“ASK SOMEONE WHO KNOWS” March 23, 2014

John 18:12-27

“Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them. They know what I said.”

Each year during Lent, we are reminded of Peter’s denial. In some ways, it’s old news, not something we focus on the rest of the year—kind of like “there was no room for them in the inn” or “three wise men came from the East.”

Peter is a prominent player in the passion story: he at first refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, he cuts of a man’s ear when the soldiers come to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, and then he snakes along at a close distance denying he even knows Jesus three different times in a matter of a few hours.

Denials, especially ones that affect people on a grand scale, are alive and well. We still have people who believe and books being written that deny the Holocaust ever happened. A great number of educated people deny the effects of Global Warming, and there are Christians who believe that the Church needs to stay just the way it is.

“Denial,” Mark Twain said, “ain’t just a river in Egypt.” And our poor friend Peter gets a master’s degree in the subject here in Chapter 18 of John. “Peter not only denies being Jesus’ disciple, Peter denies being in the Garden. Peter denies any relationship with Jesus. Peter denies all links to the disciples. Peter denies even what Judas acknowledges—that he knows [about] the Garden, the disciples and Jesus.”[1]

While blatant denial is a prominent player in this text, what I would like us to consider today is the opposite of denying Christ: sharing Christ. There’s a lot of bad press about evangelism, which means simply getting out a message; a proclamation of good news. In New England, there are few scarier words in our vocabulary than “evangelism.” There are all kinds of connotations with the idea of evangelism: street corners, soap boxes, sandwich signs and shouting about Jesus and scaring folks into believing that their doomed unless they claim Christ as their personal Lord and Savior right on the spot.

Fear not, New Englanders, there are hundreds of ways to evangelize. One of the most efficient ways is just to tell someone who could be comforted in their circumstances if they were to hear how Jesus has made a difference in your life. No need to cajole, criticize or condemn people; it’s a matter of sharing what Jesus has said and taught that has helped you to overcome a difficulty, withstand a persecution, or oppose and injustice.

Has Jesus made a difference in your life?

This “is not an abstract historical question.  It is a highly powerful and personal question.  The individual’s answer depends on her/his level of openness to the role Jesus Christ desires to play in our lives.”[2]

If Jesus has made a difference in your life, if Jesus has taught you anything about who God is or the promise God has made to you, or if life is more bearable because Jesus lives, then do not keep what Jesus said in the scriptures to yourself.

The High Priest, Annas, not the most upstanding guy in the Temple, questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. The insinuation of sedition drips like poison from Annas’ lips. Jesus was a power-hungry rebel secretly amassing an army of disciples to take over Israel. That was Annas’ job, after all!

But Jesus calmly replies, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have done nothing in secret.”

Jesus had been transparent about his message: Jesus’ mission was focused on reconciling people to God for the sake of their salvation. He had no interest whatsoever in taking over the  land, amassing all the money, or oppressing the Hebrew people. “Ask those who heard what I said to them. They know what I said” (v 21).

On the cusp of the crucifixion, the only ones who can forever after get the good news message out to those who need to hear it are those who have already heard it and have become his disciples too. And their job is to tell what Jesus said and to teach what Jesus taught, and testify to what he has done in their lives.

Unlike Peter, we new disciples have important words to share with others, life-changing lessons to teach. And if we are too shy or reticent to reveal ourselves as people who know, then I wonder if we are not the same as Peter—denying Jesus every time there is an opportunity to say, “I know him. This is what he said, this is what he taught, and this is why I am here today.”

Being silent is just another form of denial. Unless we speak up about what we know, Jesus’ message of forgiveness and unconditional love could die with us. Let’s not stand at quite a comfortable distance, warming ourselves by the fire, as Peter did. Let’s undo the ropes that bound Jesus as an enemy of religion. Walk with him to the foot of the cross and weep in gratitude for his pure sacrifice of love. 

Even as we deny him, Jesus remains faithful to us. Our Lord and Savior is so good, so loving, so truthful and so forgiving that he will find even the tiniest fleck of faith in us and build on it. All he needs is a relationship with you. If you want to know about what Jesus can do in your life, if you want to give your life to him, then ask someone who knows, and then one day you will be the someone who knows. Thanks be to God for the gift of his son, Jesus Christ, who will never forsake us or deny us. That is amazingly Good News! Amen.

