Understanding the Jesus of the Gospels

Sermons from the Gospels

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  • Jesus is Tested in the Wilderness

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This message was delivered at a Vesper’s service back in 2014. My reference and commentary resources were from William Barclay’s writings on the Gospel of Mark.

    This is quite a turnaround, isn’t it? Just two weeks ago, we were celebrating Jesus’ victory over death and God’s great gifts of mercy and salvation in the resurrection of the Son; and now, here we are again right back at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In fact, this story precedes Jesus’ ministry.

    There are a couple of things that I would like to mention as background to this story before I get into it. The first is that this story is a personal account from Jesus as retold in the Gospels. What do I mean? The Gospel tells us that Jesus went into the desert alone. So, there was no one there to witness or record the events of those forty days. So, the story we have MUST have been told directly by Jesus to his disciples. This is a personal spiritual autobiography of Jesus’ concerning his own faith journey. I get excited because this is a retelling by Jesus about his own struggles and temptations.

    Second, and perhaps the more important element is that Jesus goes into the wilderness to grabble with a core problem for his ministry. Remember where we are. We are at the earliest part of Jesus’ ministry. He has just been baptized by John the Baptizer. God opened up the heavens and spoke saying, “This is my beloved in whom I am greatly pleased.” The Holy Spirit of God came down and alighted upon him like a dove. At this singular moment, Jesus is made know to all who will hear and see AND indeed to himself that he is the chosen “One”. If there had been any doubt in his mind or anyone else’s, God has put an end to it.

    So Jesus, as you will recall in Mark’s Gospel is immediately driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit. At this critical moment, Jesus is faced with an immediate problem. How does he make God’s vision of how he will lead & teach the people a reality? How can he identify himself with the people’s search for God? He has to find a way to turn that vision into a reality. How does he do that? What method can he choose to work out the task that God has set before him?

    You see Jesus had a choice. He could seek to attract the people to himself by providing a little razzle dazzle. He could use the awesome power of God to provide the signs that the authorities were constantly demanding of him. You will remember that when Jesus overturned the tables in the Temple, the priests came to him and demanded, “What signs will you do to prove your authority?” The problem with that is that slick tricks are addictive. Each day the people would want some new sign that is more outlandish and awesome than the one they saw the day before. No. That would not do; that could not work. Jesus would have to make another choice and you will see how it unfolds in this text.

    But first one more tid bit. The word in Greek that we have as “tempted” means less tempted and more “tested”. Think about it. If God tempted us with the purpose of enticing us to “sin”, then that would mean that God was enabling sin. But God does not enable sin. God desires us to conquer sin. So, we must think of this whole incident in the wilderness as the “testing” of Jesus. How is that different? When you are tempted there is a possibility of one of two outcomes. You either overcome it or you fail. If God’s only purpose is to tempt us, we would fail at every time. What good could that accomplish? Instead in testing us and Jesus, God is purifying. God is perfecting God’s plan. How are we going to do this? What is the best plan? “Jesus had to get things straightened out before he started his ministry; and he had to do it alone.” [Barclay]   

    Let’s look at the circumstances of Jesus going into the wilderness. First, as you will recall, it is immediately following his baptism. Here is one of life’s great truths. Right at the moment of our greatest triumphs is when we are most susceptible to failure. Bible scholar Wiliam Barclay suggests to us to remember Elijah, the Prophet. He defeated the prophets of Baal. Elijah baited the 100 prophets of Baal to a test of whose God was the more powerful. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal that they both would build an altar to their own god. He said you pray to your god to ignite a bull for sacrifice. The priests of Baal tried first but nothing happened. They prayed to their god Baal but Baal did not respond. They couldn’t ignite the fire. Then Elijah soaks down his altar, the bull and the kindling with water and then prays to God and God hears his prayer and responds by igniting a fire and the sacrifice.

    This was a great victory of Hebrew’s God over Baal, which was also the god of Jezebel, the queen of Israel. In this moment of Elijah’s great triumph, he suddenly hears that Queen Jezebel is out to get him. But rather than relying on the awesome power of God to protect him, he flees into the desert to hide. Right at the moment of his great triumph he fell victim to his own insecurities.

    So now, here we see Jesus, at the great moment of his anointing by God, he is pushed out into the wilderness to be tested. And what is the first thing that he encounters? The Great Tempter – the Evil One.

    But we can also say, Jesus encounters his greatest fears and insecurities. These fears and insecurities will be used by God to test Jesus – to purify him. Purify him in the sense that he  overcomes those fears and insecurities.

    What are they?

    There is the temptation to use God’s awesome powers to wow the people – to do great things that would cause them to flock to him. But Jesus knows that the people need more than a good show. They need to know that their God offers them mercy and reconciliation. How can Jesus bring the people closer to the God that they yearn for? In working all this out is how he deals with these tests?

