John 14:15-21, 1 Peter 3:13-22, Acts 17:22-31 “Words of Hope”

John 14:15-21, 1 Peter 3:13-22, Acts 17:22-31  “Words of Hope”

Caitlin Trussell – May 25, 2014

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

[See 1 Peter and Acts readings at end sermon]

 

My husband Rob has spent quite a bit of his life on the seat of a mountain bike.  In his early days, this included riding like the wind through tree-lined gullies in Nebraska as only a 10 year old with his 10 year old buddies can do.  During his brief California stint, where he met me, this included riding trail in the Santa Monica Mountains that sit between Van Nuys and Malibu.  And now, which I should be clear to say includes the last 23 years, there are few greater joys for Rob than careening around on the trails that wind throughout the Rockies and their foothills.  The last year and a half have been no exception.  In fact, the ante has gone up at our house where we now speak all things Leadville – as in the Leadville 100.  100 miles of trail at 10,000 feet above sea level just waiting to be ridden in the middle of August.  Conversation regularly includes things like dressing in light weight layers for any kind of weather, the total elevation gain of training rides that get progressively longer as August looms, and the nutrition that will sustain those few who actually make it those 100 miles.  There are a lot of moving parts in getting ready and maintaining readiness.

Because readying for Leadville is a constant hum in our home, it’s no surprise that what jumped from the pages this week is the readiness preached to us out of First Peter as we are told to, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”  And it’s no surprise that this text is paired with St. Paul hanging out with the Athenians.  He talks with them about their unnamed God.  And he lives his readiness for talking about the hope of Christ in himself.

You can likely imagine that I come into contact with a few people in any given week.  Something about running into a pastor seems to spark a certain kind of conversation.  A conversation in which I am privileged, and I truly mean privileged, to hear the deep confusion, frustration, and opinions from people about spirituality in general and Christianity in particular.

In these conversations, there is a quote that regularly bubbles up.  A quote popularly, and likely incorrectly, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.  It goes like this, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”  When someone says this out loud in a group, the general reaction typically includes soft smiles and nods as if the meaning is well-understood.  Sometimes I’ll dig deeper with the person who offers this quote. Sometimes I find that this person has been beaten up by the words of a Bible-bearing Christian or two.  In First Peter terms, this Christian was ready to give “an accounting” of the hope in them.  However this Christian did not seem to be ready to do it with the “gentleness and reverence” also encouraged in First Peter.  And sometimes I find that this person quoting this quote struggled to find their own words to talk about gospel, the good news of Jesus, and has given up trying.  Given up trying to find words and given up on finding a community where words can be practiced with “gentleness and reverence.”

The 14th Chapter of John may help us press pause in the ironic debate about whether or not to use words.  The reading starts in verse 15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The only commandment mentioned in whole book of John bookends our verses today.  In Chapter 13 Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another…Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[1]

And in Chapter 15, Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…You are my friends if you do what I command you.”[2]  Jesus words are part of several chapters that are pretty much filled with only words of Jesus.  Next time you hear that quote about preaching the gospel without words, consider that we tend to hear this as a choice; as either action OR words.  Or we tend to hear that actions are superior to words.  This is a false choice.  Jesus encourages us to love in action AND words.

My friends, words are part of this life of faith – words for us to hear and words for us to say.  It’s easy for us to get lost in our own inadequacy about which words to use.  And it’s easy to get lost in our insecurity about what using these words might mean.  It’s so easy to get lost that we also forget about the Advocate who is given to us, the Advocate who is in us.  Jesus says to the disciples and to us, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever…I will not leave you orphaned.”[3]

This Advocate is infused into us by Christ through water and word at baptism; by Christ through bread, wine, and word at the table; and by Christ through us, through people and word in the community of Christ.  Faith is infused into us through these things and people and words – faith that is practiced here in readiness to be exercised in the world.  Practicing starts in baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, and in conversation with each other.

In conversation we practice using words that describe the hope that is in us.  These conversations happen in groups and 1-on-1.  They happen spontaneously and they happen when we plan a coffee with another Christian for just such a purpose.  Sometimes these conversations start with a question about what it means to say the words of the Apostle’s Creed out loud.  Other times the conversations wonder about what Jesus on the cross means in the face of illness. And still other times the conversation struggles to find a place for words about Jesus in a world of too many words.  The bottom line is that the Advocate gives us this community to find the words to use.  In part because other people need the hope into which we’ve been drawn.    “…be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

I dipped a toe back into Christianity almost twenty years ago.  My own frustrating efforts to find words were met by Christians in a Lutheran church.  Christians who held space for my questions and my religious scars with “gentleness and reverence.”  I desperately needed to hear words and to use them.  First to understand that the gospel, the good news of God in Christ Jesus, is for me.  And then to be ready to talk about the hope given by Christ in me.   And I desperately needed a place and group of people in which to practice these words.

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, gives us just such a place and just such a people.  We are given to each other as church to hear a word of good news and to find words to confess that good news.  And we are given to a desperate world, inspired by the Advocate to live and to talk about the hope of Jesus Christ, the one who came for you, for us, and for the sake of the world.

 

1 Peter 3:13-22 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.
18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you — not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

 

Acts 17:22-31 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For ‘In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,
‘For we too are his offspring.’
29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”



[1] John 13:34

[2] John 15:12-14

[3] John 14:16 and 18a.

