John the Prophet

 This sermon was a mistake.  I did my preparation as usual, went through the service this morning as usual.  When it got to the time where the priest reads the Gospel, I know enough Swahili to know that what he was reading and the text I had prepared from were not the same.  Turns out, I had prepared a sermon based on Saturday's gospel reading.  I make a lot of mistakes, but that's the first time that's ever happened!  As a preacher, I have to believe that God can use our mistakes for his glory, and that somebody, somewhere needed this sermon on John rather than the one our lectionary actually called for on the Light of the World.  So our little parish got a sermon on John the Baptist.  And now you will too!

The Jordan River (From Danny the Digger's Blog)  Might that be Danny himself with a fishing pole?

Prokeimenon. Mode 4.
Psalm 103.4,1

Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire
Verse: Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God you are very great.

The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans 9:18-33

Brethren, God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'my beloved.'" "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.'" And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch." And as Isaiah predicted, "if the Lord of hosts had not left us children, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah." What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame."

The Gospel According to St. Matthew 11:2-15

At that time, when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me." As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.' Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

 

 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

These are very confusing times when it comes to religion in general, and religion here in Nairobi in particular.  There are scores of people running around claiming to have this special anointing, or that special calling.  Just out in the neighborhood yesterday I saw a sign at a church that claimed the young man who was the minister there was an ‘apostle’.  Another church proclaimed that a husband-wife prophetic team would be ministering there.  Of course, self-proclaimed ‘bishops’ are so numerous that they go for the same price as tomatoes.

And all of these religious leaders tell their followers that we are on the verge of God’s next big thing.  They claim to be riding the wave of the next movement of God’s Spirit.  And of course they claim unique authority as God’s Prophet or Apostle or Leader to be able to interpret the times.  They claim the ability to speak God’s very words about a person or a situation.  That’s making an enormous claim when you think about it.

But none of this is new.  We were doing the same things back in the 1970s.  I was involved in the Charismatic Movement as it swept through my Presbyterian (!) Church.  People then were claiming to be able to heal in Jesus name.  We would sing and sing and sing and work ourselves up to such an emotional state that we would a burst forth in speaking in tongues.  And when that died down invariably someone would call out, ‘Thus says the Lord…’  It always sounded to me a lot like a quote from Isaiah, but it was always understood by everyone there that this was a ‘word from the Lord’.  What I began to observe is that, because these prophets had a kind of spiritual status, more and more people started claiming to have the ‘gift of prophecy’.  But what used to bother me then was that sometimes these ‘prophets’ would say things, and you knew they were just making it up, speaking of the top of their head.  Not only that, a lot of what they were saying was flat out wrong.  And I noticed that most of the time when they predicted something was going to happen, it never did.  But nobody else seemed to notice because we were always off onto the next thing.

This used to really bother me, and it still does.  And not least because it is misleading God’s people in God’s name.  Telling a lie ‘in the name of Jesus’ does not make it true.  This is what a real prophet of the Lord has to say about this sort of nonsense.  Jeremiah says this: 

‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you.  They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.  They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord, “It will be well with you”, and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, “No calamity will come upon you”…  I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.  But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way , and from the evil of their doings.’ (Jeremiah 23:16-17, 21-22)

Moses simply says this,

But any prophet…who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak – that prophet shall die.  You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?”  If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken.  The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.  (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

So what is a true prophet?  If we let our Bible answer that question, we come up with something very different from the sort of so-called prophets that are running around today.  First of all, genuine prophetic ministry is tied to the covenant that God made with his people Israel at Mount Sinai.  A prophet’s primary call was to warn Israel that if they continue to break the covenant, the curses that God said would happen to the covenant breakers would fall on their heads and they would be destroyed. But they also remind God’s people that if they return to the Lord in repentance and keep the covenant, the blessings God promised would be theirs.  Genuine prophets will also often mention that another is coming who will do what we sinners cannot do and make a way for us to be saved from the consequences of our rebellion against God.  All the other things that prophets do, like miracles (in the case of Elijah and Elisha), or sacrifices and judging (as in Samuel), or advising kings (as in Nathan and Jeremiah), are secondary to this one most important ministry – calling God’s people back from breaking God’s covenant with them.  Some prophets preach.  Some prophets write.  But if you look at every single one of the prophets in Israel’s history, they are concerned either about keeping the covenant or about the coming one.

At this point I need you to understand something very important about the covenant that God made at Mt. Sinai and the rest of the Old Testament.  Almost everywhere you go here in Kenya, Kenyans assume that the Old Testament is just as applicable to their lives as the New Testament.  It isn’t.  And this is the reason why.  Who was it that God delivered from Egypt?  The people of Israel.  And who was it that God brought to Mt. Sinai by the leadership of Moses and Aaron?  The people of Israel.  And with whom did God make his covenant at Mt. Sinai, the covenant we have recorded in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?  The people of Israel.  So let me ask you, are you a member of one of the 12 tribes of Israel?  Are you Jewish?  No, you are a Gentile.  God did not make his covenant with you.  All those laws that make up the covenant between God and Israel – they don’t apply to you or to me, because I’m a Gentile as well.

