Easter brief

Text: Mark 16:7 (The Message): “Now – on your way ...”

Well – what are you waiting for? 

reposted from "Faith and Theology Easter brief- by Kim Fabricius"

Easter 2014

After the disciples had discovered the empty tomb and proceeded home, Mary Magdalene remained behind weeping.   At hearing her name spoken she recognizes Jesus who she initially mistook for the gardener and while clinging on to him, she is admonished to let go and to go to his brothers and say to them "I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God."  As such, Mary becomes the first evangelist and witness sent to tell the disciples of the risen Christ.  The first sermon of Easter is proclaimed by a woman.  She is a living witness not to some secret knowledge or new religious experience, but to God's saving act, of the living resurrected Christ.  She is charged to go and proclaim the good news, the inauguration of the new covenant, that the world is reconciled to God, recalling the Old Testament prophecy, "I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people" (Lev 26:12) and "I will make an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and my dwelling place shall be with them… and I will be their God and they shall be my people (Ez 36:26-27).

A Good Friday Faith: Sermon by Kim Fabricius

A Good Friday Faith: 

Good Friday sermon by Kim Fabricius

The crucified Christ puts a question to his church – and the question is this: Is it possible to have a disinterested faith, a faith without strings, a faith held not because it’s to your advantage, because you get something out of it, or because it’s deeply satisfying – indeed, it may be to your disadvantage, a burden, even an affliction – but you hold it because it holds you, grips you, the hand of God around your throat. Can we have such a faith?

Never has the question been more urgent than it is today, when the appeal of the evangelism that is making all the running is precisely that faith is a good personal investment. From the vulgar health-and-wealth gospel in the States to the slick Harrod’s gospel of the Alpha Course, from the personal growth gospel of the late M. Scott Peck to the gospel of self-knowledge of Myers Briggs, from the signs-and-wonders gospel of God TV (“Bam!”) to the gospel of churches with the Colgate Smile and the smell of Ivory Soap, where no one has cancer or depression, a mess of a marriage or a kid on crack – openly or subtly the appeal is that here is an offer too good to refuse, here is a faith that pays, if not in pounds and pence, then in happiness, wholeness, enlightenment, experience, consolation, or whatever it is you happen to be searching for. It’s a commodity gospel for a consumerist culture.  

Meanwhile a grim grin spreads across the faces of the masters of suspicion, those sophisticated atheists who charge Christians with sloppy and indulgent thinking, with creating a god in their own image, a fantasy deity who meets my needs and fulfills my wishes. Not the New Atheists, of course – they’re the fleas on the lions of the classical atheists like Hume, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. And don’t they have a point, indeed a prophetic point?  What kind of faith, then, am I commending? An old story the rabbis tell should do the trick. The story of a Jew who escapes the Spanish Inquisition and makes his way, with his wife and child, in a small boat across a stormy sea to a rocky island. A bolt of lightning flashes and kills his wife. A whirlwind strikes and hurls his child into the sea. Naked, terrified, wretched, lashed by the tempest, the Jew makes his way onto a barren island. And then, raising his hands, he speaks to God.

“God of Israel, … I have fled to this place so that I may serve You in peace, to follow Your commandments and glorify Your name. You, however, are doing everything to make me cease believing in You. But if You think that You will succeed with these trials in deflecting me from the true path, then I cry to You, my God and the God of my parents, that none of it will help You. You may insult me, You may chastise me, You may take from me the dearest and the best that I have in the world, You may torture me to death – and I will always believe in You, I will love You always and forever – even despite You.”

That, I would suggest, is a Good Friday faith. A God-for-nothing faith in a good-for-nothing God. A God who does not promise me success or reward, a faith that does not underwrite my own religious agenda. In the crucified Jesus we see, as Rowan Williams puts it, that “God becomes recognised as God only at the place of extremity, where no answers seem to be given and God cannot be seen as the God we expect or understand.” In the crucified Jesus we see that faith is a balm only as it is a wound, a blessing only as it is a curse – we learn the lesson of Job, the lesson of Jeremiah, the lesson of the Psalms of lament, the lesson of Israel, the Suffering Servant. Such that all authentic evangelism should include an honest dose of dis-evangelism, and carry a health warning with its welcome.

