Second City Sermons

Flemming Rutlage wrote that, "Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness." In his genealogy of Jesus, Matthew has forced us to look at the darkness. Tamar and the hard-hearted and hurtful hubris of Judah, Rahab and the sickening sin of the Cannanites, and the sad reality of family and death in the story of Ruth. And yet, in each of these dark stories, light begins to break. They all prepare us for Jesus. And then Bathsheba, or maybe we should just say, like Matthew says, "the wife of Uriah the Hittite". Lust and murder bound up in the light coming. God's mercy of the victimizer and the victim. What grace! What scandalous shining in darkness!

Matthew is intent on us not missing the point: Jesus comes with the deep and wide mercy of God! Tamar was an Adullamite, Rahab a Cannanite, and Ruth a Moabite. He just keeps saying it again and again: "This gospel is for everyone!" Of course, each of these women teach us more than that. Ruth teaches us that God's good news is even in the particulars of our own stories, our own longings, our places of deep desire for God to show up. And Ruth teaches us to look for the kinsman-redeemer, the one like us who would redeem us. It teaches us to about Jesus in so many ways, Jesus, the was born as one of us in the incarnation and redeems us in his crucifixion and resurrection.

Of all things, the New Testament begins with a long list of people, a genealogy of Jesus. In the ancient world, as in our own, when you have a genealogy, you are often telling something about the person. When you consider the women who are highlighted in Matthew 1, you see just how deep and wide the scandalous mercy of God is. This second week of Advent we are looking at the second woman mentioned in Matthew 1, Rahab. The story of Rahab is found in Joshua 2, in the beginning of the story of the Canaanite conquest and the fall of Jericho. Rahab, a prostitute is the woman of faith and faithful works (as Hebrews 11 and James 2 tell us) and God spares her. She is a great lesson of the great mercy of God for all who turn to him.

If you were writing your own genealogy, if you were recording your ancestry for posterity sake, who would you include? You can't includer everyone, after all, especially if you are going to go back 2000 years. Certainly, you would give the highlight, the big characters; you'd want to record those who shed light on who you are. Well, this Advent we are looking together at the women who are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in very beginning of Matthew, the very beginning of the New Testament. And these women show up the depth and breadth of the scandalous mercy of God. We don't have Rebecca or Leah or Rachael, nope, instead we start with Tamar. Tamar and Judah's story is unquestionably one of the more scandalous stories in the Bible, but, after all, we are dealing with a God who comes to bring us his scandalous mercy in Jesus.

John ends his little letter of 1 John by going back to what he has been saying all along. It may seem odd to end with "Little children, keep yourself from idols," but in that phrase we see the love that he has constantly shared and the theme that he has returned to again and again. Don't give up the faith! Don't buy the philosophy of your day. Don't give up on what you heard from the beginning. Don't buy the other offers of love and life from the would-be saviors around you. There is one God and one God alone and he has revealed himself in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus - in the water, the blood and the Spirit.

Love is not god. God is love. So, we don't get love right if we don't get God right. One of the key themes in John is the right understanding of the key of Christian faith - the gift of God in the incarnation of Christ. If you don't get that right, you don't get love right. But if you don't love one another, then you also haven't understood god. So, we learn love by abiding in the revealed love of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Job is described as "blameless," yet Job suffered - terribly. The book of Job is frequently consulted for answers about suffering. It may ask more questions than it answers. Job was blameless. Why would he repent? Why did he suffer so?

John continues on in Chapter 4 with various tests of true faith. He's given the churches in Asia Minor and the churches of today, here and now, moral tests of how we live our lives and social tests of how we live together in love. He now turns his attention back to a doctrinal test. There were many other teachers coming up who claimed to be from God but they had given in to the thinking of their day. John calls his readers back to the confession of God coming in the flesh in Christ. This, of course, challenged the idea of a distant god, it challenged the idea of household gods and it challenged the idea of a god who doesn't care much for the physical, bodily life. To deny the confess that Jesus came in the flesh is to miss the whole point of Christian faith.