Israel was saved and blessed by God as his special people so that they could in turn becomes God’s blessings to the rest of the nations.  But Israel failed.  They did not keep the laws of the covenant.  They ran after the gods of the nations around them and in fact became worse in their behavior than all their neighbors.  God had said, if you keep my covenant you will be blessed.  But if you break these laws, you will be cursed.  And that is precisely what happened.  And that is what happens to us as well if we start telling ourselves and other people that we have to keep the Old Testament laws.  We can’t even keep the 10 commandments, which are at the heart of the covenant God made with Israel.  How many of you keep the sabbath holy?  None of us do.  None of us can pretend that we keep God’s Old Testament laws.  And everyone who says they do is simply deluded and is calling down on his or her own head the curses of not keeping God’s covenant.  So Israel broke God’s covenant and needs a Savior.  But we Gentiles have also been alienated from God, lost in our idolatries, and condemned to die because of our rebellion against God from the beginning.  And we need a Savior, too.

Which brings us to Jesus’ cousin John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who early in his life went to the Judean wilderness and from there started preaching, warning people to repent because God’s kingdom was at hand.  And John gave a way for people who wanted to repent of their sins, to repent of having broken God’s covenant, to respond – he started baptizing repentant men and women in the Jordan River.

John was a prophet of the Sinai Covenant, sent by God to warn his people that God’s judgement was coming because of their having broken the covenant.  But he also announces to God’s people that God’s salvation was at hand for everyone who responded by turning back to God and by trusting in the one who was coming. What John was doing by the Jordan and in the wilderness was so alarming to the political class in Jerusalem, that they sent people out to investigate what was really going on.  And they asked John, Why are you baptizing all these people?  Are you the Messiah?  And John said, No, I’m not the Messiah.  Are you Elijah, then?  No, I am not Elijah.  Are you the Prophet that Moses said would come?  No I am not the Prophet.  What then are you?  What report are we supposed to take back to Jerusalem?  And John said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.  Make straight the way of the Lord, just as Isaiah the prophet said.’ (John 1:23) 

Then the religious leaders from Jerusalem asked John, ‘So why are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?  

‘I baptize you with water for repentance,’ says John, ‘but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ (Matthew 3:11-12)

Not only did John call Israel to repentance, it fell to him to point out what God was doing right here, right now, in their very midst.  ‘The next day John was again standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”’ (John 1:35-36)  And then you know how the next part of the story goes.  In Matthew’s version,

‘Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Joran to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”  Then he consented.  And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”’ (Matthew 3:13-17)

John wasn’t concerned about what was popular, he wasn’t concerned to attract a following or to make money.  He spoke the truth and called people to account.  And as a result he put powerful and rich people on the spot and made them feel very uncomfortable.  And when he criticized King Herod Agrippa for committing adultery with his brother’s wife, Herod arrested him and threw him into the dungeon beneath his palace.  This was obviously a very challenging time for John.  But what he was most concerned about was figuring out what Jesus was doing.  Jesus, of course, was busy confounding everyone’s expectations about what a messiah should do and be, those of his disciples, those of the people; and even John in the king’s dungeon was concerned.  So John sent friends to ask Jesus, ‘Are you really the One, or shall we look for another?’

And this is what Jesus said:

"Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me." As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.' Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Matthew 11:4-15)

John was a faithful witness.  He did what God sent him to do.  He warned Israel to repent, and he warned sinners of the consequences of their sin.  And he pointed everybody around him, and even us today, to Jesus.  History his proven Jesus right in his estimation of John and his ministry – ‘there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist’.  And yet those who are now part of God’s kingdom, because they are living out Jesus’ priorities and participating in the advance of the Kingdom here and now, Jesus says that the least of these is greater than John.

The gospel of John records a conversation between John the Baptist and some of his disciples.  They were concerned that many of the crowds that had been following John were leaving to follow Jesus.  But John said to them,

‘You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.”  He who has the bride is the bridegroom.  The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.  For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.’ (John 3:28-30)

A true prophet points to Jesus.  This is what made John the greatest of the prophets.  And when Jesus comes, the true prophet stands aside.  Because what is a candle when the sun rises in the morning?  And the essence of the true prophet’s ministry is that Jesus must increase, and I must decrease.  If the prophet’s ministry is about the prophet and his or her reputation and about getting money and becoming a somebody, you can be certain that that person is not serving the Lord but himself or herself.  That person is not pointing us to Jesus but is, in fact, a deceiver.

Glory to the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Preached this morning in the little parish of St. Sophia Orthodox Church, off of Kabiria Road in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Kingdom-First Life

 

Lake Awasa in Ethiopia

Prokeimenon. Mode 4.
Psalm 67.35,26

God is wonderful among his saints.
Verse: Bless God in the congregations.

