We are a culture obsessed with identity. We struggle to find our place, our titles, our preferences, and our personality types. Renee was not immune to this struggle and we’ve reflected on her struggle to make space. But early in Renee’s life she settled on the short letter a tearful prophet Jeremiah scripted to the exiles in Babylon. They also longed to find themselves in a place that “truly understood them”. They also felt misunderstood, underrepresented, cast aside. But Renee took these words as her life verse.  Let me read us a small selection: (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

And this was the verse that Renee had inscribed in a ring which she cherished:

 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 

Seek the peace and prosperity, the shalom, of the city. Renee loved the cities she lived in. Some of them she was even fond of. But all of them received her dedicated service: her prayer walks (often with some of us in tow), her food-bank, block-party, movie-night, immigrant-support, Bible-study shalom-seeking. Her Babylons were Minneapolis, Denver, Washington DC, and Brooklyn, NY. Indeed she sought out peace for many people, many people that religious people like me at times overlook. Renee sometime stirred up us religious folk. She didn’t always let me off the hook when it seemed polite or discreet. But when it came to an active seeking of actual peace for situations easier to step over than to address: She never let me look away.

There was another prophet who stirred up religious folk. Jesus of course told us not to seek what the world seeks. He also refused to just step over those who were inconvenient, those hard to love, those with little to offer.  His words were, “if you seek life (as the world does), you will loose it.” (Matt 10:39, 16:5). Jesus asked us to, “seek first his kingdom,” (Matt 6:33) the place where his peace rests and replaces our restless selfishness. This only costs you everything you’ve been chasing after. One early follower of Jesus exclaimed, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him,” (Phil 3:8)

Can you imagine the shalom, the peace of Jesus resting in you and granting you a peace and a fullness that quenches your soul’s thirst? Perhaps you, like Renee can imagine it. Imagine God’s peace working it’s way through your body and your soul, working it’s way out to your neighbor, your grocer, your fellow passenger, your student, your boss, your parent. That’s what seeking the shalom can become. And our cities, our Babylon, becomes pocketed by small kingdoms of God’s peace and mercy.

That is what Renee asked me to share with you.  She asked me to ask you this specifically:  Who will take on this calling, this mission: to seek the peace and wellness of the city, to pray for it, to serve it?  So I suppose there are two questions before you.  Two inconvenient truths that Renee and I won’t let you look away from just yet. First: Will you give up your search for your self and relinquish your life to God? Second: Will you seek Jesus and his peace for the city that surrounds you?  If you would, after the service concludes, I would like to speak with you and commission you in Jesus’ name, for the sake of our cities, with Renee’s blessing, and for the glory of God.

• in the world
• In the kingdom / believer
• In salvation and sanctification

• Culture areas of strength:
• • People before Programs. Slow together is better than fast and alone.
• Culture areas of growth:
• • If I own it, I finish the job, I report on the job

• Introduce or Re-Introduce the idea of Ministry Team and Building Team

Paradox.  A paradox sounds absurd at first but echos with profound sensibility as it settles in. A paradox forces us to see the truth held in tension. And of course a good paradox fills us with a sense of wonder and awe.  You are a bit of a paradox.  As we grow older, time feels both longer and quicker. We say the days feel longer and the weeks feel shorter. As we mature and grow in wisdom, we realize how much we do not know and can not comprehend.

  When we consider our current situation our paradox’s multiply. We have access to more information all about any subject every known to mind, but we know less about our neighbors than ever in human history.  Most of us have the ability to call any country in the world for free or very cheaply, but most people around us are lonely.  Most of us have seen amazingly detailed images of galaxies far in the distance taken by a telescope that orbits far above the earth, but most of us can’t see the stars in our sky anymore.  

Psalm 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

God created the silence of the night sky to scream his wondrous power through infinite vacuum and terrifying cold. He hurled the galaxies, stars and planets into precise and measured paths.  The Psalmist thinks they speak.  That their dance reveals truth and knowledge.  That their message goes out to the ends of the earth, to every person who has ever walked the earth.  And for most of us, we don’t care to look up. Have we lost the wonder? The awe? 

I recall walking in a Redwood forest as a small child, the trees wider than several cars, taller than twenty-story buildings.  I experience deeper awe returning with my children.  I had grown twice my childhood height, but my neck still drew back and my mouth swung open. But when I look into the sky, I don’t see what the ancients saw.  I don’t see the evidence of God’s goodness like the wisemen of Persia did.  I don’t rely on it consistent story to mark seasons, planting and harvest, years of births and deaths, constellations, shooting stars, comets and blood moons.  I suspect you don’t either.  We use calendars, cell phones, watches, and atomic clocks to pass time. It’s a paradox though.  We’ve gained precision on each second, but we’ve lost the context of the infinite vast creation.  We can measure our lives duration but we’ve lost track of our life’s value. But this is the great aspect of Advent.  This season where we revisit the Christmas paradox.

