Taking Care of Our Own

Lessons for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

Acts 2:42-47

Psalm 23

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

I spent four of my eight years as an undergrad at SU delivering pizzas for Domino’s…and this was on top of my regular full-time job at the SU li­brary. In spite of what you might have heard about some of the horrors of pizza delivery, I ac­tually enjoyed this job.

First of all, there was the free food…anytime we slightly burned a pie or it came back to the store for some reason, we got to eat it. Then there was the fact that as a pizza driver, you really got to learn your way around the area.

Then, of course, there were the tips. On a good night you could make ten dollars from a four hour shift. You got to the point where you knew which neighborhoods had good tippers and which ones had people who would actually wait for the 4¢ change from their $3.96 pizza (this was back in the 80s). As a result, when Cheryl’s sister and her husband were buying the house that we live in now, I could say to them, “It’s a good neighbor­hood…they tip.”

But aside from the tips and the free food was the fact that on any given night, if you were driv­ing in the University area, you were bound to run into a few people you knew. So I wasn’t at all sur­prised when I took a pizza to a certain room in Shaw Hall and found that I was delivering it to Don and Lisa, two people I knew from Lutheran Campus Ministry.

I don’t remember what kind of pizza they or­dered. I don’t remember whether or not they had Pepsi with it. I don’t remember how much the pizza came to. But I do remember the tip.

Don gave me a two dollar tip, which was a lot in student money, and said, “We Lutherans take care of our own.”

All who believed were together and had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and dis­tribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

That’s what Luke wrote about the early Church. If Don were to paraphrase it, he’d probably just say, “We Christians take care of our own.”

Taking care of our own is a phrase that we can very easily become uncomfortable with because it can bring up images of exclusion. How many times have you heard someone say, “We have to take care of our own before we worry about anyone else’s needs”? And yet, I don’t think this is the way that Don meant it. When Don said “We Lu­therans take care of our own” he was being inclu­sive. He was including me, up to that point still a card carrying Episcopalian, with the sheep in the Lutheran flock.

Do we take care of our own? Do we Lutherans, do we Christians,  really take care of each other like the members of the early church did? I think it’s safe to say that we don’t come anywhere close. Lots of things conspire against us to prevent this.

Part of the problem is that we’re all so scat­tered. How many of us live in the same neighbor­hoods or even on the same block? How many of us only see each other once or twice a week here? It’s hard to know the needs and take care of people you only see once a week.

Another part of the problem is the American obsession with not wanting to give up independ­ence or control. We don’t want to let people know that we may have a need that they can help us with. We don’t want to let people know that we can’t do it all ourselves. We don’t want to owe anyone anything back in return.

There’s a saying in our house that comes from watching too many families play the “You should know what I want” or “You should know why I’m upset” games. The saying is, “We are not Kreskin,” after the famous mind reader. How many of us are angry at the church for not taking care of some need of ours…some need that we haven’t told anyone about? How many of us just expect the church to know when there’s a problem that we need help with? The church, though it is the body of Christ, is not Kreskin.

Ironically, one of the things that may conspire against us taking care of each other is how much we try to take care of the rest of the world. If you’re my age you may remember a song by Three Dog Night called Easy To Be Hard. It says:

Especially people who care about strangers 

Who care about evil and social injustice 

Do you only care about the bleeding crowd 

How about a needing friend

 For some reason it seems so much easier to mount a campaign to take care of the problems of people in some far off land than to help those who are among us. Perhaps, like the crud that gets on my eyeglasses all the time, the problems of the people next to us in the pews are too close to see. Maybe we think we’d be being too intrusive if we offered to help without being asked. Maybe we’re afraid of looking like a failure if we ask for help.

And yet, if we worry about appearing too intru­sive, aren’t we more concerned about ourselves? Where is the care we’re supposed to show for the other members of the body of Christ? If we don’t ask for help when we need it because of our own pride or need for independence, aren’t we depriving someone else of a chance of Christlike service?

There are many reasons why we don’t look like that picture Luke painted of the early Church. But we don’t have to just sit around and beat ourselves up about it. We don’t need to look at their example as law, as “Do it this way or you’ve blown it and you’re not worthy of the name Chris­tian.” Let’s consider why they did it this way, why they shared everything.

