A Moment of Silence for Newtown

The Fall of Sparrows

"You are more valuable than many sparrows...not one will fall apart from the Father." Matthew 10

There will be a moment of silence tomorrow morning across this country as we remember the children and adults who were killed in Newtown a week ago. That silence should remind us of the voices we will hear no more. I hope that in that 60 second space we will also recall the thousands of other victims of gun crime in this country and resolve to work together to reduce such horrid violence.

In joining my memory of loss with yours, I wanted to relate to you two images from the Paducah, KY shooting that I cannot ever forget, the first of the three murdered girls and the second of a shattered small town.

Just a few days after the attack on the HS prayer group, the three hearses bearing the remains of the three praying friends passed along Lone Oak Road. With others, I stood and wept as they went by, the white coffins signed by a thousand fellow students visible through the windows. It was a sad and terrible sight.

On that grey, cold, wet December day young and old stood together in our grief and bewilderment, hearts united in pain as our eyes went with the mourners driving south towards the resting place of their beloved. That procession often passes through my mind and I suspect it will until I die. I will never forget those three white coffins.

A few days later I went to a local Wal Mart Super Center to pick up some last minute stocking stuffers. What met me on entering was one of the strangest moments I've ever experienced - less than a week before Christmas I was greeted by a subdued silence. There were no voices - no children shouting, no adults complaining or gossiping, no teenager laughing with a friend. There was music - loud music in fact, bright cheery Christmas tunes providing the sound track for everyone's shopping. But that was all. The store was fairly crowded, yet eerily mute; the music simply amplified the quiet.

We were all there doing what was necessary but said nothing to one another; there was nothing, after all, we could say. We simply picked up our items, kept our heads down, muffled any essential utilitarian conversations - "Yes, that's in aisle seven" - paid for our purchases and shuffled out to an anachronistic "O By Gosh By Golly". The disaster felt infinitely more deeply by the families of the dead and wounded had overtaken us all. The loud, excited bustle of Christmas was gone, replaced by mere duty. Silent night, but not very holy. I will never forget the quiet.

Newtown faces not three, but twenty seven funeral processions. That I cannot even begin to imagine. The residents will struggle this Christmas, knowing their neighbors are hurting, thankful for the joyful shouts of their children as they open presents all while mindful that close by are presents that will never be opened by hands that are now lying still. They will shed far too many tears in Christmas Eve services. They will be angry with God, and angry with politicians; they will wrestle with doubt and fear and feel guilty for not having seen it coming and somehow stopping it - as though either were truly possible. They will be tired from lost sleep, and tense from the non-stop attention of the world's media. They will want things to get back to normal, knowing 'normal' is exactly what things cannot be just now, and not for a long time to come.

Over the next few years, 'normal' will need careful definition in Newtown. There will be law suits, and revelations, and questions, and testimony, and recrimination - it happens all the time as the initial shock gives way to the cold, hard reality of picking up the pieces. These people - this entire community - needs your prayers, from teachers and students to pastors and parents and first responders. I hope that tomorrow when we hug our kids, pray, and pause for that moment of silence, we will see it as the first of many steps we take together to make sure that in the years to come 'death by gunfire' will never be regarded as normal in our country.

Study Notes for John's Gospel: Signs and the Language of Imagery

John’s Gospel, Part Six
Signs and Imagery
John 2

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


I. The Use of Language and Imagery
A. To Reveal and to Hide the Truth
B. To Convey Blessing and Expose to Judgment
* Parabolic Language: Mark 4; Matthew 13
* BOTH Judgement and Blessing, Retribution and Liberation

II. The Purpose of Sign Language: “You will see greater things than these...” - John 1:50
A. Revelation of God’s Grace and Power - Exodus 3:1-4, 19-20; 4:1-9; 7:3; Deuteronomy 4:34; 6:22; 7:19; 26:8; 29:3; 34:11; Psalm 135:8-10
B. Confirm the Servant - Deuteronomy 15; Exodus 4; 1 Kings 17ff
C. Confirm the Word - Hebrews 2:3-4
* “God testifying with them...”
* “The genesis of his signs...revealed his glory...his disciples believed in him.”