    What is the first test? It is after 40 days of fasting, Jesus is hungry. He is walking in the desert where the little limestone rocks look a lot like small loaves of bread. The temptation is to turn these stones into real bread to eat for himself. It was a temptation to use his awesome powers selfishly – to serve his own needs. You see God has given everyone of us gifts. But there are always two questions we must ask ourselves. One is, what can I make of this gift for myself? The other is, what can I do with this gift for others? Jesus had to decide how he was to use the power of God – for himself or for others?

    How does Jesus respond to this temptation? Jesus quotes scripture. “No one can live only on food. People need every word that God has spoken.” He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3. Jesus goes to scripture for the strength of the Word of God.

    Next, the Tempter takes Jesus to the top of the Temple. He says to Jesus, “If you are God’s Son, jump off for the Scriptures say, ‘God will give his angles a command about you. They will catch you in their arms, and you will not hurt your feet against the stones.’” Now it is the Tempter that is quoting Scripture. It quotes Psalm 91: 11-12. He is tempting Jesus to use the power of God to attract attention and men to his cause. But Jesus realizes that there is no good news if it is built on sensationalism. That kind of Gospel is doomed. But more importantly, Jesus knows that this is not the way to use the power of God. What does Jesus do? He goes back into Scripture. He quotes Deuteronomy 6:16. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Once again, Jesus draws his strength from the power of the Word of God. He refuses to submit to the temptation of using God’s power to his own ends. Why?

    If Jesus were to jump off the pinnacle relying on some miracle where the angels would intervene to save him it would not in fact be trusting God, It would in fact actually be distrusting God. It would be like saying, I know that you have a plan and have selected me for this great task. I know that you have a plan for me to go to the Cross. But I’m going to take an easier path. I jump. You save me. The people will see a great sign and believe. But that would be demanding that God jump through our hoops and working out a plan for salvation on our terms.

    That was the Tempter’s proposal to circumvent the Cross. But Jesus wasn’t buying into the Tempter’s plan. He knew that was not the path he was called to travel. God needed more than cheap tricks from God’s Messiah.

    Next, the Tempter tries his third attack. He shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and he says to him, “I will give you all of this, if you will bow down and worship me.”

    What was the Tempter saying? Compromise. Don’t set your sights so high. Come to terms with me. Let me bring the people to you. I know you think my ways are not exactly how you might want to do it but a little evil now and again will go a long way in catching the people’s eye. The temptation, Jesus’ test, was to sink to the world’s level instead of uncompromisingly presenting God’s demands to the world. Don’t try to change the world, the evil one says. Try to become a little more like the world. Make it easy on yourself. Don’t go to the Cross to be lifted up in sacrifice. Stay on the ground with the rest of the people and me.

    Jesus shot back, “Go away Satan. The Scriptures say: Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” This was from Deuteronomy 6: 13. Once again, Jesus goes to the Word of God for his defense, for his strength.

    What do we learn from this personal spiritual episode in Jesus’ life? First, that Jesus like us was tested. He was tested at the moment of his great triumph as any of us could be. His greatest strength was attacked as a vulnerability. The Tempter didn’t only try to get Jesus to churn out some meaningless tricks. He tempted Jesus to subvert the power of God; to use the power of God for selfish motives. Ultimately, the Tempter was aiming at driving Jesus off his path to the Cross. The Tempter wanted Jesus to compromise his values, God’s values, God’s plan. But as Jesus progressed through his personal faith journey being purified and prepared for the task before him; he held to the uncompromising core of that faith in God. He would not stoop to the level of this world where the Tempter distracts us with his evil ways. Instead, Jesus calls that the world rise up to God’s level. Jesus asks us to be less like ourselves and that we become more like God. And if we can learn anything from this story of Jesus’ own faith journey, we will find that the strength we need to overcome the Tempter and to work through our own testing will be found in the Word of God. When we go to scripture to listen and learn from the Word of God, we will find the strength we need.

  • Lord, Teach Us to Pray – Luke 11: 1-13

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    First, let me begin by admitting that a lot of this message below comes from out of my studies of the commentaries of William Barclay on the Gospels and the in specific here of the Lord’s Prayer. So, if I spark interest on your part to discover more, I recommend Barclay’s book on the Lord’s Prayer. It is not a difficult read – just over 100 pages.

    The words given to us by Jesus in The Lord’s Prayer appear in two of the four Gospels. There is a short version in Luke 11. There is a slightly longer version that appears in the Gospel of Matthew 6.

    The scene in Luke 11 is that the disciples are watching Jesus pray. When he concludes, one comes forward and asks that Jesus teach them to pray. This was not unusual – that a Rabbi would teach his followers a prayer or how to pray. The fact was that it was customary to teach their disciples a prayer out of their own theology so that their followers could go to God in prayer.

    The Jewish heritage of prayer goes back to the time of Moses in Hebrew history. The Jews were characteristically a praying people. The ancient Jews believed with absolute confidence that God not only heard prayers, but that God desired them and listened to them fervently. A Rabbi in Israel’s tradition taught that “the Holy One” yearned for the prayers of the righteous. In Psalm 145, the Psalmist tells us that “the Lord is near to all who call upon him.”

