You May Die -- FPC sermon excerpt

An earthquake, and then a hurricane. What a week it has been!

Although Tuesday’s earthquake caused an old chimney to crumble here at FPC, no one was injured. That’s good news, because I wouldn’t want people to think of the church as a particularly dangerous place to be.

Of course, if the apostle Paul heard me say that, he would probably disagree. For him, the Christian faith is a very dangerous thing, a practice that he knows might cause his death.

He writes today’s Scripture lesson while he is doing hard time in a Roman prison. He and his fellow Christians have been a very unpopular group, badmouthed for their secret meetings and their refusal to worship the emperor. But now they are also criminal suspects. Plenty of Romans are pointing fingers at them, hoping to win the favor of brutal Emperor Nero.

Paul knows that he might die.

In spite of this, Paul is very upbeat in his letter to the Christians in Philippi. He thanks God for their sharing in the gospel, and prays for them with joy (Philippians 1:3-5). Imprisonment has had some unexpected benefits, he reports — it “has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has been known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ” (vv. 12-13). This inspires his fellow Christians to “dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear” (v. 14).

You might think that danger would make Christians timid. But the opposite is true: It makes them bold and brave.

“Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,” says Paul. He expects and hopes that “Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (vv. 18, 20-21).

You didn’t see that coming, did you? That line is about as unexpected as an East Coast earthquake.

Living is Christ, and dying is gain. Paul is saying that as long as he lives he’ll experience Christ, and when he dies he’ll gain eternal life with Christ.

Paul might die. And he’s okay with it.

Paul reminds me of the endurance athletes who voluntarily do a dance with death as they compete in increasingly difficult events. I’m not talking about marathons and triathlons — as many of you know, I’ve done a few of these and have found them challenging, but not deadly. At the next level are people like Bruce Allentuck of North Potomac, Maryland, who is determined to inflict the maximum amount of punishment on his body and mind.

According to The Washington Post (February 11, 2011), Allentuck is neither a Navy SEAL nor a physical trainer. Instead, he is a forty-something guy who owns a small landscaping business, and goes home to his wife and three children. In his free time, he will crunch through six miles of snow with a 50-pound piece of oak, sprint a third of a mile with two buckets of gravel, or run five miles in a creek with a 60-pound truck tire.

Just for fun.

In June, he traveled to Vermont to run the 2011 Death Race. This competition is so cruel that organizers require the entrants so sign a three-word waiver. It says, “You may die.”

This kind of risk does not make the Death Race entrants timid. Instead, it makes them bold and brave.

“I just want to see if I can push through and do it,” says Allentuck. After completing seven marathons, four ultramarathons, three Ironman triathlons, a Chesapeake Bay swim, and 30 to 40 other triathlons, he says, quite simply, “It’s the next thing.”

So, what’s the next thing for the apostle Paul? He is straddling the line between life and death, and wonders which is better for him. If he lives, he will continue to engage in “fruitful labor,” and he knows that such work is beneficial to the Philippians (vv. 22, 24). But if he dies, he will “depart and be with Christ” (v. 23).

He seems to be leaning toward life, so he writes, “I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again” (vv. 25-26). Paul pushes himself to the edge of death because he wants to see what he is capable of, striving for the sake of the gospel.

Have we lost this drive in the church today? In many ways, I think we have. So often, we turn away from risk and focus on what is comfortable to us and to the people we want to attract to the church. The Death Race involves incredible commitment and preparation from participants, and so does the race of the Christian faith.

Losing Control -- FPC sermon excerpt

There are some powerful people who have powerfully bad tempers.

Katie Couric is a bright and attractive news anchor, but she once slapped one of her producers. And what did he do to deserve this? According to mental_floss magazine (January-February 2010), he kept saying the word “sputum” while Katie was taping a segment on tuberculosis. He said the word repeatedly, despite her insistence that it annoyed her. So she slapped him.

Stephen Hawking. He is a world-renowned mathematician and physicist who cannot speak except through an electronic voice. But he can show his anger with his wheelchair. He is famous for running over the toes of people who bother him, including several of his assistants. People say that he even rammed the feet of Prince Charles.

Robert Frost — probably the most famous American poet of the past century. Known to lash out at his poetry readings, he would often berate late-comers. Once, he arrived at an event and was disappointed in the meager crowd. He yelled at the organizer, “Who do you think I am, a rural schoolteacher?”

These are powerful people, but they are all guilty of losing control. They get angry at people around them and lash out — slapping producers, running over the toes of princes, yelling at event organizers. Being a famous, brilliant, or artistic person does not mean that you have superior control over your emotions.

In fact, fame and power can sometimes make the situation worse.

Joseph was a powerful person in the land of Egypt when his brothers came to him from the land of Canaan. If you were in worship last week, you heard the story of how he got into this position, and how he overcame the hatred that existed between his brothers and himself.

To bring everyone up to speed, I’ll just recap by saying that Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him for being their father’s favorite son, so they sold him into slavery and he was carried from Canaan to the land of Egypt. In Egypt, he had many adventures and ended up rising to power, eventually being named governor of the land.

In a time of famine, people traveled to Egypt to buy grain — including ten of Joseph’s brothers. They did not recognize him, but Joseph recognized them, and initially he treated them like strangers and accused them of being spies (Genesis 42:1-9).