I’d like to think that it was a response to the love God had already showed them through Je­sus, a response to a gift already given, rather than an attempt to earn salvation by making some sort of business deal with God.

I remembered the example that Don set and try to take that as a challenge. An ideal to aspire to. Let’s look at the example that Luke wrote about in the same way, an ideal to aspire to, even though we’ll certainly fall on our faces from time to time.

Let’s start trying to take care of our own as well as “the bleeding crowd”. Try actually letting people know that you’re having problems that they might be able to help out with.

And while you’re at it, the next time you order a pizza, give the delivery person a good tip. After all, I’d like to think that we Lutherans take care of all pizza deliverers.

Good News!

Lessons for Advent 2 in Year A

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

The prophet Isaiah gives good news:

There will come one upon whom the spirit of the Lord will rest. He will judge with righteousness and destroy the wicked by the breath of his lips. He will make every­thing right, and set the world at peace.

John the baptist gives good news too:

Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand! The one Isaiah spoke of is coming!

This is definitely good news. It was good news to the people of his time…a time of crime, disease, and injustice…a time not much unlike our own. It’s also good news for us. The kingdom of God is at hand. All the horrible things we read about in the newspapers and hear about on TV and radio are not the last word. The kingdom of God is at hand, there will be justice, there will be peace, the evil will be destroyed. Everything will be just fine.

Yes, it’s definitely good news, but do we really understand what it’s all about? Do we really un­derstand what John and Isaiah are saying? I’m not sure that we do. I suspect that there’s just a little smugness in our looking forward to the arrival of God’s kingdom.

Smugness? Us? To borrow a line from the old Warner Brothers cartoons, “Mmm now…it’s a possibility.” In looking forward to justice, to peace, and the destruction of evil, whose perspective are we looking at it from? Perspective makes all the difference in the world. Do we really understand that our perspective is probably not the same as the person sitting next to us. Do we really understand that our perspective is most likely not the same as God’s?

We are smug if we look forward to the arrival of the kingdom of God as the time when all those who have done us wrong will finally get theirs…without considering those whom we might have wronged. We are smug if we look forward to the destruction of those evil people over there…without considering that we may rightly be considered evil by others…and by God. If we have any real understanding of exactly what’s going on here, then we won’t smugly look forward to the arrival of the kingdom of God as the time when our side wins and we finally get what we think we deserve. Rather, we would look forward to it with fear and trembling as the time when God wins, and we have to face the possibility that we will be counted among the unjust and the evil.

But wait a minute. What happened to the good news that I was talking about? How can I say that a proper understanding of the coming of the Kingdom of God requires acknowledging that we may be counted among the unjust and the evil, and call this good news?

Very easily. I can say this because of something else that John said, and that the Pharisees understood. And let’s talk about the Pharisees for a moment. For all the bad press they’ve received in the New Testament, they’re not the bad guys we’ve come to think of them as. Of the four major movements with Judaism during Jesus’s time, he was probably the closest to the Pharisees. So then why do we read so much about the arguments Jesus had with them? For the same reason we read about the few plane crashes and not the thousands of safe arrivals…the disa­greements, like the crashes are few enough that they stand out and grab our attention.

But let’s go back to what the Pharisees un­derstood. They understood another piece of good news that John had. A piece of good news that lay in one very important word. That word is “repent.” John said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”

What’s such good news about being told to repent? There’s much good news in it. We’ve been given a warning. We’ve been told what is needed for us to enter into the kingdom of God. We have a chance to change. We have a chance to try to change…to look at ourselves, see where we have been unjust, where we have been evil, where we have been obstructions to peace. We have a chance to be honest rather than smug.

John is saying “Repent and God will accept you!” “Repent and you won’t be counted among the unjust and evil.” You have a chance to get in on this deal, but you must face the fact of your own sin and then try to turn away from it. The Pharisees understood this, and that’s why they went to John for baptism.

The kingdom of God is at hand! This is good news. Rejoice…and repent so that you might enter into it.

Who Do You Trust?

The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost - Year C

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:18-26

Psalm 49:1-11

Colossioans 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

The psalmist writes that he should not be afraid of the wickedness of those who trust in their goods. He says that they die like everyone else, leaving their wealth to those who come after them.

