Jesus is Going Ahead of You to Galilee

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, `He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (Matthew 28:1-10)

Jesus promised to go ahead of his disciples to Galilee and be there when they arrived.  In our lives, Jesus will go ahead of us to our Galilee as well, to be waiting there for us when we arrive.

Jesus’ resurrection is about new life, about transformation and hope, not just for the people of his day but for all people for all time.  Jesus’ promise to go ahead of the disciples to Galilee applies to us as well, whatever our Galilee is.  As I reflect on the joy of the Resurrection and on Jesus going before us to Galilee I want to share with you the story of Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama.  On April 24, 2010 a class three tornado struck Albertville and cut a three quarters of a mile swath through the town, including East Main Street where Christ Church is located.  The Nave and Sanctuary (worship space) were destroyed and thus began Christ Church’s journey from death to resurrection.

The people of Christ Church spent the past twelve months praying and talking and planning about and for their future.  In many ways this was a Galilee moment for Christ Church, and as we were promised in the Gospel from Matthew 28, Jesus was there ahead of Christ Church waiting for them.  On Easter Day, April 24, 2011, exactly one year after the storm destroyed the church, The Rt. Rev. Kee Sloan, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama was at Christ Church to celebrate Easter with them and to break ground for their new Nave and Sanctuary.  Easter for Christ Church, Albertville this year was truly a time of resurrection, hope, renewal and transformation.

We all have our “Galilee moments” and I hope that we will all take a moment to share them with our friends as a part of our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection and of the hope that is within us. Thanks be to God for the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ and for his promise to go before us and be with us today, tomorrow and forever.

“The Lord is risen, he is risen indeed!”

Blessings and Peace,

Ben Alford

The Rev. Ben Alford is a retired Episcopal Priest living in Elmore County. He can be reached at benajr@aol.com.

To Be the Prophet, To Be the Church

To Be the Prophet, To Be the Church

Some Quotes and Some Reflections

From the book, Saving Jesus From The Church

By Robin R. Meyers, United Church of Christ Pastor

Jeremiah was a prophetic performer, shattering a clay jug and announcing, “Thus says the lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city.”(19:11)  Ezekiel was also a star of prophetic street theater: “In a public placed, he is to lie on his left side for 390 days, then on his right side for 40 days, to symbolize the number of years that Israel and Judah are to spend in exile.  During all this time, he is to eat starvation rations such as would be available in a city under a prolonged siege, and he is to bake bread using human dung as fuel.  All of this would symbolize what was soon to happen to Jerusalem.”(4:1-17)

Then Meyers shifts to how prophets and the church are allowed to behave today: “And to think that today we arrest people for stepping over imaginary lines, or when the gather to protest war, or when they try to form a union.  We shame dissident pastors into silence and warn them not to discuss ‘controversial’ issues like immigration or equal rights for gays.  The truth is, we have few pastors in the church today who qualify as outrageous for the cause of justice, and in fact the most common model for ministry now is someone who is well married (preferably with children), respected, pious, and doesn’t cause trouble.  In this sense the church has turned ministry into a profession demanding decorum, rather than recognizing it as a divine calling with disturbing consequences.” (pp 224-225)

Now back to the Hebrew Prophets: “These God-intoxicated Hebrew prophets brought the abstract ideas of religion down to earth and fearlessly shared what they believed was wrong with the domination systems of the world.  Abraham Heschel describes ‘their breathless impatience with injustice’ and recognizes that they possessed ‘sympathy with divine pathos.’  They stood with the poor and against the elites as shamelessly as Hosea stood by his fallen wife and then claimed that it was never too late to go in search of her and bring her home.”

The primary focus of the entire book is that the church is a body, a community whose primary purpose is not to worship Christ in order to be taken to escape earth when we die, but to follow Jesus, doing what he did and what he taught us to do.  This excerpt is an excellent summary of the book as a whole.  As Meyers puts it in the prologue: “What does it really mean to follow Jesus as a teacher and not just worship him as a supernatural deity on a rescue mission?”