Christmas is a great pile of paradox. A group of wise guys from out East see a star.  They hear the heavens declare the glory of God while Levites, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots see only another nights sky.  The silence of God, 400 years without prophetic interruption, is broken by the voice of planets. The word planet means wandering star.  These celestial messengers proclaimed a King of Kings.  The greatest king who was hidden in a feeding trough.  The royal birth promised to bless all nations proclaimed through the entire cosmos but attended to by a few poor shepherd and perhaps some resting livestock.  By the time the foreign magicians, maybe distant disciples of Daniel, maybe leftovers from a Jewish captivity, the child at age two still played among the sheep being raised as temple sacrifices.  A king who would be tortured.  A gift from almighty God, overlooked by a nation waiting for him.

But here is where we glimpse with awe, a thrill of hope, the psalmist says more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” He is Immanuel, God with us. Not just around us or at our meetings or hovering within earshot.  He created galaxies humans will never see, but he promised to dwell with you.  He said he stands at the door and knocks. If anyone hears his voice and opens the door, he will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.  He told his disciples that he would be with them, even to the end of the age.

And that’s the last paradox worth our wonder. Jesus said the heavens will again scream God’s glory to all the nations.  He says, “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

This is also the paradox of Advent, the wonder of our waiting.  A trembling world will receive God’s glory.  A cosmic creator will declare his kingdom over a lone planet of humiliated usurpers.  Jesus said, “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

This advent season we wait, not for a holiday on a calendar, parties, pastries, presents, or programs.  This advent we wait for celestial proclamations, messages blazing across the heavens.  This advent our paradox is not absurd, but filled with hope and wonder and awe.  That Jesus has brought us near to God, and God’s kingdom is drawing near.  That the day of our redemption, our hope, our final peace with God is held firm, prepared before time, as sure to come as tomorrow’s sun rise, it’s light overcoming every evil, every darkness, every fear.

Let’s pray.

Written: Feb 14, 2019  Ideas are my own and are not approved by anyone. 

Christ didn’t come to identify with Christians, Protestant or Catholic, Orthodox or Coptic.

Jesus didn’t come to identify with heterosexuals, married, monogamous, homosexual, or bisexual.

Jesus didn’t come to identify with Jews, or North Americans, with Asians or Europeans, with Africans or South Americans. Jesus came to identify with humans.

He took on humanity. He took on the ecclesiastic meaninglessness of human life: birth, growth, siblings, learning, work, play, love, hurt, rejection, failure, sickness, brutality, etc. All of it. Humanity. He experienced it all. He did no evil. (Faith required). But he experienced every kind of sin against him, and every kind of temptation. He identified as human.

This is the miracle of God with us. Not merely God for us from a distance. But God with us, one of us, in step with us.

This Sunday we focused on Psalm 98 and discussed how we pray to God, specifically in our praise of God.  I claimed that our praise for God rebuilds our trust in him. Our website has the sermon posted now here: firstfreebrooklyn.org/sermons

Here is a quote I used in the sermon that I really enjoyed:   “When I give thanks, my thoughts still circle about myself to some extent. But in praise my soul ascends to self-forgetting adoration, seeing and praising only the majesty and power of God, His grace and redemption.” – Ole Hallesby, Prayer, 1957

According to Richard Foster’s book on Prayer, CS Lewis (Letters to Malcom) wrote that four thing keep us from adoration:

1. Lack of attention
2. Negative attention or misunderstanding
3. Greed : Ever asking God for an “encore” or another blessing
4. Conceit : A high view of self

As we learn to pray, I hope we will learn to praise God for his actual goodness and learn to cherish him for himself.

Practicing Prayer With You, Pastor Chris

And this is a post to just mark that fact and list the titles and dates.  They are all on our website to listen to. (online here)  Enjoy!

April 28th: Titus 1:1-5 An Unfinished Calling

May 5th: Titus 1:5-9  An Unfinished Character

May 12th: Titus 1:10-16 An Unfinished Battle

May 19th: Titus 3:3-8 An Unfinished Inheritance

May 26th: Titus 2:1-10 An Unfinished Relationship

June 2nd: Titus 2:11-15 An Unfinished Proclamation

June 9th: Titus 2:15 – 3:2 An Unfinished Investment

June 16th: Titus 3:9-15 An Unfinished Commitment

I started a note to the church Elder Board and possibly the entire church way back in 2018 and never finished it.  It was kind of important, so I’m finishing it and putting it here so I can direct people toward it in the future.

