The Good Shepherd

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville ( AM)
and Anglican Church of the Risen Lord, Charleston, 9PM).
Based on: John 10:22-39


As we begin talking about our passage today I’d just like to set the context for us. In John chapter 9, Jesus had healed a man born blind, whom the Pharisees promptly tossed out of the Synagogue, thus showing themselves to be very poor shepherds of the sheep of Israel indeed. It’s like the old Hymn we sing, “Beating up the Sheep, Beating up the Sheep. We shall come rejoicing, beating up the sheep.”

Now, in John chapter 10, Jesus is contrasting himself with the Pharisees. They are thieves, who try to come in the sheepfold by the side door to steal. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who faithfully leads the sheep, even to the point of giving up his life for them. While the Pharisees are interested in power and control, Jesus says “I came that they might have life and might have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). His focus is totally other-directed and service oriented.

In using this metaphor of the Good Shepherd, Jesus is employing an image that the Pharisees would certainly have known well. Psalm 100 says, “we are His people and the sheep of His pasture… v. 3. And there is Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want… to name just a couple.

In using this language, Jesus is making an implicit claim to be God, and is also harshly criticizing the Pharisees. In verses 4 and 5, he says “…he goes before them and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow”. (This is reiterated in verse 27: “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.)

Then Jesus starts talking about laying down his life and taking it up on his own authority (v. 18). The Pharisees are really divided now, and they start accusing Jesus of having a demon or being insane. So they ask Him pointedly, “if you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” (v. 24). However, this question is not asked from faith, but as a ploy to catch him in a miscue and so enable them to condemn Jesus.

But Jesus gives them no satisfaction. He rebuffs them and basically tells them that they aren’t of His flock, that God doesn’t know them, and they’re goin’ to hell. He wraps it up with a definitive statement, “I and the Father are One.” And the Jews take up stones to kill him because “he made himself out to be God. (v. 33). They know blasphemy when they hear it. They do not believe Jesus is just a harmless good teacher. No! They are furious because he is making a clear claim to Deity.

And here, let’s point out that as you witness to those who do not know Christ, this is a key passage. Is shows very clearly that Jesus understood himself to be at one with God, not just in some generic sense, but so specifically that the Jews try to kill him on account of Blasphemy.

Now notice that Jesus says, I give them eternal life (v.28). He didn’t claim to have been enlightened like the Buddha. He didn’t go sit under a tree and achieve Nirvana through a life-long quest for spiritual breakthrough. No, he is claiming Ontological unity with a personal God – the Father Creator – and asserting that He, the Son, is at One with the Father and that Eternal Life is found in Him! Now that is a tall claim! Jesus gives us eternal life.

Not only that , but the passage today shows us Gods’ personal, individual interest in us . Verse 29: “My Father, who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them from my hands. “

We call this the Perseverance of the Saints. In Romans 8:38 and 39 we read: “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God.” God will persevere with us and keep us in His love because He loved us and chose us for salvation. This in turn points us to the doctrine of Predestination. Article 27 of the 39 articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, page 871, says:

“Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity…”


We are called according to God’s purpose (Romans 8:28,29), which is to conform us to the Image of Christ; God foreknew us before the foundation of the word. This means that he loved us particularly. Foreknew …”means ‘whom he set regard upon’ or ‘whom he knew from eternity with distinguishing affection and delight’, and is virtually equivalent to ‘whom he foreloved” (emphasis added) (The Five Points of Calvinism: The Meaning of Foreknew in Romans 8:29. ed. Steele and Thomas).

We were marked, ordained by God for salvation. It’s not that God simply knew who would respond to the offer of salvation ahead of time, but that there is a continuum of God’s action (v. 29). ‘Those he foreknew, he also predestined, to be conformed to the image of his son…v. 30 and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

Notice that all these verbs are in the past tense. God’s sees it all as having already been accomplished. Since he stands outside of Time, he can look at all the moments of our life at once and see them all as if they had already happened. He sees the beginning and the end at once. Its’ already done.

Now what about Free-Will? Here’ what Article 10 of the 39 Articles says about Free Will:

X. Of Free-Will.

“The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without
the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.”

Our natural will is bound to choose death, but somehow, God gives us the grace and freedom to choose Life. God sees it all and knows it, is Sovereign over it all at once. In His Sovereignty, he actively chooses us individually to receive the gift of faith, to be saved and to be kept against the day of Christ’s return.

I really believe that God is the Author of Salvation. He calls us to believe and He gives us the grace to believe. This means that he gives us the actual freedom to choose him. Without this grace, our natural inclination keep us away from God. We don’t know who he has chosen unto salvation, but we do know He wants to use as channels of saving grace for other people. Our job is to share the Good News, so that others might respond to it and be saved. This is the mechanism of salvation: God saves us by His righteous right hand and he keeps us in His love. Knowing this should give us great comfort.


Okay, so God is the author of salvation: He chooses us to come to faith and He keeps us in the faith…but “what about those who fall away from the faith? Jesus did say that not everyone who came to him saying, Lord, Lord would be saved – even those who did miracles in Jesus’ Name. Paul also complains that some of his fellows have fallen away. “Demas has loved the world…

Two Answers:

One: not everyone who professes faith, is actually a Christian. You can say you believe, but never have actually made the commitment.

Two: It’s also true that we can chose how obedient or close we want to be to Him. As sheep, we can wander off, causing the Good shepherd to come looking for us. We can be inattentive and not listen very closely to His voice. We can be disobedient and luke-warm, or even hard-hearted. We can choose to love buildings and traditions and comfort more than Jesus. We can be bad sheep.

Article X of the 39 Articles:

XVI. Of Sin after Baptism.

“Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned, which say, they can no more sin as long as they live
here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent.”

The latter sentence is a response to those who say that Christians never fall into sin. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean that you never sin, nor that God won’t forgive you. You can choose to sin even though you are a Christian.

But I think everything depends upon God’s Sovereign Action in our lives.

I believe that if He did not keep me, I would fall away quickly. It’s hard enough to be obedient and close to God when we’re really trying, much less when we are bent on our own will! I need Jesus to hold on to me!

My own response to God’s love is important and determines the level of closeness I attain with Christ. You can chose how intimate you want to be with God. And the key to being close to Christ is to listen to His voice. Are we listening? Do you know Him well enough to discern His voice from your own voice – or even form the Devil’s? Do you know the difference between something you really want and the thing that God wants?

This requires closeness with the Shepherd, which we develop through spending time listening to Him closely: reading His Word, being quiet before him, praying, and receiving counsel from other godly Christians. These are all ways that we begin to know the shepherd’s voice. Make it your life’s ambition to know the Shepherd’s Voice!

Brothers and sisters, Listen to the Shepherd. He is good. He loves you. He will faithfully guide you because He is God. Follow his voice and He will protect you, and no one will be able to snatch you out of His hand. Amen.

Goin' Fishin'

A Sermon delivered at All Saints Anglican Church, April 2, 2007, Year C, and based on John 21:1-14


They say that a bad day fishing is better than a good day in the office.

Apparently, Peter must have had the same philosophy, because shortly after the resurrection, he announces ( KJV) “ I go a-fishing.” Or, in the closely-linked Appalachian version” I’m a goin’ fishin’. His buddies Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John and two others quickly decide to join in. They climb in the boat, and head out to fish all night – and come up with nothin’. Zip, Zilch, Nada, Nothin’.

Now, it’s unlikely that Peter et al were going back to the fishing trade on a permanent basis, but they probably did need something to keep body and soul together. Jesus had Risen and appeared to them, but over a forty day period, these appearances were sporadic. So, whether out of boredom, or just simple financial need, they go back to the familiar trade for a night. What was really happening though was that Jesus was setting them up for a reprise of their initial call to become fishers of men.

God really does have a sense of humor – perhaps even verging on being a practical joker. Here these poor guys are out there all night, with nothing to show for their efforts – not even one little minnow! And Jesus tells them to let down their nets on the right side for a catch. This is an object lesson of the Christian faith.

To mix a metaphor, John 15: 1 ff tells us that Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. If we stay connected to him, we bear much fruit, for apart from him, we can do nothing. (v.5). The disciples found out how this verse applies to fishing that night. We may understand that in their own wisdom and strength, they tried to do what they knew to do. It wasn’t sin, but it wasn’t the result of specifically abiding in the vine. As a result, there was no result. This is the way it is in the Christian life: You can take a notion to do something that seems right and reasonable, but if it’s not the result of being led by the Lord, you will have no fruit.

Instead, we are to ‘fish on the right side of the boat”. That is, we are to do what Jesus tells us. Remember the story of Mary asking Jesus for wine at the wedding of Cana – and how she tells the servants to “do whatever he tells you”… That’s a simple formula for leading a successful Christian life.

But we might quickly point out that in order to ‘do what he tells you’, you must be listening! And for all their lack of success fishing, the disciples were listening. We can only imagine what they must have been thinking as Jesus tells them to put down their nets on the other side of the boat. But they obeyed and as a result, they pulled up a multitude of fish – so much so that the boat was ready to capsize.
And in an odd detail, we are told that there are 153 fish to be precise. We accept this by faith, even though fishermen are known to exaggerate… Another allegorical note: the net held. Jesus intends for us to keep the fish we catch!

Now Peter realizes it is the Lord directing the catch, and he grabs his outer garment and plunges into the sea, swimming the 100 yards to shore. He finds Jesus making breakfast, fish and bread. Christ feeds the disciples and then he is suddenly gone.


This story illustrates graphically what we as the Lord’s disciples are to do: we are to be fishers of men, winners of souls, makers of disciples. We are to multiply our efforts! 2 Tim. 2:2 tells us the pattern: “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men [and women] who will be able to teach others also.”