Joseph decided to test them by asking them to return home with a load of grain, and fetch their youngest brother Benjamin. He said, “Bring your youngest brother to me, and I shall know that you are not spies but honest men” (v. 34). They did this, and then Joseph revealed himself to them, saying, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (45:4-5).

As I said last week, Joseph discovers that there is a power at work in his life that is bigger and stronger than hatred. Although the brothers clearly intended to do harm to Joseph, God intended it for good — in order to preserve the people of Israel (50:20). Joseph is able to forgive them because he sees that God has brought good out of evil, and used a horrible act to save a large number of people from famine.

Today, I want to dig a little deeper into Joseph’s reaction to his brothers. As today’s passage begins, Genesis tells us that “Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him” (v. 1). He could no longer control himself. Now if he was like so many power people today, this loss of control would mean that he would slap, run over, or yell at the people who annoyed him. But for Joseph, losing control means something very different.

When Joseph loses control, he does not lose his temper. Instead, he gives up control and lets God be God. That’s a loss of control that we can learn from.

The Frenemy Factor -- FPC sermon excerpt

Friends. Enemies.

Put them together and you get … “Frenemies.”

A frenemy can be an enemy disguised as a friend. It can also be a close acquaintance who is a competitor or rival.

Think of Dwight Schrute and Jim Halpert in the television show The Office. Will Schuester and Sue Sylvester in Glee. Virtually everyone involved in the recent debt-limit negotiations in Washington, DC.

Frenemies.

These relationships can be mutually beneficial, but they are also highly competitive and saturated with risk and mistrust.

The Bible is filled with frenemies, starting with the Book of Genesis. Think of Adam blaming Eve for giving him the fruit from the tree (3:12). Cain murdering his brother Abel (4:8). Strife between Abram’s herders and Lot’s herders (13:7). Animosity between Sarai and Hagar (16:1-6). The twin brothers Esau and Jacob, struggling together in their mother’s womb (25:22). Jacob prospering at his father-in-law Laban’s expense (30:25-43).

Notice how often these frenemies are members of the same family. A pastor named Thomas Mann took a look at these stories and said, “Genesis is a book about dysfunctional families.”

Amen to that. You may have heard that there was once a national conference for the children of non-dysfunctional families. One guy showed up.

When I take a look at my family tree, I see some frenemies. And they can be found throughout the families of the Bible as well. The frenemy factor becomes especially evident near the end of Genesis, when the twelve sons of Jacob fall into a bitter rivalry. Jacob loved one of his sons, seventeen-year-old Joseph, “more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves” (37:3).

You can easily imagine how this favoritism went over with Joseph’s brothers. Genesis tells us that “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (v. 4).

There was no brotherly love in this situation. Instead, brotherly hate. They were frenemies.

To Ban or Not to Ban -- FPC sermon excerpt

In January of last year, the Merriam Webster Dictionary was banned in a California elementary school.

I’m not kidding. The dictionary.

The reason was that the dictionary ventured into territory that many parents would consider to be rated PG-13. Merriam Webster provided a clear and concise definition of a certain sex act.

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said a representative of the district. Out of respect for families at FPC with young children, I will not report the particular word and definition.

But the dictionary was not alone. Other books recently removed include:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This children’s book was banned in 2010 by the Texas Board of Education. The author Bill Martin has the same name as an obscure Marxist theorist, and no one bothered to check if they are actually the same person. They are not.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. This moving diary of a victim of the Holocaust was pulled from a Virginia school last year for “sexually explicit” themes.

Two of Ernest Hemingway’s classic books. A Farewell to Arms was banned for sexual content, while For Whom the Bell Tolls was deemed to be pro-communist.

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. Yanked from a Florida elementary school because it “promotes disrespect, horror, and violence.”

Perhaps it’s time for these school systems to take a deep breath … and a cold shower. Most Americans can understand restrictions on books such as Howard Stern’s Private Parts. Not appropriate for every age, clearly. But the Merriam Webster Dictionary?

How are kids going to look up the word “ban”?

Book-banning is nothing new in American life, and concern about sexuality is usually the match that lights the fire. The list of books barred by schools and libraries over the years includes The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, frequently censored from 1789 to the early 20th century. In particular, people objected to the essay “Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress.” In it, Franklin lists the many ways that older women are superior in … let’s see, shall I say … matters of the heart?

The list also includes classics such as Madame Bovary (1856), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), and Lolita (1955), banned because of their sexual content. Even Peter Benchley’s Jaws (1974) is black-listed, not because of excessive gore but because of too much sex.

Sometimes it seems that only one thing matters when the question is asked, “To Ban or Not to Ban?”

Sexual content.

Our discomfort with sexual content is unfortunate, because it causes us to miss the wider value of these banned books, and to see the role that sexual material plays in the larger story. What decision would a review board make if it came across the following lines in a classic text?

The woman says, “Your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.”

The man says, “Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies. How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice.”

And the woman says, “My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt …. I am faint with love.”

Pretty steamy stuff. So what do you think?

To ban or not to ban?

These words come from Holy Scripture, from the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s (1:2-3, 3:4, 4:5, 4:10, 5:4-5, 8).

Be careful what you ban.

The Song of Solomon is full of sexual material, but it is not a dirty book. Instead, the passionate longings of its characters give us important insights into the nature of human desire, and the nature of God’s desire for us. Our Lord does not simply tolerate us — weak and fallible creatures that we are. Instead, God has a passion for each one of us, and a hunger to be intimately involved with us.