace. And now, there is this Jesus fellow who in one day shut has down the entire enterprise and then occupied the Temple by sitting and teaching there. Millions of dollars and control of the city were now in jeopardy.

    So, what is the result of all of this? The Chief Priests came to the conclusion that they have to get rid of this Jesus. So, they begin to plot. But how? They can’t just arrest him while he is teaching in the Temple. We know that is where he is. Mark tells us, he is teaching the people the parable of the Renters of the Vineyard. The Pharisees try to entrap him with their carefully and craftily worded question about paying taxes. You know how Jesus foiled them, Render unto Caesar… What were they to do? They couldn’t find a way.

    That’s where Judas comes in – this man so filled with Zionist dreams and greed. He provides the means for the Chief Priests to arrest Jesus out of the sight of the people while he was praying at night in solitude. It was just the plan the authorities needed. So, they set it up. Once it was done, they had him.

    So now what? They want to execute him. Ah, but not so easy. They have to convict him first by trial by the Sanhedrin. The problem is, like every other part of Jewish law, there is procedure; there is ritual; there is a prescribed way to do things. For a trial to result in a conviction a man to be executed the rules were:

    • The trial must take place within the walls of the Temple in a room referred to the Hall of Hewn Stone. A decision of the Sanhedrin was not valid unless it was reached there.
    • The court could not meet at night, nor could it meet during any great feast time – what time of day was it? Night. What time of year? Passover.
    • Witnesses must be examined separately and agree in every detail
    • The accused could not be asked leading questions in order to convict him.
    • Each member of the Sanhedrin must cast their vote separately from the youngest to the eldest
    • The vote must be unanimous
    • If the verdict was death, one day and night must lapse before it was carried out to allow for any member to change their mind and stay the execution.

    The Sanhedrin broke all its own rules to convict Jesus.

    • The trial took place in the home of the high priest, Ciafus.
    • The trial took place at night during the Passover Feast.
    • The witnesses did not agree on any details [One said, “He cured my blindness”; another said, “He said he would destroy the Temple and build it up in three days”, and so on] But there was no detailed agreement per the Law.
    • Finally, in desperation, the chief priest asked Jesus directly, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” – a leading question.

    But wait, three things can happen. First, Jesus can refuse to answer. Or he could answer, “No”. Either would totally stymy their plot. They would have been stalemated. But Jesus does neither of those two. Instead, he takes total control of the situation and the circumstances and says, Yes, “I am.”

    It was not the plan of the Sanhedrin, the Chief Priests, the Pharisees, or even the Rule of Law that convicted Jesus. Jesus was in total control. He could have backed out and said no, not me. But he didn’t. In order, to fulfill the Gold’s plan, he very authoritatively states, “I am the Messiah, the Son of God.” And so, Jesus sets God’s plan in motion. Do you remember how Jesus planned for the donkey? Nothing was left to chance. He had laid everything out and he pushed it all to its ultimate conclusion.

    To complete the review of the Sanhedrin’s proceedings that night:

    The was no call of the vote – member by member – there was only Ciafus’ call, “Why do we need more witnesses? You have heard him claim to be God.” And, by acclamation, they called for his execution.

    The proceedings were rushed to Pilate, and the execution was sought before sunset of the same day – less than the required day and night period of reconsideration.

    Every rule of law was broken in order to get rid of this Nazarene.

    Before we move to the end, let’s take a look at another detail. I want you to think of Peter and his three denials and the three times he responded to Jesus’ questions, “Peter, do you love me? Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my sheep.” Why? What was so important in Jesus’ plan that he had to humiliate Peter? Because that is what he did. You see Peter was a strong-willed person. He was convinced that no matter the circumstances, he would step forward and strike down any of Jesus’ enemies which he tried to do when he cut off the ear of the Temple Guard. That would not do. That was not the kind of Rock Jesus need as the cornerstone of his church. What Jesus needed was a man willing to be a servant to the people. One who would love them like he loved Jesus. So, Jesus had to take Peter down a notch. That was the final element of Jesus’ plan. That was the final detail of the night of his arrest. Jesus had to exposed to Peter that his bravado was not going to make him the leader Jesus needed. Instead, Jesus needed a servant that would love and feed his sheep. That is where Jesus needed to bring Peter.

    This is a lot; and what does that all mean?

    We all know the story. We know the assumptions, that God is in charge. What does it change to see the pieces come together and really see that Jesus was really in charge every step of the way? From procuring the donkey to ride, the day and time of day and physical site of his procession into Jerusalem – all done to create the greatest amount of stir and maximize his visibility – the symbolism of riding an ass into the city – which every Jew would be able to see and understand [though they misinterpreted it] they understood what it meant.

    How does that all play out for us?

    For me, my understanding now is that Jesus was in full control; that the circumstances didn’t happen to him but that he arranged, and he pushed them forward. That he could orchestrate all the moving pieces is mind blowing:

    • The minute arrangements, the donkey and the symbolism it provided
    • Maximizing the people on the road so as to visually make the most challenging statement possible to the authorities
    • The purifying of the Temple to directly challenge the chief priests
    • The reaction and actions of the Chief Priests played right into Jesus’ plan
    • The actions of Judas facilitated the plan
    • Playing the whole Sanhedrin at the trial. They had nothing until he gave it to them

    So, what does this mean for us; to see that these things didn’t happen to Jesus but that he orchestrated them to happen; to see that Jesus used all of these events to demonstratively show the people [and us] that he is truly “I am”?

