Burger King and the Son of David -- FPC sermon excerpt

He’s big. He’s green. He’s a spokesman for the string bean.

You know who I’m talking about: The Jolly Green Giant.

He had been in retirement since the year 2000, but now he’s back. Last November, workers in New York City’s Times Square erected a new billboard of the big bean-seller.

“Ho, ho, ho, Green Giant!”

Now you can laugh with the Giant, but you’d be wrong to laugh at him. The Great Green One has moved an incredible amount of vegetables over the years. According to Advertising Age magazine, he was one of the top ad personalities of the 20th century, behind only the Marlboro Man and Ronald McDonald.

But the Jolly Green Giant is not the only old school advertising icon to return to the spotlight. The King is back as well!

No, not Elvis.

I’m talking about Burger King! You’ve probably seen him inserted into NFL football games, by the magic of digital technology. Back in the 1970s, he was a low-key hamburger pusher, a runner-up to Ronald McDonald. But today he is strutting across the screen with a monstrous plastic head, burgundy robes, and dazzling crown. Burger King has got the bling!

So, what’s the deal with all this backward-looking advertising? Why are ad agencies now trying to push products through nostalgia? Daniel Gross of US Airways Magazine (February 2006) believes that people like the warm, fuzzy feelings that are created by old-timers such as the Jolly Green Giant and Burger King. Such emotions are a natural incentive to purchase comfort-food products.

There’s a multigenerational angle at work as well — a colorful, football-carrying Burger King can appeal to kids, while also evoking the nostalgia of their parents. When the King appears, you get two connections for the price of one.

These kinds of deeply-rooted emotional links make you wonder what Bartimaeus was feeling when he heard that Jesus was traveling along the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark tells us that Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, is sitting by the roadside when he gets word that Jesus is approaching, and this news causes him to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (10:46-47).

Jesus. Son of David. This is the first time that we hear this kind of language in Mark. For Bartimaeus to call Jesus “Son of David” is to announce that Jesus is the anointed king, the heir to the throne of the great King David. It’s a statement of faith and conviction and confidence … and it is charged with political power as well. After all, the Roman governor and his legions don’t want their control of Jerusalem to be challenged by some upstart Jewish king.

At the same time, the term “Son of David” is a backward-looking phrase that evokes nostalgia and warm feelings among the Jews of this region. They remember the promise of Psalm 18 — God gives “great triumphs” to his king, “to David and his descendents forever” (v. 50). They look forward to seeing their king march into Jerusalem, with crowds of supporters shouting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 118:26). And they recall the prediction of the prophet Zechariah, “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey” (9:9).

There’s a lot of passion for this Son of David. Much more than anyone is ever going to feel for the Burger King.

The Intersection of Gifts and Commitment -- FPC sermon excerpt

A woman from a poor village in Bangladesh was visiting a Christian family in Toronto. The morning after she arrived, she looked out of the kitchen window. “Who lives in that house?” she asked her Canadian hostess.

“Which house?”

“That one right there.”

“Oh, that,” said the Canadian women. “No one lives there. That's a ‘house’ for the car.”

The woman from Bangladesh was mystified. “A house for the car,” she kept saying. “A house for the car.”

Mark Buchanan, writing in Christianity Today magazine (September 6, 1999), pictures that woman looking out of his kitchen window at his garden shed. She is puzzled, saying again and again, “A house for the shovels. A house for the lawn mower.”

“We live in a culture of excess,” he concludes. “A culture of more.”

Mark Buchanan is right — we live in a culture of excess, a culture of more. We are forever upgrading our clothing, our cars, our furniture, our electronics, our kitchens, our houses. And I’m as guilty as any of you. When Nancy and I moved into our house in Fairfax, I was thrilled to finally have a home with a garage. A house for our cars.

In stark contrast to our 21st century culture of excess, we read in today’s Scripture passage about the culture of the first century Christian church. “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common” (Acts 4:32). The result of this radical sharing was that “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned land or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (vv. 34-35).

The first Christians did not participate in a culture of excess, a culture of more. Instead, they created a culture of sharing in which the needs of everyone were met.