Be Transformed

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.- Romans 12:2

It can be hard to discern the will of God. What is good, what is acceptable, what is perfect, is not obvious. Sometimes we get that. We may be coming to a difficult decision and not know what path to take, or how the decision might be decided. Other times though we forget that. We act as if what is good, acceptable, and perfect is obvious. That can lead to a lot of self-righteousness, especially when other people cannot see as clearly as we can.

But Paul tells us that we are not to be conformed to this world. After all, this world is falling away (1 Cor. 7:31). We need to have our minds transformed. Our new minds, then, can discern the will of God. These Spirit-filled minds are given the mind of Christ, “so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (1 Cor. 2:12) Without transformed minds, we may be conformed to a world passing away. We would not know the will of God. We would only know distortions. A distorted good, a distorted perfection.

How then might we renew our minds? We renew our minds by attending to the Spirit’s presence. We renew our minds in worship. The Spirit is surely present in our worship together. We renew our minds in prayer. We renew our minds as we attend to the Scriptures, let them seep in, and begin to see the world in a new way. But we also renew our minds when we “present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” Jesus says “whatever you do for the least of these, my brothers, you do also for me.” (Matt. 25:40) We also renew our minds in service.

This world is full of pride, vanity, and boasting. That is what’s fading away. But the renewed mind, the mind of Christ, walks the way of the Cross. We seek what’s good for others, not just ourselves. We give generously, not hoarding for ourselves. We strike up strange friendships, not hiding ourselves away. We, in short, live as Jesus lived. We conform our minds to his mind. We walk the path of our crucified and risen Lord.

Sermon Audio: Reconciliation

The conclusion of Joseph's story.

Sermon: Reconciliation

Reconciliation

God’s Grace Fosters Forgiveness and Confession

Genesis 45:1-15

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. August 16th, 2020

God is not content to simply protect Joseph. God is not content to simply save Egypt. God is not content simply to bring Joseph’s dream to fruition. God is not content until, by his grace, there is reconciliation. This morning we see the fruition of Joseph’s dream. We see what God had always intended. And we might understand more how God works in the world, and how God would have us reconcile with one another.

Last week we left off with Joseph in prison. Pharaoh had two troubling dreams. Pharaoh dreamt he was standing by the Nile, and out of the Nile came seven sleek and fat cows grazing on the grass. But then seven other cows, ugly and thin, came after them. The ugly cows ate up the fat and sleek cows. And Pharaoh woke up. The second dream was similar. This time there are seven good ears of grain growing on a stalk. Then, seven ears thin and blighted sprouted, and ate up the good ears. Pharaoh woke up again. The dreams deeply troubled Pharaoh, and he sought an interpreter. But there was no one to interpret the dreams.

But the Cupbearer remembered Joseph, who was still in the prison, and told Pharaoh Joseph could interpret the dreams. Pharaoh summoned Joseph, who explained that both dreams foretold the same future. There are going to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Joseph suggested putting a wise man in charge who would buy up grain for the good years, so it may be sold on the bad years. Pharaoh, impressed by the young man, appointed Joseph to be overseer of Egypt. He gave him all his powers, that he might carry out the task he suggested. 

Everything happened as Joseph interpreted. There are seven years of plenty followed by seven terrible years. When the famine hits Egypt is well stocked with grain, and able to feed not only members of the Kingdom, but people from far off. Jacob hears of Egypt’s grain storage and sends his sons to go and buy some grain. When they arrive Joseph recognizes them. And he toys with them a bit, accusing them of being spies and testing their faithfulness. But finally, even Joseph can’t take it anymore and he reveals himself to his brothers. And in doing so he reveals two things that I think are important for us to grasp this morning.

First, he tells his brothers not to be distressed. Why? “For God sent me before you to preserve life.” As we make it to the climax of the story, we can see how God had acted throughout to make Joseph’s dream a reality. “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” What the brothers meant to do for evil, God intended for good. When his brothers thought they were ending the dream, God used their very evil act to accomplish the dream. This is how, time and again, God acts. God takes evil, and works it for our good. 

We see this most perfectly in the Cross. The crucifixion of Jesus is the height of injustice. Not only is Jesus sinless, but Jesus is God. Yet the world puts Jesus to death, hanging him on a tree. Disgracing and disfiguring Jesus. But instead of preventing the cross, God uses the cross for our salvation. So that by his stripes we are healed. By his blood we are forgiven. Jesus takes on our death, and is raised, that we might take on his life. 

Now if you had told Joseph the day after he was sold into slavery “This is part of God’s great plan for life, to save your brothers and your father’s household” he might spit in your face. But that is what God was doing. And when the time came for the plan to come to fruition, Joseph was ready to reconcile, and his brothers ready to seek reconciliation. 

Maybe you’ve seen God act this way in your life. Perhaps you have experienced something that was downright terrible, evil even. But looking back you can see how God brought something good out of it. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at a young age. What a terrible thing to experience when you are in elementary school. And it would get quite bad when I was in grade school. But I see now how those experiences have drawn me closer to God, in whom I’ve come to rely, and have centered me and prepared me for a life of ministry. 

That’s the first thing Joseph reveals. God can work through evil to bring a greater good out of it, and indeed did that in the case of his slavery. The second is something I only recognized a few months ago reading this story again. Having announced God’s gracious work, Joseph also announces his forgiveness. He will not use his power against his brothers, he is not after revenge. He has known the grace of God and will share that grace in forgiveness. But he does something that’s very subtle, and it is important. He tells his brothers to go and tell Jacob, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay.” 