    At this point, I am going to play a devil’s advocate and challenge you that everything we have seen to this point does nothing to prove that Jesus was anything more than a master manipulator.

    • He chose to ride in on the foal of a donkey. He knows his history.
    • The procession and the Clearing the Temple of the money changers was a great way to focus attention on himself
    • The chief priests? It was just his way to pushing their buttons
    • Judas? He was just a bad apple.
    • The trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate getting backed into a corner by the chief priests might have been a miscalculation but it doesn’t of itself prove anything.

    What then do we have to be faithful about? Even when you sit back to appreciate how well Jesus put all the moving parts of the passion week together, you still have nothing that proves anything.

    Except for one thing and that one thing is the empty tomb.

    Proof? There were countless witnesses who testified to have seen the risen Christ in the days that followed his crucifixion. Mary and the women at the Tomb speaking with Angels who told them he had risen. Peter and John at the Tomb who had entered the empty Tomb and handled the linens that he was wrapped in. The disciples on the road to Emmaus who walked and conversed with him and whose hearts burned as he spoke to him. They welcomed him into their home, sat to eat with him and then at the Table their eyes were opened as he blessed the bread, and they recognized him. The disciples in the upper room where he entered through locked doors. Thomas who testified that the man before him was, “My Lord and my God.”. Paul on the road to Damascus who was confronted by the Christ asking why do you persecute me.

    All these were witnesses to the risen Christ and that the Tomb was empty. The One that rode in on the foal of a donkey has now been raised to his true Kingship. Jesus has shown all that he is the great I am.

    Source material: Palm Sunday – Triumphal Entry! By William Barclay

  • Sell It All

    Luke 14: 25-33 / Offered to the Rockport PC, Port Murray, NJ

    Well, there you have it. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you have to hate your father and your mother, and your spouse and children, and your brothers and sisters, and even your life itself. You have to measure the costs of being a disciple of Jesus before you decide to pick up the Cross and carry it with him. These are Jesus’ words, “So, therefore, every one of you who does not bid farewell to all his possessions cannot be my disciples.”

    So, there you have it. Call the realtors and sell your homes. Call the auction houses and sell all your valued possessions. Call Goodwill and the Salvation Army and give away all the rest. Clean out your garages and your closets. Sell all that you possess. If you don’t do all this and shed all the possessions that distract you from carrying the Cross of Christ, you cannot be a disciple of Jesus.

    You cannot pick up the Cross of Christ and decide part of the way through your faith journey that you want to opt out. In order to follow Jesus, you have to be all in!

    This is what Luke’s recorded testimony tells us that we must do in order to recognized by Jesus as one of his disciples? To our ears this is harsh and most difficult to conceive of much less to actually carry out. We hear these words and wonder if there is an escape clause, a silver lining if you will, that would make this all more palatable and easier for us to follow. Maybe there is. Let’s take a look.

    In Luke’s account of this day, Jesus is being followed by huge crowds, and he looks upon them realizing that most are just hangers-on. Most of them have a completely wrong notion of what he was there to do for them. Very few of them understood who God’s Messiah was and what his purpose was. They didn’t understand God’s plan for Creation least of all what the Messiah’s role would be in securing God’s plan.

    So, Jesus looks upon them, the people who were followers, the people who had been fed on the hillside, the people who were coming to him because of the rumors that were circulating that he just might be God’s Messiah. What that meant to most of them was – great legions of God’s armies clashing with and finally defeating all of Israel’s enemies and then finally freedom for the nation of God’s Chosen people.

    Jesus looks out upon them and tells them, No. If you are following me thinking we are marching to a great military victory, then no, you are here for the wrong reasons and you cannot be one of my disciples.

    So, Jesus tells them in the harshest terms what it would take to be one of his disciples. Let me share his words with you again,

    “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters and even his own life too, they cannot be one of my disciples.”

    This is so hard and I’m going to be honest with you, I find this a very difficult passage to speak to you on, this morning. Personally, I am not enamored of the thought of selling all I have so that I may lead worship with you this morning. I have difficulty warming up to the notion that before I can love Jesus, I have to hate my wife, my children, sister and brother. Do I have to hate my father and mother? Doesn’t the Fifth Commandment tell us to honor our Father and Mother? Aren’t these all gifts bestowed upon me by God. How is it that I should hate them?

    Are we to pile all of our possessions onto the offering plate? Or, instead of passing the Peace of Christ, should we pass the hatred of a true disciple? Is that what Jesus is telling us here.

    It that’s the lesson we hear, we must be missing something. So, as I often do, I went to William Barclay’s commentary on Luke for some insight and understanding.

    Barclay suggests one of the reasons that it is hard to understand why Jesus appears to be so harsh, is that we aren’t understanding how ancient peoples used the Aramaic language and the meanings of the words Jesus spoke in Aramaic. Barclay suggests that when they are translated into English, the intent of his words is misconstrued.

    If we take our English translations of ancient Aramaic as they stand, then we will be forever scratching our heads until they bleed without understanding Jesus’ meaning.

    Barclay suggests that we should not be taking our English translations of the ancient Aramaic languages to follow them literally.