Yet how is the cross conventionally understood? As a place of heroics, where Jesus goes to the gibbet like Sydney Carton goes to the guillotine. Or as a tragic if necessary but temporary intrusion on the way to the happy ending of Easter, as if it were a gym: “no pain, no gain”. Or as a “power encounter” in which God overcomes evil by superior force, now an energy source into which Christians can tap. Or as an episode in which Christ is humiliated, but don’t worry, he’ll be back – and this time it’s personal. And then there are the various models of the atonement which demonstrate, in neat and tidy categories, why the cross was necessary, QED, the worst exhibiting what James Alison calls “an Aztec imagination”, and even the best what he terms “physics envy”, what with their compulsive need for theory. “Oh, so that’s it, now I get it, now I understand.” The thing is, if you do, you don’t.

I have my own theory as to why these conventional readings of the cross are so widespread, apart, that is, from our endemic vanity and our capitalist cultural captivity: it’s because post WWII Christianity has never come to terms with the Shoah, the Holocaust, that most God-forsaken of historical moments. Which would explain why it is no coincidence that the most penetrating and profound theologies of the cross – though they themselves would, quite rightly, dispute, even resent my tribute – they are the Survivors, and the relatives of Survivors. Indeed my source for that rabbinic tale comes from the most extraordinary, incandescent disruption of a text I’ve read since Elie Wiesel’s Night, 23 pages of spiritual semtex entitled Yosl Rakover Talks to God, set in the Warsaw Ghetto as the Nazi tanks close in for the final kill. One of the last remaining resistance fighters cries out to God just as did the forsaken boat-wrecked Jew in the story: “None of this will avail You! … I die exactly as I have lived, an unshakeable believer in You… ‘Sh’ma Yisroel! Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.’” Yosl’s last words. And, of course, the last words of another, more famous Jew, in the face of his own dereliction and death…   

So let the Good Friday lesson for us Gentiles, grafted by grace into the vine of Israel, be this: to see the light we must see it at night, experience the darkness of God that covers the land as Christ cries out in the agony of torture and abandonment. We must let go – we must be stripped – of all the personal securities, the traditional pieties, the cherished practices, all the usual landmarks by which we find our way around the religious landscape. We must be dispossessed. We must wait. We must yearn. We must hope. We must trust – trust (inverting Bonhoeffer) that the God who forsakes us is the God who is with us. Here is a faith with nothing in it for me – but Him. Him. Only Him. Truly Him. Always Him

Reposted from "Faith and Theology" blog by Benjamin Myers 

Reprinted by permission of Myers and Fabricius
Article by Kim Fabricius
Original article and Faith and Theology Blog
Other articles by Benjamin Myers and Kim Fabricius can be found at the "Faith and Theology" blog at the link above.

 

This piece of graffiti found near the Palatine Hill in Rome (1st to late 3rd century CE) depicts what appears to be a young man with his hand extended possibly in worship towards a crucified man with the head of a donkey, the inscription Αλεξαμενος ϲεβετε θεον translated, "Alexamenos worships his god".  For more information see the link below.

This is a reminder that the idea that God is revealed to us in a crucified Christ is foolishness and a scandal to the human mind.  Christ, as God, is rejected by humanity, condemned as a criminal, defeated by the power of the Roman empire, crucified in suffering, anguish, isolation, abandonment and death.    The risen Christ on Easter is celebrated as the conqueror of sin and death having been vindicated by God, raised as Lord.  Holy Week is an opportunity to focus on both of these important events, one is not complete without the other.  The risen Christ is the Christ crucified still bearing the wounds on his hands and feet.  Likewise, the crucified Christ is the risen Christ, that meets death as God "for" us.  So, a two fold promises exists, firstly, that Jesus is the kind of high priest that can relate to our suffering and secondly, that Jesus becomes the agent of God's transforming power uniting us with God in Christ.  In the cross of Jesus, we encounter the crucified Christ rejected by humanity or in the words of Karl Barth, rejected by the church, revealing something about our own humanity, our rejection of God.  Here we encounter a God that we do not expect.  Therefore, in this mystery of Christ's sacrifice, the world is reconciled to God.   Even though we reject the Christ, even mock at the seemingly ridiculous claims made, of what seems utterly foolish, there is where God meets the deepest human needs.

article off site on the ancient graffiti

Kerygma and Catechesis: Two Influences on our Faith Formation

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What is Kerygma and Catechesis? 