The writer of Ecclesiastes says pretty much the same thing; that no matter how much we accumulate here and now, we’ll all die and we can’t take it with us.

I remember a TV show when I was a kid. The thing that I particularly recall about it is that it came on during American Bandstand on weekday afternoons. Now, that in itself is not so unusual, many shows on many different channels came on during American Bandstand. What was different about this show was that it came on the same channel. Dick Clark would get started at 2.45, and then at about 2.58 announce that they’d be cutting away for this other show, and then at 3.30 we were back to Philadelphia.

Someone at ABC figured that since American Bandstand was getting such great ratings, they’d stick this new show in the middle of it to give it a boost. You don’t see them doing that much anymore.

The name of this other show was Who Do You Trust? and those of you with really good memories will recall that the emcee was a comedian from Nebraska named Johnny Carson, and his announcer was a former circus clown named Ed McMahon.

But we’re going off on a tangent here. I brought up the show because its title is  my question. Who do you trust? Or rather, where do you put your trust?

The psalmist and the writer of Ecclesiastes tell us that contrary to what all the t-shirts and bumper stickers say, the one who dies with the most toys…or fabric…has no advantage, that person is dead just like the rest of us. What’s the point in working feverishly to accumulate things if we’re all going to die anyway? Is it the old Schlitz mentality that says, “You only go around this way once, so you might as well grab all the gusto”?

Where is our trust if this is what we believe? Surely not in God, and that’s unfortunate, be­cause he offers us so much more than our possessions could ever hope to.

Jesus said that there is more to life than the ac­cumulation of possessions. This is good news. This is wonderful news.

It’s good news because it tells those of us who have little that we’re not out of the game yet. It tells us that contrary to what our culture might tell us, we’re not failures if we don’t have the latest luxury car, the most fashionable clothes, and a hefty bank account. In fact, it tells us that the people who do have all these things might be the failures if they lack the right attitude.

Jesus told about a farmer whose land produced more than he could ever use. I’d like to tell you a different story.

I was teaching a computer workshop at Syracuse University, and on this particular day I was showing the ten or so people in the room how to use a spreadsheet.

Now for those of you who don’t know what a spreadsheet is, the simplest way I can describe it is that it’s a program that lets you do budgets and accounting so that you can keep track of how much you’ve made, how much you’ve spent, and how much you’ll have at the end of the year.

I started out by telling them, “You’ve just won $3 million in the lottery. Now we have to keep track of the money.”

I explained that they wouldn’t get the 3 million in one lump sum, and showed them how to set up the spreadsheet so that it would take any lottery prize and divide it into 20 equal payments. This brought them down to $150,000 a year.

Then I showed them how to set up the spread­sheet to figure out how much they’d have left if 28% of the yearly payout was taken in taxes.

Having gotten this far, I said to them, “You now have $108,000 left to spend this year. What’s the first thing you’re gonna do with it?”

One of the people in the room said, “Let’s give some of it away,” and all of a sudden the whole group was discussing organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International, and Covenant House. It was only after they had given away a fair portion of their prize money that they started talking about things like paying back student loans, buying cars, buying houses, taking it easy, and putting some money aside for when the prize payments stopped coming.

These people understood that there is more to life than the accumulation of possessions. They understood that there is more to life than trying to keep as much as you can for yourself. You see, there’s nothing wrong with being rich, there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of nice things…provided you have the right attitude. The rich farmer didn’t have the right attitude. The students I taught that day did.

Where do you put your trust? Is it in things that will only comfort you in this lifetime, or is it in the one who can also comfort you in the next? Do our possessions and our culture’s mad dash to have “more, more, more” blind us to the needs of others, and to our own spiritual needs? Do we spend so much time working for our comfort in this life that we neglect our plans for the next?

Jesus said that there is more to life than the accumulation of possessions. I saw a bumper sticker a few years ago that I really liked. It said, “The one who dies with their sins forgiven wins.”

Where do you put your trust?