March 24, 2014

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, Maine

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] Satterlee, Craig A. “Commentary on John 18:12-27” at www.workingpreacher.org.

[2] http://www.lqjrs.com/fumc/MAKINGADIFFERENCE.HTM

Do You Know What I Have Done to You? March 16, 2014

John 13:1-17

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

 

The one who comes from God and is going to God takes on the menial task of a slave…washing the feet of the master’s guests…just what are we to make of that? In his final few hours of freedom, Jesus is not thinking of the scourge ahead of him; not of the torture of being nailed to a Roman cross and hanging there for three hours until he suffocates; nor is he distressed about the moment of surrender when he will let it go; let it all go, “commending his Spirit” into God’s hands. Jesus, who came from God and was going to God, was thinking of his disciples that night; he loved them to the end—the end of his ministry, the end of his life, the end of his time.  

Picture the scene. These men are sharing the traditional Passover meal in the usual way. There are thirteen of them reclining around each side of the table, stretched out length-wise on pillows, eating with their hands, and conversing with their neighbors. Still, this night is different from all others. The disciples feel apprehensive; the smell of bitter herbs in the air is unusually pungent this night. The wine seems sour on the tongue. Nobody is able to find a comfortable position; they are restless. They hear…fear.

But not Jesus. He is quiet, focused, patient. Without a word, he gets up from the table and removes his robe. He takes a long towel, soft and clean as a cloud, and slowly he ties the white cloth around his waist. One by one, the disciples sense that something is happening; they stop talking to each other; they start looking around; they sense tension in the room. The only sound is the quick trickle of water tumbling into an empty bowl.

What is Jesus doing?

Eyes were wide on the Lord as he lifted the water basin and carried it to the feet of his friends. The men stretched and contorted themselves into uncomfortable positions just to get a good look at Jesus their teacher, their Lord: Jesus was dressed as a slave; he was doing the work of a slave, and he was using tools of a slave with his bare hands.

In those days, none but the lowest servant in the household could be forced to wash another man’s feet. I imagine that Peter’s brain was just exploding with objections as Jesus, servant of all, came near to him.

“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Peter can barely breathe—he’s not offended, he’s … he’s … humiliated. He’s mortified—for himself or for his teacher, or maybe both. Peter cannot allow such a thing! Jesus is his teacher, his friend, his rabbi, his Lord. Peter could not stand the thought of someone so admired, so important, so revered, so God, getting anywhere near the dirtiest part of him, let alone touching him, touching his “dirt.”  “You will never wash my feet.” Peter refuses the Lord.

It is Peter’s knee-jerk reaction that I want to explore with you today. I want to open it up because I think any of us might have that same revulsion to the very idea of Jesus becoming our servant, removing our dirt, washing our feet clean. Yet, cleansing us is exactly what Jesus came to do. He never forgot why he was here, even when death was only half a day away.

CH Spurgeon said, “Our Lord washed the feet of his disciples to show that to the last moment of his communion with them He was full of the deepest and truest love [to] them and was willing to perform the most menial action for their good.”[1]

What is this good? Look at the text again, in verses 14-17: So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

Answer me this: why don’t we like people to see our feet? [corns, calluses, planter’s warts, bunions, hammer toes, cracked feet, swollen feet, ugly feet, flat feet; ingrown toenails, nail fungi, I had a hemorrhage under my toenail this winter that was quite unattractive]. Our feet can cause us embarrassment or shame. We often keep them covered, decorated, we are a “pedicured” people.

Can you imagine, right now, slipping off your shoes and socks and allowing Jesus to wash your feet, right here in the company of so many disciples? We probably would refuse, like Peter did, but the cost would be too dear, for Jesus answers us as he answered Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Jesus washed the disciples’ feet to show all believers the truth about what it takes to love one another. We must be willing to go to the darkest, smelliest, deepest, hidden places with people, treat them with dignity, and lead them to the scandalous unending unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ.