He tells his brothers, in other words, to admit to what they have done. There can be no reconciliation that is not founded on confession, or truth. That can be very hard. We do not like admitting we are in the wrong. We do not like the public humiliation. But I imagine Joseph’s brothers were eager to admit their wrongdoing. When the time came their confession of sin was simultaneously the proclamation of good news. They could only confess because of the good news they have heard, and the grace of God they had received. It is exactly the same for us. Confession may seem hard. But there is no way around it. Confession is necessary if we are to be reconciled. But confession becomes easy when we truly grasp the grace that makes confession possible. Our forgiveness, God’s grace, precedes our confession. Like Joseph’s brothers, when we confess it is another way of announcing the boundless grace of God.

And that is why I love this story so much. It is a story about grace, about reconciliation, about God’s power, and about the Gospel. And at its close Joseph reveals two truths about God’s grace. The first is that it is stronger than evil, and can even make good come from evil. The second is that there is no reconciliation without confession, but grace makes confession all the more easy.

God made a promise to Joseph, and kept that promise in a powerful way. When the promise was kept, God brought about reconciliation between brothers. God has made a promise to us. Eternal life. God will keep that promise. And in keeping that promise offers reconciliation with him, and with our sisters and brothers.

Sermon: Dreams

Dreams

God Will Not Abandon You

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. August 9th, 2020

Joseph was a dreamer. God spoke to Joseph in the privacy of his dreams. God revealed his plan and purpose for Joseph in dreams, and God revealed his plans for others in dreams as well. When he was seventeen Joseph dreamt that he and his brothers were sheaves in a field. But suddenly his sheaf stood upright. And the other sheaves gathered around him and bowed before his sheaf. Another time God spoke to Joseph in a dream and revealed the son, the moon, and eleven stars bowing down to him. In both cases his family immediately understood what he was dreaming. He would be raised above his brothers, even his own parents would bow before him.

His brothers didn’t care for his dreams. His father, Jacob, wasn’t pleased with them all the time either. But he too was a dreamer, and dearly loved the son of his old age. He went so far as to make for him a coat of many colors, with long ornate sleeves. Joseph’s brothers didn’t care for that. Joseph would also tattle on his brothers. They didn’t care for that either.

By and large, though, Joseph had it made. His father, Jacob was quite wealthy. He had the love of his father. He knew the blessings of God through wondrous dreams. Joseph knew God’s plans for him. He knew the grace of God in a powerful way. I don’t know if you’ve ever been at that place in your life. When all’s right with the world. God is clearly and dearly known. And everything is in its place. That was the case for dewy eyed and innocent Joseph. 

But his brothers were jealous. Even to the point of murder. One day his father Jacob sent Joseph to check in with his brothers. He first went to Shechem, but discovered they had moved to Dothan. There his brothers saw him arriving in the distance. “Here comes this dreamer.” They said, “come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

His brothers scoff at the dreams of Joseph. Aren’t they flighty and proud things? He thinks he might rule over us. But the dream is so easily extinguished. Reuben tries to scheme his brothers out of the plot. He would save his brother from the pit before he dies from exposure. But after they threw Joseph into the pit, and as they were having lunch, a caravan of Ishmaelite merchants arrive. They decide to sell him to slavery in Egypt instead. 

So it seems the dream is ended. How could his brothers and parents bow before him, if he were nothing but a slave in Egypt? The brothers return home with Joseph’s coat, torn to pieces and full of blood. A wild animal, they say, has killed him. Jacob, Israel, is inconsolable.

This account of Joseph is my favorite story in Genesis. Perhaps my favorite story of the Old Testament. It is a story that rewards repeated and close reading. And it has something powerful to tell us about God’s working in our lives. This is only the first part of the story, and next week we will hear the conclusion. This week the focus is on the dream, and how Joseph’s brothers cannot stand the dream. How Joseph’s brothers arise to squash the dream, and sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt. 

God had a message for Joseph. I will raise you up. I will work through you, and your dreams. Your family will bow to you. God has a message for us as well. I love you. I love you so much I took on flesh in Christ. I love you so much I died in Christ. I love you so much I would make you my child. I love you so much I will raise you in Christ. And I will never leave you or forsake you. But as Joseph’s brothers could not stand the dream, the world also fights against God’s promise. We may be told in overt or covert ways that what the gospel is silly. That God is not with us. That we are alone. We may be told in overt or covert ways that the gospel is a lie. We may be drawn from the gospel in overt or covert ways. Whether it be distractions in entertainments, or all consuming family strife or all consuming work. The Gospel, the dream, may seem insignificant. It may seem like it has no place in this world. It may be forgotten.

Perhaps Joseph forgot his dreams those first few months in Egypt. What could he possibly thought of them? Perhaps they were nothing more than a fantasy? Perhaps it was a joke? A trick? But what we find as Joseph establishes himself in Egypt is that even in the midst of slavery and struggle God did not abandon him. 

Joseph is sold to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s captain of the guard. Everything Joseph sets to do is successful because God was with him. Potiphar makes him overseer of his house, and puts him in charge of all that he has. But Potiphar’s wife has Joseph thrown in prison for spurning her advances. Again, all seems lost. But Joseph needed to be sent to prison in order to interpret dreams. While he is in prison he meets Pharaoh’s former cupbearer. The cupbearer asks him to interpret a dream he had, and Joseph reveals that he will be restored to his position in three days. And when he is restored, Joseph asks that the Cupbearer would plead his case. Well, the Cupbearer is restored. But the Cupbearer forgets. Until Pharaoh needs a dream interpreted… And that is where we will pick up the story next week.