    Barclay would say, “No,” and he writes this, “When Jesus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does not mean that literally. What Jesus means is that no love in this life can compare with the love we must bear to him.”

    To understand what Jesus’ intent may be, we need to first take into account where he was, what he was doing and who he was doing it with.

    First, you should recall that in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry, he was nearing the end, and he was now on the road to Jerusalem. He knew that he was on the way to the Cross. The crowds who were following him thought that Jesus and they were on the way to a new Jewish kingdom. The crowds thought that Jesus as God’s Messiah would throw off the yoke of slavery – of Roman domination – and set them free. That is where the crowds thought they were going. They didn’t understand that Jesus was heading somewhere else. Jesus knew where he was going but the crowds who were following him did not.

    He had made his assessment of the costs of picking up his Cross and was ready to pay that cost. These people in the crowds following him had no idea of what was to come and what the cost might be.

    Who was in the crowd? These were part of the five thousand who had been fed the loaves and fish. These were the people who had witnessed miracle cures and healings, who had seen people raised from the dead. They were following Jesus because they believed that this miracle working prophet could raise an army of God’s elite angels and defeat the Roman army, overthrow their occupation, and free Israel once and for all. There were Zionist among them whose sole purpose was military engagement to overthrow the Romans.

    But that is not where Jesus was heading. Their objective was not Jesus’ purpose. Their political objective was not what Jesus was willing to die for. Jesus was not on the road to worldly power and glory. Jesus was on the road to suffering and sacrifice and the people who were following him – if they truly wanted to follow Jesus to his end – then they would be called to make sacrifices of the dearest things in their lives. They may not be called to go to the Cross but the choices that they would have to make in order to be a disciple of his would cause just as much agony. They would be called to feel the pain of separation from the father and mother, family and friends – all who loved them. Some would be called to have their possessions stripped from them to die naked in humiliation. Some would be called to give up their love of this life and love Jesus first and foremost.

    So, Jesus turns to people and gives them the ultimatum that we read here today.

    But – and this is the thing we have to be careful about when translating from ancient languages to our limited English language. Barclay warns us “we must not take Jesus’ words with cold and unimaginative literalism. The language of the middle east was and is as vivid as the human mind can make it. When Jeus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does not want his words to be taken literally. What Jesus is saying is that no love in this life can compare to the love we must devote to him.”

    Now, I believe that spouses, children, parents and siblings are gifts bestowed upon us by the Father. They are blessings. We should not hate God’s blessings. But we should keep them prioritized. Our first love should be for God, the Father, Christ the Son, and the Spirit of God. We should love the gifts that God bestows upon us but not forget where they come from. But – and this is a very big BUT – we cannot allow any of what God gives us to supplant our love for the Father. Loving fathers, mothers, family and friends is important, but we should never them to come before loving God.

    Jesus comes to us in the name of the Father. He comes sharing and reflecting all of the love and compassion of the Father. He comes on behalf of the Creator God who called all things in to being by his Word and then pronounced it all good. God does not want us to hate that creation. NO, we are called to love God’s creation and be good stewards of it. But Jesus reminds us that we are called first to walk in God’s garden and to love God, to have a righteous relationship with God, first.

    When humankind was created, it was created with the sole purpose of sharing in the bliss of being with God in the Garden. And the gifts that God bestows upon us are meant to enhance that existence. But – and this is the caveat – none of that is meant to replace God. None of what God blesses into our lives is meant to come first, to distract us, to blind our vision so that we don’t see where we are marching when we pick up the Cross to follow Jesus.

    As the story of the Garden goes, humankind was tempted by its desire to have more for itself than God had intended. Now let me be clear. I believe that God had intended that humankind be blessed with all the good things in God’s creation. But God never desired humankind to choose those things first before we choose to be with God. God’s plan was for humankind to have a righteous relationship with God and to walk in bliss with God in the Garden for all eternity.

    But we chose otherwise. We chose the things. We chose to love the things God had blessed us with rather than God first. And that is what Jesus is getting at in his comments to the people that day.

    The people were following Jesus because of what they wanted from him and God – not for what God had planned for them. The people wanted God’s Messiah to serve them and not God, to throw off the oppression of Roman rule. Repel these foreign invaders out of their promised land. This land belonged to God’s Chosen People. It was their land; their heritage and they had no desire to share it with any others.

    But that was not what the Messiah was there to do. The Messiah had come to heal the rift between God and God’s broken creation – the creation that we so selfishly chose over God and then destroyed not only our relationship with God but creation, as well.

    The Mesiah’s role was to make the ultimate sacrifice that would heal all the wounds in God’s creation and make it whole again; make it one again with God. 

    But the people didn’t see it that way. They did not want to share the relationship that they had with God. They wanted to keep it for themselves. They choose their little corner of creation, and they loved it more than they loved the God who gave it to them.

    That is where Jesus found himself. As he looked out over the crowds, he was facing the fact that a vast majority of the people following him were there for the wrong reasons. So, he challenged them.

    Jesus was saying, if you choose to love all of the things of this life over a love of God, then you cannot be one in me.