On the RIght Side

Lessons for the Third Sunday of Easter - Year C

Acts 9:1-20

Psalm 30

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-14

I don’t like to be wrong. I hate it when I’m wrong. I always want to be right. Big sur­prise, huh? But consider this…I want to know when I’m wrong. How does this square with always wanting to be right? Very easily, you see, the sooner you point out to me that I was wrong, the sooner I can get back to be­ing right.

How many of us grew up hearing from some­one that you should never correct grownups when they’re wrong? Fortunately, I didn’t hear that too often in my family, but when I did hear someone say that, I hated it. It made no logical sense to me…wouldn’t the grownup rather know that she was wrong so she could stop making a fool of herself? Apparently not…in my youthful naïveté I ne­glected to account for the role that ego plays in adults, and the fact that nothing is more embarrassing than to be shown up by a kid. Fortunately, there’s been some progress on that front…in the computer world, most of us, myself included, have pretty much conceded that when the going gets rough, you call an eighth grader…it’s amazing what those kids can fix.

I said that I always want to be right. I didn’t say that I always wanted my opinion to be the right one. What I’m saying, and it’s a very subtle difference, is that I want to have the opinion that is right, I want to be on the side that is right, and if I’m currently on the wrong side, I want to be corrected. Hey…when I get lost, I ask for directions…I learned that from my father.

We all like to be right. So then why do so many of us hate to be corrected…especially by kids and others we perceive to be outside our area of expertise? It’s an ego issue…we want to be right, so we can’t admit that we were wrong. We’re afraid that the person correcting us is going to show us up. Yet, isn’t that person doing us a favor? After all, he could just as well have let us go on looking like fools. As a teacher I know that you need to be corrected in order to do better. Yet why do so many of us resist correction?

 “Put the net on the right side.” Peter and his companions were experienced fishermen, and could easily have said, “Who is this guy on the shore, anyway?” They had been out in the boat all night, caught nothing, and now some guy they don’t know from Adam tells them to try putting the net on the other side of the boat. Right…big difference that’s gonna make…if there ain’t fish on this side of the boat, there ain’t gonna be any on that side either. How many of us would’ve reacted that way? Yet, Peter and company took the correction, cast the net on the other side of the boat, and voila…breakfast.

Saul was on his way to Damascus to perse­cute some more Christians when he saw the light…really, that’s where we get the phrase from. What made him different from the other members of the religious establish­ment? What was it about him that made Je­sus take the time to say, “Saul, get on the right side”? I’d like to think that it was that he actually believed in what he was doing. He wasn’t concerned about Temple politics, or keeping the Romans happy, or what this fledgling movement might do to his career. He honestly thought that this was a hereti­cal movement. He honestly thought that he was serving God…his God…our God…by get­ting rid of these people. Fortunately, Jesus met him before he did too much more dam­age, said, “Guess again, guy,” and corrected him.

Jesus told Peter and Saul that they were on “the wrong side.” He didn’t tell them in order to show them up. He told them in order to correct them, so that they could get on the right side. Or to paraphrase John 3:17, “Je­sus didn’t come into the world to gloat at our stupidity, but to correct us.” He corrects us because he loves us, because he wants us with him. On his side…at his side.

Notice what Saul didn’t do…he didn’t start out with a whole list of reasons why he thought he was right to do what he did. He didn’t try to make excuses, he didn’t try to justify himself before God. He gave the only really proper response to being corrected, he simply said, “Oops. Sorry.” and then got on the right side, just as Peter and his friends put their net on the right side.

How many of us can accept correction so easily, and without feeling threatened? It’s not always easy for me…just ask Cheryl, she’ll be happy to tell you. How many of us are willing to accept the fact that we need to be corrected by God, and see his willing­ness to correct us as a sign of his love for us? How many of us see correction as his trying to make us better?

Jesus corrected Peter and Saul. But how of­ten do we get corrected? How often do we really allow ourselves to be corrected? How often do we actually ask to be corrected? When we pray, do we say, “God, please cor­rect me if I’m wrong,” or are we more likely to say, “Please let me be right”?