But notice how hard it is to put the dream down. God does not abandon Joseph because he has been enslaved in Egypt. God does not abandon Joseph because he’s been thrown in prison. But God continues to work through, and bless Joseph. The dream continues its work, until it will be fulfilled.

So too in our lives. God will not leave or abandon those he has called as his own. Even when we may feel lost. Even when it may seem that God is not near. The dream cannot be undone that easily. The Gospel is truer than all the lies of this world. In all situations, put your hope in trust in him who has the power to save.

Binging and Bible

It’s just getting good!

Whenever I binge a tv series, movie series, or video game I feel strange. As if I am emerging out of a realistic dream. Sometimes I have dreams so vivid, or dreams so emotionally powerful, that as I begin to wake up I’m still certain they’re real. Many mornings I’ve woken up convinced I would not be graduating from college because I failed an exam, for instance. I get the same feeling from binging entertainments. Once I’m done I’m, in some way, convinced I’m still in that world. As I look around everyday objects remind me of elements of that world. In the case of games, I see the world in terms of the mechanics and puzzles of the game.

I don’t hear a lot of people talk about this, but I can’t imagine I’m the only one who has had this experience. After hours of a game, or hours of a tv show, the reality of the entertainment bleeds into our own, and it takes some time to get fully back to reality.

The Bible is meant to function in a similar way. Surely the Bible tells us about God, God’s plan, God’s work, and God’s promise. But the Bible is more than declarative sentences. It’s not in the form of a theological treatise. The Bible has Law, poetry, prophecy, and story. The Bible tells us about Noah and the flood, Joseph sold into slavery, David and Goliath, David and Absalom, Daniel and the Lion’s den. It tells us about Paul’s shipwrecks and Peter’s visions. Most importantly, it tells us about Jesus, his parables, his life, his atonement, and his resurrection.

The Bible doesn’t just tell us about God, but tells us stories about God and about God’s people. And these stories are more than a simple recounting of what happened long ago. These stories are meant to tell us something about God’s work in our lives and in our world. They are meant to inform the way we see the world. So that when we are so enmeshed in these stories, when we binge the Bible day after day, we begin to see the world with a biblical eye. We see as God would have us see. So that, for instance, when we see a stranger we see a sister or brother. Or, when we see someone in need we see an ambassador for Christ. And when we see the plants sprout and flowers bloom we may see signs of resurrection.

This is why we return to the Bible again and again. The Bible, in this way, peels back our reality. It peels back what we think of as reality. So that we can see God’s reality. That we may see ourselves “praying like Peter, preaching like Paul.” When we face a tough situation we may see ourselves as having the courage of a Daniel. When we come to difficult decisions we may see ourselves as having the wisdom of a Solomon. And when we suffer we may see ourselves as bearing the marks of Christ. The Bible tells us the truth about what’s going on, the truth about God’s world. When we pour ourselves into the strange world of the Bible, we see as God would have us see.

In this way the Bible works in us. Soaking into our bones. That is the grace of scripture reading, and how the Spirit works through the word of God to make us more like Christ.

Sermon: Struggle

Struggle

Struggle is a Sign of Faith

Genesis 32:22-31

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. August 2nd, 2020

Jacob earned his name, we are told, because he was born grasping his twin brother’s heel. Jacob means heel. It can also mean supplanter, or usurper. Jacob certainly fits the bill. When the boys grew up Esau became a hunter and farmer, while Jacob was more of a quiet fellow who stayed in his tent. One day Jacob was making some red stew, and Esau came in from the field famished. Esau asked for some of the stew, but Jacob would only share if Esau sold his birthright. Well, Esau sold the birthright. And Jacob usurped the rights of the first born.

Another time Jacob conspired with his mother Rebecca to usurp his father Isaac’s blessing. Isaac had grown advanced in years and his vision was poor. When Isaac sent Esau to hunt and prepare game in preparation for a blessing, Rebecca ordered Jacob to fetch two lambs from the flock and put on some furs and imitate his hairy brother Esau. The ruse was a success. Isaac ate the veal, and blessed Jacob. Jacob had usurped the blessing and fully supplanted his brother. Esau vowed to kill Jacob. 

Jacob fled to Haran where he met his uncle Laban. There, too, he usurped his uncle. He married Leah and Rachel, Laban’s daughters, and through the blessings of God and hard work acquired most of the flock. When the time came to leave Laban, he walked out with most of the household. Supplanter indeed.

But now Jacob had to return home, and he would face his greatest struggle. In order to return home he would have to meet his brother Esau. The one whose birthright he bought, and whose blessing he stole. The one who swore he would murder Jacob for his usurpation. Our Old Testament reading today covers the night before his day of reckoning with Esau. He has sent his company ahead with gifts designed to win his brother’s favor. He remains alone. And a mysterious man appears to wrestle him.

They wrestle through the night. But neither man can over come the other. Hosea suggests Jacob may have been wrestling an angel. But Jacob names the site Peniel, suggesting that he had seen the face of God. This is no ordinary man who has come to face Jacob. Jacob’s struggle that dark night was not merely against flesh and blood. Jacob’s struggle in the dark was also a spiritual struggle. A struggle you may know all too well.

Someone once asked me why their mother, who was a faithful member of the Church, had to endure so much suffering in her final days. Another time, during Holy Week, I went to the ICU where a husband wanted to know why God was taking his wife so soon. The barren fog of depression. Troublesome doubt that has no object, and you are not sure if it is even answerable. Faith brings its consolations, but faith also brings its struggle. 