    A few short weeks ago on the lectionary, Luke recounted Jesus’ parable of the rich fool. The rich fool you will recall was blinded by all of the wealth he had amassed in this world. He never once considered what his relationship should be with the God who was the source of his blessings. No, instead he built up barns to store his newfound surplus wealth for himself. Then God steps into his life to tell him that he had been a fool; that everything he had devoted his life to would die and rot away into dust. He had a chance to devote his life to building up a right relationship with God, but he blew it.

    Isn’t that the same thing that Jesus is saying here? If we want to be one in the Christ, we need to subjugate anything in this life that can distract us from loving him and God.

    So no, Jesus was not headed for the military conquests that the people wanted. Jesus was going to the Cross so that he could heal the brokenness of this world. He was giving up all that God had blessed him with in the world – his parents, his siblings, his friends, and his disciples – he was giving up all the things he loved to submit in obedience to the Father who he loved more than any of these.

    And that is what Jesus wants us to do. Jesus is not asking to us to hate all the blessings that God has bestowed into our lives but rather to love God more and the things of this life less. Can you do that?

    May this be so!

  • He Forgave

    Luke 23, offered to the Harmony Presbyterian Church on November 24, 2013

    There is something peculiar about the telling of the Gospel story this morning. I mean – as Luke tells it.

    In both Matthew and Mark at the end while Jesus is on the cross, Matthew & Mark, both in very judgmental ways, provide accounts of how Jesus was taunted especially by the leaders of the Jewish people and the Romans guards. In their accounts, they squarely place blame for what is happening on these two groups of people.

    In Matthew, he tells us, “The chief priests, the leaders, and the teachers of the Law of Moses also made fun of Jesus.” They said, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself.”

    Marks tells us that the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross gambled for his clothes and also nailed a sign over his said reading, “This is the King of the Jews”. They did not do this to honor him but to mock him. That is how both Mark & Matthew record it.

    In John, John weaves a tight theological connection between the death of Jesus on the cross and that of the sacrifice of the Passover lamb on what John tells us is the Passover holiday for the Jewish people. John says to us, “The next day would be both a Sabbath and the Passover. It was a special day for the Jewish people.”

    Luke however, neither seeks to place blame on the Jews and the Romans nor does he seek to make theological connections. Rather, Luke goes in a completely different direction, and it is one most appropriate for this Christ the King Sunday.

    What is it that Jesus does that Luke wants to bring to our attention? Did you catch it? It happens twice. Did anyone hear it? Let’s read it again. The first is in verses 34-35. Let’s pick it up right before that…

    “…they nailed Jesus to a cross.” [The execution had begun.] “They also nailed the two criminals to crosses one on each side of him.” [This gruesome exhibition of state justice was a spectacle that was meant to instill fear – not only in those being executed but in the people, as well.]

     Here in the midst of this horrid show, Jesus says, “Father, forgive these people! They don’t know what they are doing.”

    Then again in verse 43. Let’s pick it a line earlier, The criminal said to him, “Remember me when you come into power.” Here while the life is draining out of him, Jesus replied, I promise that today you will be with me in paradise.” First, he forgives and now he gives comfort. At this moment when he is just a brief time from expiring, Jesus seeks to give comfort to a man who is obviously frightened and afraid. “…you will be with me in paradise.”

    What Jesus has done here becomes Luke’s focal point. It becomes a powerful message.

    Jesus forgives.

    Here he is, the King of Kings, dying as the result of being brutally beaten by Roman soldiers at the behest of the Jewish leaders. These are the two groups that Matthew and Mark have bitterly accused of being responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion and death. But Luke doesn’t go there. Luke turns us in a different direction. He shows us why Jesus is God’s Messiah. Luke tells us what it is about Jesus that is so extraordinary. He shows us a man breathing his last breath. And what does that man do? He forgives.

    With all the horrible things going on around and happening to Jesus, Luke could bring us to focus on Jesus’ pain and suffering but instead Luke directs our attention on forgiveness.

    Now, I find this extraordinary. This is Christ the King Sunday in our lectionary. Next Sunday we begin the advent season. Thursday is Thanksgiving. We’ve got a lot going on. And let’s face it, we would all like to hear a nice warm and fuzzy “Thanksgiving” themed sermon. It is easy to gloss over or miss the significance of what this Gospel lesson is telling us. But if you stop for a while and listen, you can hear the Spirit stirring beneath the surface. You can see the ripples on the water moving out from the center washing over us.

    This Sunday is supposed to be glorious celebration of who the Christ is. Christ is King. Like the crowds in Luke’s narrative only a couple of days before, we should be waving banners or palms and singing “Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” This is our Christ. This is our King.

    But why then does our lectionary bring us to the end, to Jesus’ death? Is there no other passage we can read this Sunday? Can’t we read again the story of the procession into Jerusalem? Can’t we read the stories of all of that pomp, and victory, and glory? Why does Luke bring us to his end? Why his crucifixion story?

    It is because we need to see what kind of King Jesus was. He was not a king of triumphant marches through city gates that we saw on Palm Sunday. He was not a victorious king who rides on great white steeds. He was not a king that would lead great conquering armies. He was not that kind of King at all.

    He was a King who never forgot who he was and whose he was.

    He was the Son, the begotten of the Father. They are of the same Spirit. He had the Father’s heart. And to the end he showed the Father’s love and compassion. He did not call upon armies of angels to rescue him from the cross. Instead, he prayed for the forgiveness of the people who were beating and taunting him and he gave comfort and forgiveness to the fearful man at his side begging for some solace before his death. He showed mercy.