Meyers believes it is time for the churches across the land to hold a “teach in about Jesus the Galilean Jew, the world’s most famous missing person—but only if everyone is invited.”(p. 8) Meyers believes that the reason many mainline churches are dying is that “they have put so much energy into survival that they have forsaken their responsibility to be places of free and fearless inquiry and radical hospitality as well as spiritual substance.”(p. 9)

Meyers’ final challenge to those who read the book is: “to let the breath of the Galilean sage fall on the neck of the church again.  First we have to listen not to formulas of salvation, but to a gospel that is all but forgotten.  After centuries of being told that ‘Jesus saves,’ it is time to save Jesus from the church.”(p. 11)

The book is thought provoking, challenging, possibly disturbing for some, and an exciting vision of what the church has been and can be again.  I recommend this book to all for whom faith is both life giving and challenging.  If your faith is a struggle then this book may just be the tool you need make some sense out of it.

Last Stop, Bunkie, Louisiana

As my post retirement friendship tour began to draw to a close, this after my wife, Lynn, informed me that me “to do list” was getting longer and longer, I found my way to Bunkie, Louisiana.  Now I have to admit, that Bunkie is not at the top of most people’s “bucket list,” but it was truly an important place for me to visit during the second week of my retirement.  The reason goes back to the first of this three column series on friendship: “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold.”  One of my oldest friends, or better said, a friend I have had for the longest amount of time lives in Bunkie, Louisiana.

My friend, LaMon Brown is Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bunkie, and I have known him since he and I were five years old.  Allow me to share some of our history.  Back in the days when five your olds could, I walked the three blocks from my home to Mr. Martin’s Store to buy baseball cards with bubble gum wrapped inside.  On the way home, I passed a house where I saw another five year old with a tricycle with attached wagon filled with bottle caps.  The caps also came from Mr. Martin’s Store.  It seems that as I was working on my baseball card collection, LaMon was working on his bottle cap collection. 

Skip forward to third Grade.  LaMon and I were both in Miss Rousseau’s class.  I sat in one corner of the room and LaMon sat in the other corner of the room (a sure sign that we were both to grow up to be preachers).  Over the years, we were in the High School Band together, occasionally  dated the same girls (not at the same time) and on some occasions my mother would pick LaMon up and take him home from school instead of me. 

LaMon and his wife Pat served as Missionaries in India and Thailand and at one time he and I both served the Church in New Orleans, I as a pastor and he as a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  We spent lots of time together during those New Orleans years, played lots of Golf and talked lots of theology.  During one important golf outing we decided that our calling as ministers was to bring people back to the Center. Not the middle, but the center.  The two are not the same thing. The middle is all about compromise and the Center is Jesus Christ.

So, a trip without spending time with LaMon would be like a day without sunshine.  We spent time talking about the things which are important to us: our families, our health, Jesus the Center, and believe it or not, we even played a little golf.  It is truly a blessing to have had a friend for fifty-eight years, a friend who will be honest with me, who will disagree with me and still love me, a friend who brings out the best in me.  This friendship is a “pearl of great price,” and a reminder and an assurance that all friendships are gifts from God.  A reminder that we human beings were not created to live alone but to live in fellowship with God and with one another, now and forever. 

With all the distractions life in the twenty-first century offers us, this “friendship tour,” reminded me, and I hope my sharing of it reminds you, of what is important in this life, as well as in the life of the world to come.”

May God grant us these friendships that make us more than we could ever be on our own!

Blessings and Peace,

Ben Alford

Two weeks ago my wife Lynn, our friend Janette and I went to Saint Simons’ Island to a Methodist Conference Center, Epworth by the Sea.  The purpose of our visit was to attend the seventh annual January Adventure of Emerging Christianity.  The speakers were Barbara Brown Taylor and Brian McLaren, two of my spiritual heroes.  The both spoke about what it means to be a Christian in today’s world and particularly about the importance of the kingdom of God being “on earth as it is in heaven.”

It was exciting to be around 700 people who believe that God is so much bigger and much more inclusive than most of us believe and to have two speakers who challenged us to see God and humanity in new and different ways.  Both speakers believe that while Jesus came to save the world,  that he came to save the entire world, not just the members of one faith. This is quite a concept in a world in which most people of faith believe that their faith has all the truth and all other faiths are incorrect.  Jesus spent most of his time teaching people to “do unto others as they would have others do unto them,” “to love the Lord their God with all their heart and mind and soul and strength and to love their neighbor as themselves.”  This truly represented the kingdom of God, come on Earth as in heaven.