John 10:1-10 “Ticket-Takers and Open Gates”

John 10:1-10  “Ticket-Takers and Open Gates”

Caitlin Trussell on May 11, 2014 at Augustana Lutheran Church

 

John 10:1-10 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

 

So which one is it?!  Is Jesus the gate or is Jesus the shepherd?  So which one is it?! Are we the sheep?   Or are we the thieves, bandits and strangers?  This text is loaded with imagery as Jesus tries to communicate who he is with his disciples.  No wonder the disciples are confused.   To give us a place to focus, I really want you to hear Jesus’ gift to us as he says, “I am the gate.”  He says it twice.  “I am the gate.”

Think for a moment about gates that you come across in your day-to-day.  Picture the gate in your mind and who controls the gate and whether the gate stands opened or closed.  Think about what the gate is for, who is allowed to go in and go out of that gate and what it costs to move in and out of the gate.

Now, picture another gate.  It’s made of iron, as sturdy as a gate can be made.  This gate is open, wide open.  It’s so open that it’s welded open. There is freedom of movement as it stands open.  The gate cannot be closed or manipulated in any way.  It simply…stands…open… this is the gate I would like you to have in mind for the next few minutes.  A gate that stands open.

A few weeks ago, Pastor Pederson preached to us about the story that comes right before our verses today about Jesus is the gate.  About the story of the man born blind to whom Jesus gives sight.  The man born blind, who can now see because of Jesus, is asked all kinds of questions by the religious leaders of the temple and they ultimately drive him out of the temple when their questions aren’t answered to their expectations.  And Jesus receives that man who had once been blind.  The experience of the man born blind being given his sight by Jesus which launches the man into a maelstrom of questions asked by the community is the entry point to Jesus naming himself as the gate.

How many times has a new experience led us to new questions?  And those new questions to new answers?  Answers that challenge how we think about life and how we think about God.  Time and time again as children our minds stretch and grow to absorb all the new stuff we see and do and hear.  Time and time again as teenagers and, hopefully, if we’re lucky, time and time again as adults.  We are challenged to either understand something new or take on something new in the face of new information that arrives on the scene.  It is the way of life.  And for Jesus followers, it is a way of faith as we try to figure out what in the name of God…literally, in the name of God…we’re talking about when we talk about Jesus.

But it is also the way of life to not let in all the possibilities and information.  It is also the way of life to be overwhelmed by it.  It is also the way of life to be knocked down by the sheer quantity of information and experience that blow our minds and leave our expectations in tatters.  And it is the way of life to close ourselves off and create our own sheepfolds – sheepfolds that set-up our own beliefs about Jesus as the gate.  We set up a gate so that we might feel some small glimmer of hope that our right faith keeps us safe from that which would harm us or destroy us.  And, very quickly, we fall to the same temptation as the religious leaders did with the man born blind and we drive people out as if we ourselves are the gate.

And then I like to take a big breath as Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the gate.”  Because Jesus as the open gate in this passage is very, very different than thinking about Jesus as the faith-ticket-taker.  You know, like I have my ticket of faith which gives me entrance to the right church and then, at the just the right time, I hand my ticket of faith over to Jesus so that all will be well, so that I will be well.

I’m pretty sure there are no tickets of faith-in-Jesus that purchase protective outerwear for deflecting the worst kind of pain.  Perhaps to confirm this we could check in with a few of our most faithful brothers and sisters in the nearest ICU or hospice.

And I’m pretty sure that there is no ticket-of-faith in Jesus that unleashes a cash windfall – perhaps we could check in with some of our poorest and most faithful brothers and sisters, numbering in the millions across the planet, who wonder where their next meal is coming from.

In fact, what these faithful brothers and sisters all over the world experience is what we experience. We all experience some moments in life and other people at their worst.  We experience faith living in the shadow of the cross while clinging to the promise of the Easter resurrection.  In the season of Easter, we live on this side of the resurrection although we see it through a glass darkly.[1]  The realities of the cross are real even today.  Jesus does not describe a world free of bandits and thieves.  Jesus names the bandits as real, as the powers that rob us of life and health.[2]

So then, Jesus is the gate to the abundance of what?  He says, “I came so that you may have LIFE and have it abundantly.”  That he says this through the specter of the cross is key.  Jesus lives a truth about the mess of human reality on the cross. Jesus overcomes that reality not by ignoring it but by dying on it.  Lighting up our vulnerability through his own – vulnerability that cannot be ignored.  So then we can stop pretending that we know enough and are strong enough to be our own gates, our own gods.  Jesus promises an abundant life that is the power of the love of God in the midst of real threats, in the middle of thieves and bandits who kill and destroy, who show up in the valley of the shadow of death.

Jesus is the gate through whose death and resurrection we enter and emerge into life abundant.

Jesus is the gate who sees the truth of the whole you – the image of God in you and the worst of the brokenness in you.

Jesus is the gate with whom you enter into the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil.

Jesus is the gate who promises that death, when it comes, may win the moment but does not win the day when you breathe your last in this body and awake in the next.

 



[1] 1 Corinthians 13:12  For now we see through a glassdarkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.

[2] Craig Koester, Gospel of John, Course Lecture at Luther Seminary, October, 13, 2010.