Mark

“I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Those words have become the mantra for this generation. What do these words mean? “I’m spiritual.” I’m in touch with powers out there and powers in here? I’m sensitive to the good energy that flows through the world and exists between people? I’m open to be touched by something larger than myself? “…but I’m not religious.” I don’t go to church. I don’t want people cramming rules down my throat. Wherever the answer is to be found, it won’t be in Christianity. “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.”

Today we find Jesus and his disciples watching money drop into the offering can. Jesus sat with his disciples in the temple courtyard, watching the action in the Court of women, where there were 13 offering boxes known as “the trumpets”—folks put coins into large metal trumpet-shaped funnels and listened to the racket as the coins went down. Each box was designated for a different ministry: Food for the priests, oil for the lamps, pew cushions or weed whackers for use around the temple.

“My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the trivial reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you.
My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: this is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I found, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow.
My God and I are horsemen galloping in the burning sun or under drizzling rain. Pale, starving, but unsubdued, we ride and converse. “Leader!” I cry. He turns his face toward me, and I shudder to confront his anguish.
Our Love for each other is rough and ready, we sit at the same table, we drink the same wine in this low tavern of life.”

Sometimes God uses surprising people to help you heal. And there is often an element of humiliation involved. I knew a proud, self-sufficient man was hard on friends, his wife and family, and didn’t have much use for God. Then he got sick…desperately sick. And as he grew weaker it began to dawn on him how small and petty his life had become. His family served him when he could no longer serve himself. He could no longer refuse their help…and it softened him…it broke him. It opened him up to the healing hands of Jesus. He never was healed physically…but I am convinced that a deeper healing took place.

Jesus’ baptism gives us a lot to work on. From the formulaic question of 1. “How wet did Jesus get?” to the more substantive question of 2. What does baptism have to do with repentance, and confession, and forgiveness of sin?...to… 3. Why was it necessary for Jesus to submit to baptism in the first place? These questions could keep us going all day long. To my way of thinking, there’s one more piece of this baptism puzzle that cries out to be noticed. Listen to the Good News: “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Let’s not miss this. In the middle of an act that showed his total humble obedience to God, and his total identification with us there is this affirmation of delight and love. You are my son. You are the Beloved.

This journey to the wilderness may be the only time in my life when I am able to pull away from the duties of ministry and the cares of life for an entire month to retreat to a lonely place to pray. The distance doesn’t trouble me. Stripping away the things that occupy my mind and fragment my day…the computer, the TV, the beautiful diversions of friendship, even the daily routine of ministry has got me a little worried. Peeling away one’s familiar environment and sitting in one place under the watchful eye of God is a little unnerving. And prayer? I think prayer is the most dangerous part of the journey. Imagine sitting beneath the dark expanse of the African night, where your soul must turn to your Maker, where nothing can be hidden, where there is no running off to the next activity, where God has you to Himself for an entire month…that’s a little intimidating.

This is the story of Jonah, who preached the shortest and most awful sermon in the entire Bible. God told him: “Go up to Nineveh and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.” Preaching was the last thing on Jonah’s list of things to do. And Nineveh? Corrupt, voracious, conquering, despised Nineveh? “I’d rather die!” thought Jonah. The Lord told Jonah to go up to Nineveh. Instead, the Bible tells us that the reluctant messenger went the other way, he went down. He went down to Joppa where he found the first boat headed for anywhere there were palm trees. The Bible says he went down into the boat and off they sailed. Black clouds filled the horizon and it began to rain…to storm…they sailed right into the teeth of a typhoon. The Word says that Jonah tried to go even lower in order to drop off God’s radar. Down into the bowels of the ship he went, where he lay down and fell asleep.

Today is the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a day that still lives in infamy. Some here at Hopwood remember that day...a day the United States was invaded by a hostile force bent on destruction and domination. Everyone who heard the news knew that life in the US would never be the same again.
Today we gather in the dark, dead of Winter, with our country fighting two wars, with our economy bleeding jobs, with disease and poverty ravaging the peoples of the world, we gather this morning to remember a an entirely different kind of invasion.

Why would Jesus throw a communications blackout over something as important as his identity?   As I puzzled over Jesus’ actions this week, I got to thinking about modern-day people who say they speak for Christ.  In a cover story entitled: “Does God Want you to be Rich?”, this week’s Time magazine reports how Christians are backing away from the more traditional “deny yourself,” “take-up-your-cross” message of Jesus and embracing the much-more appealing theme of “I want it all.”  In the article, TV preacher Joyce Meyer summarizes the gospel of wealth and happiness for us: “Who would want to get in on something where you’re miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven?  I believe God wants to give us nice things.”  OK, riches I can understand, but how does God make me less ugly?!

    It was some time before I knew Robert’s name.  He and his wife used to come to Hopwood to ask for help on Sunday morning, usually during Sunday School.  It seemed to me like they were classic “users,” they figured out that people wouldn’t want to spend too much time with their problems, what with classes going on and whatnot.  Robert would sit out in their beat up old car, engine idling.  He sent his skinny, backward wife in to do the dirty work.  Go get a few bucks and we’re out of here.  I felt sorry for her, and I was sure I didn’t like him.  Then one day I went out to the car and started talking to him, and I was surprised by what I found.  I discovered he was a gentle, caring man.  I found that they both carried on despite crippling illnessess and disabilities.  I discovered that Robert was ashamed to come in...ashamed of his clothes, ashamed at having to beg, ashamed to be seen in such a fine place as this, by such fine people as us.  We started to visit; I began praying with them, and they would pray for me.  Sometimes they stayed for a service.  I began visiting them when they were in the hospital.  One day in the hospital, a nurse came in and asked:  “Are you his case worker?”   
    “No,” I said, I’m...well, Robert is my friend.  We’re  friends.”
    He talked about that day for years.  “I still remember,” he would say, “how you told that nurse that we was friends.  It’s not the money...you’re my friend.”  That doesn’t mean that friends don’t sometimes drive you crazy...but Robert is teaching me not to define people by their problems.