    Now it is easy to gloss over this because we take it for granted how great and wonderful Jesus is and was. But taking the story for granted is exactly what Luke won’t let us do. If Luke’s understanding of the story of Jesus was just a rehashing of what we expect and already know, he could have used the same narrative as Matthew and Mark. He would have blamed the Jews and Romans and satisfied our baser instincts to assign blame and exact justice.

    But it would not be the kind of Justice the Father expects from us.

    No. Instead of pointing a wagging finger and telling us that is where the blame lies, Luke tells us to look at our King. See – really see – what he does and what he is about.

    Love, Compassion and Forgiveness.

    Now, we as Americans are preparing for Thanksgiving Day. It is a singular holiday in our culture. At the same time, we as Christians are preparing for the rebirth of the Advent Season and the coming of the Christ, again on Christmas morn.

    How does Luke prepare us to do that?

    How does this lesson from Luke prepare us for Thanksgiving & Advent?  How does seeing our King as a beaten, dying man help to prepare us for Thanksgiving and Christmas and make our celebrations of these times meaningful revelations of the Light of Christ?

    Look upon the King, Luke tells us. If not for his forgiveness, we would have nothing. If not for his forgiveness, we would not be giving thanks. If not for his forgiveness, we would not have the rebirth of Christmas. If not for his forgiveness we would not have new life.

    “I am the life and the way. Without me, you have nothing.”

    Here’s another thought I would like you to think about. Luke understood it. Luke knew it. And as a follower of Christ, he could have done nothing with it. He could have kept that understanding of who the King was for himself like a light hidden securely under a basket. But he didn’t. He wrote his Gospel and uncovered that light for us and that light flooded the darkness with God’s love, compassion and forgiveness.

    Luke didn’t hide it. He shared it with you. Now, what will you do with it?

  • The Story of Jesus Feeding the Five Thousand

    (compiled from the texts of the four Gospels)

    Offered to Mt Freedom Presbyterian Church – July 30, 2000

    Background: John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth and cousin to Jesus, had been arrested by Herod, the king. Herod had John beheaded. John’s disciples took the body and placed it in a tomb. Then they went to tell Jesus what had happened. [Matthew] It was the time of the Passover Feast. [John]

    The Story:

    John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, is beheaded while in prison by Herod. John’s disciples took the body and placed it into a tomb. When they had done this, they went and told Jesus what had happened.

    Now when Jesus had heard this, he withdrew in a boat to a lonely place.

    But when the crowds heard this, they followed him. They had heard of the signs that he had performed on those who were sick and diseased. So, they went ahead of him on foot from out of the towns along the shoreline.

    The Passover Feast of the Jews was at hand.

    Now when Jesus came ashore, he saw the great throng and had compassion for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. John had been a shepherd to many of them but now he had been taken from them. To offer comfort, Jesus spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and cured many of those in need of healing.

    When it was evening, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place ad the hour is late. Send the crowds away to the villages so that they can buy something to eat for themselves.

    But he answered them, “They need not go away. You give them something to eat.” Philip answered him, “200 denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to eat just a little.” And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother came to him and said, “There is a lad who has five barley loaves ad two fish. But what are these among so many?” Jesus said to them, “Bring them to me.” He ordered them to have the crowd sit down in companies of 50 and 100 on the grass.

    Jesus took the loaves and the fish into the midst of the crowd and he looked up to heaven to give thanks to God. There in the midst of the thousands he prayed over the small gift of one who was willing to share all that he had. And when he had finished praying, Jesus blessed and broke the loaves and fish and then gave it all to his disciples to set before the crowd.

    And all ate and were satisfied. And the disciples took up their baskets and gathered enough food for the twelve. Now those in the crowd numbered five thousand men. When the people had seen the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is come into the world.”

    Immediately, he made the disciples go ahead of him to the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowd. Then he went up to the mountain by himself to pray.

    Sermon Message: What Gifts Can We Bring?

    I believe the Bible is alive.

    I hope that with that statement I have raised a few eyebrows. Perhaps, an initial reaction might be, “What do you mean by that? The Bible is a book. How can you say that it is alive.

    That is the idea that I want to examine with you today because I believed that understanding that the Bible is alive is a critical first step to knowing who the Living God is and what our response as believers in the Christ should be. It ultimately will bring us closer to and understanding of what this Bible story means for us today.

    We know that the Bible is filled with stories of great faith, great deeds, miracles and the great Truths of our Faith. It chronicles the history of the failures of the chosen people to follow God’s law and even at times to understand it and God’s unfailing love and devotion to the promises God had made to his people. It records God’s covenants, the promise of salvation and the ultimate sacrifice of Love that has saved us and reconciled us to God.

    Now, if that is all that it is, it would be a magnificent anthology. It would be as Hollywood has dubbed it, “the Greatest Story Ever Told.” But if that is all it is, then it would simply be a book. One with a front cover that you can open, page through – read when you are moved to and then when you are done, set it aside. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you might feel something extraordinary – some kind of closeness to the characters in the stories, some sense of the depth of God’s love foe you. Perhaps.