It always amuses me when I hear people give detailed reasons why someone else’s theo­logical point of view is wrong. Usually, what it boils down to is “But I grew up believing it was this way, I was taught that it was this way. And God can’t do things differently than the way I was taught.” Yeah…right. What are you going to say when, not “if”, but when God says to you, “Yo, Deanna…”, “Yo, Steve…”, “Yo, Debbie…you were wrong about this one”? Are you going to argue with him, pointing out how you did the best you could with the information you had at the time, are you going to resist because so much of yourself is tied up in having your point of view be right, or are you going to be able to realize that God still loves you in spite of the fact that you blew it on quite a few is­sues, and is correcting you because he loves you and wants to make you better?

Personally, I look forward to saying “Oops, sorry” quite a bit someday, because then that will put me on the right side…and as I said before, I always have to be right.

All We Like Sheep

Lessons for the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost - Year B

Psalm 23

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Ephesians 2:13-22

Mark 6:30-34

Sheep. What do you think of when you think about sheep? They’re cute, they’re soft and cuddly…and they’re dumb. Yup, they’re dumb, dim, stupid, clueless. I asked a friend of mine who grew up with sheep about this, and she pretty much said that they wouldn’t have a clue if you gave them all four letters and put the first three in order.

“They were like sheep without a shepherd.”

“The Lord is my shepherd.”

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.”

What’s this saying? We’re like sheep…and we are without a clue. You, me, all of us.

Now before you take this too personally, and start preparing the tar and feathers, let’s consider what this really means. If we’re like sheep, if we’re clueless, this means that quite often the things we do wrong, the things we do that hurt other people, aren’t a result of malicious intent, but from being clueless. Don’t get me wrong here, there are still plenty of times when we’re, as Garrison Keillor would say, “Just plain rotten,” but I think that for most of us, our problem comes from being clueless.

This also means that many times when we think we’re doing the right thing, when we think we’re doing what God really wants us to do and have the opinions that God really wants us to have, we’re really way out in left field. To paraphrase Maxwell Perkins, most of the harm in this world is not done by people who are truly evil (of which there are blessed few), but by people with the best of intentions. What we have very often is not so much a battle between good and evil, but more likely a battle between competing goods.

Protestant vs Catholic, ELCA vs LCMS[i], Democrats vs Republicans, Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice, cloth diapers vs disposables. We each honestly disagree on the positions here because we’re like those sheep…clueless. We have some information…some information. Enough to convince us that we really are doing the right thing, and that those who disagree with us are obviously and obstinately wrong. But we don’t have all the information, the information that might tell us that it’s not a case of picking A or B, but maybe it’s O. And even if we did have all the information, I’m not sure we’d be able to process it.

So what’s my point, and how am I going to tie some theology into this so that it’s a real sermon and not a Rotary Club address? I’m not saying that knowledge will give us a clue and make us less sheep-like. We’ll leave that for the Gnostics. No…to me being likened to a sheep and being called clueless is incredibly freeing. Why? Because it means that contrary to what some of you who know me might think, I don’t have to always be right. Being a sheep, being clueless frees me to be wrong every now and then…often…a lot. Because Jesus saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd…and had compassion on them.

Hey…Jesus knows I’m stupid, okay? He knows I can’t figure it all out, and that I’m gonna get it wrong most of the time. And it doesn’t matter. He sees that I’m a sheep that’s wandered off in the wrong direction because I was clueless…sincere, but clueless…and he comes to get me. That’s good news. That’s really good news…I’m not totally out of luck if I try my hardest and make a wrong turn. I’ve got a shepherd who’s looking out for all of his dumb sheep.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

We all know that line. Jesus said it on the cross, about the very people who put him there. What’s it mean in real English? “God, forgive these people, for they are sooo clueless.” Jesus had compassion on those who were clueless enough to kill him…people who probably would’ve treated him much differently had they understood who he was and what was at stake…people much like us, who probably did the wrong thing in good faith.

Being called a sheep also frees me to consider that even though I may disagree with you, you might be right. In fact it forces me to say that, since being a sheep means that there’s a good chance that I’m wrong on any particular issue. It frees Democrats to consider that maybe Republicans aren’t all selfish people who want to hoard all their money and Republicans to consider that maybe Democrats don’t just want to take their hard earned money and give it someone who hasn’t even seen “hard work” in the dictionary. It frees Pro-Choice people to see Pro-Lifers as people who are genuinely concerned about the babies and Pro-Lifers to see Pro-Choicers are people who are genuinely concerned about the mothers.