Most churches in America today are not into addition, not multiplication. Most of the growth in churches comes from transfers, not from making new believers. That is not what Jesus told us to do! We are to win new believers and to make disciples, who will in turn go out and make new converts and disciples. If we were really being faithful to this pattern, we would grow geometrically, not just one by one.

Admittedly, this is a harder task than just transferring Christians from other churches. But it’s vital that we do so! There are still 75,000 people in the immediate area who are literally going to Hell in a handbasket without the Lord. If we don’t fish for them, part of the responsibility for their souls will rest on us.

But how do we win them? Largely through relationship building. While it’s true that many people are saved in revivals and evangelistic campaigns, it’s a demonstrated fact that most people come to church because they were invited by a friend – someone they have history with, someone whom they trust enough to respond to. Are we developing this type of relationship with any non-believers? Do we invite them to church or to small group? Do we pray with them, or have bible study with them? Do we believe what John wrote about his Gospel? – “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31).

Friends, Jesus is Life. Without Jesus, there is no true Life. Let me urge you to meditate on this truth and to ask God to open up opportunities for you to share this life with your friends and loved ones. If we can get into a habit of thinking this way, we will grow – not just additively, but geometrically. Not just for the sake of having a big church, but for the sake of winning the world for Christ.

Let’s Pray: Father, we know that apart from you we can do nothing. We also know that in You is life and the Life is the Light of Men. Help us, O God, to be faithful witnesses of the Life. Please direct us to help those who do not know you to find you. Assist us with the power of your Holy Spirit to be your witnesses. Bring in new souls to your Kingdom through us for the Glory of your Name, and the life of the World. We ask it all through the wonderful Name of Jesus. Amen.

On Seeing my first Post-Feminist Movie

Normally, I’m not a fan of Will Ferrell. The most charitable adjective I can use to describe his chosen roles to date is ‘painful’. So, it was with a sense of real trepidation that I agreed to watch Ferrell’s new movie, “Stranger than Fiction”. Here’s the blurb from the back of the case:

“…Harold Crick [is] a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life. With the help of Professor Jules Hilbert, Harold discovers he’s the main character in a novel-in-progress and that the voice belongs to Karen Eiffel, an eccentric author famous for killing her main characters in creative ways. Harold must quickly track down Eiffel and stop her before she conjures up a way to finish him off.”

When Harold begins hearing Eiffel’s voice narrating his life, it quickly drives him to distraction. He consults with a psychiatrist, who diagnoses schizophrenia and recommends medication. Harold refuses the meds, but asks the shrink what she would do if she actually were hearing a narration and wasn’t crazy. “Well, I suppose one would consult with a professor of literature,” she opines.

So Hilbert, the literature professor, rather than the shrink, becomes Harold’s mentor as he tries to negotiate through his ordeal. The implicit message is that Psychiatry doesn’t have the answers. Our lives are mytho-poetic, not medical in nature. Therefore, we need wisdom, not pills to guide us. It’s reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ old professor in his Chronicles of Narnia series.

At any rate, author Karen Eiffel narrates Harold out of his obsessive compulsive lifestyle and into a love affair with a hostile but attractive young woman he is sent to audit. While finding love Harold also finds Eiffel and reads her novel about his life. Everything she has typed has come to pass. The ending, however, is handwritten and has not yet happened. Harold discovers how he will die and much to Eiffel’s surprise and consternation comes back to her saying that he loves her book. He even agrees that there is no other way for it to end.

Fearfully, Eiffel types in the ending, except for the word ‘dead’. She has consigned Harold to dashing in front of a bus in order to save a young boy who has wandered into the path of the oncoming vehicle. Harold is hit by the bus, and lies there suspended between life and death while Eiffel agonizes over what she has done. She decides to forego killing Harold, later explaining to Professor Hilbert that she just couldn’t do it. All her other characters, she says, die without knowing their fate. Harold, by contrast, knows his fate, but walks into it willingly. “We kind of need more men like that…” she says.

As far as I can tell, this is the first real Post-Feminist movie. The Feminist project started out with rejecting the power of white males, especially dead white male authors (including God). It continued with exorcising men out of women’s lives and thrust women into all the power positions that men have traditionally occupied. In the process, women were forced to ‘do it all’: have a career, be a wife and a mother, keep house, and be sexy to boot. The only problem was that it all got too overwhelming, and men didn’t respond as much as they should have. They kept on being men! And women kept on wanting them despite their recalcitrance! It seemed like a hopeless muddle.

But in this movie, the whole dilemma is resolved and women discover what kind of man they want to have around – one who willingly sacrifices himself for the life of others. The author, Karen Eiffel, is impressed enough to let Harold live, and Harold’s girlfriend is ecstatic when she learns what he has done. The implication is that if a man will sacrifice himself for a total stranger, a woman can trust him to provide for her and be a good father. This is the key to successful family life and the roles men and women play within it.

A man must be strong enough to become a successful provider. But without love, his whole life becomes a string of obsessive-compulsive rituals. In discovering love, a man ties his labor to the success of the family, not just his own glory, and thus redeems or justifies his striving to succeed in the world. A woman who believes her man is both strong and self-sacrificing is willing to entrust herself to her husband and give of herself to bear progeny. Both woman and man may enter the marketplace to obtain income and meaningful work, but what ties their efforts together and helps them live together constructively is their mutual love and willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the family.

I think the makers of this movie have unconsciously stumbled on to a message of hope. Unsurprisingly, it’s also the biblical pattern for family life. The only thing missing from Stranger than Fiction is the realization that even with mutual love and self-sacrifice, a lifestyle devoid of commitment to God is incomplete. I am hopeful, however, that Ferrell et al have found the way back from the Precipice and that pop culture may rediscover that God, Family and Country are in fact primal values that work for both men and women.

How Wonderful is the Night

A Homily delivered to All Saints Anglican Church at the Easter Vigil
April 7, 2007

The Jewish Passover feast begins with this question:
Why is this Night Different from all Other Nights?
The answer is very concrete: On this night we eat matzah and bitter herbs; We dip parsely in salt water and horseradish in charoset; And we recite at the table as we eat.

In the prayers at the beginning of our service, we have an elaboration about this night:

“This is the night, when you[God]brought our fathers, the children
of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the
Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered
from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness
of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave…


How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and
sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy
to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings
peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined
and man is reconciled to God.” BCP, pg. 287.


These sentences make clear for us the connection between the Passover, which takes place at night, and the saving work of Christ, which also takes place in the dark of night, shortly before dawn. Our reading from Matthew reminds us that the women came to the tomb at early dawn and they found the tomb was already empty. This is the connection between the night of the Passover and the night of Christ’s resurrection. It’s reflective of the Jewish way of reckoning time from sunset to sunset, and is really a poetic, if not exactly literal connection. The other Gospels tell us that Christ arose at dawn, on the morning of the third day.

But this emphasis on night is why we have the Easter Vigil. It’s reminiscent of the Passover Seder in which the history of the Passover and Exodus is recounted. For the Jews, the Passover is a defining event each year. It serves to bring to mind again the great works of God in saving the Hebrew people, but it also serves to redefine and make present their heritage. It is what we call “anamnesis” – or remembrance.

But this anamnesis is not simply remembering something that happened long ago. Rather, this type of observance brings the past into the present and renews the event, making it once more Present.

And this is what we do as Christians each time we celebrate the Eucharist. We also have the heritage of the Passover and the Exodus as part of our spiritual legacy, but Jesus has now become for us our Passover, as we say in the liturgy, ‘Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us… therefore let us join the feast.’ In Jesus, our Eucharistic Feast, Heaven and earth are joined and man is reconciled with God. We too celebrate with all the saints that have ever gone before us and God makes the Passover a present event for us once more.

We also look forward to joining the Marriage feast of the Lamb in Heaven – and this too becomes present as we celebrate the feast. Heaven and earth are joined and man is reconciled with God.

We are reconciled to Him, in that our sin has been washed away, not merely covered. Our innocence before God is restored and we live in the wonderful knowledge that there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Our fears of death and hell have been overcome because Jesus “broke Hell wide open”, or as the Orthodox are wont to say, he “harrowed” hell, plundering it and spoiling the Devil’s lair.

As the first Author, God has written the story of Salvation with all the devices that modern novelists use: foreshadowing, parallelism, and typecasting, etc.. The Easter Story is meant to recall the Passover, and fulfill its ultimate message of salvation.

Thanks be to God for His wonderful creativity and for His grace in extending Salvation to us. Let us with Gladness then celebrate the beauty and different- ness of this night, rejoicing that the night of Death has become the dawn of Miracle. Amen.

Work Begins on Hope House

On Friday March 30, we had the first work day at Hope House. It was an amazing and productive event. We had some 20 people from the Huntington Housing Authority's YouthBuild and adult construction training programs on hand to begin the 'demo' phase. We began the day with a moment of silence for the fallen teens, then unfurled a banner that reads; "Hope House: Turning Tragedy into Triumph". The banner is red with white lettering: red for the spilled blood, and white for Hope.

Our first project was to dig up the dead roots of bushes in the front of the house - symbolic of tearing our the roots of the problems that led to the kids being shot. Then, it was time to put the crew to work ripping out appliances in the kitchens and fixtures in the bathrooms, taking up old carpeting and flooring and filling up the dumpster the city had provided for the weekend.

Tom Proctor measured for news doors and windows, while Cindy and Lisa measured the rooms for a scale drawing of the house. Two of the coordinators from the YouthBuild program, Josh and Mark were very helpful in providing expert building advice. Josh, who just completed a degree in architecture crawled under the house to inspect the flooring, while Mark K. took a look at the electrical system, advising that he and Josh would both be happy to help rewire the house if we can get a certified electrician to take on the project.