The reading is from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians 6:1-10

Brethren, working together with him, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation." Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in any one's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

The Gospel According to Matthew 6:22-33

The Lord said, "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

When I lived in Kisumu, I saw street boys every time I walked downtown.  Some of them knew me and they would shout out ‘Dr. Black!  Dr. Black!’  But others who didn’t know me would come up to me and say, ‘No food, no home, I’m hungry.  Give me money!’  A friend of mine runs one of the largest NGOs helping street boys in Kisumu, and so I knew that if they were really hungry they could go there and eat as much as they wanted.  And rather than sleep on the streets, they could find a safe place there to sleep every night, if they wanted to. So I would talk to them.  But I would not give them any money.  Instead I tell them to go to the NGO if they are really hungry.  But these boys are desperate for money.  And they will do whatever they can to get it.  Beg.  Lie.  Steal.  Sell their bodies.  They need it to buy the glue and alcohol and the other drugs they use.  They need it to get the things they think they need to survive.

I sometimes walked through the market on market day.  It’s crowded with people selling and buying.  On the one hand people trying to save as much money as they can as they haggle over the price of children’s clothes or a kilo of tomatoes or an armful of kienyeji.  On the other hand, mamas who have bought a bundle of used clothes are trying to squeeze as much money out of their customer as possible so they can pay off the cost of the bundle and have enough to feed their children.  Poor people fighting over money as if it is the most important thing in the world.  And then there are thieves running around looking for an opportunity to relieve someone of their wallet or purse.  And there are con men wandering around ready to tell a story in order to extract money from someone who believes what he is saying is true.  And just about all of them, getting money is the name of the game; it is the most important thing in the world.

The politician looks smart in his suit.  He says he wants to get elected to help the local people here.  He makes a lot of promises.  He has come to the church harambee because he knows he’ll have an audience and he can look good by making a generous contribution and by making a speech and buying some votes.  But really this politician is like all the others.  He will do anything to get elected because he knows that people in the government get rich because they have access to all that government money.  And they come up with clever schemes to get that money out of government accounts and into their account.  So they can build a big house.  So they can buy a BMW. But they keep playing the game, keep pretending that they are fighting for you, the people.  But this man, these politicians are desperate for money.  For them getting money is the most important thing.  They think it is the key to being successful, the key to becoming powerful, they key to becoming a big man or a big woman in this society.  And they will do anything to get it and to hold on to it.  They will lie.  They will cheat.  They will steal.  They will sell their soul to corruption.  They will even kill anyone who gets in their way.  And if you don’t believe me, just read the papers.

An Orthodox priest starts an orphanage.  He and his wife are caring for 15 children.  He has to raise the money he needs, and so he creates a webpage online describing the orphanage and the children and what their needs are, including pictures.  On the other side of the planet, an American couple sees the pictures and the description of the orphanage and they decide to help.  In fact many people see the pictures and read the plea for help, and decide to send money.  So the orphanage has plenty of money and is able to buy land and build a house for the children, and pay for their food and for their school fees.  Another Orthodox priest hears of his success and wants to get money as well.  So he gets someone to design a webpage with pictures of children and the school they attend and the place where they sleep and eat with a description of orphanage and the needs they have.  And the same thing happens.  Some tender-hearted American reads the description and he decides he wants to help.  So he sends money to the priest.  And so do a number of others.  But the thing about it is, this priest has no orphanage.  There are no children, there are no needs.  His webpage is just a scheme to get more money.  It’s a fraud.  In my country, a man like that would be arrested and sent to prison.  Here it seems to be business as usual.  This is what the desire for money does to people.  It corrupts their heart.  Even the hearts of those in the Church.

Jesus knows that money will never satisfy the deep need of your heart.  And yet He also knows that we all need money to survive.  All of these people, running around trying to get money.  They may succeed and get something of what they think they want, but all their money, all their riches, all of their possessions are powerless to fill the emptiness in their hearts.  They spend their lives worshipping at the altar of money. And even though you will see almost all of them in church on Sunday, money is their god.  But money is a cruel master and will abandon them all in the end.

It’s bad enough when this happens to the people in the world.  But the real tragedy is what is going on right here, in our Churches, in our Church.  People  come every week pretending to be Christians, but their lives are no different from everyone else: no different from the street boys; no different from the con men and the thieves in the market, no different from the politicians, no different from the Orthodox priests and their fake orphanages.  Attending Church makes no difference whatsoever in how so many of us are living our lives.  We lie just like everyone else.  We cheat just like everyone else.  And we are running after money just like everyone else.  Jesus simply observes that you and I cannot serve two masters.  We cannot pretend to serve God while we are really trying to get money.

But in our passage this morning, Jesus doesn’t shame us or condemn us.  But He does correct us.  Even though our hunger and thirst for money pushes us down the path of destruction, Jesus is showing us a different way, a better way, His way.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  We can choose a different way.  We can choose to trust God.  We can choose the way of the Kingdom.

Why are you anxious about your life, says Jesus?  Why are you anxious about having enough to eat or buy clothes or do the things you need to do?  Can you not see that this life is more than food or clothes or the money that buys them?  And to make his point, Jesus gives two examples.

