10 of the Most Overrated Things of All Time -- FPC sermon excerpt

Some things look good at first. But then, when you dig a little deeper, you realize that they are terribly overrated.

The website called AskMen.com has a list of “Nine of the Most Overrated Things of All Time.”

Number One: Cats. According to the website, they’re lazy, disobedient, flea-ridden, hairball-coughing ingrates. Sorry about that … cat-lovers.

Two: The NBA Slam Dunk Contest. Problem is, the NBA limits the event to pros who have been in the league for three years or less, which knocks out most the true stars.

Three: The Winter Olympics. Biathlon and bobsled events appeal to virtually no one outside Estonia.

Four: Ben Affleck. He’s more celebrity than actor.

Five: The Home Run Race of 1998. A riveting race between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, ruined by the steroid scandal.

Six: The Miss Universe Pageant. Donald Trump, Miss USA, big drinking scandal, blah, blah, blah.

Seven: People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. Most of these selections are determined by upcoming film and TV projects — not by beauty alone.

Eight: Starbucks. Hardly worth the price — it’s just beans with hot water.

And Nine: Sliced bread. Sure, it was a wonderful innovation in its day, according to AskMen.com, but that was before TiVo and squeezable Cheese Whiz. Today, it’s definitely overrated.

That’s it: Nine of the most overrated things of all time.

If this list were expanded to Ten, Jesus might add another overrated thing: Practicing your piety before others. Today, you can hardly flip through your cable channels without coming across a preacher or a politician talking about his faith. Not that there is anything wrong with piety, defined as religious devotion and reverence to God. What Jesus objects to is the way that it is displayed. Jesus is annoyed when people practice their piety in order to be seen by others … to be praised by others … and to show others how holy they are.

They are “hypocrites,” announces Jesus, a Greek word which literally means “stage actors” (Matthew 6:2). They are putting on a show with their public prayers, their fasting, and their giving of offerings.

Breathing with God -- FPC sermon excerpt

We Americans love conspiracy theories.

Think of rumors you’ve heard about a CIA conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. Concerns about fluoride in our drinking water. Claims of Jewish involvement in 9/11. The popularity of the television show The X-Files and Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code. All revolve around the belief that powerful people or organizations are secretly manipulating historical events.

Now, if you’re like me, you find that most of this is crazy-talk. But still we find ourselves drawn to it. There is something within us that tries to make sense of tragic or shocking events, and often we try to pin blame on a mysterious group of people — people who are conspiring to do us harm.

We’re Americans, so we think of ourselves as common men and women — you know, “We the people of the Unites States.” We’re distrustful and even disdainful of powerful elites. When something goes wrong, we look for a conspiracy theory to reveal the secrets of the power people. Shankar Vedantam of The Washington Post (June 5, 2006) makes the point that nothing ever happens by accident in the world of conspiracy theories. Instead, he says, “the hidden hand of the puppeteer is everywhere.”

Of course, it’s one thing to see a hidden hand in the assassination of JFK. It’s another thing to see a hidden hand in the story of the Transfiguration. In Luke 9, we catch sight of a powerful puppeteer who is working to build us up instead of break us down. God is orchestrating a shocking event — one that terrifies but also glorifies.

It’s a divine conspiracy.

The story begins with Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray. Suddenly, God changes the appearance of Jesus’ face, and makes his clothes dazzling white. That’s what transfiguration means — “transformation of appearance.” Moses and Elijah appear in glory, and they speak of Jesus’ departure, which he is about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Then a cloud comes and overshadows them all, and the disciples are terrified. The voice of God thunders, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!” And as quickly as the stunning spectacle starts, it ends. Jesus is found alone, and the disciples remain stuck in bewildered silence (Luke 9:28-36).

We can call this a conspiracy because it involves a powerful puppeteer, no less a force than the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. God intervenes in human affairs and manipulates a historical event, turning a mountaintop prayer retreat into an awe-inspiring announcement that God’s Son is Jesus Christ. Look at the story, and you can see that the hidden hand of the puppeteer is everywhere.

But I would call this a conspiracy for another important reason — God does not do his work alone. The word “conspire” literally means “breathing together.” When powerful people plan together secretly, they are “breathing together” — you can just picture them huddling together and plotting away in some undisclosed location. In the same way, when God works with us to advance his will, we “breathe together” with God. God’s ruah — the Hebrew word meaning breath, spirit, or wind — fills us with life, inspiration, and power, and it gives us the ability to push God’s plan into the world.

The Christ Capsule -- FPC sermon excerpt

If the apostle Paul were alive today, he might not write his thoughts in a letter. He might put a message in device called an Earth Capsule.

It only costs a dollar to add your thoughts — not a bad price for immortality. Earth Capsule is a time capsule that uses metal disks to store information that can be read by a magnifying glass. It is somewhat low-tech, reports The Washington Post (May 8, 2006), but the disks are able to store information for a thousand years.

The company that offers the Earth Capsule will collect your information, and then send it to repositories in more than 150 cities around the world. A board of trustees will sit on the messages for 50 years, and then open them up for our descendents to see.

The motto of Earth Capsule is this: “Say something new … and let it get old.”

But maybe you are not interested in having your thoughts sit in a repository. If you want to send a message-in-a-bottle, the Earth Capsule company will take your writing, seal it in a waterproof cartridge, and then dump it into a body of water at one of 44 locations. Your words could wash up on an American beach next week, or on the coast of Australia in a century or two.

Imagine a long-lost letter of Paul, a Third Letter to the Corinthians, washing up on shore after 2000 years. One that says, “You know my command that women should be silent in the churches (1 Corinthians 14:34) — just kidding!”

In First Corinthians 15, Paul sent a message that made it to the church of Corinth in Greece, to churches throughout the Mediterranean, to churches around the world, and finally to churches today. It’s a message that has been written on papyrus, inked on parchment, printed in Bibles, and posted on the Internet. Paul said something new, and then he let it get old — fortunately for us, his message survived the centuries, without the benefit of an Earth Capsule.

Paul's message is both profound and personal, telling us about his experience of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He says to the Corinthians, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Paul begins by summarizing, in a few short lines, the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He does this because he needs to remind the Corinthians of the good news that he proclaimed to them in person — the good news which they received, in which they stand, and through which they are being saved (vv. 1-2).

Then things get personal. The Risen Christ appeared to Cephas, to the twelve disciples, to more than 500 Christian brothers and sisters, to James, and then to all the apostles. “Last of all,” records Paul, “he appeared also to me” (vv. 5-8). Paul puts down his own personal experience of the resurrection of Jesus, one that happened long after Christ had ascended into heaven. He reports on his own encounter with Christ along the road to Damascus, and he does this in a very matter-of-fact way. He’s not trying to brag, not trying to make a big deal of it. He’s simply trying to record the fact for all posterity.

Paul is creating his own little “Christ Capsule.” One that tells us that God has raised Jesus to new life, and he gives us new life as well.