It frees us as members of one Christian denomination to be able to tell members of another that we know where we disagree, but we don’t know where we’re right and they’re wrong.

Now that’s a tough one. I’ve gotta say that the Catholics might be right…or Missouri Synod Lutherans? Yes…but because we’re all sheep, they have to do the same thing, because none of us has it all.

And this reminds me of a joke I heard.

One day Bishop Chilstrom’s assistant went into his office and said, “Bishop, I have some good news for you and some bad news for you. Which would you like first?” 

The Bishop said, “Give me the good news first.” 

His assistant said, “The good news is that Jesus is on the phone and wants to talk to you.” 

Bishop Chilstrom said, “Wonderful! So what’s the bad news?” 

His assistant paused for a moment and said, “He’s calling from St Louis.”[ii]

There’s good news in that joke. There’s good news whether it’s Bishop Chilstrom receiving a call from St Louis or the Pope receiving a call from Salt Lake City. That good news is that even when we’re at our most clueless we have a shepherd who still wants us and has compassion on us.

Now that I’ve said all that, notice what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that being like sheep makes everything we do okay. It’s not an excuse. We can’t just say, “Hey, I’m a clueless sheep, what do you want from me?” It’s an explanation, just a statement of fact. We do a lot of things that end up hurting people because we’re clueless, but that doesn’t excuse us from at least trying to get it right, and it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to fix those things we’ve messed up. We still have a responsibility to try to do the best we can, but we also know that when we fail, and we will fail from time to time, it’s not the end of the world. Our salvation doesn’t hinge on us being perfect. It hinges on the shepherd…a shepherd who knows he’s dealing with a bunch of some of the dumbest creatures there are, and who is willing to cut us some slack.

The important thing here is being willing to admit that we’re clueless. None of us really likes to admit when we’re wrong, but how can the shepherd help us if we’re not willing to admit that we might be lost? If we stubbornly and tenaciously insist that we’re right and aren’t even willing to entertain the possibility that we may be even slightly off, how can the shepherd bring us back to where we’re supposed to be?

We’re like sheep, and sheep are dumb. But if being a sheep gives me a shepherd with such great compassion, then I don’t think that being a sheep is so baa-aa-aa-aad.

---

[i]. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America vs Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. We're ELCA.

[ii]. The headquarters of the LCMS.

While We Were Yet Sinners

Lessons for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost - Year A

Psalm 100

Exodus 19:2-8a

Romans 5:6-11

Matthew 9:35-10:8

“But God proves his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

Paul said that in Romans. Chapter 5, verse 8, to be exact. That’s a verse to remember, which is not to say that you can junk the rest of the Bible, no…not at all. But this verse is of particular im­portance…so much so that I’m gonna repeat it:

“God proves his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

Did you hear that? Did you really hear and under­stand what Paul said there? Well, at the risk of really annoying you, I’m gonna say it one more time:

“God proves his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

God loves us…not because of anything we’ve done…but while we’re sinners. God didn’t say, “Be perfect and then I’ll love you,” he said, “You’re a sinner and I love you enough to die for you.” Wow.

Hi, my name is Keith…and I’m a sinner. And to paraphrase something Darren Stephens once said when describing his mother-in-law on the old TV show Bewitched, I can say with absolutely no malice, that you’re all sinners too. That is why we’re here, isn’t it? Not because we’re particu­larly better than anyone else, not because we’ve worked harder, or done more…but because we’re sinners. Our sins may not be as obvious as the person next door who kicks the dog, the one across the street who cheats on her taxes, or the person whose sexual lifestyle we disagree with, but we are sinners nonetheless. And that’s why we’re here.

But wait…there’s more. If it were just that we were sinners, what would be the point? Why bother coming here week after week just to make ourselves more depressed in the knowledge that we’re totally messed up? That’s not the whole story. The simple fact that we are sinners is a start, but that’s all…just a start. As Paul Harvey might say…the rest of the story is that God loves us. And that’s why we’re here. Because God loves us. God loves me. God loves you, you, and yes…even you.