Meanwhile, Andy and Tom, fielded questions from the News media. Channels 8, and 13 brought their camera crews, and the crew from PBS 33 was shooting almost all day, with a two hour break for lunch. The PBS crew came to church this morning and shot the entire service! Their extended story will appear as part of the News Magazine, "Outlook". (btw: Congrats to Fr. Mark Goldman, who celebrated his first Eucharist today!) The Herald Dispatch also sent out a reporter and a photographer and gave us a nice article in the Saturday paper.

Spiritual Impact

Many people recognize the need to reach the young people with the message of the Gospel. But as Matthew Watts points out, "Where the kids are, the church isn't, and where the church is, the kids aren't". In other words, to reach unchurched teens with the message of the Gospel, you have to go where they are! We certainly had a group of unchurched street kids in our house on Friday. And when it came time to pray at our regular time, 3:30, Mark took the lead to call everyone together and announce that anyone who felt comfortable could join us for prayer. All but 2 or 3 stayed and participated or observed as we prayed through our Hope House Liturgy (see attached). Kids that likely never darken the door of a church attended a prayer meeting in a place intimately known to them as a place of terror and death. When the news media asked them how they felt, they were able to reply that the house now feels like a welcoming place full of hope and new beginnings.

Blessing the Neighbors

We had so many people on hand, that we were able to devote a small crew to mowing lawns on either side of Hope house, blessing the neighborhood in addition to the property itself. Mike, the neighbor to the East was particularly thankful that we hauled away a large pile of old landscaping materials, and expressed his excitement about the good that was coming about.

All in all, it was a remarkable day - the first, we hope of many more. Youth Build will be coming in at various times to do smaller projects as they have time. We received a nice donation from West Virginia football player, Randy Moss, and will be able to buy some doors and other materials to get us started on our renovations. I am applying for a grant through a local foundation and hope that we might receive some more funds for materials. We are also waiting to hear about a corporate donation from 84 lumber.

The Lord is opening up many doors for witness and creating community. Please pray for this project, and pray for me, a sinner.

St. Patrick and the Ministry of Reconciliation

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church
March 18, 2007, based on 2 Cor. 5:17-21.


Imagine what it would be like to be a teenager in the bud of youth living happily in the midst of a loving family, comfortably asleep in your bed one night, when all of a sudden, you hear a violent kick to the door of your house and in storm mercenaries who carry you off screaming to a foreign land where you are put to work as a slave, tending sheep and pigs in the middle of nowhere. You have only a ragged set of clothes to wear, no overcoat, very little food, not a soul to talk to, and only stinking bleating sheep to look at! What would you do?

Do you think you would have the faith to pray to God? And if you did pray, would it be a prayer of humble supplication, or one of angry accusation towards God? Can you see yourself praying a hundred times a day, and enduring cold, frost, wind and rain in the open air – but finding such consolation in your prayers that you feel no discomfort from the cold, only energy and inspiration?

Can you imagine how you would feel towards those who took you captive and treated you thus? Can you imagine escaping your captivity and waling some 200 miles to the nearest seaport, finding a birth on a ship traveling to year another country, not your own, only to find that once you arrive in the new country that the land has been desolated by fighting, and the whole countryside is completely denuded of food? Then, after returning to your own country and family, can you imagine having a dream in which you are called to minister to the very people who enslaved you? – and responding positively?

If so, you might be able to catch a glimpse of St. Patrick’s life, and what drove him to go back to the land of his captivity in order to take the Gospel to a people who did not know the True god. Now further imagine if you will, having such a deep love and identification for and with the people that Patrick called himself an Irishman and almost single-handedly inspired the evangelism and transfiguration of an entire (hostile) culture, thus earning himself a permanent place of honor for all ages as witnessed by a hymn composed by fellow missionary Bishop, Secundinus. It reads in part:

“Hear all ye…the holy merits of the Bishop Patrick…How, on account of his good actions, he is likened unto the angels, and fro his perfect life, is counted equal to the Apostles” (from the Hymn of St. Patrick).

St. Patrick’s life illustrates vividly what Paul, in our reading for today, calls the Ministry of Reconciliation. Out of a deep love for the Irish, Patrick studied diligently for many years to become a priest, and later a bishop, in order to be sent out from Britain as a missionary to Ireland.

While we might expect the ministry of reconciliation to be very peaceful, one of the first things Patrick does on the mission field is to have a violent confrontation with the powers that be.

“It seems that [the warrior king] Laoghaire [the son of Niall, the chieftain of the raiders who had abducted Patrick, and who ruled from his castle at Tara] was fascinated by Patrick, aware that [Druid seers had prophecied the coming of an ‘adze-head’ , or Briton, who would convert the Irish to his religion, that] the newly consecrated bishop had powerful gifts of persuasion, and that he was every bit a match for the king’s own miracle worker, Lucat Moel. The challenge to Laoghaire’s supreme authority was quick and direct; immediately upon his arrival in the area on the eve of the Christian feast of Easter, without asking or awaiting permission, Patrick lit a paschal fire on a hillside visible from Tara. This defiance of the king’s and the druids’ authority was a capital crime. The various legends tell that Patrick was brought before the king and an explanation was demanded by the sword-wielding viscount, Lochru. Patrick miraculously lifted the warrior into the air, then let him drop to the earth, disabling (possibly killing) him” (The Wisdom of St. Patrick, by Greg Tobin, pg. 34).

While the king does not convert immediately, his wife and daughters do, and a great mutual respect arises between Laoghaire and Patrick.

So Patrick’s ministry of reconciling the Irish people to God begins with a confrontation of the pagan religion, a conflict in which works of power figure importantly. These power encounters lead the people to convert immediately, and/ or increase the respect for Patrick, grudgingly admitting that he’s on to something with this Christianity bit.

Thus, Patrick is an ‘ambassador of Christ”, through whom God makes his appeal to the Irish. The result is a transformed culture. Within Patrick’s lifetime, the entire country was converted. The slave trade was eliminated, the pagan and druidic system of tribal and shamanic government was replaced by a network of monastic communities in which the Abbot functioned as the tribal chieftain, presiding over monastic ‘cities’ that were to become great repositories of learning as the Roman empire crumbled and scholars fled the barbarians, bringing their books and learning with them to the safety of Ireland. Patrick’s successful ambassadorship eventually enabled the Irish to “Save Civilization” as historian Thomas Cahill (How the Irish Saved Civilzation) puts it.

What a challenge to us today! We live in a culture that is increasingly and self-consciously pagan, where people find themselves turned off by the traditional church and attracted to the earth-centered religious systems of Wicca and paganism, the allure of simple materialism, or captivity to various forms of addiction. What can we learn from Patrick in order to reach our culture the way he reached his?

First and foremost, Patrick was radically committed to Jesus Christ. As a young man, his faith had been tested in the white-hot crucible of adversity and refined into pure gold. Patrick was convinced, on a cellular level, of the Lordship of Christ over his own life, but also over Nature and every unseen spiritual power. He was so lined up with God’s Will that he was willing to lay down his life for the people God had called him to reconcile.

Second, Patrick had pressed through the oppression of his early life, allowing it to became his spiritual basic training, his ascetic preparation for the ministry to come. He had personal holiness and a dynamic prayer life

Finally, he was full of the Divine dunamis, or power. This power in turn enabled him to confront the false gods of the culture to whom he ministered. He went head to head with the idols of his day and he prevailed in his mission. Why? Because he was

Radically Committed,
Personally Holy, and
Powerful in God.

If we are to bring the Gospel to our culture, to be salt and light to people who sit in darkness and are enslaved to the gods of materialism, addiction and towering selfishness, we must be like Patrick and develop Commitment, Holiness and Power in our spiritual lives.

If we are to be instruments of Salvation to the people of our Tri-State region, we must cultivate our knowledge of God through Prayer, ascetic practice, study, and works of compassion.

There are still 75,000 people in Cabell and Wayne counties who need the saving grace of Jesus Christ. (God recently rescued one in our midst from Putnam County – and we didn’t even include his county in our statistics!) God has charged us as his people to take the Gospel to the whole world. Let us pray together that he will grant us the virtues of St. Patrick to be willing and useful vessels in the Ministry of Reconciliation. AMEN.

I AM Calling

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church,
March 11, 2007, based on Exodus 3: 1-15

Last Sunday we talked about the Covenant that God made with Abraham and how important that is to Christians now. In today’s Old Testament lesson, we also have a very important moment in Salvation History, the Calling of Moses.

We pick up our story as Moses is out shephe4ding the flock for his father in law. You’ll remember that this was the same Moses that was put into a basket by his mother and pushed out into the water to be found by Pharaoh’s daughter, then subsequently raised as a “Prince of Egypt”. This is the same Moses who, when he grew up and found out that he was a Hebrew, saw an Egyptian soldier beating a fellow Hebrew slave, and in a fit of righteous anger, killed the soldier, necessitating his flight from Egypt into the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.

You’ll recall that he was taken in by a family, married their daughter, and became a shepherd for his father in law – probably the lowest position imaginable at the time. From highest to lowest – Moses had a retrograde career path up to that point!

Despite that however, Moses receives an unusual visit. The text says that ‘an angel of the Lord’ appeared to him in a blazing fire. In verse 4 we read that God called to him in the midst of the burning bush. From this, we understand that the angel of the Lord and God are one and the same.

Theologians have interpreted this as a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is similar to Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego being accompanied in the fiery furnace by another who looked like a ‘son of man’. In hindsight we can see that Jesus had a plan for Moses all along.