    Moses gave the people a wonderful style of prayer. It was the habit of “blessing” the Lord. It was an attitude of continual thankfulness toward God that expressed itself through brief prayers that acknowledge God as the source of every good thing.

    It goes back in the Scriptures…(Deut. 8:10-11, when Moses admonished the Israelites not to forget the Lord. Moses instructed the people:

    When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God.

    The Jewish people never doubted the power of prayer. One Rabbi taught that “prayer was the weapon of the mouth and as such is mighty.” Did you hear that? “Prayer is the weapon of the mouth.” The people believed that even if God had set God’s mind on punishing Israel for its sins that they could appeal to God and petition to God to change God’s mind and instead be merciful to his people.”

    Also, it was a Jewish tradition that prayer should be constant. We should not reserve prayer only for those times when we are in need of God’s intercession but be in continually conversation with the Holy One. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, we are taught “…before misfortune comes, anticipate and pray.” [Eccl.  33]

    Bible Scholar William Barclay makes this comment, “Prayer is not so much an emergency appeal in times of need as it is a continuing and unbroken conversation and fellowship with God.”

    That is a beautiful thought, isn’t it? That we should think of our prayer time as an ongoing, unbroken, life-long conversation with the creator God that is a Father to us all – a Father that loves us and wants to hear us when we pray.

    Here’s another thought on prayer from a nineteenth century Jewish scholar by the name of Michael Friedlander. He suggests that in prayer, we should first bring our love to God. In Psalm 34, the psalmist tells us, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise will continually be on my mouth.” Please make the connection here that Friedlander makes. That when we go to God in prayer, the praise we bring should be an act of love.

    Friedlander next suggests that when we pray, we must be mindful of the holiness of God. A Rabbi Simon taught, “In our prayer, we should think that the holiness of God is right there before us. When we go to God in prayer, we should be mindful that we are entering a sacred and holy place. These are all examples of how leaders of the Jewish faith community taught their followers how to go before God and pray.

    As I had said before, it was a common practice for Rabbis to teach their disciples prayers. As we heard in the text, John did it for his disciples and Jesus’ disciples wanted a prayer from him that they could pray.

    Why was this important? Prayers that the Rabbis taught their disciples would be a distinguishing element that might set one group of followers apart from others. Perhaps, followers would be able to say I follow John, this is the prayer we pray. So, Jesus’ disciples wanted to be able to say, the Lord has taught us this prayer. Whatever the motivation, Jesus taught them the prayer we refer to as the Lord’s prayer.

    Jesus told them, when you pray, say:

    Father,

    Hallowed be your name

    Your kingdom come

    Give us each day our daily bread

    And forgive us our sins

    As we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us

    And do not bring us to the time of trial.

    Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer is shorter than the one that appears in the gospel of Matthew. Luke omits the lines, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And at the close after the phrase about temptation, Matthew closes with, “…and deliver us from the evil one.”

    This is a simple seven-line prayer. It is not long-winded. It is not an arduous prayer. Jesus does not set a difficult high bar for us. He has made prayer quite simple. It tells us much about how Jesus prayed and how he would want us to pray.

    This prayer that Jesus taught his disciples can be viewed in two ways. First, that it is a stand-alone prayer for them and us to use when we don’t have the words or know how to approach God. For those times when our minds go blank, Jesus has given us the words.

    But be attuned to what more he has given us. It is not intended to be a litany. It is not a pages long confession. It is not a prayer that drones on or that becomes repetitive and prattles. In Matthew’s Gospel, we have heard Jesus criticize the Pharisees that pray in public for all to hear. Jesus’ criticism is because they are not praying to God but instead putting themselves on public display so that they can be admired for their piety. That is not this prayer. If you were to stand on a street corner and start saying this prayer aloud, you would be finished before anyone took note of you. It is a short and simple prayer that brings us to the heart of how we should come to God. It is simple but it gets the job done.

    But it is also more than a simple prayer. It is a template for prayer. It is a form for us to use when we come before God in our own private prayer. Let’s take a look at what Jesus is telling us about how to approach our God in prayer.

    The first word of Jesus’ prayer tells a lot. It is that we should address God as “Abba, Father.”

    In this opening word, Jesus gives God a personage, not one of male personage. Instead, it is used to impress us that God is more like a loving parent than an uncaring, far-off deity. Jesus did not want his disciples, or us, to approach God as a far-off impersonal deity, as a terribly fearsome God who we should approach with trembling hearts and certainly not one with whom we have no relationship. Jesus makes it so we can approach God with a confidence in knowing that God has showered and continues to shower us with blessings upon blessings. No, Jesus wants us to approach God as a loving parent whom we can know, whom we respect. Yes, we should be in awe of God, but not so fearful that we cannot understand the love God has for us. This is a God who we can live and interact with us every day of our lives, and one in whom we can have the confidence of knowing we are loved. This God that Jesus calls Father is a loving parent.

    The next line, “Hallowed be thy name.” There are two things going on here. The initial thing before all else, is that we need to praise the “Name” of God. “Hallowed be thy Name.” This is an elemental and first criteria of Jesus’ prayer. It is to first praise God’s name. Give due reverence to the holiness of God. Realize that in prayer we are entering a sacred place before our God.