Naaman is wealthy and powerful but he has an incurable disease. While he knows he needs help beyond what he can buy, he has no idea of the extent of what he really needs. In 2 Kings 5 we see God’s salvation in full force bringing the victory of life over death, freedom over captivity, and grace over greed.

Throughout First John the Apostle is calling us to be like God. But what is God like? John takes us back to the beginning to see the generosity of God. The call to imitate God is a challenge. Certainly, we can not create like He can, yet He calls out of scarcity and into generosity. He calls us to care for those he puts before us.

A consistent truth of Scripture is that we become like what we worship. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus (and in the NT book of 1 Peter) we hear this taught in this way: "Be holy as I am holy." God actually desires that we imitate him. After all, we are made in his image, to reflect his goodness. 1 John 3 tells us that we are children of God. And if we are children of God, then we will reflect our Father in Heaven.

John continues his discussion that he started early about being people of the lie. In Ephesians Paul tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic power over this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12). Here in 1 John 2, John tells us not to love the world and by that he means don't buy into a world where the lies of the evil one reign supreme. There were those who had given into the anti-messiah idea that the offspring of the woman hadn't crushed the head of the serpent, because God can't come in the flesh. John says that's the great lie. The desires of eyes that brought destruction to Eden is the same lie that brings death now. It's the lie that says we don't need God. We don't need his word and we don't need him walking with us then or now. But the light shines in the darkness, exposing the evil and revealing truth.

John began his first epistle with the declaration that the eternal has been manifest in the flesh in Christ and because of the incarnation we have fellowship with God and with one another. But sin breaks fellowship, so through the rest of 1 John chapter 1 he was addressing some errors of our understanding of sin - it's not a big deal, we don't really sin anyway, and God doesn't care about it too much. All of these are deceptions and he speaks to each one in order that we might test ourselves so that we would have fellowship with God and with one another. Well, John continues to address the issue of the revelation and fellowship of light and love through some tests - a moral test, a social test and a doctrinal test. John is intent all throughout to speak to temptations of his day to give up on some of these basics of the faith

We all know life can be difficult. Suffering is part of our walk. Families are broken by sin. Ones we love, sometimes even our children, die. Job's story provides us with guidance, especially about how we should approach God as our world crumbles.

John began his first epistle by reassuring us of the truth of the incarnation of Jesus, but also told us that because of the truth of the incarnation and resurrection we have fellowship with the Father and the Son and one another. It makes all of the sense in the world then that what John has to address next is that which breaks fellowship and what we do about it. Sin breaks fellowship and our temptations with sin is to downplay them, or to deny them, or to despair over. But thanks be to God is not a liar but deals is honest about sin and what has to be done with it. Jesus is the propitiation, the atonement for our sins. He turns away the wrath of God by the gift of his own life for us who break fellowship with him and others.

Though we are not totally sure the exact circumstances which gave rise to the writing of 1 John, what is very evident is that some, even by the end of the apostolic era, had turned from the true faith. Maybe they had given up on Jesus altogether, at the very least they had given up on the idea of God in the flesh in Christ and all that that truth calls us to. Jesus is the Word of Life. He is not the esoteric word (logos) of the popular philosophy of the day, he is not a God to make in an image that suits our ideas. He is the one who came and because he came as God in the flesh he is the one, and the only one, who brings life. He is the Word of Life and through him we have fellowship with the Father and with one another.

School is upon us. That means Fall is right around the corner. The beginning of school and the beginning of fall present us with dueling thoughts and emotions. We are presented with the hope of a new year and the bounty of produce, but also the limitations of all that is demanded of us. We know that so much of our fear and our sin that comes out of that place of fear is connected to the idea of scarcity. Will we have what it takes to raise our kids well? Will we be able to be present to others? Will God provide? Psalm 65 is widely considered one of the great creation and harvest hymns. It tells us again and again of God's Bounty. And it isn't just his bounty that is held up in heaven is some heavenly safe, but it is here and for us. Psalm 65 tells us of his bounty in redemption, in creation and in preservation.

