An observer came along and said to the holy man, Don t you know that s a scorpion, and it s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?

Transcription

1 George A. Mason First Sunday in Lent Wilshire Baptist Church 22 February 2015 First in a series How Jesus Saves Dallas, Texas Wading In 1 Pt. 3:18-22; Mk. 1:9-15 A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him, stinging him. An observer came along and said to the holy man, Don t you know that s a scorpion, and it s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting? To which the holy man replied, That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature? Today is the first Sunday in the church season of Lent. For 40 days, plus six Sundays, we move with Jesus toward the cross he will die on. We will see each week just how deliberate he is in engaging the world of sin that will hang him on a tree. He seems to know where he s going, even if he doesn t know all the details of the rejection, the betrayal, the scourging, the mocking, the forsakenness, the pain, and the dying. We are going to follow him as closely as our hearts will allow, not only to see that he saves us but also how. And then, as always, the question to us will be whether we are willing to shape our lives after his. Our theme for Lent this year is How Jesus Saves. Our text today recounts Jesus wading into the Jordan River, where John the Baptist baptizes him, God the Father blesses him, and the Holy Spirit empowers him. And lest we think the Holy Spirit is only a comforting presence in his life, as the gentle dove might symbolize, Mark tells us that immediately after his baptism that the Spirit drove him into the stark wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The Spirit was a dove, and the Spirit drove. One little letter difference makes all the difference, don t you know?! dove to drove. This tells us that the way Mark wants us to see the meaning of Jesus life will challenge the way we see the

2 meaning of our lives. By now you know the story of Kayla Mueller. She was kidnapped and held for 18 months by the terrorist group called ISIS or ISIL or the Islamic State, whatever your preference. She was killed during her captivity. ISIS claims that she died from a Jordanian air attack. No one believes that. The savagery of ISIS knows no end and is indefensible in any rational or religious way, including Muslim. Kayla was in Syria because she was driven there by her faith. During her time at Northern Arizona University, she became involved with the United Christian Ministry group on campus. It awakened her to social injustice all over the world. She committed her life to being among those who were suffering. She first volunteered nights at a women s shelter; then she protested the genocide in Darfur and started a chapter of Amnesty International. She volunteered at a summer camp for young African refugees in Israel, and she went to Israel s occupied territories to show support for the Palestinians. She protested torture in Guantanamo Bay, and she went on a humanitarian mission to Guatemala. In India, she taught English to Tibetan refugees and to poor women and children. Most of the media attention on her has been based on the letter she wrote in 2014 that was smuggled out by a ransomed fellow captive. But some of what she said in letters over the last few years make that letter clearer. This really is my life s work, to go where there is suffering, she wrote to her parents in I suppose, like us all, I m learning how to deal with the suffering of the world inside myself. And then a year later: I find God in suffering. I ve known for some time what my life s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering. I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine. And then she wrote this simple prayer: If this is how You are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek You. 1 I find God in suffering. That may be the most important takeaway from Kayla s Christian martyrdom. Think about this for 1 Taken from various news sources, including 2

3 a minute: When ISIS lined up 21 Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya last week and ceremoniously killed them in a way I could not watch, and in a way I would rather not mention with children in the room (you re welcome, moms), what did much of the world including church people mutter in their hearts? Where is God? We have inherited a notion of God as being all-knowing and all-powerful but removed from the world. God rules the world from a comfortable distance where God can see it all happening, bless the good and judge the evil but never get personally involved in any of it, because after all, what s a God for if not to keep house in heaven and greet the faithful at the front door when they make it there? No, that is not who God is. That s not the God of the Bible. That s not the God of Jesus or of Kayla or of anyone who genuinely follows in their footsteps. I was on a retreat with some fellow ministers earlier this week. Our guest was Diana Butler Bass. She has written extensively about the decline in American Christian belief and in traditional church participation. She attributes this trend to just this point. And she points to spiritual-awakening movements that take as their point of departure an understanding of God as being with and for those who are suffering while too many churches continue to promote an image of God as being distant. Instead of thinking of God as being up there, the freshest movements of the Spirit are learning to think of God as being down here. Down here with us and among us. Down here, in the midst of the mess of things, suffering with and for us out of unending passionate love. I hope this seems like an of course to you. If it doesn t, though, it needs to be. But Diana is a religious historian whose job is to spot trends and point them out. My job as a pastor is to spot the roots of trends in the Jesus story that point to where we should go. In Advent we saw that God was coming near to us in the baby Jesus. Christmas is the astonishing declaration that the God of heaven is with us and among us and for us as the God on earth. And now in Lent we are learning that Jesus as the Son of God is the suffering servant. He voluntarily wades in with us. Jesus doesn t need to be baptized in order to remove his sin; he 3