Perhaps Jesus’ greatest sermon, one I believe he preached over and over again, is the one we call the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5:1-12 and in Luke 6:20-23.  In both of these passages, Jesus taught his followers what the kingdom of God was like: the hungry, both physically and spiritually would be filled; the mournful would be comforted; the meek and lowly would inherit the earth; the pure will see God and the peacemakers will be called the children of God.  Jesus cautioned that when they did these things some would be persecuted, but that as many as were persecuted, they would inherit the Kingdom of God.

I believe Jesus is telling us that the kingdom is bigger than we are.  That people will be included whom we would not allow in on our own.  Then Jesus gets more personal and tells his hearers and us that we are blessed when people revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely on His account.  That we should rejoice and be glad, for our reward will be great in the kingdom.  The fact that as Christians we may be persecuted does not keep Jesus from calling us into partnership with him.  It should not prohibit us from doing the things he calls us to do.

A young evangelical, Shane Claiborne, wrote in a recent article in Esquire Magazine: “to those who have closed the door on religion – I was recently asked by a non-Christian Friend if I thought he was going to hell.  ‘I said, I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.’  ‘If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.’”

Blessings and Peace,

Ben

Change, an Invitation to Life: Re-Discovering Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Change, an Invitation to Life: Re-Discovering Jesus and the Kingdom of God

the Kingdom of God

When Jesus walked the earth, he continued to preach and teach about the kingdom of God.  Even in one of his most famous sermons, the one we call “the sermon on the mount.”  “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33-34).  For many Christians today the assumption is that this is all about a way to be rescued from this earth and brought together in God’s nearer presence in heaven.  While heaven is certainly a part of God’s Kingdom, I have come to believe that what Jesus is referring to as “the Kingdom of God begins and continues in this life in this world that we call home.

I believe that the kingdom of God has everything to do with God’s presence in the pain and suffering of this world, as well as in its joys and its celebrations.  I believe that we see this kingdom most in the teachings and actions of Jesus in this world, summed up best in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our father in heaven, hollowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  Save us from the time of trial and protect us from evil.”(Matthew 6:9-13)

I believe that Jesus came not just to get us to heaven, or even to start a new religion, but rather, to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world.

“What if the message of Jesus has practical implications for such issues as how we live our daily life, how we earn and spend money, how we treat people of other races and religions, and how the nations of the world conduct their foreign policy? For most of my life I have been on a journey of doubt and faith searching for the essential meaning of Jesus’ message, which I believe is true and worth knowing—that even if it overturns some of our conventional assumptions, priorities, values, and practices, a  better understanding will be worth the temporary discomfort.” (Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren). 

Along this journey I have become convinced that Jesus’ message is personal but not private.  That it has everything to do with public matters in general and politics in particular.  Just the fact that Jesus was called Lord, just as Caesar was called Lord makes this a political and not a religious statement.  Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown synagogue (which turned out to be a complete failure) in which he lays out his message pretty clearly tells us how Jesus sees the Kingdom of God.  “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. . . . Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”(Luke 4:18-19, 21) 

This is the kingdom I believe we as Christians are called to look for today.  This is the journey I believe Jesus has called us to be a part of today.  This is an invitation from Jesus “to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness and everything else we need, will be given to us.”  It is Jesus’ reminder to focus on how we treat others, how we treat God, how we go beyond superficial words to substantive action.  As Jesus reminds his disciples at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, “everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on a rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25).

I leave you with a question: What would happen in our world if increasing numbers of us were to practice living this way.  What would happen in our individual lives and what would happen in the life of our nation if we did not just hear Jesus’ words, if we did not simply say Lord, Lord!, but rather heard His words and acted on them?

Blessings and Peace,

Ben

Untitled

Meyers is pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church, “an unapologetically Christian, unapologetically liberal” church.  He is also professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University.

Today’s post is the first in a series of reflections on the book and what Meyers has to say to the church. I invite your dialogue.

According to Meyers in his prologue, “the UCC is a brave and messy denomination that has been speaking truth to power for a long time and insisting that we make more room at the table for those who are forgotten.

It is my sense that for far too long the church has excluded people who are “not our kind of people,” either because they are of a different race, or class or because they are gay or because they understand the scriptures differently than we do.  Meyers invites us to take a longer look at what it means to be a “follower of Jesus rather than a worshipper of Christ. There is a distinction which will become clearer as he continues deeper into his topic.