Look at the birds, says Jesus.  They have no job.  They don’t make any money.  They don’t grow crops, they don’t sell in the market, and yet they have enough.  God gives them what they need day by day.   They don’t worry about those things, and it sets them free to be what God has made them to be.

And look at the flowers of the field.  They don’t sew their own clothes, they don’t go shopping at the market.  And yet they are among the most beautiful things on the planet.  God gives them what they need and it is more than enough.

And the same is true for us.  We run after money to get food, to buy clothes, to get tools, to pay rent, to pay for transport, for school fees, for all the things we think we need.  And then if there is anything left over (and there usually isn’t), we think of God.  But we have missed the point of this life, says Jesus.  It’s not about food, clothes, money and getting stuff.  It’s not about looking like one is successful.  This life is about knowing God, about trusting God, about living as if God actually exists, about living as if God’s word is true, about living as if heaven and hell are real.  This is what it means when Jesus says ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!’

What about you?  Can you see God from where you are?  Or is your view blocked by your substitute gods?  Are you part of what our Lord is doing in this world?  Are you in the Kingdom? Are you being ruled by the King?  There is no more important question you could answer.  Everything - your life, your future, your hopes and dreams, your final destination - everything hangs on how you answer.

And this is how Jesus sums up the matter:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

Don’t be anxious, says Jesus.  Our behavior would simply be stupid and senseless if it wasn’t also leading us to tragedy.  Your Father in heaven, says Jesus, knows that you need these things.  Instead, get your priorities right.  The first thing, the best thing is  to seek the kingdom of God, and to order your life and your relationships and your priorities and your business and your education accordingly.  Put the King first, put Jesus first, and God will take care of you.  That’s the promise.  This doesn’t mean that it will start raining shillings where you live.  But God will use your job, your opportunities, your context to provide for you.  But if you choose the way of Christ, if you choose to follow Christ and be His disciple, to live your life for Him, to make His priorities your priorities, He will go before you and give you a life worth living. Commit your way to Christ and He will make you rich in all the things that really matter.

So what does seeking first the kingdom of God actually look like?  It means you give yourself and your time and your talents and your money to help the Church become everything Jesus has called you to be.  It means being generous every week with your money.  I have said this before and I will keep saying it until we start doing it:  It means working together with the other faithful here to make sure that your priest has a salary that he can live on and do what God is calling Him to do.  It is not the bishop’s job to pay our priest.  This is not OCMC’s job to pay them.  This is your job.  And it makes us in our churches look very bad if our bishops and our priests have to beg people outside this country for money.  It communicates to everybody around us with eyes to see that we don’t take Christianity seriously when we can’t even pay our priests a living wage. 

But seeking first the kingdom of God also means that you get involved or take leadership in one of the ministries of the Church.  Maybe you are gifted in singing or chanting.  Join the choir! Or if you don’t have one, start one.  Or start one for the children and the youth.  And then work with them at being excellent at what you do.  Maybe you are a good farmer.  With the blessing of the parish leaders, start a small chicken farm to help the church pay its bills, to help support its ministries.  If you want to grow as a Christian, start a bible study and a prayer group.  Find five or six others who will be willing to meet with you on a Wednesday evening or Tuesday morning over Breakfast at Java House for 8 weeks.  Study the Sermon on the Mount or one of Paul’s letters like Ephesians.  Churches always need teachers to help teach the children, the youth and the adults.  Volunteer to be a Sunday School teacher.  And if you don’t have Sunday school for the youth or the adults, volunteer to start it.  And then some of you may have a concern to reach out to the community, to share the gospel, to provide relief and help for the poor, or even to support missionaries sent to other parts of the country and the continent and the world.  Start a mission committee and start reaching out to the world.  Find a need in the community and help to fix it.

Very few of these things costs any money whatsoever.  We could do any of these things and more right now.  What it does cost is you making a decision to use your time and your resources and your talents for the sake of Jesus’ Kingdom right here.  Jesus says that whoever wishes to come after Me and be My disciple, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me.  Most of our Churches are filled with people who do not know what a disciple is.  And yet Jesus says the only real followers He has are disciples.  A disciple gives up everything to live for the Master.  All of these other people are living for other things.  And so Jesus here is giving us the secret of the Christian life, the real secret of the blessed life.  Seek first the kingdom, seek first the King, seek first his righteousness.  And as we do so, God is reclaiming a piece of this fallen world for Himself.  And your decision to be a disciple will have a huge impact on this church.  You will change this Church from the inside out. And when this becomes a giving church rather than a taking church, you will have many many opportunities to become God’s blessing to many people.  This is in fact what the Gospel is all about.  This is the reality to which our Church supposedly bears witness.  This is, in fact, what it means to be Orthodox.  This is what it means to be a Christian.  Do you hear the call of Jesus right now?  He is calling you to Himself.  What are you going to do.?

So seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you as well.  This should be good news.  Do you believe it?  When will you start to live it?

