First Presbyterian Church sermon for 10/19/2014 Inside Worship: The Word, from Luke 24:13-35 by Pastor Matt Johnson We started our journey inside

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1 First Presbyterian Church sermon for 10/19/2014 Inside Worship: The Word, from Luke 24:13-35 by Pastor Matt Johnson We started our journey inside worship two weeks ago with the story of Peter being called into the home of Cornelius in Acts 10. We saw here that the worship of Jesus is not something that happens in the theoretical realm apart from our social relationships and our cultural or political allegiances. Instead, worshipping Jesus creates a community across those boundary lines and calls us into contact with those whom we may otherwise consider to be other than ourselves. In stark contrast to the idea that we can be isolated worshippers of God, we see again and again in the Bible that worship is an inherently community generating act. Last week we moved from Community, to Giving. Pastor John Harland shared a detailed portrayal of what it is to give of one s life for the sake of Christ through the character of Simon of Cyrene, who we encounter in the gospels. Simon did not merely give money, or time, he gave his own body. This is perhaps the best example of what we mean when we talk about transformative giving, for such a gift left Simon a greatly changed person. When we give sacrificially of what God has given us, we enter into worship. Today, then we take another step Inside Worship, from Community, to Giving, to the Word. One of the great strengths of the Presbyterian tradition is our emphasis on the word of God. I selected Luke 24 as the starting point for getting inside God s word in worship because in this passage Jesus (the living Word of God) opens up the written word of God with his disciples. What happens in this encounter is a thing of great encouragement for all of us who continue to look to this book we call the Bible in hopes that in its pages we might encounter the Living God. 1

2 The story takes place in the midst of the depression and confusion that fell upon the disciples following the death of Jesus. Jesus had, in fact, risen from the dead that very morning. This news had been reported to the disciples but they had not yet seen the Risen Christ. Two of them who were walking on the road toward a village called Emmaus. While walking, they meet a stranger on the road. You never know what will happen when you entertain strangers. In this case, the disciples think he s a stranger, but this man on the road is, in fact, their friend, rabbi, and Lord: Jesus of Nazareth. But according to v. 16, they were kept from recognizing him. They were kept from recognizing him. Why? Why would God prevent these disciples from seeing the one person they needed to see? Why not reveal Jesus to them immediately? One reason may be the fact that we often encounter Jesus in strangers that we meet, as Jesus himself taught the disciples. After all, worship creates community. But there must be more here than that. I believe Jesus identity was hidden from these disciples, and their encounter is told in such detail primarily because there is a deep truth revealed in this encounter that God wanted to share not only with the disciples, but with the church they would help establish. In verses they answer Jesus questions about himself. Could you imagine? They tell Jesus that Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet, powerful in word and deed. That the priests and rulers handed him over, and he was crucified. That they had hoped he would redeem Israel (but clearly had failed through his death three days earlier.) That some women from their community had found his tomb empty, and were told by angels that he was alive, but that none of the men had seen him alive. Then comes verses These verses reveal the reason why Jesus identity had been hidden: How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! this stranger exclaims. 2

3 Luke explains that beginning with Moses (that is the first five books of the Bible), and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Wouldn t you love to listen in on that conversation? What passages were most important to Jesus? What insights would he have shared? Wouldn t you love to know what Jesus taught them? Merry Christmas everyone: the New Testament is the fruit of that conversation and all the others that the Spirit of God instigated along the way as Jesus fulfilled the promise made in John 16 that he would send the Spirit of Truth to lead the disciples into all truth. The teachings of Jesus himself about himself through the Scriptures revealed to Israel are what we find on the pages of the New Testament. On my shelf I have a red-letter Bible, where the words of Jesus are a different color. But this is confusing to me, because it assumes that those words of Jesus somehow came to us through a different process or a different community than the letters we read about. In v. 30, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them the precise pattern of the Lord s Supper. At this time, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. Turning to each other, they said, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road, and opened the Scriptures to us? What kind of a word is this? There is too much to be said in response to this question. Debates continue to flourish on how we should answer this question, and there is much more for me to say in response than I have time for today. So rather than try to say everything, I will simply comment on three things that I see directly illustrated in our passage today. [This means comments on the impact of human language and culture over on how we read and interpret the Bible over the centuries will be saved for later!] 3