Meyers describes his Sunday ritual to which anyone who has ever served in parish ministry can relate.  “I came home one cold January afternoon after serving Communion to my beloved flock and took a nap.  Parish ministry is tiring in ways most people do not understand, and a Sunday afternoon nap is as sacred to a middle-aged clergy person as the Psalms. . .Preaching is, after all, an audacious and dangerous act.”  He woke up from his nap and a dream wondering “if I was still a Christian.” 

Meyers had dreamed about churches that supported the status quo in both patriotism and intolerance.  A church that sees its faith as better than and closer to God than anyone else’s faith, a church where one group is in and every other group is out.  In his dream he envisioned a church in which young warriors for Christ were taught to love Jesus by hating Darwin and homosexual people. He awoke thinking, if this is Christianity and these are Christians, I must not be one. He awoke “wondering about the future of the church to which I have given my life.  Is it toxic beyond redemption?   Should it be allowed to die, so that something else can take its place, or should we go in search of Jesus one more time?”

After a few more reflections on the things that bothered him about the church, Meyers made a startling discovery: “As it turns out, the real message of the dream wasn’t self-confirming, it was self-indicting.  Instead of asking, ‘how can I call myself a Christian now?’ a better question might be, ‘why haven’t I done more to promote biblical literacy and invite others to consider an alternative way of being the church in our time?’  It is easier and much more satisfying to rail against the Right than to suggest that we go back to Genesis 1 and study together.  Liberals can be just as intolerant as fundamentalists and we have arrived at a moment in human history when intolerance and hope are mutually exclusive.”

Meyers is laying out his hope for the future of the church and his belief that without some changes in the focus of the church, in his opinion, the church will in fact die.  It is clear to me that he does not believe that this death is necessary but that if it occurs, resurrection is possible and transformation into a church which follows Jesus will grow out of the ashes of a church that worships Christ but does not follow Jesus.  If the distinction between Jesus and the Christ is not clear Meyers will speak to it early on in the book.

As I read through the book I will reflect on some of Meyers’ key points.  I will not try to “report” the entire book, but will suggest key points for our reflection.

Blessings,

Ben

An Experimental Post

just trying to post something to see if it is acceptable to face book. Had a couple of posts this morning that were not allowed because they contined "offense material."  In fact not the case, but FB has not gotten back to me yet. So this is a test.  Hopefully next blog will contain useful content.

Blessings,

Ben

April 7, 2011

April 7, 2011

Meyers is pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church, “an unapologetically Christian, unapologetically liberal” church.  He is also professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University.

Today’s post is the first in a series of reflections on the book and what Meyers has to say to the church. I invite your dialogue.

According to Meyers in his prologue, “the UCC is a brave and messy denomination that has been speaking truth to power for a long time and insisting that we make more room at the table for those who are forgotten.

It is my sense that for far too long the church has excluded people who are “not our kind of people,” either because they are of a different race, or class or because they are gay or because they understand the scriptures differently than we do.  Meyers invites us to take a longer look at what it means to be a “follower of Jesus rather than a worshipper of Christ. There is a distinction which will become clearer as he continues deeper into his topic.

Meyers describes his Sunday ritual to which anyone who has ever served in parish ministry can relate.  “I came home one cold January afternoon after serving Communion to my beloved flock and took a nap.  Parish ministry is tiring in ways most people do not understand, and a Sunday afternoon nap is as sacred to a middle-aged clergy person as the Psalms. . .Preaching is, after all, an audacious and dangerous act.”  He woke up from his nap and a dream wondering “if I was still a Christian.” 

Meyers had dreamed about churches that supported the status quo in both patriotism and intolerance.  A church that sees its faith as better than and closer to God than anyone else’s faith, a church where one group is in and every other group is out.  In his dream he envisioned a church in which young warriors for Christ were taught to love Jesus by hating Darwin and homosexual people. He awoke thinking, if this is Christianity and these are Christians, I must not be one. He awoke “wondering about the future of the church to which I have given my life.  Is it toxic beyond redemption?   Should it be allowed to die, so that something else can take its place, or should we go in search of Jesus one more time?”

After a few more reflections on the things that bothered him about the church, Meyers made a startling discovery: “As it turns out, the real message of the dream wasn’t self-confirming, it was self-indicting.  Instead of asking, ‘how can I call myself a Christian now?’ a better question might be, ‘why haven’t I done more to promote biblical literacy and invite others to consider an alternative way of being the church in our time?’  It is easier and much more satisfying to rail against the Right than to suggest that we go back to Genesis 1 and study together.  Liberals can be just as intolerant as fundamentalists and we have arrived at a moment in human history when intolerance and hope are mutually exclusive.”