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

A sermon preached this morning at Sts. Anargyroi Orthodox Cathedral on Valley Road in Nairobi, Kenya.

‘Building on Rock, or Some Challenges You Are Going to Face’

 A group of more than 50 graduates of an Orthodox orphanage in Kenya gathered this past weekend for a seminar.  Some will be starting at colleges and universities.  Some will be starting jobs.  I was asked by the director to speak to them on issues they will face as they make the transition from having grown up in an orphanage to now entering the challenging world of life in today's Kenya.  This is what I talked about.

The foolish person built his/her house upon the sand...

‘Building on Rock or Some Challenges You Are Going to Face’                         July 4, 2021

Jesus tells this story:

‘Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  And everyone who ears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall.’   Matthew 7:24-27

You have no idea what you are about to face.  You are leaving what is familiar and walking into what is unfamiliar.  You are leaving old friends behind and getting to know an entirely different set of people.  You are leaving behind a school experience that will seem increasingly easy, and you are about to engage with serious learning, and you are about to discover that all your ways of studying and doing assignments will no longer carry you in the new place.  And you will increasingly be in a place where other people are not making decisions on your behalf, you are making decisions.  And these decisions will have consequences, for good and for bad.

And you are going into all this with all the over-confidence of youth.  The word is ‘hubris’ and it means excessive pride or self-confidence that leads inevitably to a fall or disappointment.  I see examples of hubris every day.  Young men on boda bodas think that they will live forever.  They think that they can handle whatever comes their way.  They think that the rules don’t apply to them.  They think…  until suddenly a truck pulls out right in front of them and it’s too late and that’s the end of the story.  That’s hubris, and ultimately it makes you a poster child of what it means to be a fool.  Young people tend to think that looking cool is the most important thing.  But nobody is going to care about how cool you are when you are lying in the morgue waiting for your relatives to identify what’s left of you.  Believe it or not, there are some things that are more important than being cool, than fitting in with the crowd.  And that’s what I want to talk to you about. 

They say that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.  Maybe you think you are something, or a somebody.  Maybe you are popular in your circle of friends.  We think we know something, but that just closes our minds to knowing anything

But the biggest issue you are going to face, and in fact you are facing it right now, is how serious are you about your faith?  How serious are you about being a Christian?  How serious are you about Jesus?  How you decided to answer these questions will not only decide who you are and where you are going this coming year.  It will decide the rest of your life.

Or we can put it the way Jesus puts it.  You have a choice to make.  You can build your life on something solid like the rock.  Or you can build your life on shifting sand.  But the way you build your house is what should surprise us.  Just like the kind and quality of house you are building is going to be determined by whether or not you build on the right foundation, so your life and the kind and purpose of your life is going to be determined on whether or not you take Jesus seriously.  But it’s not just Jesus, it’s what Jesus teaches.  And it’s not just what Jesus teaches, but what he tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7.

If you have spent some of your childhood in an orphanage, then you know something about what the storms of life can do to someone.  Have you ever thought about what carried you through those dark and hard days?  If you have tried to forget and put all that behind you, you need to realize that given the world that you and I live it, and the way it is trouble by everybody’s selfishness and sin, the way it is troubled by sickness and death, they way it is troubled by doubts and fears and brokenness and despair – you need to realize that the storms have only just begun and will keep coming.

My father has bought a house in South Carolina on an island in the Atlantic Ocean.  It is a beautiful house, and it is surrounded by beautiful houses, expensive houses, full of luxury and all the things that people think life is about.  But in that part of the country, enormous storms develop out in the ocean, and the winds can be 100, 150 even 200 miles an hour.  You know what these storms are called in that part of the world? Hurricanes.  And when they slam into the coast.  A certain number of these storms develop every year.  Some are weak.  Others are monsters.  And they strike the islands and coastlines of the Caribbean and Mexico and the US on a regular basis.  And they can cause catastrophic damage.  If one of these hurricanes came ashore where my father’s house is, do you know what would happen?  If it was a big one, the winds and the tidal surge would overwhelm the dunes and the land and engulf the houses and everything and wash It all away.  And in a big storm like that, there is no place to go.  You would be lost as well.

So what are some of the challenges you are going to face?  These are all things that have the potential to really mess up your life.  And it is good to get these issues on the table.

Young men, you are going to have friends who will want you to go drinking with them.  And they may even laugh at you if you hesitate.  This is called peer pressure, and it is one of the most powerful forces you will ever face.  American teenagers are a lot like Kenyans, they drink to get drunk.  There is little or no concern for moderation.  But let me be clear, alcohol is an addictive substance.  People who start to drink discover that the need to drink.  And then they can’t stop even if they want to.  Drinking too much at once will kill you.  But drinking a lot over time will destroy your body and you will rob yourself of 10, 20, 30 years of your life.  And when drunk people get into a car and drive away, they are like giving a loaded gun to a small child.  This will not end well, we say.  My brother in law was a nice guy.  But he drank.  And he got to the place where he was never seen without a drink, or a beer or a bottle of whiskey at hand.  And because of his addiction, he became violent.  And he destroyed his family and abandoned his wife and four children.  And all that drinking destroyed him.  He suffered a collapse and was in hospital for three weeks and then he died.  He was 46.  This happens all the time.  And it will happen to you if you choose to go down that road.  The best thing for you to do is today, make a commitment to say no to drinking.  Don’t think you can manage it.  It is a dragon, a monster who will manage you and then eat you for dinner.