Take a look at the Old Testament lesson. What had the Israelites done to merit God’s delivering them from Egypt and making them his people? Nothing. There were probably other cultures that had more accomplishments to speak of, there were probably also other cultures that we just bet­ter all around people. Let’s face it, as far as cul­tures went at the time, by pretty much any stan­dard the Israelites were nothing. But God showed his love for the Israelites while they were still nothing…while they had done nothing to deserve it.

And look at the Gospel lesson. What had any of the twelve done to merit Jesus picking them to be his apostles? Were they particularly better than anyone else in the area? One look at Peter and Judas should give you the answer to that ques­tion…and let’s not forget the sons of Zebedee, who argued over who’d sit on which side of Jesus’ throne. And yet Jesus picked them any­way…while they were still annoying little…well, you get the idea.

And let’s go back to Paul. God loves us while we are still sinners. We haven’t done anything to earn it. We can’t do anything to earn it, so don’t even bother trying. Don’t sit there thinking of all the reasons why you’re a “good Christian,” because ultimately, it doesn’t count. God loves us while we are still sinners, and what makes us Christians is our recognition of the fact that we’re sinners, and that God loves us enough to have sent his Son to die for us…when he could’ve just looked at us and said, “Nah.”

So…if God loves us while we’re still sinners, if God picked the Israelites not because of anything they had done to earn being picked, if Jesus picked the disciples not because they were the best people in town, what’s the deal?

First of all, there’s what God can do with us. God took a ragtag bunch of enslaved nomads out of Egypt, and turned them into a great people…a people who, against odds that might have totally wiped out other peoples, are still strong today. Jesus took a ragtag bunch of fishermen, tax collec­tors, and assorted others, and with one exception, turned them into the people who helped spread the good news all over the world. And God can take us…with all our frailties, with all our petty snip­ing and “holier than thou” posturing…with all our sins…and turn us into something great too.

Second, knowing that God loves us while we’re still sinners frees us. Yes, it frees us. It frees us from trying to do things to earn God’s love. We already have it, it’s a gift that’s free for the taking, and you can’t earn a gift. So then, if we can’t earn  God’s love, then where does all the doing good stuff come in? Very simple, it’s a response. We don’t do good things to bribe God into loving us, we do them as a grateful response to his love for us. Knowing that God loves us while we’re still sinners frees us from worrying about how to earn his love and frees us to respond to it. And perhaps our response will show others who are still caught up in trying to earn God’s approval that he loves them already.

“God proves his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

My name is Keith and I’m a sinner. But I’m also a person that God loves…as are all of you. Respond to that.

After the Rooster Crows

Assigned Text

Luke 22:54-62

We all know Peter’s story. He told Jesus that he’d be willing to follow him…even to death. But Jesus knew better, and told Peter that by the time the rooster crowed, he would’ve denied knowing him three times. Peter was still sure of himself, he wasn’t counting on being tested when he was most vulnerable, when he was the least pre­pared…and when the rooster crowed, it was to point out that he had indeed failed…just like Jesus said he would. And when the rooster crowed, Peter wept bitterly.

Yeah, we all know Peter’s story, but I don’t think that many of us know Alan’s…and maybe we should…because it’s probably a lot more like the situations we’re likely to face.

It had been a number of years since Alan had made his decision, and it was an important decision to him. After being one of many people his age who had no problem with the idea of casual sex, and who believed than anything that went on between two consenting adults was just fine...especially if he were one of the consenting adults, he decided to wait until he was married be­fore he had sex with anyone else. This came as a result of hearing some friends talk about sex as being God’s wedding present. And after seven years of sticking with this decision, Alan figured that the statute of limitations should be invoked so he could consider himself a virgin again. This de­cision was also important to Sarah, his girlfriend. You see, Sarah had never been one of those casual sex people, and as much as she loved Alan, she was still bothered by the idea that if they ever got married, there would’ve been someone else before her. However, the fact that he had made this decision even before she met him helped things out a bit. In fact, it was Sarah who gave him the idea of invoking the statute of limitations.

Alan was proud of the number of years he had gone. Maybe even too proud. It was easy for him to stick by his decision as long as he was with Sarah, because they both wanted to wait.

But Alan hadn’t counted on Sarah not being there.