A lot of times it feels like things just don't go right. Maybe it is we ourselves that seem to be our own worst enemy, sometimes it's other people and sometimes it just seems like the world in general. And we sure wonder if God knows all about it. Maybe we think of him as Rowan Williams points out, as sort of a failing billionaire and we are trying to manage his estate and we wonder if he has any clue what is happening down here. Does he know how people plot? Does he know how they scheme? Does he know how bad things are sometimes and how we feel like we just aren't going to make it through? Does he know how deep and how dark the hearts of people can be? Psalm 64, like the Bible as a whole says time and time again, reassures us that he will. None of it is lost on him and he will act suddenly. When the time had fully come, he sent his son. And the Son, Jesus, tells us that he will come like a thief in the night. He will come. He will act. He will make all things right.

What do you do when the worst happens to you? What does the worst bring out in you? When you lose your job, or when your spouse criticised you for the 25th time today, or when your children decide you just are old and can therefore be dismissed as not knowing anything. What about when the tragic happens: when you have another miscarriage, when COVID sticks around and keeps sticking around? What do you do? What do you do with God? David has some of the worst things happen. His own son kicks him out and some of his closest, most trusted advisors leave him and plot against him. He's out in the wilderness, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually and relationally. As Gordy Zubrod asked us a few weeks back: Does it break you are remake you? Or, similarly, what Psalm 62 asks us: do we give up on God or do we long for him all the more? What do you do? What does the worst bring out in you?

If there is one thing that most everyone longs for it is peace. We want to know that we are alight, that our kids are alright, that the future is alright. We stay up late and are restless in bed with the worries that occupy our minds. We dream of winning the Mega Millions with the thought that if we had enough money all of our worries will go away. We don't forgive because what will that demand of us? What kind of place will that bring us to? In the beginning of Luke, John the Baptist is preparing the people for Jesus, he is "guiding their feet into the way of peace." At the end of the gospel, Jesus shows up to a fearful group of disciples (and comes in with the door locked!) and the first thing he tells them is "Peace to you!' And all along Jesus speaks of his healing others and his forgiving the sins of others as bringing them peace. Psalm 62 invites us to silence and to stillness and to find that the only place of peace is in God alone.

Psalm 96 invites us to sing, to bless the Lord and declare his glory among the nations. David penned this Psalm. He knew much of God’s faithfulness and love. We know more! David could only imagine the coming Messiah. We can offer greater praise because we have seen the marvelous work of Jesus in the Gospels and in our own lives.

Psalm 122 is a Psalm of Ascents. It’s part of a group of Psalms comprising Psalms 120 – 134. Each year, as they traveled up the hill the temple was built on, the people of Israel would sing these Psalms to remind themselves of God’s grace and love for them. So, these Psalms were used to gather the people’s hearts together in preparation for worship. Israel was gathered as God’s inheritance. Jesus has broadened that gathering and this Psalm directs us to him.

Life is full of times of great difficulty, times when we are faced with deep tragedy and sorrow, times when we wonder if we will make it through and if the foundations of our lives will be shaken to their core. We long for a strong stability, a place of comfort and stability. We might run to all kinds of things for this stability, or even to run away from feeling how deep the need is. But the Bible, and Psalm 61 specifically, tell us that God is the Rock, the fortress, the high tower, the tent (home). He is the one that is above us and able to be secure and strong in the midst of all the instability.

Psalm 60 is sort of a strange psalm. The heading that we are given in the Hebrew is the longest in the Psalms. It takes up two verses in the Hebrew. And the heading speaks of victory, but the psalm puts us in a place of despair and or crying out for God to do something. Like David, our lives are often filled with sorrow. The travail of this live is deeply hard, sometimes unbearable. David’s life, even as king, could be like ours, yet David speaks in the confidence of God.