Kerygma is the Greek word for “proclamation.” An example is the text of Luke 4:18-19, where Jesus is said to have taken up a scroll in the synagogue and read from the book of Isaiah, “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 captive and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” The word refers both to the preaching and the content of the “good news”, and also to the mission and work of Jesus. 

Catechesis is the greek word for instruction. Luke uses this word when it states in Luke 1:3-4, “I too decided, after investigating everything carefully, from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. 

Both these words represent an important aspect of spiritual growth. At some point, Christians hear the good news (gospel) proclaimed, or receive instruction on the beliefs of the church. What is fostered and nurtured is faith. That word "faith" itself is complex, it is not only a system of religious belief and values, but it reflects actions taken by people because of those beliefs. Often, it is defined not by what we can measure, or factual evidence, but something we believe in spite of evidence to the contrary. 

Religious faith should never be placed in opposition to the natural world or the discipline of science.  Because all truth is God's truth, Christians should hold to the findings of science regarding what it tells us about our universe.  This includes evolution, archeology, astronomy, and every other scientific field.  

Faith has to do with what we believe about God, and Christian theology is about what Jesus revealed about God and life in God and in our world.  This kind of faith is centered on the compassionate self giving life of Jesus.  We can never know through science that God exists, yet by faith, we may believe that God is and that God has created us and our world for a good purpose. 

Faith begins with God. It is God that creates, strengthens, and nurtures faith in the human heart. We love God only because God first loved us, and it is God that pursues us out of love and grace (1 John 4:19). St Augustine wrote, “You never go away from us, O God, yet we have difficulty in returning to you. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love, let us run.” Faith is not something that we can earn or achieve on our own, it cannot be stolen or purchased, it is ours only to receive. 

Ordinarily, faith is nurtured through Word and Sacrament. The gifts of God's grace comes to us through the hearing of God's word, at the font, and at the Lord's table. The church understands the Sacraments to be a means of grace, there are two; Baptism and the Eucharist (in most Protestant churches).  In the Sacraments Christ is present with the church.  It is Christ, who comes to us, meets with us, and encounters us in the reading of the gospels. The promises of scripture are sealed for us in when we eat together Holy Communion also called the Eucharist (to give thanks). We enact and demonstrate our faith in the sacraments. For example, at the table, all are welcome, there is equality, diversity and inclusion at the table. All are welcome who come to partake in faith by grace regardless of social or economic standing. 

What exactly is the message of the “good news” (which means gospel). Simply put, it is the proclamation that God loves us, that Jesus embodied that love in his death, and through the Holy Spirit, was raised from the dead, vindicated by God, and empowers us for life and ministry (1 Tim 3:6). In the Sacraments (Baptism and the Eucharist), we are claimed, sustained and empowered for a life of faith. We are accepted as the people God created, forgiven of our sin, engrafted into the body of Christ, and called to exhibit the love of God in our world. Often Jesus spoke of God and God's kingdom, this is the 'realm' or the way in which we live to extend God's grace and mercy in our world. All are welcomed to be part of this family or community of faith. 

This is why infant baptism as a sacrament is essential in the life of the church. Peter the apostle offers baptism for adults, children and infants after his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:39). Similar to the covenant with the Hebrew people that had circumcision a sign of the covenant so the early followers of Jesus adopted water baptism as a sign of the covenant God makes with all people. Infants are also included in this covenant relationship with God. Infant baptism emphasizes a life long journey to which we are called, as well as the assurance of God's sustaining grace. 

An infant in baptism becomes a child of the covenant but must likewise grow into a living faith just as all Christians. This leads us to see salvation (life in this life and the next) as a process, a journey, or a cycle of growth. Christian education and spiritual formation is vital in the life of all christians as we grow into our faith. Too often, “salvation” has been seen by Christians as something that is only individual while it is in reality corporate as well as individual, and extends to our world as well. Christians are called to bring healing to the natural world as well. 

The sacraments are themselves a means of grace. It is essential in spiritual matters to embody meaning in physical tangible ways. This is not only because we should not make a division between the physical and spiritual, mind and body, but also because the spiritual is often something unseen, just as faith is. In the sacraments we see outwards signs of spiritual realities, of God's work in our lives. Water, bread and wine, are taken as representing the daily life giving elements that we require, that brings life, joy and nourishment. We gather as we are, a group of often cantankerous, grumping, annoying, sinful, people, different in many ways. Regardless of our gender, gender identities,  sexual orientation, nationality, race or social or economic differences, we gather to partake together as family and as neighbors, in the worship and work of the church.  