If we do not allow Jesus to wash our feet, then it is as he said, we have no share in him. If we are too proud to have Jesus wash our feet, then we are too proud. If we refuse to allow Jesus to wash our feet, then we refuse to live as he has taught us to live. And if we do not live as he taught us to live, then we do not know how to love others as he has loved us. If Jesus had not done this for us, then we are no more than a bunch of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals—instruments found in many a religious institution today.

My friends, God has created each one of us for great things, but those great things are all rooted in humility. “Humility in the life of the believer is the mark of greatness—not because you shine when you are humbled, but because when you submit to God’s will, God shines through you.”[2]

God’s love can shine through us when we are willing to do whatever it takes to have a share in Jesus Christ. “If there is any deed of kindness or love that we can do for the very meanest and most obscure of God’s people, we ought to be willing to do it—to be servants to God’s servants.”[3] This is what Jesus has done for us.

May the way of humility be the foundation of our new beginning in this church. Let us be his servants in service to the whole human family, even if it is just one person at a time, because serving others is putting Christ’s love in motion. That’s how we let the world know what Jesus Christ has done for us. If you know, say “Amen.”  Amen.

 

March 16, 2014

First parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] Spurgeon, CH. “The Lessons of the Foot-Washing.” October 12, 1879. Sermon No. 1499.

[2] Stanley, Charles. “Humility: The Right Attitude.” InTouch Ministries.

[3] Spurgeon, CH. “Jesus Washing His Disciples’ Feet.” Sermon 612. January 29, 1865.

IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD... March 9, 2014

IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD…





Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11


"Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted by the devil."



"Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil," and with those words Matthew leads us into this first Sunday of Lent—a season of searching— deep searching to understand why this Jesus—the Son of God—would do such a thing as put on the flesh of humanity so that humanity could one day put on the garments of God’s grace.






Every year we come to this story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. We know the story so well: Jesus fasted for forty days and nights; he faced the devil at the end of that time; he was famished and fatigued; yet he sent the devil away defeated and empty handed. He passed every test.


We prayed a little while ago that God would not lead us into temptation, yet how often do we find ourselves facing temptation, and more than that, if we can be honest with ourselves, many of us have failed the test from time to time. Does God not hear our prayer?


I have a friend who always asks, when something weird occurs or something goes wrong, "How’d that happen?"


So, how’d that happen… that God sent his son by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil? If Jesus was the Son of God, after all, wouldn’t you presume that he was good to go just as he was?


What is it about temptation that warrants testing? The thing about temptation is that the test is really about something much deeper than what appears on the surface.


The temptations Jesus faces aren’t really about bread, pinnacles and kingdoms. They are actually about true obedience to God because one absolutely trusts that God will do what God has promised to do.


Trust is also the foundation of human relationships. Without trust in a relationship, nothing else in that relationship has much to stand on.


When we test that trust, in other words, succumb to temptation, we are sending ourselves into a personal wilderness—spiritually a very dangerous place to be. Temptation is the devil’s territory; Jesus handled Satan to show us how to stand strong when evil attempts to lead us away from trusting in God.


Satan delights in destroying our ability to trust. He knows just how to make us question what God says. In the Genesis passage, the serpent asks, "Did God really say…" the


technique was so successful with Eve in Eden that the devil uses it again with Jesus in the wilderness.


"Did God really say… that YOU are the Son of God? What kind of father lets his son be hungry? If you are the Son of God, take matters into your own hands; turn these stones into bread. Feed yourself."


Certainly Christ had the power to turn stone into bread, but if he did so, he would be obedient to the devil and not to his father’s will. It was not the right time for people to know that Jesus was the Messiah. As Jesus said, he would rely only on every word that proceeded from the mouth of God.


God’s word clearly stated that the Son must first suffer and then be glorified. In obedience to God, Christ would never accept the crown before he bore the cross. The devil could not make him do it!






The deeper temptation for us is to accept the glory and skip the gory. It’s so much faster and neater that way. But life is not always swift and clean, is it. This temptation episode teaches us to accept God’s plan for our lives according to God’s purpose and not our preferences. That’s how we learn to trust God through faith.