Psalm 59 continues on with the theme that we have been in through most of the 50s, namely David fleeing from Saul and finding refuge in God. The title of Psalm 59 tells us that it was written when Saul sent men to watch David's house to try to kill him! People are out for him. A whole group of people are out for him. And they are people that have the backing of the king. Some of us know this kind of experience, others of us may not know that exact kind of experience. Either way, what this Psalm tells us is that we can both cry out to God for help and that will sing to him because of his steadfast love for us. His steadfast love for us is so often seen in how he comes and he answers the prayers of his people in the midst of the chaos of this life

Enemies are all over the Bible and they are all over the Psalms. The Psalms take life seriously - there's no tidying it up! - and so they take enemies seriously. It seems, as Walter Bruggeman says, that "the Psalms are full of enemy talk." There are 94 terms in the Psalms to describe enemies! Friends can have become enemies, our own selves are at times our enemies, leaders can be enemies, and all kinds of others are enemies. Here in Psalm 58 the leaders, the ones who rule, the ones who are in some respects like God, are the enemies. They have used their power for their own self-serving end, they have abused those under them. And David sings about the desire for their destruction. He doesn't take vengeance, but he lays it before the Lord and asks him to deal with it. One of the great acts of faith, of trust, is the act to not seek vengeance but to believe that God will judge. This psalm ends with intense sobering language, but it is also comforting language. It is language that allows God to be judge, God to rule, God to execute justice rather than that ourselves. The psalms never gloss over the really difficult and painful dynamics of this life, and neither should we, but we also must live a life of faith, faith in God who will judge the living and the dead.

Almost everyone prays. But what is prayer? More importantly how would God direct us to pray. All important questions David considers as he contemplates his difficult situation in Psalm 5.

During the summer it is our practice to return to the Psalms. This being the ninth summer we have followed this course, we start with Psalm 57. The Psalms are wisdom literature, the inspired contemplations and prayers of David, Asaph and others. The Psalmists lift their lives up to God, sometimes with praise, but often with the struggles of life. As they do this the Psalmists show us a God who cares deeply about our condition and a God who shows up!

During nearly every worship service, countless Christians around the world say the Lord's Prayer every time they gather together. When they do so, they end with words that aren't found in the best manuscripts we have of the gospels of Matthew and Luke where we find Jesus teaching his disciples to pray this prayer. So, why do we, as Christians end this prayer of our Lord with the words "For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen!" Why? Well, two reasons. (1) It is wide widely agreed that no Jewish rabbi would have ever taught his disciples to end a prayer with a reference to the evil one. So, many think that Jesus would have assumed this kind of doxology by his followers. But the big reason is (2) that it is only this God's kingdom that has at its root the belief is sufficient for today and will supply the needs of today; that he uses his power to forgive us and calls us to follow in his ways; and (3) he will deliver us from evil and lead us into his glory. This is the Kingdom, power and glory that we see in Jesus parable of the Prodigal Son (really, Prodigal Father) and this is the Kingdom, power and glory that we long for.

We come to the last petition of the Lord's Prayer on Pentecost Sunday, the Sunday that we remember the gift of the Spirit to lead and to guide the church. How appropriate then that we pray in this last petition, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil", for as you trace the indwelling of the Spirit through the life of Christians in the Old Testament epoch and through the life of Jesus and his church it is apparent that it is the Spirit that leads not into temptation. When we consider Jesus, it is apparent that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness and safely through it even with the minefield of temptations by the Tempter. Jesus goes through this wilderness of temptation and delivers us from evil on the cross. So, though it all, we pray "Lead and deliver us!" and this is done by the gift of the Spirit and the work of Jesus!

In much of Jesus's earthly ministry, He was challenged in His authority and as to His identity. He was popular among the common people, but the Jewish leaders threatened by His popularity took various opportunities to challenge Jesus by trying to trap Him in His words and hopefully turn the people against Him. But Jesus always had the right answer for all to hear, even when He was asked the wrong question. Jesus uses this parable as He has used other parables to make a significant point and expose the sin in our hearts as we are challenged with our preconceived ideas about God, ourselves, and how we are to live in light of God's glory. Two questions are in play here. What shall we do to inherit eternal life? And who is my neighbor?

We are all debtors! We are all up to our noses in debt. Not exactly the thing we want to hear. But we are called to love God with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. God and all of those made in his image are worthy of such love. In fact, their very being demands such love. And we don't give it. We are debtors. But God, in his infinite grace and kindness is the great Debt-Forgiver. And he says, if we understand that forgiveness we can't help but give it to others.