Of course, Moses has no clue Whom he is dealing with, but is quickly told to take off his sandals – that the place where he is standing is Holy. He is then told that he is being addressed by the God of his fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses very sensibly drops to his hands and knees and hides his face, fearing to look up.

(Friends, this is where we get the idea of fearing god. Put yourself in Moses’ position: He’s minding his own business, when all of a sudden, the Lord God, the Creator of the Universe pays him a call… We call God Holy. That means that he is separate from us, that he is so totally different from us that unless He revealed Himself to us, we would have no knowledge about him. He is the God of Glory – eternal weightiness. When He appears to humans, the brilliance of his presence is overwhelming, and we cringe before Him. This is why we naturally fear Him.)

Yet the fear we have for God is tempered by His Goodness. And this Glorious God has not come to destroy or terrify Moses, but to offer him a job – if indeed you can call it an offer. It’s more like a command. “Moses, take a message! Tell Pharaoh to let my people go. I’ve heard their cries and I want to deliver them from their oppressors!”

It’s a very emphatic message. The God of your forefathers has chosen you to be a special messenger and to do a great work for God. You should be honored and excited. But immediately, Moses starts edging out onto thin ice with God. “Who am I that I should go and do this?” Moses begins to question God’s judgment. He has some poor self-esteem goin’ on and he just doesn’t know if he’s the guy to do the job.

What is God’s response? “I will be with you.” He even offers to give Moses a sign – he would come back to Mt. Sinai and worship there. But Moses asks a second question:

“Who shall I say is sending me?” Here’s a guy who is interviewing God! It’s as if he is saying, “Now, who are you again, and what is it that you want me to do?”

But the Lord very patiently explains, “I AM WHO I AM has sent you.” This is God’s proper Name. When we say ‘The Lord’, this is a title. But ‘Yahweh’ is God’s first Name, the name by which he will be remembered for all generations.

“Now, Moses, go and tell’ em that the God of your forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has sent you… and here are some more instructions,” says the Lord.

Reading beyond our text today into chapter 4, we read that Moses goes on to question God two more times: “What if they will not believe me?”, and 4:10: “I’m not eloquent!” Finally, he flat-out tells God to “Please send someone else!” (4:13).

And then comes one of the most chilling sentences in the entire Bible: “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses…” (4:14).
If he wasn’t afraid enough till now, this is the time to start trembling in your boots! Brothers and Sisters do not ever do this! If God comes calling, do whatever he tells you! Be like Mary: “Yes, Lord, be it done unto me according to your will.” That’s the right response! Just obey and don’t argue! Do not get into a place where the anger of the Lord burns against you! It’s not a good thing.

At any rate, most of us will not experience such a very direct and confrontational call, or vocation, from God. In fact, as author Carolyn Gratton says:

"Vocation is a matter primarily of being". It is not simply what I do… but in its deepest Christian sense, our true calling is to live in unbroken harmony with God, just as Adam and Eve did before the fall. Our True Vocation is to reflect the Imago Dei as we live in covenant relationship with Him. Out of this basic knowledge of who I am comes the knowledge of what I should do.

Theologian Walter Bruggeman states, "Vocation means finding a purpose for being in the world that is related to the purposes of God."

Looking at the life of Jesus, he himself demonstrates this relationship between being and doing in his statements about Himself. As a boy of twelve he says to his astonished parents "Did you not know I must be about my Father's business?" Later he announces his ministry by quoting from Isaiah "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." To His followers He proclaims, "I come that they might have life and might have it abundantly...And to the disciples, he says, "I am the Way the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me (Jn. 14:6)...He who has seen Me has seen the Father (Jn. 14:9)...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many..(Mt 20:28) Prophesying his death he says, "(the Son of Man) will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again (Lk.18:31).

These statements all show that Jesus' sense of being or identity was intricately linked with his sense of mission in the world. Both of these in turn constituted His Vocation. Expressed in a formula, it looks like this: Identity + Mission = Vocation.

(Deacon Mark Goldman then came and shared with us for a few minutes a little bit of his sense of calling to the priesthood.)

I think this will illustrate for us something of how God gets our attention and lets us know he has something for us to do – in addition to being something.

There is much more to say about discovering one’s True Vocation in life, and we have only really skimmed the surface, but may God give us the grace to hear what He has said to us today and apply it correctly. AMEN.

The Narrow Door

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church
March 4, 2007

Have you ever thought of yourself as being ‘narrow’? If you have, have you ever thought that being narrow was a good thing? (and I’m not just talking weight loss here…). Most of the time when we hear this word applied to matters of faith, it is used with negative connotations, as in: You are narrow-minded, bigoted and homophobic… It’s not really a good thing to be known as being narrow.

Yet Jesus seems to think that Narrow is a good thing. “STRIVE to enter through the narrow door”, he says. “For many will try to enter and will not be able.

…What is Jesus talking about? Let’s first set the context and ask, “With whom is Jesus talking?” The answer is: his people, the Jews. He is telling them that many if not most of them will not enter the Kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Strangers from the four corners of the earth will come and take their place and they will be cast out into a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth!
Why? Because they are trying to enter through the broad way instead of the narrow door.

In addition to being inflammatory, Jesus’ words must have struck the people as nonsensical. He was proclaiming something that likely didn’t make sense to most of them. Why? - Because of their notion about the nature of Covenant.

You see, the Jewish people understood themselves to be children of Abraham. God had come to Abraham and made a Covenant with him, telling him that He would be Abraham’s God and that He would make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars. God had even ratified the Covenant by passing through sacrificial animals with his own Presence, represented by a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. He spoke to Abraham in the words of Genesis 15:18: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates”. How then could it be that Jesus had the audacity to suggest that most of the children of Abraham would not inherit the kingdom of God? It was their birthright, for cryin’ out loud!

I think it’s because the Jewish people missed something. In a word, that something was Faith. Look at Genesis 15:6 again: “…And he, Abraham, believed the LORD, and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (By the way this is where we get our Appalachian use of the word “reckon”. It is a perfectly good and precise word that means to count, as in to “reckon” or justify accounts.) In this case, God counted or reckoned Abraham’s belief as Righteousness. He imputed or put onto Abraham Righteousness based on his belief, or faith.

The apostle Paul refers to this seminal moment in Romans chapter 4, vv 13-25, where he explains why those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved while those who observe the Jewish law will not be saved: Abraham was not justified or reckoned righteous by the works of the law, but by his belief in God.

You see, the Jewish people should have understood this. They should have known that God has no grandchildren, only children. It’s not enough to look back to your grandpa and say “He was a great man of faith”. You yourself have to exercise faith, just as Abraham did, by believing God.

Paul goes on: …”the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith…it depends upon faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring – not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham… (Rom. 4:13, 16).

What then is the faith of Abraham for us? - To believe that Jesus Christ was sent by God to be the Savior of the World.

In Romans 3:21, Paul tells us that the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… for the righteousness of God [comes] through faith in Jesus Christ (v.22).

So we have a parallel between Abraham, who believed God when God said that He would make Abraham the father of many nations … and the individual Christian, who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. All who believe in Jesus Christ are the real descendants of Abraham. We are the ones whom God reckons as righteous and who will inherit the Kingdom. We are the ones who go through the narrow door, Jesus, to enter heaven.

The terms of God’s Covenant with us are very specific. God says he will be our God if will believe Him and trust in Jesus Christ to be our righteousness before Him. There is no other way to be right with God. It is indeed, as the saying goes, ‘set in concrete’.

Now many people today want to concoct their own way to God. They want to say, “My way is as good as yours to get to God”, and “Don’t be exclusive by trying to keep me out of Heaven.” This is completely obtuse. It would be like asserting that someone born in Russia and still living there should be granted US citizenship, complete with voting rights, just because he had once read the Constitution and had warm feelings in his heart towards Democracy. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you want in to the Kingdom of God, you gotta go through the door, the Narrow Door, Jesus Christ. How does one enter the Narrow Door? Paul again from Romans 10:9-11: “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved… For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How much clearer can it be? Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. It’s easy enough for a child to understand and profound enough for the most sophisticated philosopher. (And incidentally, this is also why it is important to pray out loud. When we speak something out loud, it creates a reality that is heard by the listening principalities and powers on both sides. It is as if your verbal prayer is making an oral agreement with God, an agreement that has a certain legal quality to it. This agreement would stand up in God’s court. Silent prayer is good, but verbal prayer is also essential for our spiritual well-being.)


So God has established a very clear way to enter the Kingdom. And lest someone claim that God is a big meany and doesn’t want people to get in to the Kingdom, look at what Jesus says about Jerusalem: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” YOU were NOT willing!

Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. He knows that in 70 AD the Romans will come and destroy the City and he is heartbroken for her. Friends, God has a seeking heart towards the world. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth (II Pet. 3:9). Had the Jewish people somehow been able, as a people, to understand and exercise the faith of Abraham, they would have continued to be God’s conduit for the salvation of the world. But they rejected the message. “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him” (Jn. 1:11). This is why the Gospel message went out to the Gentiles after the Jewish people had rejected it – so that all the world would have the opportunity to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We Gentiles are most blessed to have received the Gospel and to be adopted into the family of God, to become the true descendants of Abraham. All the promises made to Abraham now apply to us – although they are fulfilled spiritually in Christ, not literally in terms of inheriting a specific plot of ground. Therefore we rejoice greatly that our names are written in the book of Life (Rev. 3:5;20:15) and we look forward to spending Eternity with God.

But there is a caution here. As we see in our reading from Philippians today (3:17-4:1), it is possible to name the Name of Christ and live licentiously, to call oneself a Christian, but to literally live like Hell. Tragically, I believe we are seeing just this in many corners of the Christian world today (let the reader understand). For such people, who set their minds on earthly things and the indulgence of every fleshly desire, there is no protection in the Gospel Covenant. Jesus warned that even though ‘we ate and drank with you’… cast out demons, and did miracles in your name…he will shut the door to them saying, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!” (Lk. 13:26; Mt. 7:22).