III. Sign Language in John
A. The Purpose of the Signs - John 20:30-31
* The ‘miracles’ in the synoptics tend to authenticate Jesus’ mission and message, while the ‘signs’ in John tend to reveal his person.
B. The Seven Signs Pointing to the Eighth and Ultimate Sign
1. Water to Wine in Cana - John 2
2. Healing of the Nobleman’s Son - John 4
3. Healing of the Paralytic at Pool of Bethesda - John 5
4. Feeding Multitudes in Wilderness - John 6
5. Walking on Water - John 6
6. Healing of the Blind Man - John 9
7. Raising of Lazarus - John 11
C. Progression in Reference to Faith
1. Signs Lead to faith - 2:11
2. Crowds demand signs prior to faith - 6:30
3. Many believe because of the signs - 7:31; 11:47-48
4. Many refuse to believe despite the signs - 12:37-42
* What will you do?? John 20:30-31

IV. Signs and Fulfillment (“Greater than...”)
A. Moses - John 1:17; 2:11; Water Transformation (Exodus 7:20); John 6 - Food in the Wilderness (Exodus 16; Numbers 11)
B. Greater than the Temple - John 2
* Purposeful use of imagery and language to reveal and conceal

Sermon Notes for Sunday, October 14, 2012

Its a Sign!
The Fourth Sign: God’s Barley Loaf
John 6:1-15, 31-35, 48-58
Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2012

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. -Doug Larson

* At Cordon Bleu for the morning and watching the preparation and cooking of a pork loin wrapped in bacon.

Lets remember the purpose of the signs - pointing beyond themselves to the One employing the Sign Language. We’ve encountered emptiness pointing to Fullness, words pointing to the Word, water pointing to the Water of Life, and now we find some real ‘food for thought’: the bread of the poor pointing to rich bread of heaven.

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

I. Jesus, Our Powerful Sufficiency
A. He brings us to the end of our poor supply so that we might enter into the bounty of his supply.
B. One Boy, Five Loaves, Two Fish, and Twelve Baskets later
* Barley Bread - fare of the poor, pointing to the One who became poor that we might be made rich in grace (2 Corinthians 8:9)
* True and False Concepts of the Kingdom: Force for Force; Grace for Grace


II. Jesus, Our Passover Supper
* The sign occurs in the wilderness, near to the time when Pascha would be celebrated, but the full import of the sign is explained later in a synagogue of Capernaum
A. The Bread of Life
* Born in the House of Bread and placed in a food trough, he grows to offer himself as the food of the soul
- Unleavened Bread of Liberation; Manna in the Wilderness:
- Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts! -James Beard

B. The Bread Broken
* Eucharistic Life
* Radical Hospitality
- The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. -Calvin Trillin
III. Jesus, Our Passionate Savior
A. He is the young boy who surrendered all he possessed to feed the multitude, and he feeds us still with his body and blood
B. This Supper is also about our Union with him, the One who has ‘taken, blessed, broken, and given’, showing us not only how we have life but how life is given through us to others in the Eucharistic Community.



How long will we go on receiving without serving? How long will be go on eating without sharing our bread with the hungry. In the face of the great, hungry multitude we can go on pointing out the food of others, or get busy pointing others to the One who is our Food. Come to the Table!

Silent Roar

Here
The raw roaring xephyrs played their predictable part,
Stampeding across the acres of my chilly heart
Hardening, breaking, pounding, relentless
Until passed. The grey clouds hanging low over
That bruised terrain of artery and vein bore witness
To the onset of love's inevitable hibernation,
The silencing of a summer's celebration,
Gone.

Study Notes for John's Gospel, Part Five: The Witness of John the Forerunner

John’s Gospel, Part Five
The Witness of John the Forerunner
John 1:6-9, 19-34; 3:22-36; 5:35


I. Jesus and John - Light and Witness: John 1:6-9
A. Forerunner and Fulfillment
B. Joined at Birth and in Ministry (Parallel and Overlapping)
* The triad of Jesus, Mary, and John form the prophetic community that bridges the horizons between old and new covenants.