God has never promised that faith would be without struggle. After all, we worship a crucified God. Our salvation was won through suffering and struggle. Like Jacob we, at times, come face to face with the hidden God in the night, and are summoned to struggle. We are invited to ask God, “why?” We are invited to throw down our fears and our doubts. We are invited to contend throughout the night. 

Jacob does not shirk from the struggle. He wrestles to the break of day. And though the day is dawning and he too must be off to meet Esau he refuses to let go. Though his hip be out out of joint he will not let go. He will not let go until he receives the blessing. 

“What is your name?” The man asks. “Jacob.” He replies. “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”

As his nightly bout reaches its end Jacob is given a new identity. No longer will he be “heel.” He is no longer the usurper or the supplanter. He has contended with God. He has accepted God’s invitation to struggle. And he has prevailed. He is now Israel. The one who struggles with God. 

Jacob went into that night full of fear and doubt. What might his brother do? Is this where God has led him? Might this be the end? Jacob wrestled God with his fear and his doubt. And in the course of that wrestling received a blessing. He was given a new name and made a new person. In his wrestling he received an answer by being made new. He contends with God and man, and prevails. Even if he gets by with a limp.

Israel is not the only biblical figure who struggles with God. Abraham struggles with God when he bargains God down to saving Sodom and Gomorrah if only five righteous people might be found there. Moses struggles with God when the people complain, and when they construct a golden calf. The prophets struggle with God, as they receive new visions and a new word that confounds even them. Jesus himself struggled with God in the Garden of Gethsemane “if it be your will take this cup from me.” Jesus struggled so mightily he sweat blood. 

We must not fear the struggle. The struggle is not something we can avoid. So let’s not try to evade it with false piety. As if God can’t take the struggle, or the struggle is due to a lack of faith. Israel doesn’t struggle due to a lack of faith. Israel struggles on account of his faith. He has faith that God is big enough to take the struggle. Faith that there are answers. 

Jacob also struggles because he has faith that God is just. Faith that God is love. So many prayers of lament to God assume that God is just, so where is justice? Those prayers don’t come from a lack of faith. They are prayers of faith. They are prayers seeking answers, though the answers may be more profound than words can express. Israel receives an answer more profound than words, because he has received a new name.

Israel would meet Esau that day, and they would embrace. Jacob grasped Esau by the heel and supplanted him. Jacob grasped God and received a new name. Esau grasped Israel and reconciled. That is where Israel’s struggles brought him. Through it all he found grace. Through it all, we may find grace too. Not in spite of the struggle, but through the struggle, in the midst of the struggle. Do not fear the angel by night. But contend like Israel did. Contend in prayer. Even in tears. And God who is gracious will show his face.

Sermon: Prayer

Prayer

Let Nothing Get in the Way of Prayer

Romans 8:26-39

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 26th, 2020

We are a praying people. We pray so much that I wonder sometimes if it is easy for us to forget how wonderful the miracle and mystery of prayer really is. Imagine, at any moment on any given day in any given place we can speak to God. We can thank God, praise God, make our requests to God, or simply rest in God. We do not need to go to special places, though we do set places aside. We do not need to go through special people, though we do set people aside. We can simply turn to God, pour out our hearts, and he listens. He’s always listening.

Jesus’ disciples once asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus’ disciples did not know how to pray. They needed to be taught. Prayer does not come naturally to us, either. It is something that we need to be taught. And, if we are being honest with ourselves, it is something that can be difficult. Sometimes it can be difficult to find the words, is there some formula? Other times we might get distracted. We might be praying one thing and our mind goes off on something else. Or we might wonder what gestures or posture we ought to be making. Is it a prayer if I don’t clasp my hands? 

I had mentioned before about listening to those radio preachers before bed. Oftentimes they would end the service with an invitation to say the sinner’s prayer and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Some of those sermons were especially convicting for me, so I would say the prayer. But after the second time saying the prayer I began to have doubts. Was I saying it earnestly enough? Was praying while lying in bed the incorrect posture? Was there something deeper I was missing? So I would pray each and every time. Maybe you’ve had similar experiences with prayer. You put your hands together, you repeated the words, or you said what was on your heart, and couldn’t be too sure if your words went farther than the ceiling.

If you’ve ever wondered about prayer, or had difficulty with prayer, you can take comfort from Paul’s words this morning. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Paul himself admits we do not know how to pray as we ought. I think that’s astounding. Now, Paul doesn’t like to talk about his own spiritual life, he’d rather focus on Jesus. But we do know that Paul had a vibrant spiritual life. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians he describes a profound spiritual experience where he was caught up to heaven and God spoke to him. He speaks of his prayers on behalf of others multiple times. And he exhorts the Thessalonians to “pray unceasingly.” Paul is not inexperienced with prayer, but even he admits we do not know how to pray as we ought. So don’t think you’re expected to get it all right. 

Never let anything get in the way of prayer. Prayer is our conversation with God, it is a means by which we deepen our relationship with God. If we have been adopted by God in the Spirit, if Christ has claimed us as his own, then we are called to prayer. God wants to know what’s on our hearts. He wants us to lift everything up to him, whether it be our joys or our concerns. 

Don’t worry about what you should say, or what you should do. All that comes in time. I think a lot of trouble in prayer comes from thinking there are some right things to say. I wonder sometimes if the reason I get distracted in prayer is that I’m not actually lifting up the things that are on my heart. I’ve tried to say my prayers when I have a tummy ache. And let me tell you, as much as I would like to focus on the far more lofty topics I know I need to bring before God, it’s hard to keep my mind off the tummy ache before I pray to God even for that. A student praying before a test does not worry about distraction. They are quite focused. The student is focused because she or he is lifting up to God what is truly on his or her heart. Perhaps our distractions are the true concerns of our heart bubbling to the surface. Finding a way to offer them up to God can bring us back to the other things we had set ourselves to pray.