"Give us this day our daily bread." Many have broken the Lord's prayer into six petitions, the first three directed godward and the last three directed towards the needs and dynamics of humankind. We have just prayed "on earth as it is in heaven" and now when we turn to the needs of this earth, Jesus gives us a petition that encompasses all things. To ask God to give us our daily bread is to ask him to provide all things necessary in this life; good governance, the blessing of rain, machines and skills to grind, creative hands to fashion and all for the sake of the well-being of this world, the sustenance of humankind. To ask for our daily bread is to ask for neither poverty nor riches, but to ask for dependence on God for our needs to be met that humankind might flourish in this life for which God made us. He cares about all of it.

The Lord's prayer is often divided into two major sections, the first three petitions being directed godward and the final three being directed earthward. The turning point is said to be the phrase "on earth as it is in heaven", which is to say, the hing of the prayer, the focus of the prayer is the hallowing of God, the will of God, the Kingdom of God here, with us, on earth. That is then lived out through our resources, of forgiveness, or not giving into temptation and evil. The whole object of the Bible is the restoration of the marriage of heaven and earth, a restoration of Eden. As parts of the New Creation, God is already doing that here and now through his people, his church, his body, but what we really long for is that reality that we just now have glimpses of to overtake all things.

What do we pray when we pray that God's name would be hallowed? We pray that there would be no imposters, no false gods in his place. We pray that he would be rightly recognized for who he is. He is the great I Am, the One who was and is and is to come. We pray that he would make his real identity properly known so that we and all others would recognize and then honor him as he really is, the true and living God. Remarkably, this true God who exists as the I Am, outside of our categories and our complete comprehension, chose to reveal himself in Jesus, the Great I Am and the name above all names!

It was common for a rabbi, for a great teacher, to teach others how to talk to God. When Jesus' teaches his disciples to pray he does so in response to their request for him to teach them "as John taught his disciples". But Jesus begins his prayer "Our Father", an incredibly intimate and therefore entirely radical way to approach God. Ever since, the Lord's prayer has been the foundation of all Christian prayer.

Easter is a time of reversals, the cross becomes the empty tomb, death becomes life. In his gospel, John shows Thomas' doubt turning into faith, the disciples' fear into courage, Mary's sorrow into joy. But it's not a story of such life-changing reversals only for those long ago. The same God does this Easter-shaped, god-inspired work all of the time in the lives of the greatest skeptics, the people that are full of fear and the lives that are full of sorrow. Easter good news continues today. Jesus rose from the dead and because so countless lives have been transformed throughout history and even today.

What answer do you have to our suffering world? How do you make sense of it? A hard and bitter heart? The idea that it's just the way it is so eat, drink and be merry and live a take-it-when-you-can-get-it life? What about religions? What do they say? The Christian good news is that God himself suffers. Wherever all of the suffering comes from, the Bible tells us that it is related to sin and human rebellion against God. Beyond that, whatever you think of the cross, the gospel tells us that it is God's answer to sin and to suffering. God takes on our sin in the cross that our suffering isn't the end of the story.

How in the world, within the course of less than a week, does a crowd go from shouting "Hosanna!" to shouting "Crucify Him?" How, well, the same way we do. Jesus didn't just go along with the party lines. In fact, he rubbed all of the lines wrong. Just like he does today. He pushed the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the common people. Everyone wanted him to be their tribal King, their tribal God (or they already wanted him dead). They also had all of their ideas about what salvation meant and what it looked like. So do we. And when Jesus doesn't fit our party (which he never does) and when he pushed against our thought and our actions (which he often does), well, let's just do away with him!

Hypocrisy has long been the bane of the Church. Yet, its hardly a new condition. In Jesus day is was obvious to most folk as they interacted with the religious leaders of their day: the scribes and pharisees. Being at the temple as he teaches these things Jesus also comments on giving.

It's Holy Week and the tension is rising. Jesus flipped over tables and called out the religious leaders. And they're getting mad. So they send someone to ask about taxes, about money, about who has say over our lives and our hearts. And what about the afterlife, if there is one? Jesus responds to those questions, but his big response has to do with their so-called desire for the king to come in the line of David. Well, he says, David even calls the One to come his Lord! So maybe Jesus is Lord over all and maybe he doesn't come and do what we think he should do and in the way we think he should do it.