    The second thing about this line is that Jesus is telling us that we can know the “Name” of God. This is important to understand. That is because in ancient cultures to know a person’s name meant that you truly know who that person was on an intimate level – inside and out. It means to know the whole character of a person. For instance, for me to say, I know a person’s name would mean I know as much about that person as their spouse does or any of their closest friends. Jesus wants us to know God with that kind of closeness and intimacy.

    Knowing God’ name means to know the whole character, mind and heart of God so that once you know God in this way, you can put your trust and confidence in God. That is how Jesus wants us to know God.

    This is the relationship Jesus wants us to have with God – intimate and personal. Now we will never know all there is to know about God, but Jesus reveals enough so that we can have a start at knowing God. So, this line calls us to praise and know the Name of the God we call Father.

    “Your Kingdom come.” Here, Jesus is telling us that God’s kingdom is at hand and that we should actively pray for it and expect it. This line means that we should pray for a time when God’s rule will cover all of creation, that all of creation will turn to God and that all the brokenness of this world will be healed.

    “Give us this day our daily bread”. This is a line that is sometimes misinterpreted. Muslims criticize Christians for having the audacity of asking God to provide food for us each day. In the Exodus story we know that God provided manna each day so that the Hebrews could be fed – so that their physical needs could be met.

    But for us, “food” is not alone what “Daily Bread” means. As Christians, our daily bread is the “Word” of God spoken to us by the Christ. This is the food of life that Jesus is telling us to ask God for. Jesus is telling us to ask that God provide for us the “Word” that will sustain and feed us as we go through our daily lives.

    Also, this line is telling us that we should not be concerned about the future days of our lives. That would distract us. That would be too burdensome. No, focus only on the day before us. Ask for what we need today. Ask for the Word that will feed us and nourish us today. And where do we find that nourishment? We find it in God’s Word spoke to us in Scripture. For in Scripture, we will find the Spirit of God that can fill and guide us through our day.

    “Forgive us our sins.” This is simple enough. But Jesus is making the point that we cannot approach the righteousness of God with sinful and unrepentitive hearts. We cannot go before the Holy One thinking that we can stand before God in a righteousness of our making. We have to stop and make the point of confessing that we are sinners, to ask to be forgiven and ask God to cleanse our hearts. Only then can we come before God.

    As an aside, I would like to share an insight with you about how we Presbyterians order our Worship. We place the confession of sin right at the very start of our worship. In fact, if you look at it, our Presbyterian order of worship is built upon the Lord’s Prayer. It is the template that we use. We are called to come before God, praise God’s name in song, confess our sins, hear the Word, affirm our faith, make our petitions and give Thanksgiving.

    The next line is, “As we forgive those indebted to us.” That is a “Red Flag” for us. It is a challenge if you will, isn’t it? Jesus is telling us that forgiveness works both ways. We can ask for forgiveness of God for our sins but if we harbor ill will towards anyone, if we deny anyone reconciliation for a deed or action, that “ill will” would become an impediment to our being forgiven. It is a challenge to us to be forgiving.

    “And do not bring us to a time of trial.” There are a couple of things going on here. First, many of us will think in terms of asking God to keep us from sin. We equate temptation with sin. And this line certainly has that meaning. But it is more than that. Temptations can be any of the trials in life. A temptation could mean not dealing fairly in business, it could mean allowing ourselves to submit to the temptation of anger. It can be any situation that could be a test of a person’s humanity, integrity, and fidelity. We cannot escape these trials in life, but we can meet them and work through them if God is with us.

    You will recall I pointed out that Matthew’s version specifically refers to keeping us from the evil one. In omitting the last line Luke gives temptation a much wider meaning. That is not to say that temptation does not come from the evil one, but it does say to us that temptation can come from a wider horizon of possible storms. And it is with God’s help that we can weather those storms.

    Now this passage continues beyond the words of this simple prayer.

    Jesus then tells the disciples a parable. Now it is important to understand what Jesus is doing in this parable. It is not a lesson that teaches us how God reacts to our prayers. It is the antithesis of God reacts.

    The parable is about a man who receives a guest knocking at his door that he is not prepared to receive so late at night. In his own home, he lacks the resources to greet and provide for his late arriving guest. This is a major faux pax in ancient cultures. In desperation, this man goes to HIS neighbor house knocking at his door asking for the things necessary to receive his own guest properly. At first, the sleepy and annoyed neighbor refuses to get up out of bed to help. Go away! Can’t you see my door is shut. Don’t bother me. That is a typical human reaction, don’t you think? I mean, if you got a phone call in the middle of the night say 2:30 am, from a friend asking you to come out to help them set up a barbeque for a party because some late arrivals had just showed up, you would not receive that call with a joyous and loving heart, now, would you?