II. John’s Ministry as Prophet: John 1:19-34
A. The Prophetic Sign of John’s Baptism for Israel
* Meaning and Location
* The Baptism of Jesus - cleansing the world and new creation
B. Prophetic Identity and Nazarene Identity
* Possible Qumron connection
1. I am NOT
a. Messiah
b. Elijah
c. The Prophet
* 1 Kings 17; Deuteronomy 18:15ff
2. I am the VOICE
* Isaiah 40:3
* Like Elijah, saying that this time was the same as the days of Apostasy in Israel and Judah; unlike Elijah in that he came without miraculous signs
- Greatest man ever to live - Matthew 11:7-11; Luke 7:24-28

III. John’s Testimony Concerning Jesus the Light
A. Lamb of God - John 1:29
* Leviticus 16; Isaiah 53
B. Baptizer with the Holy Spirit - note Acts 1-2
* Dual meaning for Israel and the Disciples
C. Bridegroom of Israel - 3:22-36
* Mark 2:19-20; Hosea 2:16-23
* The Nazarite ‘best man’ stands beside the wine-drinking Groom as he ushers in the new world and the new covenant.
* Final words: “He must increase and I must decrease...”
- and thus it happens in the Gospel as Israel is gathered to her Messiah, the Bride to the Bridegroom, John fading from view, eventually receiving the martyr’s crown.

Kicking the Hornet's Nest: Sermon Notes for Sunday, October 7, 2012

It’s a Sign!
Part Four: Kicking the Hornet’s Nest
John 5:1-18 (19-47)
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 7, 2012

I. Jesus Pities the Powerless - John 5:1-9
A. Sin, Death, and Despair
B. Hope is in Christ, not the Water!
* Jesus’ supremacy as the Savior - Great ‘Troubler of the Waters’ (Psalm 77:16-20; same phrase, used of God leading his people in the Exodus through the Red Sea where he tells them “I am the Lord that heals Thee” - Exodus 15).
- Jesus greater than the waters of John’s baptism (1:30-33); greater than the waters of ritual purity (John 2:1-11); greater than water from Jacob’s well (John 4); and greater than the supply of water in the wilderness (John 7). He is Life and Source of Life.

II. Jesus Provokes the Powers - John 5:9ff
A. Jesus ‘works’ on the Sabbath, showing what the Sabbath is truly for - Liberation from the Law of Sin and Death
* Redeeming the Sabbath as gift
B. The man ‘works’ on the Sabbath, showing the grace of God given to him in Jesus, liberating him from sin’s power and paralysis.
* But there are always those who prefer the power of the Law to the power of the Gospel!
C. Jesus confesses his Identity and the source of his Power
D. Jesus’ charged; he offers his witnesses - John 5:31-32
1. John the Baptist - v.33-35
2. His Miracles - v.36
3. The Father - v.37-38
4. The Scriptures - v.39-47


III. Jesus Proclaims the Power of the Gospel - John 5:19-30
Because Jesus is God come as man to men -
* He has Life in Himself and Gives it as a Free Gift, Raising those Dead in Sin
* He has the authority to act as Judge as ‘the Son of Man’
- “You think you’re putting me on trial? You are the ones on trial!”
- “You want to quote Scripture to me? I’m the author and the words are about Me!”
* He has the keys of heaven and hell

This sign should disturb you - that is, if you think Jesus is ‘nice’.
Jesus is merciful and seeks to heal the powerless; he is also just and seeks to topple the arrogant; he is not nice. He has no problem picking fights with the pompous and humiliating them - because he loves them!

The Gospel hope of the broken is to be raised up; the Gospel hope of the proud - especially the religious proud! - is to be brought low so that they might see the glory of the Savior and love him, receiving his love.

Study Notes for John's Gospel, Part Four

John’s Gospel, Part Four
The Incarnate Word
John 1:1-5, 14-18

We looked this past week at the Scriptures’ testimony to Jesus identity as God the Son, the Eternal Word with the Father, the Creator who is Life and from whom comes all Life and Light. We turn now to the great mystery of the Incarnation, that is how the Word - God - becomes flesh and ‘pitched his tent’ among us so that we might behold his glory, the Invisible, Immortal God made visible by the One who is the ‘form’ of God eternally and becomes the ‘form of man’ (Philippians 2), making man immortal and raising him to become a partaker in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

* Creedal Words: Nicene - “Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man...”