Young ladies, you are beautiful and your bodies are a beautiful gift from God.  And young men will notice and they will do whatever they can to get you to have sex with them.  They will make you think that they love you and that you are special.  But really all they want is to use you.  If they really cared for you, they would work on building a strong relationship with you, one based on mutual love and trust .  They would demonstrate how worthy they are of you by how they live, how they treat you.  I’ve seen it again and again.  A young man manipulates a young woman to have sex with him.  She wants to be accepted and to feel loved and allows him to have his way.  He disappears.  She feels betrayed.  And then what happens if she gets pregnant?  Is that young man going to come and do the right thing and take responsibility for what he as done?  Perversely, everybody will probably blame the girl.  I say ‘perversely’ because it takes two people to make a baby.  And then to add to the nightmare, the young woman is going to be under pressure from the boy, from her parents, from her friends, to do what?  To have an abortion.

An abortion seems like such an easy solution to a challenging problem.  But do you know what an abortion is.  Inside that young woman’s womb is a baby, a human baby, no different from you or from me when we were in our mother’s womb.  When you get an abortion, the doctor kills that baby.  He might inject a very salty solution into the womb which burns the baby to death.  He may insert a special knife up the vagina and into the womb and cut the baby into pieces.  Or he may induce labor and allow the mother to deliver a baby maybe too small to live outside the mothers womb, and they let the little girl or the little boy die.  Abortion kills a little girl.  Abortion kills a little boy.  It’s a kind of murder.  And the reason most people get abortions is because they don’t want to be bothered with having a child and caring for a child and loving a child.  We kill our babies for the sake of convenience.

I know of a young couple – he was in his last year of secondary school and was the captain of the football team.  She was two years younger – 15, and was celebrated for her beauty.  They fell in love.  And then their relationship became sexual.  And then she became pregnant.  In their town, premarital sex was considered shameful.  The boy’s father was an elder in the local Presbyterian Church.  The girl’s family were Methodists.  And now she was pregnant.  What do you think they decided to do?  This is what they did.  The young man and the young woman decided to get married.  They did so secretly – they eloped to a different place and a judge married them.  Then they came back and lived with her parents.  And she gave birth to a little baby girl.  The mother was 16, the father was 18.  It was a difficult decision for them to make.  But I am so glad they did.  Because that little baby girl grew up and was my older sister.  And she became a scientist and a professor at an American University.  But if her parents had chosen to ‘end the pregnancy’, to abort the fetus, to kill the little girl, do you see what would have happened?  The world would have been denied a beautiful and remarkable life, full of life and a blessing to the people and colleagues and students and family and friends who know her.

Every child we kill stops a life like my sister’s.  Every abortion doesn’t just end a human life, it robs this world of someone and all their potential and all the good and all the blessing they could be.  And all for nothing more than selfishness.

Young women (and young men), to cover up the pregnancy that you caused by resorting to a greater evil, by killing the baby God has blessed you with.  Western NGOs will tell you that abortion is just another form of birth control.  But this is a lie.  It certainly prevents a birth from happening, but at the cost of an already conceived baby’s life.   Better yet, stop being so selfish when it comes to sex.  Sex is a beautiful thing, but God intends it to have its place in the context of a committed relationship, where the woman and the baby don’t have to worry that the man is not going to fulfill his part as father and husband.  Someone who is committed to Christ and to living the way of Christ will wait until they find that person with whom to commit themselves before getting sexually involved.  That’s what I did.  And I didn’t die.  And I wouldn’t do it any differently if I had the chance.

The last thing I want to do is talk about our money and our stuff and our time, all these things that we think are ours.  I want to help us understand what being a disciple, what being a real Christian, means with respect to our money and what we have.. 

But first let me ask you a couple of questions.  Who gave you life?  Who brought you into this world?  God did.  Who gave you your abilities, and a mind to think, and a voice to talk and sing?  God did.  And this day called today, and this hour, and this moment – where did they come from?  God has given you every second, every day, every year.  And everything you have, the stuff in your house, in your bank account, in your wallet or pocketbook?  It all comes from God.  Even the ability to think, to walk, to work, to make a salary – all of it comes from God.  So my question is this – why has God given you all of this?  Why are you here? 

Jesus uses a word to describe what we are, what he is calling us to be, and that word is ‘steward’.  In Jesus’ day, a steward was a slave.  He was brought on to manage the landowner’s estate, or to manage everything in the landowner’s house.  Did the steward own the land?  No, the owner did.  Did the steward own the machines or the other workers or the crops?  No, the owner did.  The steward’s job was to manage all those things that the owner put under his responsibility.  You and I are stewards.  We don’t own our time, our money, our stuff, our abilities, our jobs – it all belongs to the Lord.  The Lord is asking us to manage all of these things, and to manage them in such a way that we glorify God and we advance his kingdom in this place.