So Satan used God’s word to tempt Jesus into testing his trust in his Father. "If you are the Son of God," Satan said, "throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Did God not say that he will command his angels to bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone?"


The deeper temptation is to choose our own timing over God’s plan. That’s disobedience; that’s not trusting God to do what God promised he would do when the time is right. For God to work out his plan for our lives, we have to be willing to trust that God’s timing to be perfect. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.


Satan finally has the audacity to offer Christ all the kingdoms of the earth on his own terms, as if Satan were the rightful lord over them all. "Even if you are the son of God, bow down and worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth in an instant. Martin Luther was outraged by the devil’s insinuation: "He is claiming to be God himself!"


Jesus holds his own with Satan; he remains obedient to God to the ends of the wilderness. Jesus trusts his father’s word, his father’s will, and most of all, his father’s claim on him.


Jesus has come not to rule Satan’s kingdom but to proclaim the reign of God. Jesus is patient. He waits upon the Lord, because the promise is that after the resurrection, Jesus will receive all authority in heaven and on earth, but it will be God’s gift and not Satan’s seduction.


Jesus, the Beloved, truly is the "Son of God." There’s no "if" about him. The Son of God is not concerned with privilege or power or personality. To be a Son—or Daughter—of God


we use the gifts God has set before us: the strength to be obedient to his word and the faith to trust that God will surely do what God has said he would do.


This Lent, let’s have a new beginning in our life together, let’s worship the Lord our God and serve only him. It’s the best protection against falling into temptation—and it lessens the chance we’ll be asking, "How’d that happen?"


The very best way to carry our crosses into God’s glory is to be obedient to him, and trusting of him, at all times. Amen.


March 9, 2014 FPFC South Berwick, ME/ Rev Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

A Visit with Peter’s Mother-in-Law March 2

Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16-21

“While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’”

Chavah: I hope you won’t mind if we talk while I continue with my bread making—it’s a constant thing, making and baking bread. I never know when my son-in-law Peter and the band of brothers are going to show up. They tend to come over after temple, I live practically next door.

I don’t mind: I like working with my hands and I love the way our little house smells when there’s bread on the fire. Can you smell it? MMM MMMM, there’s nothing like it! I think they can smell it across the yard and that’s why they come here every Friday night.

First, I should properly introduce myself. I am Chavah. My name comes from the Torah and means “living and breathing.” My name in gentile language would be Eve, you know…THE Eve, the one in the garden, Eve…. She was made from Adam to be living and breathing—that’s before that incident with the apple, of course.

I wonder if my parents could have known what would happen to me when the Lord came to my house and brought me back from death’s door….but how could they have known that one who was as good as dead could be made living and breathing again -- but I digress.

My daughter married Peter several years ago, when he was a fisherman—and making good money at it, I might add! We were doing well, until the day when the carpenter’s son showed up at the shore where Peter and Andrew, James and John, were just coming in from the lake and mending their nets after a good night of fishing.

When poor ol’ Zebedee told me what happened with his sons, James and John, when Jesus showed up that morning, I wanted to tear my apron in solidarity with all parents whose children get some crazy idea in their heads and run off; after all the time, money, and proper religious upbringing you put into them. Peter and his brother Andrew did the same thing!

I told my daughter that Peter was not the brightest fig on the tree and that he would break her heart someday, but she married him anyway. The strangest thing, when he sent her that note about finding the Messiah and he was going with him—he didn’t know where and didn’t know how long he’d be gone, I was furious. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Kids these days….If my husband—may his memory be a blessing—had done that to me…ohhh, I digress!

Messiah saw something in Peter that was special—the way he sees something special in all of us, I believe, and so he forgives our idiosyncrasies, those annoying personal habits that drive your family and friends crazy.

I don’t have any of those, and I am sure none of you does either…but Peter, Peter, his-own-words eater… he was an impetuous guy—he always opened his mouth before he thought things through—you don’t know anybody like that do you? I always said my son-in-law had a foot-shaped mouth. That’s because he was forever putting his foot in it! Yet…yet….

There was that one day that Peter told us about…the day he witnessed Jesus, Moses and Elijah shining like the sun—a blinding light—at the top of Mount Tabor—you see the holy mountain there on your worship map.