    But there is more to this book than that. Even its name, “Holy Bible, isn’t enough to convey its true meaning. We call it the Word of God. If we remember the opening of the Gospel of John, we read that, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The word that the Gospel writer John refers to is none other than the Christ. It is the Christ that is the Word of God. And as John details for us, “…it is the Christ that gives life to the world.” It is the Christ that is the light of the world, and the darkness has not overcome it – not the darkness of death, not the darkness of evil. The Christ is alive.

    And if the Christ is alive, then the Word of God is alive. And if the Word of God is alive, then the Bible is alive. It is more than a written record, a chronicle or story line. It is the Word of the Living God.

    And, if the Word of God is alive then what we read has to be more than a written record, a history or an anthology of stories. What happens in our lives as we interact with the Bible has to be active and alive, as well. The Bible cannot simply be what was. It must be what is. In other words, the Bible must be for us a proactive force in our lives, and we must react to it. We cannot close the cover on this book and lay it aside when we are done reading from it.

    Let’s look at how this story of the Five Thousand might help us to understand how that might be.

    In our lesson today, we heard about a miracle in which Jesus performed some 2,000 thousand years ago. If the Bible is alive today  [and I say to you that it is], then that 2,000-year-old miracle has to be alive and working our lives today – as real now as on the day that Jesus performed it.

    As we experience the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, I would suggest to you that two miracles took place that day. There was the obvious miracle in which Jesus takes a meager portion of food and physically creates a fest for the multitudes. This is the miracle on the surface of the story. It is the one we learn about in Sunday School as children. Jesus stood over the five loaves of barley and the two fish and created a bountiful meal for the 5,000 people in that place and time. And that is all real because the Christ is the Word of God that was with God in the beginning and who spoke creation into existence giving life to all things.

    Bit if ALL that happened that day was that Jesus took the meager offering and created a miracle feast then all it would be is a magnificent story – a miracle of Truth that validates our belief that Jesus was the Christ. But it would be a miracle that would be frozen in time, not to be repeated, not to be relived. And that would be an unfortunate loss for us. Because I think the point of the story that Jesus wants us to learn is in his response to the disciples when they ask him to dismiss the crowd and send them off to find food in the villages. He said to the, “There is no need to send them away. You feed them.”

    There is second miracle. It is a miracle that calls upon the power of the Holy Spirit of God. It is a miracle that through the power of the Holy Spirit can be relived today. It is a miracle that through the power of the Holy Spirit working through us can be relived today, every day.

    In this second miracle, Jesus receives a meager gift from one single person. And to display how lowly it was, our story tells us that in a crowd of thousands of adults, it came from a child. In a crowd of thousands, one gave while others held back.

    Now, if you are still paying attention, you should be asking yourselves, “What do you mean by ‘held back’?” Nothing in the story suggests that any of the thousands was holding anything back.

    Well let’s take a closer look at who was in this crowd of five thousand. There were of course Jesus’ disciples and followers. These were perhaps a few hundred. Then there were people from the surrounding towns and villages who had heard that the miracle working prophet, Jesus, was in the area. They spontaneously dropped what they were doing and rushed out into the countryside to see the miracles and healings that everyone was talking about. This Messiah was on a nearby hill, let’s go see what all the talk is about. This portion of the crowd was probably ill-prepared to be away from their homes for any length of time. They grabbed a cloak and maybe some water and rushed out.

    But there was a third element in the crowd that day. In his Gospel, John tells us that the season of the year were the days leading up to the Passover Feast. At Passover, Jews throughout Palestine would pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The population of the city would swell from a quarter million to over two and a half million visitors. Those people were on the road from their homes to Jerusalem. It is this portion of the crowd around Jesus that would have been traveling with provision for the long journey. That is, they had brought food to sustain them for the many days they were on the road. From out of these our young boy came forth with his five barley loaves and two fish.

    It was these travelers on pilgrimage to Jerusalem that caused the crowds to swell to such huge numbers. The text tells us that there five thousand men. But we can assume that women and children were also in the crowd since whole households usually traveled together. We can guess that the true size of the crowd listening to Jeus on the mountain side was upwards of twenty thousand.

    Now Jesus was tired and exhausted still reeling from the news that John, his cousin, had just been executed by Herod. He was seeking a lonely place where he could grieve alone with God in prayer. But he saw before himself a crowd flocking to him like sheep without a shepherd. For many in the crowd, their shepherd, John the Baptizer, had been taken away. So, Jesus had compassion on them. He let them come to him even in his hour of need. He taught them about the Kingdom of God and healed their brokenness.

    Now as it got late in the day, the disciples want him to dismiss the people so that they could return to the villages to buy something to eat. And we already know Jesus’ response, “No. You feed them.”

    How, Philip asked him? “Where are we to get food for five thousand? Do you want us to go out and buy the bread. That would cost at least 200 denarii. We don’t have that kind of money in the treasury.

    No, of course not. Jesus knew the people and what the possibilities were. No. He asked them, “How many loaves do you have. Go see.”

    Go out into the crowd and see what they have to share. So, the disciples went through the crow and came back. Andrew came to him and said, “there is a lad who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Out of a crowd or twenty thousand people, they came back with one meager offering from one small boy.