4 1) v. 25, how slow you are to believe, tells us that this is a word that is to be believed. In the particular situation of Luke 24, the disciples didn t believe that the Messiah could possibly be called upon to suffer. We have a tendency to believe things that fit with our existing frameworks and perspectives. But the Scriptures often call us into belief that challenges our frameworks and provide an alternative explanation for our experience. Encountering such a Word in worship, then, will often be unsettling even as it is also rooted in assurance of God s goodness, grace, and love. Professor and Pastor Darrell Johnson has said that when he looks at the church today, he sees not so much a lack of faith in God, but a lack of confidence in God s word. I think that sometimes when I m feeling far from God, and wondering where Jesus is in my world, Jesus says to me (in the most loving way possible!), How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! The vitality of our worship and the empowerment of our mission both rest on our belief that God s word is good news for us. 2) v. 27, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. This is a word that is to be believed and that is primarily about Jesus. We might say that the written word of God reveals the living Word of God. This is an amazing blessing for us in a culture that teaches us to doubt that there is much we can know for certain about what God is like. In Jesus we have God on full display, and Jesus says that the whole Bible points us to an understanding of what Jesus is about. This is very good news. However, a danger here is to simply flatten every text into a Jesus-focused interpretation so that the text we have in the Old Testament. I believe that the prophetic words of the Israelites stand on their own merit as Spirit led encouragements to live faithfully in their own times. If we collapse every text into a reference to Jesus, we lose the opportunity to learn about how God s people have struggled and flourished over time, and how God spoke to them uniquely. 4

5 Having said that, I do believe that the whole Bible is the story of God and reveals to us who God is. And what is that story about? A God who made all there is, who called a people to be set apart, and who prepared this people of Israel for the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah. When we see the character of God on display in the Old Testament, I take that to be identical to the character of Jesus found in the New Testament. The wonder in all of this, again, is that when we read Scripture faithfully, we are able to have a true connection with the person of Jesus. Do you read the Bible with that awareness? 3) v. 32, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us. This is a word that is to be believed, that is primarily about Jesus, and that is performative. In the beginning, when the universe was formless and void, what happened? God spoke, and all that we see around us came into being. God s word is performitive, which means it accomplishes what is says. God s speech creates reality, and can transform reality. This is what I hear in this report that the disciples hearts were burning while Jesus talked that the Spirit of God was at work changing them, reordering their imagination, opening up new possibilities, awakening them to the reality that Jesus is the Messiah, all through the truth of God s word remember that this happened prior to them being aware of Jesus identity. God's word is not something we control or manipulate though our human religious instincts often try to do that. Instead, we submit to the presence and activity of God that the word makes clear to us. What does all of this mean for us when we gather together for worship? I believe that worship happens anytime we receive and respond to God s selfrevelation. Worship happens anytime we receive and respond to God s selfrevelation. The Bible is the most trustworthy form of this, but God is also revealed in the created world and even in one another. Whenever we take note of God and respond to who God is and what God has done, we are worshipping. 5

6 When this happens, God's word creates a new space which we are invited to enter. You might say that in worship, we enter into the Spirit inspired text of Scripture. Having entered into the text, we then find a new way of looking at the world around us. I haven t always held this perspective. I used to approach the Bible as a set of intellectual truths to be dissected, or boiled down into principles that we apply. As far as I can tell, a Living Word boiled down and dissected turns into dead religion pretty quickly. Instead, we should come to the Bible as the story of the One True God in relationship with humanity and all of creation. Through hearing and responding to this story, it also becomes our story, and our lives become connected to the life of God. This is true whether the preacher is any good or not. This is true whether the music is any good or not. This is true whether the prayers are clearly spoken or not. When we get inside worship, we find that it is not about us and our leadership abilities or our artistic sensibilities. Those things are in the room, of course, and they can contribute to great beauty and encouragement during times of worship. But our worship simply cannot rest on such things. The bedrock of our worship must be this: That week in and week out, God s written word is a call from God s own Spirit to belief and repentance, it introduces us to the person and character of Jesus Christ, it has the ability to overcome the powers that so often dominate our lives, it is a radical welcome directly from God to all people, it in turn calls us to declare God s authority and join in God s mission in the world, it is assurance of who God is and of who we are, and it tells us of the hope we have when we submit our whole selves to the God revealed in these pages as our Creator, the Great I Am, Provider, Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. None of that depends on us. It is the Good News of God contained in this book. When open these pages and respond to the invitation we find there, we walk with Jesus and we listen in on that amazing conversation had on the road to Emmaus. And even today, God s word can cause our hearts to burn when we listen for what the Spirit is saying. 6