Jesus has spent the last three years of his life preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God (Luke 5:43) and now he has just entered Jerusalem, being the very visitation of God to bring his redemption and peace. But by what authority has he preached? By what authority has he healed? By what authority does he enter Jerusalem as a King? Well, that's the question the chief priest, the scribes and the elders want an answer to. And it's sort of the answer we all want. Who do we give authority to? Who has say in our lives and why do they have say? And should Jesus have authority? Why? What right does he have to it? Well, Jesus will give an answer, but he gives it in the form of a question and a parable, as he often does. He tells it slant, but it's clear for those who have ears to hear. He has the authority of Heaven. Heaven came down at his baptism by John at the Jordan three years earlier and he enters Jerusalem now as the one who was sent by the father to claim what is his own.

Jesus enters into Jerusalem with crowds shouting that he is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, but we know that Jesus knows what his reign will cost him. This may be a triumphal entry, but it brings with it the tragedy of the world that brings peace in heaven and earth. He weeps over Jerusalem, Zion, for even there they have exchanged the things of God for the things of this world, they have made the house of the Lord a den of robbers. The wrongs of the world must be put to right and that will mean the tragic death of the world's true king.

Jesus gives us this parable of the coins (or Matthew tells us the talents) right before he enters Jerusalem, because, Luke tells us, the crowd supposed that the Kingdom of God would appear immediately. Well, what do we do with what has been given to us while we wait? What do we do with grace? What do we do with love? What do we do with forgiveness? How do we evaluate the risk of extending these things out into the world? If we invested them into the world do we believe that they will grow? Do we believe we might grow? And what does all of this have to do with what we believe about God? Is he stingy with these things?

Luke 19:1-10 tells us about the interaction between Zacchaeus and Jesus. The story is a well known Sunday School story. Zacchaeus was short, not only of stature, but he was short of honesty, compassion and even societal acceptance. He just didn’t measure up. Yet, Jesus pursued him. Zacchaeus didn’t know it when he climbed the tree but he had an appointment with Jesus.

The blind beggar cried out to Jesus, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” In this broken world we have a longing for recovery! Jesus, full of mercy and compassion, will meet us where we are when we call out to him in faith. There can be significant recovery in this life for those who look to Jesus. As we come together at Second City as a community of faith, we help each other enjoy the light of Christ and the healing that he brings.

What do you need to do to have eternal life? Get your life all in order? Don't drink, smoke, or chew or go with the girls who do? Obey all of the commandments from when you were young? And who gets eternal life? The people who are able to help a lot of people in this life? The people who ask the right questions, who study hard, who sit in the front row? Or maybe the people who are vocal about all of the right issues? This week in Luke 18, the rich young man who has it all together, who's worked hard and been diligent with his money and his time and his morals and asks the right questions still doesn't get it. He wants the Kingdom of God, he wants eternal life, but not so much that he can't give up his wealth. Jesus teaches us, and he embodies for us, that in order to live you must die, but dying is always worth it!

Luke is adamant - you can't do a thing to enter the Kingdom of God! It's grace alone! None of this works stuff. The tax collector gets it better than the Pharisee and the widow understands better than the Rich Ruler. And maybe the ones who get it better than any others are the infants. The Kingdom is for the utterly dependent, it's for those who have to be carried everywhere and spoon fed. It's grace alone!

What are the signs that you are trusting in yourself that you are righteous? Jesus speaks to this by way of a parable in Luke 18. What he says is that how you approach yourself has everything to do with how you approach your neighbor and ultimately how you approach God. Even more than how you approach neighbor and God, the real determining factor in how you engage yourself, others and God, is what you believe about how God approaches you. Is God the one who is merciful and loves sinners, or does God just want to make sure that you have it all together?

Why is prayer so hard? Why is it so hard to continue in prayer? Jesus says through this parable in Luke 18 that it has to do with how we understand God. Does he care? Is he just? Can we trust him? In this short parable, Jesus compares and contrasts an unjust judge with God himself. If an unjust judge will eventually yield to the persistent pleading of a widow, will God hear us? Well, is God just? Does he care? What do you think? Your prayer life will answer that questions for you.