    But Jesus tells us that if for nothing else that neighbor’s obstinacy can be worn down with persistence. Now remember I said that this parable reflects negatively on the truth of how God hears our prayers. Jesus is not saying that God receives our first petitions with a deaf ear and that we need to be persistent so that we can wear God down. What he is saying is that we can expect much more from a God that loves us than from a neighbor who is annoyed with us.

    So, this passage closes with some very familiar phrases.

    “…Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

    Now this is not card blanche. There is some fine print.

    Ask, and it will be given.

    What will be given? Everything that YOU want? No, you will be given everything that God knows you need.

    Seek and you will find, what? Seek the Word of God and you will find it.

    Knock and it will be opened to you. What door? The door to your neighbor’s house? The door of opportunity? No. You should not expect that these doors will suddenly swing wide. But you can expect that the door to the kingdom of God and eternal life with God in God’s house will be opened to you.

    Now that’s pretty FINE print, wouldn’t you agree?

    This is the prayer that Jesus gives us. One very simple prayer for when we can’t find the words. But also, a template that can provide structures for how we can speak with God. Jesus tells us when you pray, say this. Not only with these words but with the assurance of the underlying love that the Father has for you.

    And finally, Jesus gives us the assurance that when we do pray to God, God will hear, and God will answer our prayers not with every we want or demand but with everything we need.

  • Sending Workers into the Harvest

    Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    In this passage in Luke this morning, we see Jesus considering the task he has at hand. Jesus is looking ahead at the many opportunities and possibilities that lie before him in his ministry. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” At the same time, he is seeing the great burden that lay before him – the oh, so many towns and villages to whom he still had to bring the word, love and mercy of God. It was a daunting task. So, Jesus looked at the resources he had available to him. He had been traveling around Judah with his disciples. He had been teaching, curing and healing and had been gathering an entourage of followers.

    We think of Jesus’ group of followers as being limited to the twelve whom he had called. But right away in this passage, Luke tells us that there were at least 70 additional followers who he could rely upon to do some of the work that lay before him.

    Seventy. That is a symbolic number in Israel’s cultural tradition.

    If you remember our Old Testament, seventy was the number of elders that Moses had selected to assist him in leading the Israelites through the desert. Also, seventy was the number of the Sanhedrin – the supreme council of the Jews. Significant because Luke is saying that this is the same number of workers that Jesus had called to be harvesters of the people. Luke is drawing a direct comparison between the leaders of the Jewish council and these new leaders that Jesus was commissioning for the harvest. One group was dedicated to its own political survival. The other, the 70 laborers commissioned by Jesus would be selflessly dedicated to the harvest.

    Finally, in ancient times, seventy was believed to be the number of nations in the world. This is significant because it gives us a glimpse of Luke’s universal view of Jesus’ ministry and how widely he believed the story of Jesus needed to be shared. Luke was looking forward to the day when all the nations of the world would know and love the Lord.

    Now, let’s take a look at the instructions that Jesus gives his harvesters and what we can learn from them.

    “Do not take a purse or wallet or sandals.” In essence, Jesus was telling them to travel light. Don’t carry with you the burdens of your everyday life. Don’t pack up to carry with you your financial concerns about how you will pay your way. Don’t even wear sandals on your feet. In other words, go out completely dependent upon God to supply your needs. This was the complete opposite of how the priests in the Temple operated. They were paid per diem out of the Temple’s treasury. They worked independent of God’s providence. They had made their ministries a business designed to support their own lifestyles.

    Jesus was saying the opposite. Jesus wanted these seventy to set an example – his example – that his ministry and theirs should be completely dependent upon God to provide for their needs. What Jesus was sending them to do was so important that he needed them to be totally committed and focused on the task at hand and not encumbered by the angst and distractions of everyday life.

    This is particularly important when you remember that in the previous passage, Jesus calls two from his followers to follow him. One responds that he needed to bury his father first. The other’s response is that he first needs to say goodbye to his family. Both had placed other concerns ahead Jesus’ call to follow him. Jesus sends them both away making it clear that he cannot abide with lukewarm devotion. If you choose to be a follower of Jesus, you need to do it on his terms, not yours. You need to be all in.

    So now, Jesus is being deliberate and clear with the seventy as to what expects from his harvesters. He expects them to follow his example – to be totally dependent upon God to supply their needs. He wants the people to see the difference between self-aggrandizement and a pure, selfless devotion to God.

    Now Jesus does say that laborers [the harvesters] deserve to be paid for their work. He tells them to cure those who are ill and heal those who are broken and in need of being made whole again. He tells them to proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. As compensation, stay in the house that greets you and eat whatever is placed before you. That would be relying upon God’s providence to supply their needs. Don’t bounce around from house to house looking for a better deal. Servants of the Lord deserve to be paid but make this note – servants of the Lord cannot be seekers of luxury.

    Two thoughts struck me as I wrote this and about how we can reflect on this notion of traveling light and relying on God to supply the needs of his workers. At LVPC, we recently commissioned workers to go down to the DR to work on constructing a new church building for a congregation there. I know from experience, when they arrive, they will go to a Pentecostal community center where they will be given mattresses and where they sleep each night on the gym floor of the community center. They eat meals cooked for them by members of that church. I know also, when you here send workers to Kenya to participates in the Presbytery’s work in that harvest field, you do much the same – sleeping and eating where and what God has provided for you.