Don’t worry about the purity of your intentions, like there are more or less important things you ought to be praying for. God isn’t interested in a bunch of Eddie Haskells. God wants really what’s on your heart. God wants to deepen a relationship with you. Lift up the banal and the embarrassing. God can make something of that. 

No matter what you say, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. God will hear the real yearning of your heart, God can take our prayers and work wonders through them. Even lift up your anger, the Psalmist can get very angry and even violent. Who knows what God might do with what you lift up for him, how the Spirit might intercede, what wonders God might work, how you might become transformed.

The important thing about prayer isn’t doing it right. The important thing about prayer is simply to pray. To lift our hearts up to God, and let God work in us and through us. To grow closer to God. 

We are able to pray because of the Spirit’s intercession. It is not our own work. It is a miracle. Each and every time. An astonishing miracle that we might stand before the Holy Throne and converse. The Spirit makes this possible. We can have confidence in the Spirit’s intercession, and confidence in the power of prayer. Indeed, Paul tells us, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

What is getting in the way of prayer? Certainly nothing can get in the way of God’s love. But prayer is one way that God makes his love known and deepens his love with us. Pray in what ever way works for you. I like to use the Daily Office to order my prayers myself, but I also make intercessory prayer throughout the day. I’ve learned to make my requests as they come, and combine them with thanksgivings. That way I am reminded always of God’s blessings. Some may find impromptu prayer more natural than a formal or written prayer. Some may need to pray while reading Scripture. Others pray while drawing. The Spirit intercedes. Don’t let anything get in the way. Whether you are happy, pray. Sad, pray. Depressed, pray. In trouble, pray. Scared, pray. Pray in all circumstances. Offer it all to God. It is our privilege as God’s children. It is the miracle of the Spirit’s gift. Pray. Pray. Pray.

Sermon: Love Story

A Love Story

You Are Loved

Romans 8:12-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 19th, 2020

The Bible is a love story. The Old Testament is about God’s love for Israel. The New Testament is about Jesus’ love for his Church. The whole Bible is about God’s love for humanity. As John memorably and pithily puts it: God is love. As we pour through the pages of the Bible, we do not find a God who remains aloof. Instead, God is revealing himself, acting in history, calling a people to be made his own. Working to overcome sin, overcome death, and save those he loves.

We see God’s radical and scandalous love very early on. God calls Abram, or as he would be more memorably known Abraham, from his father’s house. He says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, that you will be be a blessing.” Genesis does not tell us why God chooses Abram. We are not told why God chooses his son Isaac. Or why God chooses Isaac’s son Jacob. God sets his heart upon Jacob’s people, the people of Israel, and delivers them from slavery in Egypt. He tells Moses, “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

God loves. God loves the people of Israel. It’s because God loves the people of Israel that God becomes their God. It’s because God loves the people of Israel that he gives them the Law. God chooses Israel for no other reason than that he loves them. And God chooses Israel to bless the nations, and to be blessed.

Israel may be chosen, and Israel may be loved, but Israel is still human. And sin still creeps in, and disrupts the relationship, and separates the people from God. The books of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, are all about the ways the people of Israel have turned away from the love of God. And how God earnestly desires to renew the covenant he had made.

Human sin does not keep God from loving us. When we are faithless, God remains faithful. In Christ a new covenant is forged, and a new relationship is made. The love story continues, in a new way. God’s love is extended in the Spirit, that all who receive the Spirit of God may be adopted. Yes. Adopted. We are made children of God by the Spirit of God. God’s love is so great for us, that despite our failings and our sins and our own guilt and shame, God looks beyond that. God doesn’t care for that. No. God would still pour out his Spirit on us. God would still make us his children. 

Let me say it again: God has adopted us as his own children! This is not something we are by nature. It’s not by virtue of our creation in God’s image that we are God’s children. It is by virtue of God’s love for us, and the work of Christ, that we are adopted! God selects us for his own, because that is how great God’s love is for us. God would bring us into his family, and make us co-heirs with him. We are like the girl in the fairy tale who becomes a princess. Or the boy made a prince. This is the good news. There is no condemnation. We receive the Spirit of adoption. “And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ”

Joint heirs! We may too share in glory and joy and peace, “if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

We are adopted as children of God, made co-heirs with Christ, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. Here is the difficult part of Paul’s message. Yes, the love story goes on. Yes, God has adopted us in Christ. Yes, we are joint heirs. But that also means we share in Jesus with suffering. A suffering, he’s quick to remind us, that cannot be compared with what will be revealed. But a suffering nevertheless. What should we make of this today? How can we say at once the beautiful truth that we are adopted as children of God, but we also must suffer? What does suffering have to do with such a beautiful love story?

I think today we labor under the illusion that suffering is, in principle, avoidable. We believe there ought to be the right procedure, or the right painkiller, or the right policy, or the right people in charge. If things go well, suffering can be avoided. But truth is in this world suffering will always be with us. We will always know pains, and griefs, and heartache. It is unavoidable. And Paul knew that. How could he not? Paul had suffered much for the sake of Christ. He suffered stonings, and shipwrecks, and lashings. He suffered through hunger and poverty and danger. The life he knew was characterized by all sorts of suffering. And he thought that the suffering he faced was a reflection of the suffering Jesus faced. 