    Now comes the second miracle. Jesus too the offering and placed in from of himself for all to see. Now this is the exciting part. Jesus stood in silence over the offering and raised his head to God in prayer. To offer a blessing of thanksgiving to God before eating was a typical Jewish thing to do. Jesus prayed but not just a prayer of thanksgiving but also a prayer that God’s Holy Spirit enter into the hearts of each person there. In silence he prayed while the magnificent power of God’s Holy Spirit entered into each of the people’s hearts and touched them and moved them and stirred them to shared what they had. And by the time that Jesus had finished his prayer, there lay before him food enough for all to wat and be satisfied.

    Now that’s a miracle of Biblical proportions – one prayer touching twenty thousand hearts; one prayer moving a mountainside of stone-cold selfishness to share. It is a miracle that is alive with the Spirit of God. Working within the hearts of every person present. It is a miracle wider in scope with long ranging and everlasting effect. It is a miracle that reaches out across the centuries and through the Spirit of the Living God seeks us out and stir us.

    The miracles of the Bible are not singular events frozen in time. They must be alive. For us to experience the meaning of Christ’s teachings, his miracles must be alive and at work in God’s people today.

    We are called to respond to Jesus’ prayer today just as the crowd on the hill in Palestine two thousand years ago. Jesus prays for us to be stirred to a miracle just as he did then. How is that Jesus prays for us to be stirred? What resources do we possess that Jesus calls us to share?

    In order to answer that question we should look to the needs of the communities that surround us. In our own Presbytery, there are several local missions with whom we can share our resources. There are soup kitchens that seek to feed the hungry. There is the Interfaith Council for the Homeless. There is Habitat for Humanity. Both of these missions seek to provide homes for the homeless. These missions need our resources in order to further their work as God’s hands and feet – working to heal the brokenness of this world. Our participation in these missions is the response to Jesus’ prayer that he asks the Spirit to bring forth. Our response keeps alive the miracle on the mountainside in Palestine.

    Personally, as individuals and corporately as a Church we, who profess faith in Jesus as Lord, are called to respond to Jesus’ prayer. What resources do we have to share? What gifts can we bring? How can we keep the miracle of the living Word of God alive?

  • When Jesus Breaks the Rules

    Luke 13: 10-17 / Offered at Berkshire Presbyterian Church – August 24, 2025

    In today’s good news story from the Gospel of Luke, we are told about the last time that Jesus is recorded as teaching in a Synagogue. It is significant that we be aware of what is going on in Jesus’ ministry because this is evidence of the fact that Jesus was beginning to be denied access to the religious centers in Judah. The religious authorities as we will see in this passage were aware of this Rabbi’s radical teaching and his flaunting of the Law and were building up a resistance to his presence and his teachings. Certainly, the word about him was getting out – not only to the people but to the religious authorities in the surrounding towns and villages, as well.

    So, let’s examine what Luke is telling us in today’s story. The first thing to observe is that Luke isn’t retelling one of Jesus’ typical parables or discourses. Instead, Luke is relating a story of a real “event” that he believed stood out as one noteworthy in Jesus’ ministry. Now remember that Luke was not an original member of Jesus’ inner disciples or even a follower in the entourage that followed him. In the scheme of things, he was a late comer who heard the stories about Jesus and was called by God to write them down to preserve them for us. So why did this event make such an impression of Luke that he felt it needed to be recorded. I think that as Luke was listening to the disciples relate the things about Jesus that impressed them, this story was foremost.

    Luke tells us that Jesus is teaching in a local Synagogue on a Sabbath day when a woman comes near, passes by and it is evident that she is physically impaired in some way. She is hunched over unable to stand erect. We don’t know much more than that – other than Luke saying that she was possessed by an evil spirit. Further, Luke tells us that this had been the woman’s plight for eighteen years.

    Jesus calls the woman over to him and simply pronounces, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Now this curing of the woman’s ailment is different from some of Jesus’ other healings. In other stories, we hear Jesus say, “Your faith has set you free.” Or we are told of epic battles between Jesus and the demons who possessed people. Recall the story of the wild man living in the tombs who was possessed by a legion of demons and who pleaded with Jesus not to send them into the abyss so instead he sent them into a heard of swine.

    Neither of things happens in Luke’s story of the afflicted woman. In this story, the woman is just a passerby – perhaps she is walking by the crowd of followers trying not to be noticed. Remember in ancient times if you were afflicted with some malady, some disease, then it was assumed that you were being punished by God for your sins and hence you were considered unclean. And if you were unclean, you were not permitted to enter into a religious center – a Synagogue. So, perhaps, in an effort to go unnoticed, the woman is quietly passing beyond the eyes of the people.

    So, what happens? Jesus calls to the woman. She does not go to him first like woman in the crowd that reached out to touch the tassels of his robe; or the parents of the young woman who came to Jesus to plead for their daughter who was ill and dying; or like the Centurion who came on behalf of his servant. In all of these instances, Jesus remarks that it is the faith of those who came to him that redeems and saves them. Faith was the basis of these lifesaving miracles.

    No. In this instance, Luke tells us that Jesus initiates the contact and calls the woman to him.

    What was unusual about this? Well first, it would have been unusual for a woman to be up front in a Synagogue. Usually, it was the men who were up front, and the women were delegated to a place in the rear. So, for Jesus to call this woman to the front was unusual. For a Rabbi to associate with a woman he did not know speaking to her in public was an even greater departure from accepted norms.