    OK. So, Jesus’ light traveling workers have been sent into the harvest. Jesus tells them one of two things will happen. Either you will be welcomed and greeted warmly exchanging God’s peace with one another, or you will not be greeted with welcome and your message that the kingdom of God is near will be rejected.

    In some intervening verses, Jesus mentions two towns in Syria that were notorious for their sinful ways – Tyre and Sidon. He tells them that judgement will be harsher on the towns that reject his message – more so than it would be on those two notorious and sinful towns. Why? Because those towns had never heard of Jesus. The harvest message that his seventy workers are carrying to the households and villages that they visit is that the Kingdom of God is near. As proof, these seventy workers are healing and curing and making whole the brokenness of the people in Jesus’ name. They have been given the opportunity to hear the Word; to know that God is reaching out to them. This is a great privilege. But it is also a great responsibility. Because it is a terrible thing to hear God’s voice and then reject it. That rejection becomes their judgement and those who reject God would be casting that judgement upon themselves. 

    Bible scholar William Barclay makes this comment. “If we receive these promises [of God’s steadfast love and mercy] they will become our greatest glory, but each one that we have rejected will some day be a witness against us.”

    What does that mean? It means that we have been given the opportunity and privilege of hearing the voice of God. And if we listen, we will hear God’s promises of mercy, steadfast love and salvation. Jesus says, “tell them the Kingdom of God is at hand.” But if we hear those promises and reject them, we are piling up judgements against ourselves. It is an awesome responsibility that we have in deciding the fate of our souls.

    Now let’s look at the euphoric outpouring of joy of the seventy when they return to Jesus. They are radiant. They are triumphant. They are eager to share their stories of casting out demons and of curing and healing the brokenness of the people. They are jumping up and down with excitement, chomping at the bit in their enthusiasm. They want to tell Jesus of their successes. They want to tell it from the mountain tops.

    A couple of years ago, a crew at LVPC finished construction of a church in the DR and we celebrated the first worship service in the new space with that congregation. We came back with videos and photos of the event. We came back to our home church and wanted to tell everyone what we had accomplished. Now, we knew that we had accomplished all that through the grace of God. But we did take a few moments to share our enthusiasm and stories with our church family. And they deserved to know, didn’t they. Afterall, they had supported the cost of sending out the workers to the harvest. But Jesus’ casts this warning shot across our bows.

    “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

    Two things here. First, it is that Jesus was before the beginning and was with God to witness Satan’s fall from grace. Second, it is that hubris is destructive. It can sneak up upon us and suddenly distract us causing us to lose focus on the fact that it is God that is working through the laborers’ hands in the harvesters.

    Jesus says to his workers. “Look, I have given you all this authority and power over the enemy… But do not rejoice in this… rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Barclay]

    That’s a slap in the face with a wet towel. A wake up call, if you will.

    Yes. I have given you this power and authority and you have dealt a death blow to the forces of Satan but be leery of your pride. Jesus is saying to them, “You have had your triumphs, but so had Satan – for he was once chief of all God’s angels. But Satan fell victim to his own hubris and pride and was cast down from God’s heavenly kingdom. Keep your pride in check.

    Jesus is once again asking them to follow his example. You remember in the garden before his arrest; Jesus knelt before God in prayer asking that the cup before him be passed away from him. But he concludes his prayer saying, that it be God’s will be to be done and not his own.

    Jesus could have been praying, “Look at everything that I have done in your name and accomplished in spreading your word. I sacrificed being one with you to come down to work in your harvest. Why are you demanding this final sacrifice of me?

    Jesus could have gone to God pronouncing his laurels, expounding on his victories, praising his own glories. But he did not. Instead, he subjected his pride and bowed obediently before God as his servant.

    That is the example that Jesus has set for us. Again, Barclay provides this comment, “It will always remain true that our greatest glory is not what we have done – but what God has done for us.”

    Consider these words from the great hymn, Rock of Ages.

    “Nothing in my hand I bring,

    Simply to thy cross I cling;

    Naked, come to thee for dress;

    Helpless, look to thee for grace;

    Foul, I to the mountain fly;

    Wash me, Savior, or I die.”

    Again, I turn to Barclay for a closing comment on this passage. “Pride bars [us] from heaven; humility is the passport to the presence of God.”

    So, I say to you my friends when we look at the work of our hands, when we look at all that we have built up, this church, this community, this congregation; when we laud all our accomplishments, let us say aloud. God is Good. God is gracious to us. Look at what God has done for us.

    “Blessed be God because he has not removed his steadfast love from us.”  [Psalm 66] Amen!

    Reference Source: The Gospel of Luke by William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press, 2017

  • Don’t Let the Trees Block Your Vision of the Forest

    Luke 8: 26-39

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This passage in Luke’s Gospel this morning is a difficult one to preach on. To phrase it succinctly, there are two issues that we modern day readers come up against here that make it difficult to see the forest for a couple of trees that get in our way.