4 needs to be baptized in order to remove our sin. He wades in with us in all our sin and suffering. He is telling us how God will save us. It will be like the story of the holy man and the scorpion. God s nature is to save; our nature is to resist our salvation. And so God has to be willing to bear our sin and suffering, even the stings of our rejection, in order to bring us life forevermore. Jesus saves us by being present with us in our sin and suffering. Only by sharing it can he deliver us from its burden. And only by our faith in him can we experience the power of his forgiveness and the life he brings. This faith of ours is his faith first. It is his faith, not ours, that saves. His faithfulness enables ours. But this enabling is crucial, too. Our faith puts us in the baptistery with him. When we wade in with him in baptism, we are wading into the sin and suffering of the world. This is why we have added the salt-andlight ritual to our baptismal practice. Our natural inclination is to want the dove without the drove, so to speak. We want the blessing of heaven without the burden of earth. We want the joy of salvation without the duty that goes with it. But if we want to experience the gifts of joy and justice that are ours in the Christ who is God, made known in suffering, then we must continue to seek him there. What we believe matters. In fact, it s a matter of life and death, as the horrifying terror of ISIS proves. This group perfectly represents the worst interpretation of the religion of Islam. It would be like a Christian neighbor who decided to live the Book of Leviticus to the letter of the law and then required you to do it while pointing an AK-47 at you at every moment. George s first rule of interfaith relations comes to mind here: Never judge another person s religion by its worst adherents. Most Muslims are equally appalled by ISIS; and, yes, they say so. ISIS is a radical cult of very religious terrorists who believe they are prompting God to bring the final apocalypse at which time Jesus (yes, Jesus!) will return, judge the unrighteous, vindicate Muhammad as the final true prophet, and set up a perfect world based on seventhcentury Islamic law. They will use any means to accomplish 4

5 their ends. 2 The fundamental problem with ISIS is the same as the problem with any religious fundamentalism: they believe that the line between good and evil is drawn in the space between them and us; the truth is that the line of good and evil is drawn right down the middle of every human heart. They have no conscience about killing others because they see themselves as all good and us as all evil rather than seeing the evil that is also present in themselves and the good that is also present in others. That is why our Christian Lenten practice of introspection and confession of sin is so important. We know that we are sinners, too. We need to learn the humility of Jesus, who did not claim his own innocence but joined us in our guilt, taking it upon himself. In this season we fast and feast. 2 Two excellent articles on ISIS are by Peter Berger, /bergen-isis-enemies/index.html; and Graeme Wood, ive/2015/02/what-isis-reallywants/384980/?utm_source=nl linkcov erstory1_ We fast from dependence upon ourselves and feast on our dependence upon God. We fast from self-interest and feast on self-giving. We fast from hate and feast on love. Pope Francis has given us good guidance during this season. He quotes the early church father, John of Chrysostom, who said, No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great. The Pope then said, I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt. When we fast from this indifference, we can begin to feast on love. In fact, Lent is the perfect time to learn how to love again. Jesus showed us the way. In him, God descends all the way down to bring everyone up. In his life and his ministry, no one is excluded. 3 Jesus saves by taking us all upon himself