Meyers is laying out his hope for the future of the church and his belief that without some changes in the focus of the church, in his opinion, the church will in fact die.  It is clear to me that he does not believe that this death is necessary but that if it occurs, resurrection is possible and transformation into a church which follows Jesus will grow out of the ashes of a church that worships Christ but does not follow Jesus.  If the distinction between Jesus and the Christ is not clear Meyers will speak to it early on in the book.

As I read through the book I will reflect on some of Meyers’ key points.  I will not try to “report” the entire book, but will suggest key points for our reflection.

Blessings,

Ben

April 7, 2011 Reflections

Meyers is pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church, “an unapologetically Christian, unapologetically liberal” church.  He is also professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University.

Today’s post is the first in a series of reflections on the book and what Meyers has to say to the church. I invite your dialogue.

According to Meyers in his prologue, “the UCC is a brave and messy denomination that has been speaking truth to power for a long time and insisting that we make more room at the table for those who are forgotten.

It is my sense that for far too long the church has excluded people who are “not our kind of people,” either because they are of a different race, or class or because they are gay or because they understand the scriptures differently than we do.  Meyers invites us to take a longer look at what it means to be a “follower of Jesus rather than a worshipper of Christ. There is a distinction which will become clearer as he continues deeper into his topic.

Meyers describes his Sunday ritual to which anyone who has ever served in parish ministry can relate.  “I came home one cold January afternoon after serving Communion to my beloved flock and took a nap.  Parish ministry is tiring in ways most people do not understand, and a Sunday afternoon nap is as sacred to a middle-aged clergy person as the Psalms. . .Preaching is, after all, an audacious and dangerous act.”  He woke up from his nap and a dream wondering “if I was still a Christian.” 

Meyers had dreamed about churches that supported the status quo in both patriotism and intolerance.  A church that sees its faith as better than and closer to God than anyone else’s faith, a church where one group is in and every other group is out.  In his dream he envisioned a church in which young warriors for Christ were taught to love Jesus by hating Darwin and homosexual people. He awoke thinking, if this is Christianity and these are Christians, I must not be one. He awoke “wondering about the future of the church to which I have given my life.  Is it toxic beyond redemption?   Should it be allowed to die, so that something else can take its place, or should we go in search of Jesus one more time?”

After a few more reflections on the things that bothered him about the church, Meyers made a startling discovery: “As it turns out, the real message of the dream wasn’t self-confirming, it was self-indicting.  Instead of asking, ‘how can I call myself a Christian now?’ a better question might be, ‘why haven’t I done more to promote biblical literacy and invite others to consider an alternative way of being the church in our time?’  It is easier and much more satisfying to rail against the Right than to suggest that we go back to Genesis 1 and study together.  Liberals can be just as intolerant as fundamentalists and we have arrived at a moment in human history when intolerance and hope are mutually exclusive.”

Meyers is laying out his hope for the future of the church and his belief that without some changes in the focus of the church, in his opinion, the church will in fact die.  It is clear to me that he does not believe that this death is necessary but that if it occurs, resurrection is possible and transformation into a church which follows Jesus will grow out of the ashes of a church that worships Christ but does not follow Jesus.  If the distinction between Jesus and the Christ is not clear Meyers will speak to it early on in the book.

As I read through the book I will reflect on some of Meyers’ key points.  I will not try to “report” the entire book, but will suggest key points for our reflection.

Blessings,

Ben

A Dedication

Saving Jesus From The Church

By Robin R. Meyers

When I picked up the book this morning, newly arrived from Amazon, and read the Dedication it blew me away.  What a wonderful, caring and enlightened statement from a man who loves God, loves Jesus and loves the church.

Meyers Dedication:

I dedicate this book to all the men and women who have chosen the parish ministry as their life’s work, and yet do not wish to be considered harmless artifacts from another age.  May all those who labor in the most misunderstood, dangerous, and sublime of all professions be encouraged and inspired by the possibility that one’s head and one’s heart can be equal partners in faith.  Lest the church end up a museum piece whose clergy are affable but laughable cartoons, we must once again dedicate ourselves to this wild calling—one that led us away from more comfortable lives and into the only profession where radical truth-telling is part of the job description.  May we fear no man and no creed, save our own timidity, and may we encourage and support one another in pursuit of religion that is biblically responsible, intellectually honest, and emotionally satisfying, and socially significant.