    Why would Jesus do this? Was Jesus purposefully trying to break norms by calling the woman to the front? Remember that I had told you that Jesus was being squeezed out places of worship because he was considered a radical who flaunted or ignored the Law. What was he doing here? Was he simply breaking a norm? Or was it one more way for Jesus to show how far removed the views of the authorities concerning the Law were from how God viewed the Law. The interplay here is important because it reveals to us some understanding about what is to follow.

    Why would Jesus do this? Did he consider the Law to be obsolete, out of fashion, no longer relevant? No. I don’t think that was Jesus’ purpose or message. After all, he had told us that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it; that not one jot or tittle of the Law would be changed.

    But what I do think Jesus was doing was to draw a very clear and wide distinction between how God viewed the Law and how the religious authorities of Jesus’ time viewed, used, and even abused the law.

    What was the purpose of the Law that God gave to Moses. It was to join together a loose confederation of nomadic tribes into a cohesive community whose first purpose was to have a righteous relationship with the Lord.

    When Moses gave the people the Law that God had handed down, he told them what it was for and how to use it. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses gave the people the Shema.

    Let me share it with you:

    “Hear, O Israel: The Lord alone is our our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

    I think the most important thing that Moses told the people in the Shema is that the Law was to be written upon their hearts. And I think that is the distinction Jesus was making in how the religious authorities viewed the law and how God viewed it.

    Take this instance of the woman trying to enter the Synagogue unnoticed and unseen. She didn’t want to be noticed because the religious authorities might have used the law to exclude her. Certainly, from the comments made by the President of the Synagogue in the story, we can gather that he was offended by Jesus calling her to him and curing her of her ailment.

    This religious leader of the people would use the law as he understood it – to prevent this woman, this unclean woman from gaining healing – from coming to the Lord to receive his grace and mercy and healing touch. He would have kept her tethered to her pain.

    I think what Jesus was doing here was exhibiting to all that in this man’s case, the Law was not written upon his heart. It may have been written upon his forehead; it may have been written upon his doorpost; but it was not written upon his heart. That was the difference between the religious authorities of Jesus’ time and God. God’s Law is written upon the heart of God. Its basis is God’s compassion and love, God’s desire for justice and the healing of God’s Creation through the extension of God’s Shalom. In this story, the Synagogue leader was only concerned with their own man written rules about the Sabbath and how Jesus was breaking them.

    He admonished the crowds surrounding Jesus. Telling them that they have six days to come and be healed – remember according to the law, healing was defined as work – and other than trying to save a life no one was allowed to heal on the Sabbath. So, he chastised them not to come to the Synagogue on the Sabbath to be healed. And, indirectly, he was criticizing Jesus for doing the work – by healing the woman.

    Now, his complaints and criticisms probably had some reception with those whose interpretations of the law were equally narrow and egalitarian. Their law was unforgiving and harsh. This religious leader was perfectly comfortable to force this woman to live in pain rather than allow her to come to the Lord to be healed.

    I think I can feel Jesus’ rage building in his heart. What was his response?

    You hypocrites!

    Now let me stress this to you. Luke puts an explanation point at the end of Jesus’ outburst. You hypocrites! That’s in bold face font and in italics. You hypocrites!

    “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie your oxen and donkeys from the manger and lead it away to give it water?”

    Now let me explain the point Jesus was making here. The Rabbi’s of the time believed and taught that it was cruel to leave animals tied up, unable to go for the water that they thirsted for on the Sabbath. They taught that it was not work but compassion to water their livestock. Therefore, the leaders of the Synagogue probably all untethered and watered their animals before going to Synagogue that day. Then when faced with the plight of this woman they quoted the law saying that she and Jesus had violated the law in his act of healing. They would provide water that their animals thirsted for, but they would deny the woman the healing that she thirsted for. They condemned Jesus for untethering this woman from her pain.

    Can you imagine Jesus’ outrage? You hypocrites!

    “This woman is a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has beset with this ailment. Should she not be set free from her bondage on this Sabbath day?” Should she not be shown the same compassion that your law provides for your livestock?

    You hypocrites!

    In the end, Luke tells us that when Jesus had slapped them down and put them in their place, their shame was revealed to the people and the entire crowd rejoiced at the wonderful things Jesus was doing. Presumably, Jesus went on healing that day.

    Luke doesn’t specifically tell us that, but I think we might read that into the story.

    This whole incident in the Synagogue that Luke tells about this morning, what does it reveal to us about “the Law” that God gave Moses – that was written upon God’s heart and that was supposed to be written upon the hearts of his people.

    What do we learn about what the purpose of God’s Law is and how to use it and how to live it and how that differs from our law? The Apostle Paul tells us that when “the Law” [that is the Law with a capital “L”] is written upon our hearts then we are no longer slaves to the law [that is with a small “l”].

    What does that mean? I think it means this, when we live our lives reflecting God’s love and compassion, then God’s Law comes alive in us and becomes the driving force in our lives. Then God’s Law lives in our hearts and is reflected out into the world. God’s Holy Spirit breathes into us a desire to live in God’s justice and God’s Shalom sharing it with a world in need of being untethered from its brokenness – in need of healing.

    Jesus broke the rules because he wanted us to understand that the Law was created to display God’s love and compassion for us. That is how Jesus came to fulfill the Law – to complete it with God’s love.

    Thank you, God, for being so loving.