I don’t know about you, but this sometimes sends a shiver up my spine. I would hate to think that I spent the last 30 years of my life working for Jesus only to someday fail to inherit eternal life! As the Psalmist cries out(Ps 27: 12,13):

Hide not your face from me, nor turn away your servant in displeasure.
You have been my helper; cast me not away; do not forsake me, O God of my salvation.

Bless God, however, If we hearken to the LORD and seek His face (vv.10,11), He gives us the assurance “that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the Living” (v. 17).

If we put our trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of our lives (v. 5). If we call out to the LORD to have mercy on us, He will answer us (v.10) and set us high upon the Rock (v. 7). And if we seek Him in his temple, (v.6), he will be our Light and our Salvation (v. 1).

I invite you now to do just that. Let’s take a silent moment to search our hearts. If during that time, you discover that you have never believed in and put your faith in Jesus Christ, simply ask Him to forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Then you may come to me later and we can talk about the condition of your soul. (Keep silence) AMEN.

Fasting and Temptation

A Sermon Delivered to All Saints Anglican Church
February 25, 2007

The Old Testament Lesson:
To begin with today, I can’t resist some comments about our Old Testament reading. I know it’s a stretch to apply the Word this way, but the coincidence just seems too rich.

When we began this church, our first Sunday’s Old Testament lesson was Joshua 3:1-17, how the people of Israel crossed over Jordan and into the promised Land? We developed a three point challenge form that passage:

Step out in faith
Step up to the challenge
Step into the promise

Today we read: When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you…This is literally true is it not? This week, we have taken possession of the land that the Lord has given us! Let’s take this reading from Deuteronomy and enact it as a way of showing our gratitude to the Lord for what He has done for us. I’ve asked Tom to place the names of Tom, Walter and Harry in a basket. These names represent the ‘first fruit’ of those whom we believe the Lord will rescue from addictions and other maladies through the ministry at 1410 Charleston Avenue

Read: " When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him…"


Tom comes up from the back with the basket and says, “Today I declare to the LORD your God that we have come into the land that the Lord challenged us to pray for.”

Andy takes the basket from Tom and sets it down before the altar.

The people together say, “ A wandering Aramean…O Lord you have given me....

Andy says: Let us bow before the Lord our God and celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house”

Let us now have the offering of our tithes and gifts.


Sermon:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit …was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.

Our observance of Lent is based upon this experience of fasting for forty days. But the experience of fasting is basically anathema to our culture. It seems that our whole economy is based on people seeing things and being consumed with getting them. Then when they finally get them, they find that the must-have item does not really satisfy at all.
So for most of us to contemplate fasting in order to gain some kind of spiritual benefit seems odd.

On second thought, does it really though? Fasting is known as an “ascetical” practice, from the Greek word ‘askesis’ or ‘athletic’. If we were to stop and think a moment about an athlete and what he or she does to prepare for their sport - we don’t find it at all unusual that they would practice every day, lift weights, run, and limit their diet. That would be part of their training, which is designed to help them win the championship or the gold medal. As a culture, we admire this and we put the images of these champions on boxes of Wheaties.

But if we, as Christians, were to tell our friends that we are giving up something for Lent, we might feel a little embarrassed and our friends might even comment that we are being too ‘religious’ or too ascetic. This is ‘bad’, to be too ascetical. One shouldn’t have to suffer anything for one’s faith. It should make you feel good all the time. If you have to experience hardship, there’s something wrong with God. …Now admittedly it is appropriate to look askance at those who practice severe discipline of the body for legalistic reasons. Neither fasting nor all-night prayer vigils will save you or cause God to love you any more than he already does.

But just like an Olympic athlete, such as Mary Lou Retin, knows that her father loves her, she also knows that if she’s not stronger, quicker and more adept than her competitors, that she will end up with second place instead of first. Often the difference in performance is only hundredths of a second. So she has to be the very best she can be in order to succeed. Therefore, rigorous training is a must, and athletes are willing to devote years of their lives to the single-minded pursuit of the goal, a goal which is ultimately passing and meaningless in view of eternity.

Contrast the athlete in training with the Christian. We also have a Father that loves us and has saved us, but God offers us a much more worthy goal: Namely, something called ‘Theosis’. Theosis is union with God, becoming “Christified’ as the Orthodox say – a state where Christ has totally penetrated and softened our heart and we become completely at one with God. The whole aim of the Christian life is seen as reaching the goal of being ‘divinized, of sharing the divine nature as Peter says. ( II Peter 1:4).

Part of my Lenten reading this year is the book The Mountain of Silence by Kyiacos Markides. In it he describes his conversations with a monk by the name of Fr. Maximos. Fr. Maxiomos talks with Kyriacos about the heart and how various things can harden the heart:

“Over preoccupation with worldly affairs, focus on physical pleasures, and obsession with wealth are passions that toughen the heart. They rob the power of the heart to channel its energy toward God. We consume vital energy with worldly preoccupation and the allurement of all the things around us. Our attention becomes fragmented, scattered.” (Quoted in The Mountain of Silence, by Kyriacos Markides, pg. 59.)


Psalm 51: 18 says ‘a broken and contrite heart you will not despise. The opposite of having a tough, hard heart is to be broken and contrite, to have your heart crushed by God. While it is true that we can simply pray that God gives us a broken and contrite heart, Fr. Maxiomos reminds us that “it happens through systematic askesis: fasting, ceaseless prayer, all-night vigils, work and the like. Beyond that, and most important, it is when human beings learn how to have patience with the many and unavoidable sorrows that they will encounter in life.” (op cit. pg. 60). Through experiences of grief, human beings have the opportunity to place the stone of their heart into a grinder and turn it into dust. …Through grief they may come out victorious… Life itself is a form of aksesis…

Here then is the rationale for Jesus being led out into the desert. Although he was one with God already, it was in the desert that He continues his identification with the plight of human being and suffering. In the desert, alone with God, he faces the essence of human existence. There is nothing there to distract him from experiencing the presence of God, no physical sensations of pleasure to take him away from direct experience of the Father. In depriving the physical body of food, we gain mastery over it, just as Jesus himself was later to say, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the Father.”

Jesus’ experience of fasting in the desert both strengthened him, and thrust him into the grips of temptation from Satan. Again, it seems odd to us that God in the flesh would have to undergo these privations and temptation from his enemy - unless we remember that the Greek word for temptation, peirasmos also means ‘trial’ or ‘test’. Trials and tests can be from the devil as we see in our lesson today, but they can also be from God in order to help us progress on our spiritual way. (op cit. pg. 62). Temptations are allowed by God in order to help us grow in our spiritual lives. They are a normal part of the Christian life, as the Apostle Paul tells us in I Cor, 10:13: “No temptation (trial) has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can endure, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you might be able to endure it.”

Here is what we so often miss: God provides the way of escape that we might be able to “endure” it. And the way of escape is God himself and His Word. Notice how Jesus is able to refute Satan so skillfully. When the adversary misquotes or misrepresents God’s word, Jesus comes back with the counter, quoting the right sense of Scripture. Jesus was able to confute Satan because he had spent time memorizing God’s Word, fasting extensively and no doubt going without sleep while praying constantly, perfecting his ascetical practice in order to could defeat his enemy.

Down through the ages people like Anthony of Egypt, Pachomius and Simon the stylite have taken seriously the injunction to be like Christ and have followed him literally into the desert. Others have adopted a monastic life that is ideally constructed to perfect one’s spiritual skills in order to defeat the enemy and attain Theosis. Through a life-time of askesis, a monk or nun is able to so master the body and the passions that he or reaches a state of ‘apathia’ or liberation from egotistical passions, thus becoming a vessel of the Holy Spirit. “Then, whatever that person wishes is given because it is what God actually wishes. The consiousness of the saint is fully attuned with the spirit of God.” (op cit. pg. 81).

Can you imagine living in such a place that what you want is what God actually wants? I confess that this is too awesome for me imagine most of the time. I have seen glimpses of it perhaps in my life, but to reach a place of being so at one with God, that in a sense, God defers to me in my desires… this is mind-blowing.

But this is indeed the goal for every Christian. Our small attempts at askesis during Lent must be seen as the upward striving for this state of Theosis. Only then will it make sense to give up something or take on something for a period of time. Only when we realize that “whatever good or bad things happen to us, they have only one single purpose, to awaken us to the reality of God and help us on the path toward union with Him (pg. 77)…we will be able to truly appreciate the holiness and spiritual profit of the Lenten season. May God give us the grace to understand this, and the will to perform it. Amen.

Holding Fast the Faith Once Delivered

All Saints Anglican Church
February 4, 2007
Luke 5: 1-11; I Cor

Today, we have a very happy convergence of “Godincidences”. Our Gospel readings couldn’t be more appropriate for a baptism! Jesus calls his disciples to give up fishing for fish and fish for men instead. I’d like to begin our time by asking a special assistant to come up and help me.

Heather (4 years old) comes up with her mom. We teach the Chorus: Fishers of Men.

“I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me. If you follow me; if you follow me. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me.”

So here the disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing. Jesus appropriates Peter’s boat and teaches the crowd, then asks Peter to put into the deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Simon is very unsure about this proposition, but obeys – like most of us… Well, if you say so…

They let down their nets and just about kill themselves trying to hoist in all the fish they catch. Big contrast: work all night on your own and catch nothing – go out with Jesus and fill the boat. Hmmm, which one is better?