Faith comes to us as a gift from God, whether it is the first time we hear the story of Jesus or if we are seasoned Christians having attended worship our entire lives, the Spirit continues to be active awakening and strengthening faith in our hearts and lives in us and in our churches.  It is faith that flows out of the faithfulness of Jesus to God, and the invitation to walk the same path as Jesus. It is a faith that invites all to be part of the family and people of God. So, in baptism we are introduced into the family of God, and in daily communion we grow.  

Finally, it is important to note that God is at work in the church but also outside the church.  In 1 Cor 5:12-13 Paul encourages Christians not to judge those outside the church.  God alone is the judge of the conscience.  Jesus himself taught that many would enter into the realm of God before the religious leaders of his day.  Jesus sermon on the mount clearly states that those that see God are those that seek God. As such, Christians should never use their faith as an exclusive right to God's grace, mercy and love. As a theologian once said, 'grace universally given is still grace.' 

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Sermon "Our Living Worship" Rom 12:1-2

Our Living Worship: A sermon based on Rom 12:1-2

Click on this link to access sermon "Our Living Worship"

Worship is central to Christian faith and life, in Roman 12:1-2 St. Paul reaches a critical juncture in his epistle and defines worship in a radically new way.

Missio Dei: The Mission of God

What does it mean to be Missional?

Today, the word "missional" is in vogue.  I remember when I first encountered this term in Seminary back in the late 90's.  In its inception, the problem that was identified was the tendency of the Christian congregations in the United States to be too focused on its internal needs, which resulted in an insular approach.  Added to this was a society  moving to a post-Christian orientation.  The result is that many congregations had lost their relevance and found themselves in a position of having to be "missionary" churches in their own neighborhoods.  Early missional discussions sometimes included a criticism of the marketing and programmatic emphasis of the church which focused too closely on certain desired demographics.  Currently, the “missional” book landscape is a veritable land-mine of various outlooks, philosophies, and definitions, some good, some not so good.  Some continue to define the mission of the church only in terms of membership recruitment, church growth strategies, analysis assessments or church management.  Others have taken evangelism and made it the overarching concern or the one element that defines of the church, and thereby leaving out some critically important foundations that guide the church's faith, life and worship.  

Missional in the Reformed context

So, how should we think about the mission of Christian congregations?   A place to start is with any of the Old Testament stories that witness to the saving acts of God in creating, calling, and bringing out the people of Israel from the bondage of slavery into the wilderness in order to worship God.  Why start there?  Simply because all theology starts and ends with God, as it is really God's mission that shapes our mission.  God always seeks us out first.  Like the people of Israel who were chosen by God, the Christian community is also a covenant people bound to God and called to be a worshipping and living witness of the acts of God in bringing about a new world.  The signs given to us of God’s gracious covenant are Baptism and Holy Communion.  John Calvin correctly defined the church as existing where the “Word of God is rightly preached and heard, and the Sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution.”  Building on the New Testament we further understand the church as the people called by God into a new and living covenant in Jesus Christ.  The Sacraments point us to Jesus Christ whose body we are baptized into and whose body and blood we share in Holy Communion. It is Jesus alone that shapes the worship of the church and he is at the heart of its mission, and makes the church the salt and light of the earth. 

The role of the Sacraments

Joseph Small describes two functions of the Sacraments as follows… “the purpose of the sacraments have the same function as scripture and preaching to proclaim the truth of the gospel and to communicate the presence of the living Christ to us.”   Closely tied to our proclamation of the Sacraments are two important commands given by Jesus at the core of its mission; the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.  Both are rooted in strong Sacramental language, “go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and (at the Last Supper) “a new commandment I give to you that you have love one for another.”  (John 14:34)  It is from this orientation that the mission of the church stems.  We meet with the risen Christ, we are commissioned to go and to in the same spirit of grace, love and peace.  The missional movement rightly recognizes that the church should be concerned with its witnesses.  However, this witness to others can only be affirmed if the church is sent as a worshipping people shaped in mission by Jesus Christ, and guided by her confessions.

How can Christian congregations become more missional today?