    First, there are the demons. We modern readers don’t usually have firsthand experiences with the kinds of demons that first-century ancients believed in. You see, in ancient times, the people took for granted that evil spirits and demons really did exist. The ancient peoples believed that demons were active and regularly involved in their lives. These demons were very destructively working in harmful ways. It was the only way that they could explain conditions such as mental illness, schizophrenia, paranoia, addictions, obsessions, and other destructive habits. So, in the absence of medical science that could explain some of these conditions, they believed that evil spirits were actively working to make their lives miserable.

    The second obstacle that we face today is how we feel we should treat animals influenced by our modern 21st Century sensibilities. Some people will listen to this story – of when the herd of swine is possessed by the demons that Jesus has extracted from the possessed man and who then run head long over a cliff and drown in the lake below – they will listen and take offense at how the treatment of the swine is depicted. They shake their heads and step back their vision clouded and unable to see what Jesus was doing and how he was working in the life of this possessed man. Some people can’t get passed the notion that Jesus would allow these animals to be slaughtered in such a way. They feel it is inhumane, and they shut down not being able to see – as I had said before – see the forest because of a couple of trees blocking their vision.

    As I said, I had difficulty understanding what was happening here; so, in preparing for today’s message, I am relying heavily on an outside resource for insight. I found a commentary by a Professor of Preaching from the Lutheran Seminary of St. Paul, a person by the name of Michael Rogness. His thoughts on the passage helped me and I hope you to understand this it better.

    OK. So, let’s get into it.

    The first thing that will help us is that we should not be reading this as a stand-alone story. Our reading today comes from Luke 8. But we should note that it is the same story that appears in Mark 5. And in Mark’s version, in his condition, the man is doing a great deal of harm to himself. The man was “bruising himself with stones.” No one could restrain him, even with chains. The man, in his condition had developed unusual strength. In his rage, he was able to break whatever restraints that were put on him. So much so that the town people had given up trying to help him and preferred that he be consigned to living in the tombs [the dug-out caves] reserved for the dead. Finally, this man believed that he was so possessed by demons [plural] that they numbered in the thousands – as many soldiers as would be in a Roman legion. So many in fact, that when Jesus began to draw a demon out of him, he refused to believe that he had been cured. He fought and convulsed against Jesus’ efforts every step of the way.

    So, we have some additional background being offered by Mark and that gives us more insight. But more than that, [again with the assertion that this passage should not be treated as a stand-alone story.] we need to look at some of the other miracle curing stories before and after today’s text so that we can begin to see the forest – the wider scope of the lesson the Gospel writers are offering us.

    In the previous chapter in Luke, Jesus was invited into the home of Simon the Pharisee for dinner. While Jesus, his host and guests are seated at the dinner table, a woman, who we are told is a sinner, bursts in with a jar of alabaster. She rushes to Jesus and sits at his feet and washes his feet with her tears and then dries them with her hair. She then continues to kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.

    Now in the story, Simon – the host, takes offense. He must think to himself, if this man [Jesus] really is a prophet, he should have known what kind of sinner this woman is and should have pushed her away. So, in his very unloving way, Simon accuses Jesus of being a charlatan [not the prophet everyone thought him to be] and the woman of being a sinner with whom no respectable person should be associating with. In the end, after Jesus has told Simon a parable which was meant to put him in his place, Jesus turns to the woman to tell her, her sins have been forgiven. “Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”

    In this story, Jesus’ healing actions begin by forgiving the woman her sins. In other words, the comfort and healing Jesus gives the woman reaches into her soul to relieve her deepest pangs of guilt so that she could go in peace. According to Professor Rogness this is the first connected story that will help us to see beyond the trees and into the forest. It is that the scope of Jesus’ power and authority to heal goes to the very depths of our souls.

    In the paragraph immediately preceding today’s text, Jesus and the disciples are crossing the Lake in a boat. You know the story. Jesus lay asleep at the stern of the boat a great storm comes upon them. The disciples are terrified that the boat will capsize and that they will most assuredly drown. They rush to Jesus to shake and awaken him. Jesus rises and Luke tells us that he rebukes the wind and the waves, and they cease to rage. The disciples may have believed that the storm was an evil force, a demon if you will. But Jesus shows us and them that he commands even the forces of nature be they demons or not. In other words, the scope of Jesus’ authority and power can heal even the forces of nature. The bigger message here is that Jesus’ role in God’s plan is to bring God’s Shalom to all of creation. Jesus has the power and authority to heal even creation.

    The story that immediately follows today’s text is of Jesus double healing of a 12-year-old girl who has died and the woman who had been hemorrhaging for many years. These are the stories of an innocent girl who has died and a woman who according to the Law was ritually unclean.

    Jesus has been summoned to the home of the young girl by the grieving parents. On the way, a woman reaches out from the crowd to touch Jesus’ robes. Jesus feels power go out from him and turns to confront whoever had touched him. He finds the woman. She tells her story. Jesus forgives her intrusion and tells her that her faith has made her well; go in peace.