The catch of fish was symbolic and prophetic. It foreshadowed what Peter and the others would be doing as apostles. In the natural, or flesh, they caught nothing, but in the Lord they would catch exceedingly abundantly above all they could think or ask (Eph. 3:20). The fish are meant to be understood as ‘men’ who will be caught by the Gospel message.

Today we celebrate one man who has been caught by that message, our new brother, Bill Clay. We believe and understand from Bill’s testimony that he was hooked before he invited me to come and visit his home and lead him in a prayer of salvation. Indeed Bill described to me a process, by which, over a period of about three weeks, he felt God working on him. Through contemplating his own mortality, Bill began to come to terms with the ‘legends’ about Jesus and the Bible. One night right before bed-time, he felt a light go on and he was able to affirm the FACT of Jesus, not just the legends about him. The Holy Spirit had done his job and Illumined Bill’s mind, causing the light to go on, affecting a Spiritual Awakening.

I believe at that moment, he was given the gift of saving faith. His prayer of repentance and confession was an acknowledgement of something that God had already done in his life. He had already been hooked and reeled in. Now all that remained was to confess with his mouth something that God had already given him- Grace to believe in his heart.
(Read his Letter?)

I think this illustrates a progressive work in which we receive the Good News, get saved, then are being saved, and will be saved at the last day. It’s like conjugating a verb: God Saved me, He is saving me, and He will save me – if indeed, as Paul says in I Cor. 15:2 we hold fast to the faith that was delivered to us.

Paul has in mind a process of delivering something whole. If you’ve ever seen the Brinks trucks going to or from a bank, you will get the idea. They are delivering to the receiving party the deposit they have been entrusted with. They are very careful to make sure that every penny is accounted for. Paul is just as scrupulous. He delivered to the Corinthians that which he had been entrusted with. It was the Gospel message that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and was resurrected on the third day, and that he appeared to many witnesses, who can attest to the veracity of his resurrection. This is what we call the Tradition, with a capitol T. It is THE Gospel, not just Paul’s Gospel. It is THE Faith, not just Peter’s faith.

Capitol T Tradition is not just conservatism for the sake of not changing, or a fetish for small t tradition because we don’t like change. No, this is just like the Wells Fargo or Brinks guys delivering the very same deposit they received. There is a sense of passing it on to the next person whole and unchanged. This is a dynamic and life-changing message. It is something that we must hold fast to a deliver to others unchanged.
Therefore, we derive our Church slogan from this passage: “Holding Fast the Faith once delivered”.

When we fish for men, we catch them to something. This something is the Gospel by which people are converted and saved. And it is this faith into which people are Baptized when they are saved. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD put it this way: “This is the orthodox faith; this we all believe: into this we were baptized; into this we baptize. (Extracts, Session II, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF 2, XIV, p. 249.)

Without this Tradition, this orthodox faith, we become Marine Biologists instead of Fishers of Men – we study all fish with equal curiosity but our policy is strictly ‘catch and release’ instead of catching people into New Life! (Let the reader understand…)

So…when a person is baptized they are ushered into the family of God in a formal, public way. The introduction to the Baptism service in the Book of Common Prayers says that Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.

The catechism on pg 858 says: Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us, as his children and makes us members of Christ’s body, the church and inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

Now a Sacrament is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality. Our brother has already experienced an awakening and a saving faith. But now, by going through Baptism, he will experience the outward sign of that faith as well. Not only that, but there is something real and objective that will take place aside from the experience of faith: he will be accepted in to the family of God, his sins will be washed away in the water of death, he will be raised to walk in newness of life, and receive union with God. In short he will have the Gospel Life that saves us from ourselves and brings us back into relationship with God.



Just a brief word about the method of Baptism: Here is a commentary on Jewish Baptism at the time of Christ from Br. Chris Klein, CJ, Director of Franciscan Vocations:
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views about the proper way to baptize converts. Every denomination is sure that their way is correct and answers all questions to reflect their own bias. I began to wonder how the Jewish John the Baptist was baptizing people and whether or not a Jewish Rabbi could help me to answer this question.
I learned that in Judaism, ritual cleansing is required for any proselyte wishing to join themselves with the people of Israel. Maimonides wrote: "Baptism is absolutely necessary to make a proselyte." (Massekheth, Gerim et.al.).
Many of the laws pertaining to conversion come from the Book of Ruth. Concerning the baptism itself, the water must contain rain water, (water that falls from heaven rather than water from the earth). Baptisms may be performed in oceans, rivers, and lakes in which rain water has fallen. It is a complete emersion overseen by three trained people but unlike many Christian denominations, the candidate must immerse themselves. Each person must submit themselves to God without assistance, (thus no one can boast about how many people they have baptized).
For the sake of modesty, outdoor baptisms are often performed at night, since the individual must not have anything between the water and their skin, (Women are baptized behind a partition). Even the hair and fingernails are clipped very short to allow the water to make complete contact with the skin. When the convert comes out of the water, they must look like a newborn child.
The early church fathers were pragmatic about how to Baptize. While the preference was for immersion in “living” water, the first century Didache gives these instructions:

“After rehearsing all the preliminaries, immerse in running water “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” If no running water is available, immerse in ordinary water. This should be cold if possible; otherwise warm. If neither is practicable, then sprinkle water three times on the head “In the Name of the Father, and of the son and of the Holy Ghost…”

Today we will use a sea shell, the traditional symbol of baptism to pour warm water over the head of our brother. I’d like to ask our Brother Deacon Mark to come and tell us how we will transform this ordinary bowl of water in a river of living water.

Mark comes to describe the process and to add the vial of water to the bowl.

Ask Heather to come with her fishing pole and catch Bill, reeling him in as I say,

Let the candidate for Baptism be presented.

Glory to Glory

A Sermon given on the Last Sunday of Epiphany, 2/18, 2007 at All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville, WV.

Collect: O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Intro: Today is Transfiguration Sunday, when we contemplate the Transfiguration of Jesus from an apparently normal human being to the Glorious Son of the Living God. As I studied the readings for today, the Collect seemed to encapsulate very well the overall message of the Old Testament and Gospel lessons. So, what I’d like to do is to break down the collect phrase by phrase to examine the nature of our God, the nature of His glory, and what it means for us to share that Glory. We begin, of course, with God.

“O God”: What kind of God are we addressing? Let’s look at our Psalm for the day, 99. What attributes do you see listed? (Individual Responses) The Lord is King. He is enthroned on high, powerful and great, Awesome. Three times we read He is the Holy One. This means to be Set Apart, to be utterly different than us. He is the lover of justice, the one who forgives our sins, yet punishes the people for their evil deeds.
This is the same God we speak about in our Gloria: Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory, Hosanna in the Highest. Glory = splendor, honor brightness or weightiness. Scripture tells us that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. This is the God whom Moses saw face to face and his own face shone because of it. The Israelites were afraid because of the Brightness on Moses’ face. The God that Moses was spending time with is Holy as pure light is Holy. This kind of light pierces everything it touches, exposing anything impure. It should rightly cause us to fear, and yet we are attracted to it as well.

This light is pure love and all benevolent. It’s no accident the Love chapter from I Corinthians is juxtaposed with these passages that illustrate the glory and purity of God.
John says in his Gospel: We beheld his Glory, glory as of the only begotten son of the father, full of grace and truth.
This is the God we address when we pray, the Mighty One, Glorious in Holiness.

“Revealed his Glory”: As God revealed the Glory of the Son, He was also revealing that Jesus was God – of one substance with the Father, God From God, Light from Light, True God From True God , begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, as the Nicene Creed tells us. It is the same Glory, the Father and the Son are One.

Before the passion; "To strengthen Jesus, Moses and Elijah came to talk to Him. They stand at the top of separate mountain peaks to the left and right of Christ. They are bowing toward Christ with their right hands raised in a gesture of intercession towards Him. Saint John Chrysostom explains the presence of these two fathers of the faith from the Old Testament in three ways. He states that they represent the Law and the Prophets (Moses received the Law from God, and Elijah was a great prophet); they both experienced visions of God (Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel); and they represent the living and the dead (Elijah, the living, because he was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire, and Moses, the dead, because he did experience death)."

The disciples also beheld the glory. Peter declared how good it was for them to be there and expressed the desire to build three booths for Moses, Elijah, and Christ.

"This reference to the booths could imply that this occurred during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles when the Jews would be camping out in the fields for the grape harvest; for this Feast had acquired other associations in the course of its history, including the memory of the wanderings in the wilderness recorded in the Old Testament book of Exodus." (Quotes from the Greek Orhtodox Archdiocese of America website).

This association with the Exodus is significant, as the word in our Gospel text ‘departure” is actually “exodus”. Moses and Elijah were talking about Christ’s departure or exodus from the world and how he would return to Glory. Christ temporarily reassumes the former glory he had known, in order to have this conversation.
Peter sees all this and suggested the three booths be built, “not knowing what he had said.” He was like us. We witness something taking place in our lives and we respond in some way, but the truth is that we usually don’t have much of a clue about what God is up to. Immediately after Peter’s little outburst, The Voice Of God speaks from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” This is the same cloud of God’s Shekinah Glory that guided the people of Israel: a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by Day. The purposes of God in that moment are so much greater than anything Peter or the others could have imagined that they are just dumbstruck and fall to the ground.