I don’t want to play the martyr, but I’ve known suffering too. More ordinary sufferings, perhaps. But I ministered for two years while I was very ill and was too stubborn to get the right treatment. I’ve seen death. I’ve grieved, deeply. But never through it all did I think this suggests I did something wrong, or that God does not love me, or God is not present through it all. I knew the love of God was strong enough to meet me through it, to carry me through it, and I learned about God’s love in the midst of suffering. We may know suffering, but God’s love is such that it can embrace and overcome the suffering.

We are co-heirs of the suffering messiah. The one who sweat blood. The one who took the lashings. The one who faced death on the cross. If we are joint heirs with the crucified one, we ought to expect to face sufferings. We ought to feel loss. And know pain. And grieve. Being a child of God doesn’t mean we will do any better than Jesus. And if we suffer it doesn’t mean God doesn’t love us. No.

God loves us to bear us through the suffering. God loves us to give us hope. Our adoption as children of God, that gives us hope. God’s love for us, that gives us hope. Hope that can be seen is not hope. But hope we do have. Hope in the resurrection, hope in the presence of God.

The Bible is a love story. It reminds us that God loves us. That God loves us so much he gave us his only begotten son, that all who believe in him would not perish, but would be adopted as children of God. And being children of God, we know God loves us. We have hope. And we know the glory that awaits is worth far more than the sufferings we meet today.

Loving One Another

This I command you, to love one another. John 15:17

John puts love at the center of the Christian life. Jesus, according to John, gave us but one command: that we would love one another. John told us that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would have everlasting life. (John 3:16) Those who abide in love abide in God. Indeed, God is love. (1 John 4:16) But when we pay closer attention to Jesus’ command to love we may discover something that troubles us. Jesus, according to John, commands us to love one another. “This way people will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” (John 13:35) Where is the command to love everyone? Where is the command to love our neighbors?

Luke shows Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, where we learn that a “neighbor” for Jesus is anyone to whom we show mercy. Matthew shows Jesus telling us to love our enemies, because in doing so we imitate our Father in heaven who makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. We know Jesus taught this inclusive love. So why does John not show this side of Jesus? 

Every gospel writer wants to emphasize some aspect of Jesus they knew and experienced. That’s why we have four gospels instead of one. And that’s why past attempts to abridge the gospels into one document were rejected. The Church has always had a sense that Matthew has something true to tell us that Mark might not, or Mark has something true to tell us that Luke might not. Matthew wishes to emphasize Jesus the new Moses, who brings about a new covenant and law. Luke, the gentile physician, emphasizes Jesus forming a new community of gentiles and outcasts. And John has his own emphases. 

Nowhere in John’s Gospel does Jesus say we should not love someone. He merely tells us to love one another. I think the reason John puts so much emphasis on loving one another is that it is hard enough to love each other. It is easy to love in the abstract. It’s easy to say love is a good thing, or that we should love everyone, or we should show love to this or that sort of person. It’s a whole lot harder to love Tom, Dick, or Jane. There are no stakes to loving our neighbor in the abstract. But we know Tom, Dick, or Jane warts and all. We know their annoying laugh or verbal tics. We know their tendency to tell tales out of school, or their boastfulness. We know they can be harsh, or they can refuse to stand up for themselves. But Jesus tells us to love one another. So Jesus tells us to love Tom, Dick, or Jane. And loving the people we know, can be a lot harder than loving those we don’t.

Jesus knows this about us. That’s why he emphasizes first that we love one another. Loving one another is where the rubber meets the road. If we can’t show love to one another, how are we to show love to the stranger? After all, if I do it right the stranger will become a neighbor. I had that happen once. I recall helping a panhandler when he was a stranger, and feeling quite good about it. But he quickly became my neighbor. Once he became a neighbor to me, and I learned his real name, I saw how he could be deceitful. If I can say so, I really didn’t like him. But he had become my neighbor. And I knew I was called to love him. And the difficulty became recognizing what love looked like. The rubber had hit the road, I could no longer get by with the easy love of an empty gesture. I had a neighbor. 

So let us love one another. If we love one another, the world will know we are the disciples of Christ. Let’s focus on that simple yet difficult act. Not at the exclusion of others. Not because we are insular. But because loving one another prepares us to love others in turn. If we can love one another, we can love when it counts.

Sermon: Spirit and Flesh

Spirit and Flesh

Christ Frees Us

Romans 8:1-11

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 12th, 2020

Paul sets out two ways of living. He says there are those who live by the way of the flesh, and set their minds of the things of the flesh. Then there are those who live by way of the Spirit, and set their minds on things of the Spirit. Paul doesn’t immediately elaborate on what it means to set your mind on the flesh, or what it means to set your mind on the Spirit. So what does he mean? How do I know when my mind is on the flesh, or when my mind is on the Spirit? What is flesh? What is Spirit? What does it mean that “the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death?”

Paul sees all of human history divided into two ages. There is “the present evil age” as he puts it in Galatians, which is ruled by the flesh, sin, and the Law. But then there is the New Creation. The New Creation is characterized by the Spirit and God’s grace. In the New Creation Christ reigns, in the Spirit. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” Jesus is the fulcrum between those two ages. When Jesus was crucified “the world was crucified to me and I to the world,” as Paul puts it. Jesus’ resurrection marks the beginning of a New Creation. He is, after all, the first fruits of the new creation. And God is giving birth to this New Creation, in the Spirit, in the world today. So the Flesh characterizes the realm of the fallen world, while the Spirit characterizes the realm of life in Christ.

What does it mean to live according to the flesh then? Living according to the flesh means living according to our basest desires. The fleshly life looks like this: “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” We know we will all die. So those who live according to the flesh try to make the most out of a short life. Either we make the most money, or have the most sex, or gain the most power, or watch the most movies, or find the finest cuisine. In the flesh that’s all there is to life.