Dedication from the 2009 Book, Saving Jesus From The Church

Dedication from the 2009 Book

Saving Jesus From The Church

By Robin R. Meyers

When I picked up the book this morning, newly arrived from Amazon, and read the Dedication it blew me away.  What a wonderful, caring and enlightened statement from a man who loves God, loves Jesus and loves the church.

Meyers Dedication:

I dedicate this book to all the men and women who have chosen the parish ministry as their life’s work, and yet do not wish to be considered harmless artifacts from another age.  May all those who labor in the most misunderstood, dangerous, and sublime of all professions be encouraged and inspired by the possibility that one’s head and one’s heart can be equal partners in faith.  Lest the church end up a museum piece whose clergy are affable but laughable cartoons, we must once again dedicate ourselves to this wild calling—one that led us away from more comfortable lives and into the only profession where radical truth-telling is part of the job description.  May we fear no man and no creed, save our own timidity, and may we encourage and support one another in pursuit of religion that is biblically responsible, intellectually honest, and emotionally satisfying, and socially significant.

A sermon preached on the fourth Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2009

A sermon preached on the fourth Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2009, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Wetumpka, Alabama.

Based on John 3:16-21

Holding up my King James Version of the Bible I said, This Bible was given to me by Albertville, Alabama First Methodist (before they were united with anyone) when I entered the fourth grade and the intermediate Sunday School Class.  I believe that like a pack of cigaretts, this should have a warning label: “Caution, use of this product may be hazardous to your health.”

To illustrate my point, I invite you to hear again today’s Gospel from John 3:9-21 and then reflect on it, and on how important the Holy Bible is in our lives.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.  God did not send his son into the world to conden the world but that the world through him might be saved….those who belive in him not condemned; but those who do not believe in him are condemned aleardy.

At first this sounds pretty good!  At its best it gives us impetus for a radically inclusive communty to which all people are welcome.—the lost, the forgotten, the abandond—bringing new life to them through Jesus.

At its worst it can be used as a weapon to separate the saved from the unsaved.  To intimidate those who do not share or find a need to share our belief in Jesu as savior and lord.

As a child I remember hearing this in church and thinking: “How wonderful, God loves us enough that He wants us to be with him forever, and how wonderful that God wants to do this

through the faith into which I just happen to have been born.

At Trinity we have had many discussions about who will be saved and who will not be saved. I cannot speak for everyone, but believe that the majority here believe God will save more than just us.  Whatever your belief about this, you certainly have plenty of company.

I am not asking everyone to agree with me or with anyone who has a different opinion than you, but I do believe it is vital for us to reflect on this passage:  who wrote it; when was it written, why was it written, what was happening in Israel and Judah at that time?

Let’s go back and look at a few other passeges from scriptur as we look for answer to these questions.

In Luke 2:8 and following we hear the angels say to the shepherds: “Do not be afraid, I bring good news of great joy that shall be for all people.”

In Ephesians 2:1-10, St. Paul writes: “For you have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not of your own doing; it is thegift of God—not the result of works (including belief) so that no one  may boast.

For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God

prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

As I read scripture, it just seems to me that our salvation, our inclusion in the Kingdom of God is God’s action, not ours. 

Several years ago I read a book entitled, God is not a Christian by Carlton Pearson.  The book descirbes his epiphany story when several years ago he was watching television with his small daughter and saw African refugees dying and he told God that “He could not just let those innocent people die and be sucked into hell. God’s response to Person, so what needs to be done: Pearson responded that “they were not Christians and most first be saved before they could avoid hell.”  What Pearson truly believes he heard God say to him was: “They are already saved; they just don’t know it; and you Christians, unfortunately, don’t believe it.  I redeemed and reconciled all of humanity at Calvary.”

To go back to scripture, “This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all (1Timothy 2:3-6).

The sun is not dependent on whether people call it by its correct name or not.  Its fuunction is not dependant on what we belive.  It fullfils its purpose without distinction, discrimination or permssion from its recepients.

Jesus’ purpose was to redeem the world to God. When he said, “it is finishd,” He ment, in effect, mission accomplished!

We, the church, are not called to save a world that has already beenn saved. We are simply called to inform or make the people of the world aware of their salvation so they can enjoy such a wonedrful gift.

Let us pray: O God you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unit us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavnly throne. Amen (Book of Common Prayer, page 815)