The day came when Alan and Sarah broke up. Sarah had been a large part of his life, and she let him know that he was loved by someone. Oh sure, he knew that God loved him, but as the old saying goes, he needed someone “with skin on,” someone who wasn’t contractually obligated to love him. When he and Sarah broke up he became very depressed…and very lonely.

Enter Monica. No, she’s not who you think she is, and she didn’t do what you think she did. She was a friend of his from work who knew how lonely he was, and thought he’d have a lot in common with her roommate. So she invited him over for dinner to meet her, and then left the two of them alone.

After dinner they went upstairs to talk, and one thing led to another, and Alan didn’t go home that night. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that only women confuse sex with love. Guys do too, and Alan did that night. He was being tested when he was most vulnerable and when he was the least prepared to deal with it. Part of him knew that he should stop things real fast and tell her that he had to go, but another part was lonely and afraid of being laughed at if he told he told her why. And here was someone who wanted to be with him…when Sarah didn’t.

I’m a city kid, so most of what I know about roosters comes from cartoons and commercials for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, so to me the rooster crowing means that a new day has come.

Well the rooster crowed, the next morning came, and realizing what he had done, Alan wept bitterly. Not just when he woke up, but all the way home from Monica’s house, and for the better part of the day. And it wasn’t just because he had failed in keeping to his decision, but worse to him, because he felt that he had used someone. In order to not feel lonely, in order to try to fill hole left by Sarah, he had used someone. And he wept bitterly.

What came before the rooster crowed? Failure, for both Peter and Alan. What comes after the rooster crows? Guilt, because both of them knew that they could have, and should have done differently. But maybe there’s something else.

I mentioned that to me the rooster crowing means the beginning of a new day. This is important because of something I learned from some housemates of mine who were recovering alcoholics. They told me about there being a time when they realized that they had hit bottom, and needed to get help. Some people refer to this as the waking up in the gutter experience.

The rooster crowed and pointed out to both Peter and Alan that they had failed. That they had failed miserably. That they had waken up in the gutter. But there was something else very important that the rooster told them…it was a new day…the old day was behind them, and there was a chance to begin again. And that’s another important thing I learned from my housemates, that you have to begin again every day. And we get a chance to begin again because of something else the crowing of the rooster symbolizes…the fact that the sun…or rather the Son…is about to rise. And the fact that the Son has risen, indeed, the fact that the Son died for us, means that we can be forgiven for what we did wrong yesterday, and can try again today, secure in knowing that when not if, but when we mess up today and tomorrow, that will be forgiven too. Every sunrise after the Son rose should remind us of this.

What comes after the rooster crows? There is guilt, but there’s also something even more important…change and forgiveness.

What happened to Peter after the rooster crowed and after the Son rose? We know he changed. He wasn’t quite so quick to make the cocky statements about following Jesus even to death. We also know that Jesus not only forgave him, but trusted him with the care of his entire flock. And…we know that he eventually did follow Jesus even to death. Perhaps Peter was a better person and more useful for having failed, having to face it, and experiencing forgiveness.

What about Alan? He had a lot of work to do with himself. He spent a lot of time thinking about the many ways he had failed that night, what he could’ve and should’ve done differently, and how he would handle things if that situation ever came up again. He also had to come to realize that perhaps he had put too much faith in what he had done or decided not to do. He also had to accept the fact that he could be forgiven.

A few months later he met Ellen, and not wanting to make the same mistake twice, he risked being laughed at and told her before anything even had a chance to happen, what he would and would not do. She didn’t laugh. She respected his decision.

Then remembering how much the idea had bothered Sarah, he told her about that night, fully expecting her to walk away. But an amazing thing happened…she forgave him, and stayed with him, and is with him to this day. Perhaps Alan is also better for having failed, having to face that failure, and experiencing forgiveness.

And perhaps we all need to take a lesson from Peter and Alan, and realize that when the rooster crows, it’s not always to accuse, but to tell us that we have another chance…and that we are forgiven.

The rooster crowed for Peter, and for Alan…and it crows for each one of us every day of our lives. Remember that this Lent. Let the crowing of the rooster point out where we’ve failed, let it remind us of our guilt…but also…let it remind us of the coming Son rise, and that we…you, me…all of us…can be forgiven. And that is good news.