So what are you doing with what God has given you?  Are you finding ways to use the things and time and abilities and money to live for Christ, to be His man or His woman where you are?  Or are you not even thinking about it?  Maybe you’re just thinking all this stuff, this time, these abilities is simply yours to use or misuse however you want to.  But your life and everything you have is not yours.  It’s been given to you by the Lord, to manage for his glory.  The Lord is coming back, and He is going to have a conversation with you and with me, and He is going to ask you, ‘So what have you done with all the good things I gave you?’  He’s the owner and he’s going to hold us all accountable for what we have done or not done with all of his incredible gifts.  Don’t be like the steward who told his master, I took what you gave me and I dug a hole and buried it.

So we have talked about the pressure to drink and get drunk.  We have talked about sex and the consequences that you will face if you decide to pursue sexual relationships before you are married.  And we have talked about what it means to be a steward as we take Jesus and his call on our lives seriously.  In all of these areas (and even more because I have only had time to touch on these three), you have a choice to make right now.  You can choose to build your life and your next step and your future on sand.  Or you can choose to build your life on the rock. The Rock is Christ.  And there is urgency here, because it is not a matter of if storms will come, but when storms will come.  Build on rock and your life will stand.  Build on sand and you will get washed away and wiped out.  Of course the easy way is to build on sand.  It is much harder to take Jesus seriously.  But he promises to help you if you choose his way.  That’s why he gives His Holy Spirit so that He can enable you to do what He wants you to do and be what He wants you to be.

Let's Talk About Our Calling

 

Prokeimenon. Mode 1.
Psalm 32.22,1

Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us.
Verse: Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous.

The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans 2:10-16

Brothers and sisters, glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

The Gospel Reading is from Matthew 4:18-23

At that time, as Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left their boat and their father, and followed him. And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Who are the important people here in Kabiria?  What gives a person influence here?  What makes a person powerful?  What makes someone a somebody?  If they have an important office, that gives a person power, which means they can be either a help or a hindrance to you and what you need or want to do.  The same with someone who is rich.  Depending on how they got their money, they probably have lots of connections and can look up someone on their phone and call them and make things happen.  In a classroom, the mwalimu is a somebody to all the wanafunzi.  In an office the bwana mkubwa is a somebody to the people who work there and do business there.  At a checkpoint, the police person is a somebody when he waves you to pull over and then looks for a reason to separate you from your money.  And in the churches, the pastor or the priest is a somebody to everyone in that community, just as the bishop is a somebody to all the churches in the diocese.

But have you noticed, things in the places where we live seem hopeless because everything is controlled by the important people, and the important people are using their position to lord it over the little people like us and to get even more power and money while the rest of us struggle to survive?  It’s called in the Bible, ’the way of the world’.  And it seems the best strategy is to keep your head down, as we say; to not make waves, as we say; to live in such a way so as not to come to anybody’s attention, because we do not want to get caught up in their nets of corruption and abuse.  It is understandable that we live that way.  I try to live that way, too.  I’ve spent too much time in police stations because some police person was convinced if he ‘arrested’ me that I would bribe him to forget the offense he made up that I did.  I don’t pay bribes, so they have to figure out what to do with me when I won’t go along with their game.

But I have observed that many of us Christians take our strategy of dealing with the so-called important people out there into the church with us on Sunday.  We come to watch.  We come to listen to the Liturgy.  We come to listen to the sermon.  We come to take part in the Eucharist.  But otherwise, we keep our heads down.  We don’t get involved.  The things that need to be done here are supposed to be done by the priest, or maybe the chanters, aren’t they?.  And if it’s a big issue, then leave it for the Bishop to pay for it.  And it’s not just us.  I’ve seen this same thing happen in churches all across Nairobi, both Orthodox Churches and everybody else.  And given the reality that you and I live in every day, really who can blame us?

But we are making an enormous mistake if we are thinking this way.  The world may be impressed with the big people out there, the important people who control things for their own advantage.  But God ignores these people and their strategies.  Today you and I are part of movement, started by Jesus Christ, facilitated by the Holy Spirit, that is advancing God’s rule, God’s reign, God’s Kingdom to the ends of the earth.  And who is God using to make this happen?  Who is God using to become His blessing, His love in this world?  He’s using people who are nobodies in the eyes of the so-called important people around us.  Me and you.  Jesus said, ‘So the last shall be first and the first shall be last’. (Matthew 20:16)

When Jesus called people to follow him, he didn’t go after the influential people, the rich people, the powerful politicians.  Instead, he persuaded four fishermen to follow him.  Fishermen!  Just let that sink in.  In fact, if you look at the list of people who were among Jesus’ followers, very few of them would make it on your list of people to invite to your harambee.