    Jesus then turns his attention to the parents who are begging for his healing touch for their dying daughter. But by this time, servants have arrived to them that the girl has died. Jesus hears this news and despite the fact that all have given up all hope, Jesus announces that the girl is not dead and that he will still go to her. “Do not fear [he tells the parents], only believe and she will be saved.”

    Now Jesus goes to the house and despite jeering form the crowds who were assembled to grieve for the family and the girl. Jesus enters the house and resurrects the girl and gives her a new life.

    Both lives in these stories were changed by Jesus. They were healed – one from a debilitating illness and the other from death. These healings we are told by Jesus are accredited to their faith – that of the woman and the girl’s parents. The power of Faith is another means by which we can see beyond the trees that block our vision.

    Now in these connected stories, we can see how Jesus brings deliverance from a sinful guilty conscience, from demons, from a raging storm, from a long-term ailment, and even from death itself.

    Now, I think we can turn our eyes to today’s text.

    Jesus arrives in a gentile country on the eastern side of the Lake Galilee. It is an early attempt to reach out to a non-Jewish community. Immediately, he is confronted by a man who believes he is possessed by demons. Now the medical reasons for his ailment we can understand today may be mental illness brought on by schizophrenia, paranoia, obsessions, destructive habits and so on.

    Whatever his condition was, the man believed [and the townspeople who knew of him believed] that he was possessed by demons. However, Jesus sees the man as he truly is. He is a broken person in pain. What were the causes? We don’t know the causes. But Jesus allows him to come to be comforted and healed much like the woman who reached out to touch his robe. Unlike the woman though the man struggled. He didn’t have the same faith in Jesus that the woman and the parents had in our other healing stories. He may have heard of Jesus, but he did not have the faith that the others had. He was fully convinced that he was possessed not only by one demon but by a legion of demons – as many as the size of a Roman regiment. So, despite Jesus’ attempt to heal his mind the man clung to his belief that his demons were still in control of his mind. So much so that he probably convulsed and screamed uncontrollably to the point that the nearby herd of swine were agitated and began to stampede. Following the lead pig, they rushed away down a slope and into the Lake.

    At this point, let’s address that elephant in the story – the herd of swine. Let’s take a moment to understand that this story is being told from a Jewish perspective and in the Jewish culture pigs were an unclean animal – one which Jews had no care for. If a herd of swine were destroyed as a part of this story, our Jewish authors would not have been distressed about it. So, take this with that grain of salt.

    So, at this point, Jesus may be using this unfortunate end to the lives of the herd to convince the man of his healing. That his demons had entered the herd and were gone. They had all perished with the herd. The man seeing this was able to finally calm down enough to be able to accept that Jesus had cured whatever his mental illnesses were, as well.

    So, animal rights activists, let’s not let this tree block our vision of what Jesus can do for us. Instead, let’s focus on the point of the story – that the man had been healed. The Greek word used by Luke is “sozo”. Sozo can be translated as “saved”, “delivered”, or “made whole.” What we need to focus on is that this man was not only delivered from his demons, not only cured of a terrible burden, but all together healed, made whole and saved. The forest to see here is that is what Jesus and his miraculous healing powers can do for us.

    Now we come to two important points at the close of this passage.

    First, let us consider the reaction of the townspeople. Unlike the Syrian woman at the well when she realized she was speaking to – the Messiah. She rushed to the townspeople to share that good news, and they all rushed out to believe and welcome Jesus into their town. Their response was to accept the Good News.

    Unlike that story, these town folk reacted with distain and asked Jesus to leave them immediately. They rejected the Good News of Jesus’ saving and healing touch. They were more concerned with the loss of their swineherd than with the healing of the wild man who was now sitting calmly at Jesus’ feet, clothed in the loving embrace of the Christ. It was unfortunate that they could not get beyond that tree. That loss blocked their vision, and they were not able to see the miracle before them.

    Now the final piece of the story that we need to reflect upon is Jesus’ instructions to the man. Recognizing that Jesus had healed and saved him, he no longer wished to stay in this community. However, Jesus does not allow him to become follower. Instead, Jesus makes him a proclaimer.

    This is something of a “Great Commission.” But instead of sending his disciples out to evangelize and baptize the nations, this man is sent back to his hometown to declare how much God had done for him.

    This is perhaps the last lesson in this story for us. Our Great Commission may not be to go out into the world to proclaim Jesus is Lord but to go into our own communities, towns and villages. There, too, we are called to proclaim the risen Lord and what he has done to save, deliver, heal us and make us whole. We need to proclaim how Jesus has made us whole. We need to tell the story of our own salvation and rebirth in Christ. That is the forest that lies beyond the trees blocking our vision and that we need to see and proclaim.

    We need to help the world to see the forest – that is the wider scope of Jesus’ healing touch. We need to do that by telling our stories of healing and how he has taken our brokenness and made us whole. You – each of you – have a story to tell. Go and share it.

    Reference Source: article written by: Michael Rogness, Professor of Preaching from the Lutheran Seminary of St. Paul,