August 5, 2012, "Satisfied, Satiated, Salvation"

Ephesians 4 Mark 6:24-35 There is a certain arrogance about preaching, that as humble or sincere or devout as the minister may be, we believe we can explain to you the Will of God better than the Prophets! We can interpret the mind of Christ better than he himself did! We can offer the words of Scripture in a way that will permit you to hear the mysteries of God in ways no one else in all human history has ever done. Faith and Life are not about some private knowledge of the preacher. There is also an arrogance about being a member, and having been an elder or deacon, having peaked behind the curtain of leadership, we think we are closer to holiness, we know about the inter-workings and struggles to make everyone happy, and therefore have some greater authority than others do. We have perpetuated a mistaken impression in the church... Annually when we ordain and install our Elders and deacons, 95% of the church rise up for the laying on of hands. The theological significance is that those who have gone before stand behind and support the current leadership, by placing our hands upon the shoulders of another we confer the spirit of God which rested upon us to the next. However, there has come to be an acceptance that the 95% have done it before, paid our dues, are safe from being asked and we now know better than to be the ones who get elected to responsibility. The wonder of the church is that the experiences of every occasion in the church and the people involved, are perpetually new. That really is the crux of everything in the church today. There was a time in European history, in which Church leaders believed we knew better, what the world needed, than the masses ever could. The worship service was recited in Latin over the people, because it was holy, because it was mystical. The people did not understand, but the point was not understanding, not to make the people happy. The point was Authority. We are now in a period of human history in which people have chosen for themselves what they want to have and want to believe. And I would readily admit as your pastor, that I have attempted to bend and stretch to make people happy and discovered that sometimes like Jonah beneath the withered plant, People do not want to be happy! What Jesus did was different. He showed the people other layers of understanding and meaning, in symbol and word and healing touch, Jesus allowed the people to meet him and be challenged to go deeper in their faith and experience. 5000 people had been fed with 5 loaves and 2 small fish, creating a superabundance left over. Having been fed the day before, the following morning the people came back and when they could not find him where he had been, they crossed over to the other side of the lake looking for him to satisfy their hunger. Jesus spoke to the people of Manna in the wilderness. He spoke to them of Bread of Eternal Life. He spoke to the people of how he himself was that sustenance. Like poetry, what Jesus described was not rational, not an equation to be reasoned and understood. Life is experiential. John Calvin was once asked to explain the mystery of Communion. He replied that he would rather experience truly forgiving and being forgiven, sharing with one another and through one another with God, than trying to explain how this occurred. The Enlightenment had been this great experiment, designed to reveal and explain all the hidden laws of the universe, that we might eventually know the actions and reactions of this machine called Life. Knowledge was equated with Power, believing that if we knew how to get bread every day, we could satisfy ourselves and be satisfied. Following the Enlightenment has come The Information Age, in which by technology we could be informed not only with knowledge, but informed about everything past and present throughout the world, informed socially about what other people are doing and what they are thinking. Our televisions and smart phones now give us information on 1000 different channels from around the world, while scrolling additional headlines, stock market changes, the weather and sports at the bottom of the screen. Our addiction to information is perpetually satiated with ever new devices, but being informed about so much, having our senses satiated with more than we can process, we have retreated into passivity. The problem is that we adopted the literal words of the Lord's Prayer, without comprehending Jesus' teaching the crowds in John 6. We have recited “Give us this day our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors...” believing we have the right to make demands of God, and knowing the hunger of daily wanting to be satisfied. What Jesus challenged the people was to believe in changing their lives, to believe in salvation where we are not focused upon our needs and wants, but on what we can do together. Ephesians describes that there are a variety of gifts, no one within the church possessing them all! Within the church we need one another. What I find amazing about this passage is that no one has “legitimate” ground to stand on. We have been in the Olympics throughout the last 10 days and for the next week, searching for the greatest in the world. According to Ephesians, even Jesus is described as while being the one who ascended to sit at the right hand of God...ascending means he had descended. And descended actually means not only to be among us as the incarnation, but even to the depths of humanity in hell. Paul describes himself, not as a great Apostle, he was not even one of the Disciples, but as a Prisoner for the Lord. How different our feelings of responsibility and accountability if we claim our identity as having been found guilty and serving as prisoners of the Lord who then are also Children of God. As opposed to claiming identity in the first place of being Christians, and more than Christians Presbyterians. We have not spoken mjuch of Salvation in recent decades. Like the 2nd Coming, like Evangelism's knocking on doors, Salvation has been among the words we tried to avoid. But we dare not, because the point is not meeting our needs, not satisfying our desires, or amassing an abundance that we can pass on to our inheritors. Salvation is about being changed to accept our reality, including the worst of it and also claiming God's presence in our lives to transform our nature, which there is no room for if we are attempting to satiate our desires.