Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
True Love Loves The Truth
Psalm 66:8-20; John 14:15-21
Thinking about Jesus and his disciples at the dinner table on that last night they had together, in a borrowed upper room somewhere in Jerusalem, I remember a late night I had together with a dear friend I hadn't seen for a few years.
Mike Parker and I were at a national church conference on a midwestern college campus. At the end of a busy day, we joined several friends from seminary days for dinner and a lot of chatter -- gossip and jokes and some chewing of the theological fat. At the end of all that, Mike and I walked across campus to the dorm he was staying in. At the entrance door, we stood a while wrapping up our conversation. Or so we thought.
Instead, we ended up walking over to my dormitory, where we stood out front talking some more. Then we walked back to his dorm, then back to mine again, talking all the way.
It finally dawned on me -- We were like a couple at the end of a date! The fun and joy we were sharing was wrapped around our love for each other. And who wants to say a quick good-night to all of that?
Something like that was going on between Jesus and his men at the last supper in John 14...
Every minute counts, as if it were the last minute of them all. He says
"This is the end." But not yet! "Now is the time for..." But there's more! "Rise," he says, "let's be on our way."
And then come three more chapters of conversation! Finally, in John 18, the action picks up again.
Among all their conversation, all the theological themes Jesus unfolds one on top of another -- the heart of the matter turns out to be love. "Love me... Love God... Love each other."
Not warm fuzzy feelings. Not hot passion (which anyway runs hot and cold beyond our control). But God's kind of love, that chooses to do the loving thing regardless of how the lover presently feels about the beloved.
Jesus showed his men what he meant at that very meal. John 13 says the first thing he did as they settled down for dinner was to go around the table and wash each disciple's feet. You'd expect one of them, his apprentices, to assume the servant role towards him! But he did it as an act of loving respect -- and said they (we) should be willing to do the same kind of thing with the same motivation.
I wish my sermon had recorded well enough to post as this week's GODcast, but that's not the case. Argh and %$#^+*!
Lacking that, here's the prayer I read to bring the message home. It's from Robert James St. Clair's Prayers For People Like Me...
Help Us Do What You Require
Great God who made everything beyond our knowledge,
who is before the beginning and after the ending,
inspire in us new confidence
to create beyond our knowledge
and love beyond our limits.
Over the years we have become distressed
with those we could not love.
We could not be expected to forgive that relative;
or reasonably be expected to love that neighbor;
and no one with any sense could forgive
that alleged friend;
and as for that person who divorced us
(just up and abandoned us)
well, only God knows the anguish -- the torture.
How could I forgive and maintain my self-respect?
Lord, nothing less than the hand that planted
a thousand forests
and poured the seven seas can impart to our hearts
the impulse to love the unloved, the unloving,
and the unlovely --
a power beyond limits and foreign to reason.
Except, O Lord, we are convinced you love us,
will love us down through the ages to come,
until the seas become deserts and the forests
are no more.
Outlasting any bond will be the everlasting
covenant of life,
somewhere keeping as one the family of God.
Keep before our vision the victory over death
and the resurrection of Jesus,
an event to be lived, and relived, O God,
where friends and enemies meet,
where the alienated come together,
where those outside are drawn in,
and those who dislike themselves are invited back,
and people like us, bound with the cords of resentment,
may rendezvous, and find at the old cross
liberation at last.
May this be the week we inherit the earth,
and when the whole Gospel of Christ is entrusted to us.
Then, while you keep telling us what we can do,
we shall stop telling you what you cannot do.
Through Christ our risen Lord, Amen.
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:54 AM
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Heaven Here and Now
Psalm 31:1-5,15-16; John 14:1-14
Well hey, this week has turned into one of those times you don't quite get done all that you've intended. Can you say "scramble"? Which doesn't much live up to Sunday's sermon title. Ah well...
Even so, the MP3 recording is all loaded up for your listening pleasure. And your spiritual nourishment, too, I'm hopin'.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:35 AM
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Secure In Any Season
Psalm 23; John 10:1-10
Sometimes while driving to church on Sunday morning, I'll ask Joanne what she would say if this were her day to preach on my sermon text. Like a savvy trout or salmon, she'll sniff around that bait ever so briefly, then politely let it dangle right where I cast it.
This Sunday I changed it up a little, and she was the one to ask a question.
What I said, cruising along at more or less the speed limit, was, "Preparing this message I kept flashing back to the movie Brokeback Mountain, what with all the shepherd stuff in the 23rd Psalm and John 10."
To which she softly asked, "Hmmm, how are you going to preach on that?!"
I'm not sure just which scenes she had in mind.
The one I'd kept remembering was where the guy goes up the mountain at dawn to tend the sheep and finds a carcass all chewed up by wolves, who'd had their way with the flock while he'd stayed down by the river's edge all night, having his way with... Ooooh, so that's what she meant.
Well, faced with the challenge of alluding to Ang Lee's complex treatment of gay love, I took the easier route of retelling a corny old joke about a rascally boy and his dinnertime prayer. (Listen to the GODcast and you'll catch my drift.)
But seriously, folks... Those lovestruck Brokeback Mountain shepherds do illustrate Jesus' point in John 10:12 pretty well.
In that verse, Jesus talks about hired hands whose priorities are all about payday instead of the safety of the sheep. If they see a wolf, they run for their own lives. More often than not, they're probably up to their own entertainment and don't even see the wolves coming.
In stark contrast, Jesus is ready to lay down his own life to make sure God's "flock" are safe and secure. For he is The Good Shepherd. (Shades of Psalm 23's "The Lord is my Shepherd!" The Almighty and Everlasting God [trumpet fanfare] attends carefully to Israel's every need, just as a shepherd does for the sheep [gentle strings]. )
What a brash and bold thing to say, that he -- Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter's son from the outback -- is (gasp) GOD! And he seems to have made a habit of making that claim.
While I could go on and on about biblical references to kings and priests and prophets, all of them called by God to be good shepherds for God's people -- I'll just cut to the chase and invite you to...
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:01 PM
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Honest To God
Psalm 16; John 20:19-31
No GODcast this week, due to recording difficulties. Again. Rats.
Meanwhile, I'm mulling over both the story I preached about on Sunday and a candid response I got in Monday morning's e-mail.
The story... "Doubting" Thomas, the disciple who politely insisted "Just give me the facts."
Twice he did that, according to the Gospel of John.
In chapter 14, at the "last supper," when Jesus waxed all theological... "I'm going away, to heaven. I'll come back and get you, so you can be there with me. You already know the way there." Thomas stopped him short with, "Lord, we don't know where you're going at all. So how could we possibly know the way to get there?" Good point. Jesus' answer is cryptic: "I am the way."He throws in the truth, and the life, for good measure. Under the circumstances, that was as clear as Mississippi mud.
In chapter 21, back in the same room where they'd shared that last meal with Jesus... Thomas shows up late and the other disciples tell him he's just missed Jesus. "No way! I won't believe that one unless I can see him for myself. In fact, I want to touch his wounds from the nails that fastened him to the cross!"
The story continues, one week later. Same room, same disciples, including Thomas on time this time. And then -- shazam -- same Jesus!
And he invites Thomas to do just what he'd demanded the chance to do. "Here. Touch the wounds in my hands. Put your hand in the spear wound in my side. If that's what it takes, I'm yours."
Jesus meets Thomas right where he is, just as he is, doubts and demands and all. He gives him exactly what he wants -- and needs.
We pause here for the other mull-able thing I'm mulling on... My Monday morning e-mail.
The woman and her husband have been worshiping with us lately. Fairly new to town, they're checking us out. Are we their kind of church? Should they look elsewhere? How and when will they know?
Her e-mail said she was moved by my observations about how different Jesus' handling of Thomas was from our own inclinations when faced with difficult people.
Among other things, I had said we tend to watch people carefully and wait for them to change to our liking... We test them, we judge them... If only they could be more outgoing, or patient, more grateful for God's sake, more cooperative, more nice. In short, if they would only be like us! Then it'd be so easy to welcome them with open arms.
The woman said that really got to her. "I thought about the church and how we might be waiting for the church to become what our previous church was to us, instead of being more accepting of the differences and opening ourselves to the possibility of making a difference in this congregation.... [T]hought provoking as well as personally helpful."
Then she suggested she and her husband would likely be sitting in on my next Seekers & Joiners workshop, to get acquainted and find out more about how we "do" church here.
Now friends, that's just the kind of stuff that can make a pastor's day. Especially a Monday.
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:11 PM
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