First, ironically, being "missional" has to begin with the local congregation and its internal concerns.  Just two questions by way of illustration: first, how can we in Christian congregations speak to others outside our church family about our faith when we have such a hard time sharing our own faith which each other?  By speaking about our faith I mean sharing our lives together, sharing our struggles together, and sharing how our beliefs are shaping our lives together.  We know that often matters of religion and politics are just too controversial, or personal and so we hesitate to "go there".  Yet, building mutual respect, civil discussion, displaying a certain amount of courage, and open mindedness is critical if we are to truly know one another.  We have to learn how to share our faith with each other and how to listen to each other. 

Second, if we cannot love each other when we tend to have much in common as believer,  how will we be able to love anyone outside the church with their differences?  How will we be able to bridge the different cultural, religious, social or economic divides?  Exploring our own spiritual life and sharing it with others is something the church has to learn to do if it has any hope of being a “missional” church.  Sharing Christian hospitality with those who come into contact with the church is vital and each "missional" congregation should ask itself "to what end is our hospitality directed?"  Are we only interested in membership recruitment?  Do we think of people only as potential financial donors?  Do we see people only as needing a conversion of the soul for heaven, or do we see Jesus only as a humanitarian model to copy?  The mission of God in sending Jesus was to proclaim forgiveness of sins and to open to us a new hope, a new way of being, and an entirely new creation in this world and in the world to come.  We are asked to participate in this together and to invite others to participate with us.  

Missional, Reformed, but Never Perfect

We must then explore both the "Good News of the Gospel" and the nature of the "Kingdom of God" as proclaimed and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Whether it be worship, Christian education or service, none of our actions or calling can be separated cleanly one from the other.  Most of us have to start exactly where we happen to be.  Imperfect as always, a mix of good and bad motives, (some selfish, some sincere), yet each of us is called both collectively and individually to discern the will of God to this end.  While the pastors, priests, deacons, or elders, may provide leadership and guide the church, it is ultimately up to each individual member to play their role in the body.  Each congregation must come to terms with the kingdom message that Jesus calls us to in the gospel.  We are to seek that "pearl of great price", and answer the call to take up our cross on a daily basis. 

Relying only on the grace of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, and looking to Jesus who is the self revelation of God to us all, each congregation must be willing to apply itself both to understanding God's mission and to God's redemptive acts in history.  In addition, the missional congregation needs to engage in self-reflection on the nature of the commission given to us by Jesus.  Looking both to itself and outside itself, each congregation will find itself relying daily on the Spirit of God to work in us so that we can reflect the love of God those around us.  Can we live out what we believe in the Sacraments?  Can we invite others to be part of that spiritual journey?  Can we stand up to divisions that are social and economic to invite all to the Table of fellowship?  Can we throw open the doors to our hearts to welcome in the hungry, tired, soiled, and downtrodden of spirit?  This is the call of the missional church.  This is the call of any Christian church.  Resisting the tendency to make missional only evangelism, or only member recruitment, we are inviting people to become part of the people of God, the community of faith.  To get in line with what God is doing in our lives and the lives of those around us, always looking to Jesus as the center of our life and faith. 

Sermon "The Good Shepherd" Luke 15:1-7

click here to listen to sermon "The Good Shepherd"

catacombs 3rd century "good shepherd"

A Sermon on the text in Luke 15:1-7

Jesus loved people, and he came to bring God's message especially to those people who often felt most out of place in religious settings, the tax collectors and sinners.  It is very easy for us as humans to divide ourselves into like minded groups, Jesus found ways to be inviting to people that were outside of his group as a rabbi and teacher of the law.  This brought him into conflict with those that felt he was abandoning his religious principles.  So Jesus gives us his point of view in a well known image that becomes for the early Christians one of the first symbols for God's seeking out humanity.

Sermon John 20:1-19 "Two Questions"

Click on this link to hear sermon "Two Questions"


A Sermon based on the text John 20:1-19.  Click on the title above labeled simply "Two Questions" to access the sermon.

The disciples discouragement of their empty nets leads them to an encounter with the risen Christ.  Jesus calls them back to communion with himself out of their brokenness and hopelessness.  This text encourages Christians to receive the grace of God in their brokenness, and engage in the mission to feed the flock of God only with the love of Christ.  Christ loves, calls, and makes us his children and tasks us to go and love others in the love and grace that only God can provide.