I don’t know how important the 2018 theology conference was for the EFCA, but I know it was important for my involvement in the EFCA. As a relative new comer to the denomination, I have found one question keeps coming to my mind. Is God’s redemptive work unifying people across ethnic boundaries in Christ to be his Church central to the EFCA’s understanding of the gospel? That’s a mouthful. Perhaps a shorter version would be: Do we believe the gospel requires BOTH reconciliation to God AND to others?

Below I’ve linked to the talks that were delivered at the conference with the summary that the EFCA folks gave to each (so they are not my summaries).

In listening to these episodes, let me encourage you to pace yourself appropriately. If you have been a part of conversations like this for many years, of course you may want to hear Dr. Perkins first and then enjoy the other talks or you may just listen to them in the order that peaks your interest. If however, you don’t recognize some of the names of these speakers, or perhaps this hasn’t been a major focus of your ministry thus far, start with these two:

1. Episode 153: Doug Sweeney on American Evangelicals and Racial and Ethnic Partiality AND
2. Episode 155: Dr. Carl Ellis Jr. on The Gospel, Martin Luther King Jr. Contextual Theology and Evangelicalism.
3. If you get to a third, listen to this one: Episode 152: Jarvis Williams on The Cross and Racial Reconciliation.
   Of course I think you’ll find a great amount of value in all of them.

Episode 155: Dr. Carl Ellis Jr. on The Gospel, Martin Luther King Jr. Contextual Theology and Evangelicalism (March 22, 2018 from EFCA Theology Podcast)

https://www.efca.org/podcasts/episodes/episode-155-dr-carl-ellis-jr-gospel-martin-luther-king-jr-contextual-theology-and

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This often is one of those racial markers over which there are differences of opinion. Likely, many white brothers and sisters have probably not thought much about this anniversary. Conversely, most African American brothers and sisters are quite aware of this anniversary, and not to remember or recognize this in some way would be hurtful. Many of the differences regarding Martin Luther King, Jr. are along racial lines. Join us as Dr. Carl Ellis Jr. discusses the relationship between The Gospel, Martin Luther King, Jr., Contextual Theology, and Evangelicalism.

Episode 154: Dr. John Perkins on Miles Walked and a Lived History (March 20, 2018 from EFCA Theology Podcast)

https://www.efca.org/podcasts/episodes/episode-154-dr-john-perkins-miles-walked-and-lived-history

It is one thing to address this issue theoretical or academically. It is another to address this personally and experientially. One is not more or less important than another. Both are necessary, even though the issue is approached from different vantage points. Both provide significant and important insights into the issues we are studying, discussing and living. Join with other EFCA pastors as we listen to the wisdom of Dr. John Perkins as he discusses the need for unity within the church.

Episode 153: Doug Sweeney on American Evangelicals and Racial and Ethnic Partiality (March 15, 2018 from EFCA Theology Podcast)

https://www.efca.org/podcasts/episodes/episode-153-doug-sweeney-american-evangelicals-and-racial-and-ethnic-partiality

The church, committed to and compelled by the gospel of Jesus Christ, has engaged in both the proclamation of the gospel and its accompanying social ministries of compassion and justice. This has been reflective of the church from the beginning. Affirming this reality, it is important to address and assess how Evangelicals have historically addressed these matters of race in the 18th-19th centuries, some of our significant right-steps and have some of the other painful missteps and sins of the past 150-200 years which remain with us today. Join with other EFCA pastors as they listen to Doug Sweeney, Distinguished Professor of Church History and History of Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical School.

Episode 152: Jarvis Williams on The Cross and Racial Reconciliation (March 13, 2018 from EFCA Theology Podcast)

https://www.efca.org/podcasts/episodes/episode-152-jarvis-williams-cross-and-racial-reconciliation

As Evangelicals more broadly, and as the EFCA more specifically, we are people of the Book. One EFCA motto has been and remains, “where stands it written,” which addresses both the biblical truth of a doctrine and also the practical outworking of that truth in life. Join us as Dr. Jarvis Williams, an Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary walks us through how to live out this truth.

Episode 151: Greg Strand Introduces the 2018 Theology Conference (March 01, 2018 from EFCA Theology Podcast)

https://www.efca.org/podcasts/episodes/episode-151-greg-strand-introduces-2018-theology-conference

Earlier this year, our 2018 EFCA Theology Conference theme explored The Gospel, Compassion and Justice and the EFCA. Recent events in our nation and world have made it clear it is both timely and necessary to address the topics of racial reconciliation and immigration. The gospel is being undermined and tarnished by the lack of reconciliation among believers and the lack of concern for the immigrant. Join with fellow EFCA pastors and leaders in listening and learning from the speakers at our 2018 conference as they address this theme from biblical, theological, historical and pastoral perspectives.