“Beholding by faith the light of his countenance”: Peter, James and John were chosen to behold the manifest Glory of God in Jesus Christ. We on the other hand must now behold the light of His countenance by faith. Through prayer- and sometimes through an open revelation of God’s glory, we see God. In his light we see light, says the Scriptures.
“We may be strengthened to bear our cross”: It is the presence of God that we experience through our prayer and worship, and through practicing God’s presence that we are strengthened, so that we can bear our cross. This means death to our own selves and our own desires. As we submit to this process we will:

“Be changed into his likeness from glory to glory” 2Cor. 3:18. God’s highest and best desire for us is to be changed into the likeness of Christ. He wants us to go from ‘one degree of Glory to the next” To grow in our Christian lives and to become like Moses, reflecting that radiant glory of God so that people may know that we have been with God; indeed that we live up to the appellation “Christian, or little Christ”.
As we behold the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we are to bear Christ and His glory out into our world. In 2 Cor. 3:12-18, Paul proclaims that we are to be very bold in taking this message to the world. We are not to hide our faces like Moses did, but to go out with ‘unveiled face’ proclaiming the Glory of God.

People react in one of two ways. They are either fearful or repelled, as the Jewish people were, and hide from the Glory of God behind a veil, or they are attracted and allow themselves to be changed by that Glory. In 2Cor. 3:16, Paul says that when a person becomes a Christian, the veil is removed and they begin to behold the face of God.
I’d like to relate this to our recent efforts regarding the house at 1410 Charleston Ave.

My initial thought about the house was as a simple memorial to kids who had died a brutal death. It struck me forcibly but, like Peter, I really had, and have, very little idea about all the things that God wants to do through this project. Here are just a few things that have happened.

We began to make contact with the neighbors in the area.
The news media covered our story and told about what we were doing.
We met and ministered to three men who asked for help in dealing with addictions.

I received a call tow weeks ago from a woman in Graywon Kentucky who heads up a group called Parents of Murdered Children. She sent me information about the national support group, and encouraged us to start a local chapter.

I have also made contact with a group of folks headed up by Delegate Don Perdue who wish to start a drug treatment center in our region. Tim White from the Huntinton Housing Authority invited me to a Friday evening meeting last week and the project at 1410 was presented to a goups of folks active in the drug treatment arena, and seen as an excellent adjunct to a long term treatment center.

We have also connected with the Mayor’s office regarding a community service on May the 19th. He has specifically given his endorsement to the service being held in conjunction with the annual victims of crime service.

We have also been able to link up with the Rev. John Perkins, a nationally known Christian author and activist. Lord willing, he will deliver our message on May 19.

I could not have anticipated any of these things that fall morning when I drove by the house on my way to work. But God knows. He has his own plan for the ministry at 1410 Charleston Ave. He desires to do something there, and like Peter, I don’t have much of a clue what it is. I can only say that this is what He seems to be leading us to do. In the process He will glorify Himself and accomplish his own purposes in the earth. Such has it always been. Amen.

Sermon close with singing of "This little light of mine"
DOM

Blessed are You

A Sermon Delivered at All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville, WV
2/11/07

Today, in our culture, the idea of Blessing has come tepid and almost meaningless. We use the expression ‘Well, bless my soul…’ People say ‘God Bless You’ when you sneeze. We sometimes hear folks say ‘I am wonderfully blessed’ or ‘That was a real blessing to me’.

Normally, what we mean by this is that I got a nice warm feeling from it and I was encouraged. Sometimes we also mean that we had an increased sense of God at work in our lives, bringing us something that was unexpected and enriched our lives.

Wikipedia gives this meaing:
A blessing (from to bless, Old English bleodsian or bletsian) originally meant "sprinkling with blood" during the pagan sacrifices, the Blóts. A blessing, (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the infusion of something with holiness, divine will, or one's hopes.

The New Testament word for Blessing is ‘Eulogeo’, to speak well. This is where we get our word Eulogy- a good word. ‘Benediction’ would be a Latin synonym. This sense of the word is to “speak well”; to praise or celebrate with praises, to invoke blessing upon someone or to consecrate a thing with solemn prayers.


The Hebrew word is Berachah: It is found in Deuteronomy 28: 1-14. Here, blessing means material prosperity and peace. It comes about as a result of obeying God and is His special favor bestowed upon his people. Blessing is every good thing: Peace with the peoples around Israel, seasonal rain, agricultural abundance, numerous healthy children and livestock, personal health and the ability to enjoy all these gifts freely. This is Blessing

In our Gospel reading, Jesus speaks praise or blessing upon certain groups of people – those who are poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated and reviled for the sake of the Son of Man.

Immediately our red flags go up. These are not happy conditions! How could this be of God if He is interested in my happiness?! … The answer is that Blessedness is not mere happiness or comfort. It is something far stronger than that.

The immediate context of Jesus proclaiming the Beatitudes is that he was teaching the people. They had come from all around to hear him and there was a great crowd assembled. But they didn’t come just to hear him preach; they also sought him for healing. They were trying to touch him because power was coming out from him and people were being healed! So in order to understand the Beatitude blessings, we have to take the healing power into account.


We talked a few weeks ago about the year of Jubilee and how Jesus read Isaiah 61 in the Synagogue of Capernaum and proclaimed that this Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing that day. In this passage, Jesus is doing the stuff of the Jubilee ministry and his comments about blessing are an amplification of the Year of Jubilee.

The Beatitude Blessings are proclamations that the Kingdom of God had come into our midst. Jesus is saying that fulfillment is in Him, in believing that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. As we believe in Him, the poor receive the Kingdom. The hungry are filled. Those who weep laugh, and those who are persecuted rejoice. It happens now, but there is also a future fulfillment in mind: our reward is in Heaven.

Likewise, there are woes up ahead. The rich will be without consolation, the full will be hungry, those who laugh will mourn, and those who receive praise are classed with the false prophets. Whoever seeks to fill himself up with the things of the world will not receive the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, if all you want is Stuff, that’s all you get.

The Scriptures set up a contrast between the upright and the wicked. Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 sound remarkably similar: The good man delights in the law of the Lord, meditating and pondering it day and night. The wicked pursue their selfish pleasures.

The upright are rooted and grounded in the Word of God and so are like trees planted beside flowing water. They are green, well-watered and they prosper even in drought.

The wicked shall not stand before God’s ultimate judgment. They are like dry tumble-weed in the dusty desert pushed along by an unmerciful wind.

One the one hand, we can say that the blessing of God comes upon people when they acknowledge him as God and worship Him. To put it crudely, there is a sort of quid pro quo here: you do this for me, and I’ll do that for you.
Nevertheless, Blessing is not all sweetness and light, for James tells us that we are blessed when we persevere under trial (Jas 1:12), “for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” And the words of Jesus come back to ring in our ears as well: Blessed are you when people hate you and defame you on account of Him. Your reward in heaven is great! There is a Blessing for those who stand up well under persecution and trial!


Yet there is something much more as well, and that is what we mean when we talk about Covenant. God spoke to Abraham in Genesis, chapters 15-17, calling Abraham to follow him to a promised land. God told him He would increase his descendents and that he would be the father of many nations. Kings would come out of his line and all the peoples of the world would be blessed through him. The Covenant of God with Abraham – and later the Covenant with Israel as a nation ( ) established the Jews as God’s own special people, but also charged this people with being a blessing to the rest of the world.

Because the Jewish nation did not fulfill its destiny to be the blessing to the ends of the earth, God turned from them and took the Gospel to the Gentiles, in order to fulfill the promise to bless all the nations of the world through Christ.

And as we said before, this blessing is two-fold. It comes to us immediately upon believing in Jesus as Savior and Lord. We begin to receive all the benefits of obeying God now in this life. But we also look forward to the ultimate fulfillment of the Kingdom when we go to live with God and the Peaceable Kingdom becomes a reality.

There is also another tantalizing blessing that comes to certain groups of people: Revival and Transformation. Down through history, and even right now in our own day, there are people who experience the special presence of God in Revival. In Fiji, in the Canadian Arctic, in Guatemala, and in Cali Columbia to name of few, people are turning to God in their desperation and are experiencing transformation of their societies that they could not have begun to imagine just a few years ago.

In one community, Almolonga, in Guatemala, the people had a long history of worshipping Mayan idol Maximon. They had a huge problem with drug and alcohol abuse, the jails were full continually, they had no real functioning school system and they could not grow enough food to feed themselves. In desperation, the people decided en masse to break their covenant with the old god and to follow Christ. Immediately then began to experience a revival.

Virtually the entire town became Christian overnight. The problems with addictions dried up, the jails emptied out and were closed for lack of occupancy, and the people began growing and harvesting their own food. Their crops were superabundant and they now export food to other towns. The Blessings of repentance, revival and community transformation have come to them.

This same kind of thing is happening in different parts of the world right now. Many would like to experience it here and now. Our guest from last week, Garry Adkins, told us about Mission Tri-State. This group of pastors and community leaders desperately desire to see the blessings of transformation come to our area. They gather to pray to God for revival, to repent of their sins and those of our country, and to ask God to Bless us by transforming our community.

Folks, this is what we want and need: the Blessing of God in our personal lives and in our community at large. We attract God’s blessing by submitting ourselves to Him in obedience and through humble repentance. And when the Blessing comes, we don’t just hoard it for ourselves, but we share the blessings of God with our neighbors.

This basic impulse to share with others our own blessings is what has sometimes been called the Social Gospel. The Social Gospel has been practiced by the mainline churches and is an attempt to live out the Gospel reality by making our world a more just place. Too often, however, the Social Gospel has become merely social programs lacking true spiritual power or meaning. The experience of the past 150 years of Social Gospel has taught us that mere social programs are not enough to solve financial and racial inequalities.

Rather, for True transformation of society to take place, we need the super-natural power of God to revive us and to bring us the blessings of Kingdom life here and now. This is why we want to link with Mission Tri-State and pray for God to rain down his Holy Spirit upon us. The problems of our world cannot be solved by pro-social entrepreneurship, but rather must depend upon the infilling power of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us each step of the way.