We are always strongly tempted to defer to the rich or powerful people.  What happens in churches when a so-called ‘important’ person shows up?  We usher him or her to the front and give them a special seat.  We may even allow them to ‘bring a word’ when the service is over.  And we make sure they have the first cup of tea or whatever else is on offer.  James the brother of our Lord who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem saw this happen, and do you know what he says?

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thought?  Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.  Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor.  Is it not the rich who oppress you?  Is it not they who drag you into court?  Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?  (James 2:1-7)

Jesus himself says that finding a rich person who is on God’s side when it comes to the advance of God’s kingdom is like finding a camel that somehow made it to the other side from being pushed through the eye of a needle.  Let’s just call it rare.  God does not make a practice of calling the rich and powerful of this world to be partners with Him in His Kingdom work.  And the reason simply is, one cannot serve two masters.  A person simply cannot serve both God and his or her wealth. At least according to Jesus. (Matthew 6:24)

So who does God call to be His partners?  Who are the ones who are touched and transformed by the advance of God’s Kingdom?  Who are the ones who say ‘Yes’ when Jesus calls us to Come, follow Me?  Who are the ones who find Jesus to be faithful and true to His promises?  The apostle Paul tells us who.  In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”  (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

God uses men and women and young people just like you and me.  And this is what God is doing in us.  He is making us as individuals and as a church into the wisdom of God.  God is showing the world around us what His righteousness looks like as we reflect His righteousness in all of our relationships and our behavior.  God is showing the world what holiness looks like through us – as we become more and more like Christ, we will become less and less like the world around us.  We will look more and more like Jesus in what we say and what we do, in what our priorities are.  And God is showing the world around us what redemption actually means.  So many of our neighbors make a lot of noise about being ‘saved’. But their ‘salvation’ makes no difference in their lives, in how they live, in how they treat people.  That is not salvation.  Instead, God broadcasts to the whole world through us just what His salvation is, just what redemption means.  We aren’t ‘saved’ in order to remain in our slavery to sin, in our bondage to the idols of this world, idols like money, like pleasure, like drunkenness, like gossip, like factions, like power.  No, we are saved to be free, free to choose the right, free to be just, free to say no to corruption, free to be kind, free to love.

So when it comes to what God is doing in His Church, to what God is doing in this Church, the people that Christ is calling, the people who are experiencing salvation, the people who are poor in the things of this world like money and power and influence but who are now rich in God and rich in faith – these people God is using to make this Church a colony of heaven, a place where Jesus reigns, a place that when people look at us, they will see what the New Jerusalem is all about.

So what does that mean?  It means we must do church differently than all the other churches around us who have missed the mark completely when it comes to what God wants to do in us and through us.  First we must realize that it is not the Bishop’s responsibility to make this church happen.  It’s your responsibility.  It’s not the priest’s responsibility to make this church happen.  It’s your responsibility.  We are the ones God has called, and we are the ones God will use to bring glory to His name in this place.  The bishop plays a necessary role of oversight, and the priest provides access to the sacraments.  But all of this is meant to facilitate you and me to be what God is calling us to be in this Church.

The second thing this means for us is that the way we respond to God’s call is to place everything we have and everything we are on His altar as a sacrifice for Him to use for His glory.  I have been to many Orthodox Churches over the past 10 years, and almost everywhere people put in a few coins, maybe 50 shillings into the offering.  The church can’t even buy chai for after the service with such a tiny amount.  I have asked around and almost everywhere people say, it’s the Bishop’s responsibility to give, or it’s the priest’s responsibility to give, or it’s the missionary’s responsibility to give.  Wherever this idea came from, it is not what Jesus teaches.  It is not what the Apostles teach.  It is not what the Early Christians did.  It is not the bishop’s responsibility to pay for things here, nor is it the priests’ responsibility, nor is it my responsibility.   If you have left the world’s side and are now on God’s side, then you will be thrilled to do everything you can for your Lord.  You will give everything you can into the offering.  You will give your time to assist with our ministries.  And that is because this is your church.  This is your ministry.  This is your calling.

So I have a couple of challenges.  First for our leaders, come up with a budget that reflects our church’s needs and priorities.  And make sure that budget includes paying for our priest’s salary, because that is our responsibility before God.  And then call a meeting so that we can have input into the budget and ministry priorities of this church.  Secondly think and pray about what God might be calling us to do as a parish in terms of outreach.  For example, I’m willing to lead a midweek bible study for anyone who wants to participate.  There may be ministry needs that you are aware of where you live.  Or even with teaching our children here.  And then lastly, I challenge you to see yourself as a man or a woman who has been loved by Jesus and called by Jesus to be part of the advance of His Kingdom in this place.  Learn what that means, and then do it.  Your life will change in very good ways.  And this church will change in very good ways.

But it starts when you respond to Jesus’ call on your life by putting everything you have and everything you have on His altar, for Jesus to use for His glory.  You have been called.  What will you do?

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

 

A sermon preached today at St. Sophia Orthodox Church in the Kabiria Road neighborhood of Kawangware, Nairobi, Kenya