I. Incarnation - Enfleshment
A. Not a disguise, or enveloping (Greek thought - gods disguised as mortals to seduce, rape, test, and lure humans into traps of various sorts).
B. Not mere identification with, but an Assumption of what is truly and fully human.
* This leads to God’s ‘taberbacle’ among us: Exodus 25ff, the place where he reveals his glory. This ‘glory’ was ‘with the Father’, is in Christ as his own, and is the disciple’s destiny (John 17).
* Flesh and the Material World - An emphatic ‘No!’ to Gnosticism
- The created world is good, made by God.

II. Fully God, Fully Man

A. We examined last week several passages pointing to the full deity of the Word, but must also confess with the Scriptures the full humanity of the Word made flesh.

B. Luke 2:52; 1 Corinthians 2:8; 15; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:5ff;Hebrews 2:14; 4:15; Matthew 24:36; 26:39; Luke 22:44; 24:39; Matthew 26:38; Acts 20:28; don’t forget the genealogies!

C. Birth of God the Son as Mary’s Son: Matthew 1:18, 23, 25; Luke 1-2
* He was begotten outside time from the Father without a mother, and he was begotten in time from his Mother, without a father.” - Met Kallistos

D. The Great Events: Incarnation, Baptism, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension
- Invasion, Announcement, Revelation, Warfare, Conquest, Enthronement

III. Against the Heresies: Affirming the Truth of the Hypostatic Union
A. The Various Heresies
1. Docetism - merely appeared to be human, but was not
2. Modalism - denying the Trinity and the humanity
3. Arianism - denying deity, trinity, and humanity
4. Eutychianism - denied the distinction in the natures and thus both!
5. Nestorianism - denied the union of the two natures; side by side existence, but no true union, thus denying capacity for communion and mediation.
6. Monophystism - denial of two natures; one nature and one person. But this too denied true Deity and true Humanity.

B. Witness of Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, Ephesus (concerning Mary as Theotokos, “God bearer”, “Mother of God”), and Chalcedon
* Please note handouts

* Totus in suis, Totus in nostris - “Jesus Christ is complete in what is his own, complete in what is ours.” - Pope Leo the Great
* homoousious, not homoiousious: Same substance with the Father not similar; it is also true that he is of the same substance with us, not ‘similar’!

C. In Summary
1. Jesus Christ is fully and completely God
2. Jesus Christ is fully and completely man.
3. Jesus Christ is not two persons, but one.

IV. Implications
* “By assuming our humanity, Christ who is Son of God by nature has made us sons of God by grace.” - Met Kallistos
* “The unassumed is unhealed.” - St Gregory Nazianzus

A. There is no aspect of our humanity which is left outside the realm of redemption.
B. There is no aspect of the creation which is left outside the scope of redemption and has in measure already been glorified again.
C. Salvation is not simply reconciliation and justification, but participation.
D. Because he is fully human, Christ dies a fully human death; because he is fully human he receives a fully human resurrection and ascension. His story is our story; union with Christ is not metaphorical but covenantal and actual.
E. Communion of Attributes - whatever may be affirmed of the natures may be affirmed of the Person.
F. His Glorified body and blood may be consumed but never exhausted; his humanness remains truly human and is at the Father’s right hand; his divinity remains truly divine and he is with us everywhere.

Prophetic Pastors 101

"Morning by morning he awakens my ear to listen...what you hear whispered in your ear, shout from the housetop"(Isaiah; Matthew). There is a season for shouting, but it can be viewed as legitimate only when it is the fruit of silence, of being still enough to hear what is whispered. The vocation of the Pastor is not first speaking, but rather first and foremost, listening. We wait for the soft, distant voice that some confuse with muffled thunder, for the faint cry of someone still breathing under the rubble and ruin of disaster; only then can we speak and act with fruitfulness. It is morning. First, we listen.