The picture doesn’t do it justice, I’m afraid. To see the towering Tabor to the southwest of the Sea of Tiberius, nearer to Nazareth, is to see a mountain rising all by itself above the surrounding flat plain. The mountain is covered in lush green cover all the way to the top—660 meters above sea level! O Tabor, the Mountain of the Transfiguration! A Holy, Holy place, for sure.

This is what Peter told me. In the month of Elul, that would be your month of August, Jesus took Peter, James and John up that mountain. When the four got to the top, suddenly the Lord was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became a dazzling white.

“There’re just no words to describe it,” Peter said. “Hamoti! (which means “Mother-in-law,” a term of respect back then) Moses, the Holy-Law giver, and Elijah our greatest prophet, they were there, too! And gleaming like the sun as they talked with Jesus!” I would swear that Peter’s face, too, was shining as he told me of this event.

“Hamoti, it was not just a vision of my mind; it was real…and it was not all that happened! I got to speak to them!”

“Oh, no!” I thought, “Peter, you didn’t…!” but he did.

“Hamoti,” I said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here; one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

And my heart sank. Only my khah-than. Not only does he interrupt the Lord Jesus when he is speaking with the greatest men of the Hebrew nation, but also he suggests building each of them a dwelling—a booth—as a memorial to that transfiguration to this happening; really?!

As if a dwelling grand enough, holy enough for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, could be constructed by human hands! Once again he puts his proverbial foot in his mouth, where it fits so well.

“Hamoti! While I was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed us, and from the cloud the voice of Majestic Glory, the voice of Yahweh--El Shaddai--Adonai—a voice like you have never heard before—we ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with the Lord on the holy mountain.

He said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! Yet, I couldn’t help it, none of us could; we were frightened to death, but Jesus, Rabbi, he came to us and touched us—oh, no one has a hand like he—and he said in the kindest voice, ‘Get up and do not be afraid!’ How can I say this so you could understand….”

Ahhh… my poor khah-than, my dear Peter, what he witnessed, what he was trying to say…I think I understood it long before he did…because I remember his touch, his healing touch, when I had been so sick. He touched me and nothing has ever been the same. I was praying to die I was so ill, yet when the Lord healed me, all I wanted to do was rise up and serve them my best bread. Modern people—women—they criticize me for that, but I digress….

Perhaps you are skeptical of the Transfiguration of Messiah? I know you modern folk, with your science-based culture, you find it hard to believe in transfiguration, but perhaps that is because you want to know “how” it works rather than why it happened, hmmm?

The Transfiguration happened, I swear, to show us humans the reality of Messiah inside and out. For just a few moments in all of history, Jesus’ humanity and his divinity were revealed at the same time. Yeshua, He is divine, his character is spotless, his heart is pure, he is pure, he is the light of earth and heaven.

Just before Peter’s death in 68, AD, he wrote a second letter to the Christians in Asia Minor, and he warned them, and warns us still, that the Trans-figuration was a witnessed prophetic message for all the children of God.

“You will do well,” Khah-than wrote, “to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” [2 Peter 1:19b]

Morning stars together, we humans who believe, we can only bear so much of God’s glory! Even at your darkest moment, like when I was so ghastly ill, we have the witness of the saints—even one with a foot-shaped mouth—to believe in Messiah, who came to save us.

Jesus, I saw the Light in him; I felt the Light of Love in his touch. I got up that evening and rejoiced that I could serve my Lord.

And I know that’s what Jesus meant when he said to Peter and the Zebedee brothers, “Get up and do not be afraid…it’s time to go down the mountain and serve the people, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned, the captives and the sin-sick souls…

It is Messiah whom we serve; it is his light, the Majestic Glory, who calls us still today to be the Chavah, living and breathing, eyewitnesses to the Son of God, the Beloved, the one with whom our God is well-pleased. Let us listen to him!

I see that my bread is done, and it is time to attend to the table; such a lovely visit we’ve had.  Listen now, for our Lord is expecting us as his guests. May His memory be a blessing! Prepare to greet him with a holy kiss.” Amen.

 

March 2, 2014/First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, Maine/The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor