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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Abnormal Ethics
 Psalm 15; Matthew 5:1-16
"In the beauty of the lilies" says the line in "Battle Hymn of the Republic." And this beautiful stained glass window features Easter lilies on either side of Jesus, as he stands there with arms outstretched in benediction.
It's no realistic picture of the Risen Christ. For one thing, he has no nail wounds in his hands or naked feet. And the scenery is all wrong, for off in the distance is a lake with a town on its far shore. The resurrection happened in Jerusalem.
So what we've got is an idealized image of the Risen Christ, and most likely of the spirit of Christianity. For one of the dominant images of the church is the Body of Christ (as in Paul's letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians) -- his mystical body on earth in the absence of his physical body now in heaven.
From the beginning, Christians have been called to represent Christ as if he were present with us, present in our midst, even present by his Spirit within each one of us and all of us together.
The outstretched hands of blessing remind me of the way Jesus began his "sermon on the mount" (Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7). We call the first several verses "beatitudes," from the Latin word for happiness or blessing. And Jesus' blessings there catch us absolutely by surprise.
One by one, he turns the spiritual tables on our normal expectations. Common sense says happiness comes when good things are happening -- same root word. And bad happenings bring unhappiness. It's as simple as that. But now he insists that we're blessed when circumstances make us poor, weigh us down with grief, strip away our power, and leave us so much out of touch with God that we crave the taste of grace.
"When life puts you in that kind of space," says Jesus, "God bless you!" Benediction guaranteed.
Just try building your religious empire on that foundation.
Jesus did. The rest of his three-chapter sermon is his manifesto of the Kingdom of God. Or call it his ordination charge to the ministers-in-training that we call the twelve disciples. Either way, he lays out here a system of ethics that is anything but normal. No, we're talking abnormal ethics here, extraordinary principles of spiritual health and transcendent happiness.
It's sadly ironic that Christ's followers down through the centuries tend on one hand towards complacent spiritual sleepwalking, or on the other hand flail about in frustrated failure to live up to lofty expectations.
There's never a bad time, then, to go back to the basics embodied in the beatitudes, these paradoxical promises of blessing by surprise.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:17 PM
Monday, October 19, 2009
Never Alone
 Psalm 23; John 14:15-23
The picture shows a young woman walking hand in hand with Jesus. Mary Magdalene? A previously unknown girlfriend? No, let's call her Psyche. She's the personification of the human soul (psyche in Greek), especially the soul of a devout believer in Jesus as God's Ultimate Soulmate.
This week's message on "The Gospel in Stained Glass" is by Elizabeth Campbell, our church's pastoral intern. She has a marvelous combination of gifts for ministry. Spiritual discernment, clear communication, deep compassion, a sense of humor, and good old stick-to-it-iveness. She also plays a very cool saxophone, and she's not half bad as a singer, either.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:21 PM
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Ultimate Proof
 Psalm 2; Acts 1:1-11
It was World Communion Sunday, and our little congregation in the little town of Alameda got to share the bread of life and cup of salvation with millions and millions of Christians all around the world. Talk about fine tuning your sense of perspective!
My sermon that morning built on the stained glass image of Christ ascending through the clouds, one of ten beautiful windows that adorn our Sanctuary's walls.
Here you see Jesus posed gracefully as though he's dancing his way towards heaven. Arms spread wide, hands spread open, toes pointed -- reminiscent of Fred Astaire or Rudolf Nureyev in mid-step. And he's looking downward...
Possibly he's taking one long last look at his disciples who are gazing up after him with their jaws dropped wide open -- speechless, dazed, and very much confused.
An angel suddenly shows up just then, to assure them Jesus will come back down one day to wrap up human history once and for all. Meanwhile, he has important work for them to do and they'd better get ready to do it right. And so, the Book of Acts is off and running with its stories of the earliest churches in action.
I called the sermon "The Ultimate Proof." If anything finally verifies the story of Christ's resurrection from the dead, it's the story of Christ's ascension to heaven forty days later. His work on earth was done, mission accomplished, period, the end. Crucified, dead, buried, risen, and now ascended. Any questions? (Well, yes... But at least the outline is clear and logical.)
Yet I'm convinced the real "ultimate proof" is what happened next. Which is, nothing! At first, anyway.
The disciples did nothing out of the ordinary for ten whole days. They stayed together, ate, slept, and did a whole lot of praying. With their eyes wide open to see what in the world God would do next.
And then came Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) with all its miracles and powerful preaching, and 3,000 people became Christians in one day! The church was born and took off running down through twenty centuries. And today millions of Christians take Communion all around the world.
And it's the existence of the worldwide church that shows me the ultimate proof that Christ's gospel is true. So many accents and complexions, such different cultures and customs, competing ideas and behaviors and convictions. Yet all united by one basic faith focused firmly on Jesus Christ.
Our little congregation is an imperfect microcosm of that global church. While the majority of us are of European descent, and northern European at that, we also include folks whose lineage comes from the Philippines, China, Mexico, Venezuela, Ghana, Nigeria, Assyria, even Brooklyn NY! And we share our buildings and grounds with the Alameda Korean Presbyterian Church, composed of three generations of immigrants from the old country and a bunch of local born-and-raised kids.
Far from perfect, we're all of us called to grow towards maturity, wholeness, the fullness of who God means for us to be. We're surely different from one another in a multitude of ways. And we sometimes differ with each other as well.
Still, we come together, always and only with our focus on Christ at the center of it all. We aim to live Christ's way the best we can, to prove somehow by our lives and by our life together that the gospel is God's honest truth.
That's not an easy job, of course. Hard enough in and of itself, it's contradicted by too many disputes and trials and even wars that have been perpetrated in the name of Christ. But we take hope and courage from countless historic acts of kindness and bravery and justice that have honored his holy name.
Back in the earliest years of the church, a Roman official was compelled to write these amazing words that confirm our faith and challenge us to faithfulness: "Behold these Christians, how they love each other!"
And there's your ultimate proof.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:49 PM
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