I’ve included Psalm 67 on our reading sheet today. Please join with me in reciting it together.

Prayer: O God, you who bless us exceedingly abundantly above all we can think or ask, grant us the grace of your reviving and transforming power. Help us to be lead of you as we seek to do your will that, we may push back the gates of Hell and your Kingdom may come here on earth as it is in Heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord, AMEN.

Regarding Spiritual Gifts

A Sermon given to All Saints Anglican Church on January 14, 2007, based on I Corinthians 12: 1-11.


Charles Ryrie says this about the city of Corinth: “Located on the narrow isthmus between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas, Corinth was a port city and wealthy commercial center. Ships wanting to avoid the dangerous trip around the southern tip of Greece were dragged across that isthmus. The city boasted an outdoor theater that accommodated 20,000 people; athletic games second only to the Olympics; a Greek, Roman, and Oriental population; and the great temple of Aphrodite with it 1,000 prostitutes. The immoral condition of Corinth is vividly seen in the fact that the Greek term Korinthiazomai (literally, “to act the Corinthian” came to mean “to practice fornication”. …Corinth was noted for everything sinful.”

Paul preached the Gospel here on his second missionary journey and stayed some 18 months, living with Aquila and Priscilla. After he moved on to Ephesus Paul wrote back to the church at Corinth instructing them on various matters such as divisions in the church, immorality, and questions about marriage, food, worship and the resurrection. There were also many aberrant beliefs and practices rampant in the church itself… Has quite a modern feel, don’t you think?

Against this backdrop of immorality and idolatry, it is somewhat startling to come to chapter 12 of this letter and find a discussion of Spiritual Gifts. Paul is talking to recent converts – people who used to worship idols just a year or two ago, before their conversion. They haven’t had time to develop a lifelong practice of spiritual discipline, and are still very immature, even heretical or verging on it at times.
Yet, we see Paul instructing the people on the proper use of Spiritual gifts! From these brief observations, can draw out some inferences:

-Spiritual Gifts were regularly operative in the church.
-Maturity is not a necessary prerequisite to operate in a gift.
-Manifestation of spiritual gifts is not dependent on having everything occurring ‘decently and in order’, before their appearance.

Chapter 11 describes how people are misusing and abusing the love feast associated with the Lord’s Table. And there are apparently many divisions in the church – again very similar to our own day. Now in chapter 12, Paul launches into the teaching about spiritual gifts; literally “charis, ‘grace’, maton, ‘gifts’. The fist principle or assumption is that Jesus is Lord, ‘Kurios”. If you don’t start there, everything else is mull and void. Beyond that the overall message of the chapter is unity in diversity.

As we take a look at our text beginning in v. 4, we start to see certain words recur. If you have a pencil or pen, ,look for the word ‘varieties’ and circle it every time it appears, along with the word ‘various’ in v. 10. How many times does it repeat? (4):

Varieties of Gifts, v. 4
Varieties of Services, or ministries v. 5
Varieties of Activities or effects v. 6
Various kinds of tongues v 10

Now look for the word ‘same’ and underline it. Repeats 5 times.
Same Spirit v. 4
Same Lord v 5
Same God. v 6
Same Spirit v 9
Same Spirit v 11

Now check out the word ‘another’. It occurs a whopping 8 times within 3 verses. (vv.8-10).

Very clearly, we are to understand that different people have different gifts. Why? In v. 7 we see the purpose: “For the common good”. There are many people who would say that spiritual gifts are not for today, that they functioned as signs to the world at the beginning of the church age and after the apostles passed of the scene, the gifts are no longer needed.

I would counter this by saying that we haven’t outgrown the need for the common good in the church. I believe this is foundational to our understanding of the Spirit’s work in our midst: that He gives grace gifts for the building up of the church in love, for the common good. This is timeless. Also, in Paul’s emphasis on varieties of ministries and effects, we see no suggestion that these varieties of ministries are to cease. Rather, Paul seems to take for granted that the gifts are given to common believers for the common good. The gifts are not just for the apostles for a limited time – although it is true that the Apostles functioned in the gifts in a way that we don’t as average believers.

No, the gifts and all their attendant varieties are intended for the unity of the church – for the common good.

So what exactly are the gifts? To list them, they are:
The Word of Wisdom
The Word of Knowledge
Faith
Gifts of Healing
Miracles
Prophecy
Discernment of Spirits
Tongues
Interpretation of Tongues (two different gifts)

Note the progression: we start with Wisdom. Very appropriate as the book of Proverbs describes the Lord as having created the world via Wisdom (Jesus that is). Wisdom is the ability to apply principles from the Bible and from life into practical situations, obtaining a good result.
Wisdom is both something that one obtains over time, through living the Christian life, and it is a gift that can be bestowed upon even the youngest member of a group – just because God seems to like to use the weak and foolish things of this world to confound those who think themselves Wise in a worldly fashion.

Wisdom is the application of the right principle at the right time for the right reason. The result of this application is uniformly positive. It is a gift of inestimable value in the church.

The Word of knowledge can also be understood as pertaining to practical knowledge of spiritual things, but I believe we see several biblical examples that lead us to understand that the Word of knowledge is something more. For instance, when Jesus says, to the woman at the well of Sychar, in John chapter 4:18: “you have had five husbands and the one that you now have is not your husband…” – this is a word of Knowledge given to Jesus for the purpose of ministering life to this woman.

Or when Peter calls our Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 for keeping back part of the money from the sale of a property – God told Peter what had happened so that there could be discipline in the church.

These experiences happen today, all the time. John Wimber tells the story of looking at a man on an airplane and being impressed with a name that seemed to be written on the man’s forehead. When he asked the man,” Who is Mary?”, the man took Wimber aside and confessed an extra-marital affair - which led to the man’s eventual salvation. The Word of Knowledge happens today and is very much needed to bring the power of God’s conviction to bear in people’s lives.


The gift of Faith is the ability to trust God for remarkable answers to prayer, such as praying in provisions of food or to trust God for big things. Persons who exemplify faith would be George Mueller, or Mother Teresa, both of whom regularly believed God to provide for thousands of children and adults under their care, without any visible means of support.

The gift of faith is to be distinguished from that of saving faith, which is also a gift, but is given to every Christian in order to help them come to salvation through Christ.

Healings (Plural). Some commentators believe this refers to ‘bringing people back from the dead, but the plural would seem to militate against this. There are varieties of healing gifts. They occur in differing ways. Last week we talked about John Alexander Dowie and his healing ministry. When I began to learn about him and his ministry, I prayed to receive the same kind of gifting he had. Instead, my ministry gifting appears to operate in helping people recover from past traumas, and emotional healing – a different kind of gift. Some of you might be good at praying for back injuries or cancer. You don’t know until you try.

Along that line, one of the ways you begin to discover your gifts is by being with those who operate in their gift and working alongside of them. One of the ways to do this is in the context of small group meetings where people have the opportunity to make their needs known and have other believers to minister to those needs. This is part of the practical training we need to receive to build one another up in our faith and to see God work powerfully in our lives.

Miracles. The Apostle Paul once preached so long into the night that a young man named Eutychus fell asleep and tumbled out an open second story window, breaking his neck! (you would think Paul might have got the idea that preaching was not his hottest gifting!). But Paul quickly runs downstairs and brings the young man back from death, not missing a beat as he went back to preaching! There are healings that fall into the category of Miracles. Miracles also include such things as watching food multiply and for sight to be restored and the lame to walk. Too often this is the realm of hucksters and the sensational, but despite the bad rap, if we are truly Christian in our belief, we must admit the possibility that miraculous things may happen through us. The emphasis though is not us, but the Lord of the Universe, who is perfectly free to intervene in our lives as he wills.

Prophecy is both foretelling and forth-telling. The job of a prophet in the Old Testament was to call people to repentance and to encourage them through their penitence. A true Prophet was known by whether or not his prophecies came true. It’s a little different today. There are people who can prophecy about future events, but this foretelling does not carry the same “thus says the Lord” as did the words of the OT prophets. However, the gift of being able see into a person’s life and to encourage them is very helpful, particularly as they go through hard times. Cindy and I have both experienced several times when people spoke into our lives in a way that was really Spirit led and very encouraging at the same time. Some folks do get enamored with this particular gift, so in general, it’s best to listen closely enough to the Lord so you hear from him yourself, without needing an outside person to tell you God’s will.

The old saw goes, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” A person gifted with discernment can tell the character of a person, but also can also discern whether someone operates in an evil spirit and how to either confront or steer clear of it.

Then comes Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues – not necessarily the same gift. It’s pretty clear from the book of Acts that the initial gift of Tongues was actual recognizable foreign languages. There were those in the audience who understood the Gospel being preached in their own native language. Based on this, some would say that Tongues and their interpretation were sign gifts and that they are no longer needed today. However, later in this same letter, chapter 14:4, Paul also says that one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, he speaks to God not to men, speaking mysteries in his spirit (v.2). To me, this indicates some room for the idea that there may be ‘ecstatic’ or ‘angelic’ languages. Most of the folks who speak in tongues today do so in a style that I just call ‘scat praying’. Just like Ella Fitzgerald did scat singing, I think it’s possible to do scat praying. We pray with our spirit directly to God and God knows how to interpret these prayers. Many find it helpful their own prayer life.

The rule of thumb for the assembled body is that there should only be speaking in tongues if there is an interpreter. That way the meaning is brought out and if there are unbelievers present, they won’t think we have gone mad.
(I Cor 14:23)

The principle again is the edification of the body for the common good. Our time has not allowed us a complete explication of these things. I hope to be able to return to this topic more fully another time. But may God grant us grace to begin to understand the gifting He has placed within us, and the opportunity to begin to operate in our gifts. AMEN.