The flesh sees happiness as the fulfillment of base desires. The purpose of life, then, is to fulfill those desires. It’s like the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, for those who’ve seen it. Willy Wonka has creatively removed all the kids who showed different vices that, in the end, frustrate their desire to own the factory and know true happiness. Augustus Gloop is gluttonous and gets stuck in a tube, Veruca Salt is greedy and ends up in the trash heap, and all that. But Charlie Bucket is moderate in his desires. At the end of the movie Wonka gives him the factory and they fly off in a glass elevator. While they’re hovering over Charlie’s new factory Wonka says, “don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.” Charlie asks, “What happened?” And Wonka says, “He lived happily ever after.” 

I never agreed with that. If we suddenly got everything we always wanted, I think we’d be bored after awhile. Or we’d grow paranoid, afraid we might lose it. We weren’t made to have all our bodily desires satisfied. This is why Paul often characterizes life in the flesh as a life of competition and divisiveness. “But if you bite and devour one another,” he says, “watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” When he lists the works of the flesh, they are things like “enmity, strife, jealously, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy…” and so on.

Now, this isn’t to say that our physical needs are bad. We ought to meet our basic needs, there are people who are unjustly condemned to poverty and oppression, who are without the basest rights and dignity. This isn’t to say that we should tell them, “you just want to live by the flesh, you ought to live by the spirit.” But God didn’t make us to be animals, like dogs who eat a nice juicy steak, and are happy enough to sleep. Our lives cannot be about meeting the needs of the flesh. We are made for more. God made us to live in fellowship with him and with one another. He made us to love. And our capacity to love means that we have a higher purpose that cannot be met if we live according to the flesh. 

After all, the flesh tends toward death. We all know this. We’ve all felt aches and pains. If we live for the flesh, and the flesh alone, we won’t have much to show for it. Think of all the people we alienate and hurt because we are so self-protective. But love is outward focused, it’s wanting what’s best for someone else as we want it for ourselves. It means being willing to make sacrifices for another not because we would get anything out of the deal, but because we love them. 

Paul tells us love never ends. (1 Cor. 13:8) Love is a force stronger than death, it is love that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the love of the Father that would not let his Son see corruption in the grave. When love is at the forefront of our lives we’ll discover that we are no longer living for the self, for our flesh, for our own desires. We’ll discover that suddenly getting everything we ever wanted” doesn’t lead to happiness after all. Because once we have everything we need to keep it. We need to protect it, and we fear losing it. But we don’t need to fear losing love, particularly the love of God. 

Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit is the love of God poured into our hearts. When we know that love, when we see by the Spirit, we are made participants in the New Creation, we experience eternal life, the whole world is made new. Paul calls this setting the mind on the Spirit, and this leads to life and peace. 

The life of the flesh is self-preservation, self-satisfaction, fear, and death. The life of the Spirit is love, peace, and abundant life. If you want a model of what it means to set your mind on the Spirit we ought to always think of Jesus Christ, who lived according to the Spirit. Jesus showed love to others by teaching, by hanging out with the downtrodden and outcast and despised, by healing others and by giving people purpose in life they had long lost. He didn’t come to rule over others, but to serve others. He came to free us, to give us life again.

Jesus not only forgives our sins, but he frees us from our sins. He frees us from sin. He calls us to a life not focused on death, but eternal life in him. “There is therefore,” Paul says, “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” We are set free. Set free from our fears. Set free from our anxieties. Set free from our guilt. We are free to set our minds on the Spirit, to live a new and joyous life. This is Christ’s gift to us, offered without price. 

Making a Mark

Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh on the sinew of the hip.- Genesis 32:32

A holy struggle.

I’ve been studying Jacob’s bout with the angel. It’s a powerful and evocative story, and there are a lot of ways to read it. Jacob spends the night alone, waiting to meet his brother Esau for the first time since he stole his blessing. Last he knew Esau vowed to kill him. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to that meeting, and had little reason to expect a moment of reconciliation. But in that dark night of emotional struggle, he faces a struggle of a different sort. A mysterious man appears and begins to wrestle him through the night. “When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,” we are told, “he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.” But Jacob doesn’t let go, and forces from the mysterious man a blessing. That blessing is his new name. He would no longer be known as Jacob, which means supplanter or usurper. He would now be known as Israel, which means “God strives" or “he who struggles with God.”

That is where the lectionary account leaves us. And that is where most commentaries I’ve read leave the story. But the story doesn’t end with Jacob’s new name. The story ends with us being told that Israelites do not eat from a certain sinew because that is where God touched Jacob’s hip.

This is not an insignificant report. Though I get it might be difficult to preach on, and it’s certainly no command for us to avoid eating this particular sinew. It’s not insignificant because it shows us how Israel chose to commemorate the encounter of their patriarch with God. As his wrestling with God left Jacob limping, so too Israel at the time Genesis was written sets aside the same sinew as a reminder.

What are the marks God leaves on our lives? I don’t mean a limp, or a forbidden food. But what are the daily reminders we set to turn ourselves to God? How does our faith in Christ make our lives different than someone who doesn’t believe? If we follow the crucified messiah, it will leave a mark. There are things we will do that do not compute, or that seem strange or peculiar. Perhaps we set aside a time for prayer, or set times of fasting or other forms of abstinence. Or maybe we set aside a portion of our finances for the work of the Kingdom. What are the regular, ordinary, ways that the rubber of our faith meets the road of our life? As the Israelites remembered their father’s struggles on that lonely and dark night by setting aside the sinew of the thigh.

Sermon: Striving

Life in the Spirit: Striving

Grace is Given, not Earned

Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 5th, 2020

When someone wants to get to know you they want to know what you do. They don’t start out asking for your favorite sports team, or favorite sundae. They don’t ask what tv shows you watch, or whether you’re a morning or evening person. By and large they’ll ask you “what do you do?” And when they ask “what do you do” they usually want to know your occupation. Like, I’m a pastor. It’s only after that we might ask “what do you do for fun?” You know, like I like to read, sing, walk the dog, and so on. Then we might get into sports teams and sundaes.

It’s actually considered rude in many parts of the world to ask “what do you do?” I’m thinking of France especially. You could ask “what do you do for fun?” and people wouldn’t bat an eye. But asking “what do you do” implies you want to know about their work life. And they don’t want to talk about their work life, by and large. They think work is boring and don’t want to be defined by it. It’s pretty unique to America that we define ourselves and others by the work we do, and don’t bat an eye. 

I think the reason we don’t think it’s rude to ask “what do you do,” by and large, is that we are a nation of strivers and go-getters. We Americans have always prized hard work and a can-do attitude. We are a pragmatic and inventive nation, always hopeful in our future. It’s part of why we’ve always thought of ourselves as an exceptional nation. We are the nation of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. We built the railroads, the dams, the skyscrapers, the internet. We have made wonders all by a little hard work, ingenuity, and a dream. 

I’m a striver too, or have been. All my life I knew I was called to pastor. It was a sense that was always with me. So from high school I was making decisions that would benefit me in my steps toward, God willing, being ordained in The United Methodist Church. I participated in extracurriculars, in church committees, went to a Lutheran undergraduate institution where I got my major in religious studies, went to seminary, and all of the sudden my striving had come to an end. The study, the tests, the internships, had all paid off. My call was recognized. I got ordained. And when you get ordained people ask you “do you feel any different?” I don’t know why. They just do. In the weeks and months afterward I felt at a loss. A sense of emptiness came over me. So much of my life had been built in the striving, in the work of becoming a pastor. And I learned how while my striving led me to accomplish a lot, striving alone can make us feel empty if we ever get what we’re chasing after. But God’s grace is not a matter of our striving.

Being a go-getter is so baked into our culture that we may be tempted to think we need to strive for our own salvation. I remember hearing one person tell their kids how they need to do good things in order to get to heaven. We might feel, like John Wesley the founder of Methodism felt, that there is so much more we could or should be doing. John Wesley once engaged in an experiment to see how much money he could save by eating nothing but turnips. He wanted to give his savings to charity. We may not take things to that extreme. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt I need to pray more. I’m not the only one who has felt that I need to give more. I’m not the only one who has felt that I have these nasty attitudes that won’t go away, or these sins it’s up to me to overcome. We take the need to strive and we apply it to our own faith. The trouble is, it just doesn’t work that way.

It doesn’t work that way because of how sin works in our lives. Sin enslaves, and sin corrupts even our best intentions. Paul speaks very powerfully of the reign of sin in our reading this morning. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” He says. Despite all his striving he finds “in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” He knows the Law, he was an expert in it. He knows what the Law demands. He loves the Law as the very gift of God. And yet, he finds that despite all his striving he is incapable of obeying the Law. Though he knows what is good sin is close at hand, and it has held him captive. If Saul the pharisee, Saul the expert, was caught up in the power of sin who could be set free?

Paul knows how sin works in our lives. Sin radically roots itself into us, so the more we strive the more power sin has. In Paul’s case, he may have had in mind his persecution of the Church. It was precisely out of his zeal for the Law and love for God that he persecuted Christ! “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus asks on that Damascus road. Paul strove to follow the Law, in his own words he was blameless. But in his zeal his went against the will of God. Sin had done its work. Sin makes it impossible for us to reach, or be satisfied in, the things we strive for. Paul says elsewhere in Romans that the wages of sin is death. Sin demands work, it demands striving, and it leads to a great deal of unhappiness. It is sin that commands us like a slavedriver, and reminds us of our guilt.

The things of God do not come by our own work. God does not bestow his blessings on those who’ve earned it, or the ones who scored the highest on their final exams or can bench the most or are the most popular. God bestows his blessings on anyone and everyone. “He makes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.” In fact, let’s go farther. Paul specifically says God justifies the ungodly. God forgives precisely those who don’t deserve forgiveness, bestows grace on precisely those who don’t deserve grace. If we deserved grace, would it still be grace? God’s grace does not come by earning it. God’s grace comes by faith. And not just any faith. We who put our faith in Christ and his cross and rest in him, and he grants eternal life. Not just life in the hereafter, but life now. A blessedness now. Joy now. 

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Who among us does not carry a heavy burden? Who among us does not bear the burden of sin? Or who among us does not bear that burden of striving, of seeking to justify ourselves before others. The burden of sin, the burden of striving, the burden of having to rely on ourselves, Jesus wants to take away. Come to me, he says, all. All you that are weary. All you that are carrying heavy burdens. Come to me, and I will give you rest.

Jesus promises rest from our striving. How? “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus’ yoke is not like the yoke we put on ourselves. His yoke is easy. His yoke is the yoke of his gospel. His yoke is the yoke of his grace. As the old hymn goes, “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be.” It is not the harsh yoke of servitude. But the gentle yoke of God’s blessing and grace. We take that yoke on ourselves when we say “Jesus is Lord.” When we know Jesus as our Lord. When we know he lays down his life for our sake. When we know that he died for me, even me. When we put our whole trust in him, his salvation, his leading. Then we find our burdens gone, then we might shout with Paul “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”