Predestination

This was based on a sermon suggestion.

There are a surprising number of websites that will tell you when you are going to die. My favorite is deathclock.com. You put in your birthdate, sex, body mass index (there's a helpful calculator for that where you put in your height and weight) and whether you are a smoker or not. Then it gives you a specific date on which, according to actuarial tables, you will die. It also gives it to you in seconds which are counting down. What I like about the death clock is that you can choose from 4 modes. At the normal setting I got Friday, July 28, 2028. The optimistic setting gave me Saturday, October 8, 2050. At the pessimistic setting I drew Thursday, May 10, 2012. Then there's the sadistic setting which gave me Monday, July 29, 1991. In the last two cases a pop-up window appeared saying, “”I am sorry, but your time has expired! Have a nice day.”

The site, however, doesn't factor in such things as your parents' longevity, (mine lived to be 91 and 88), whether you exercise or whether you go to church. People who attend worship once a week tend to live between 7 and 14 years longer than those who don't. Those who worship more than once a week live an additional year. (That's a bonus for those who attend Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services!) The death clock is mostly for fun, of course, though it does link to a site that sells vitamins, presumably to decrease your risk. The fact is that science can only predict generally how long groups of people in certain categories will live, based on averages. It cannot, as yet, tell you as an individual when you will die, even if you rule out accidents or murder.

But what if they could? I once read a science fiction story set in a society where science could tell every person the exact date of their death. Some people react by holding celebrations that year. Some set out to make the days they have meaningful or exciting. Others get depressed or even commit suicide beforehand, not wanting to die of the heart attack or stroke or cancer they will inevitably suffer. Not everyone wants to know.

According to our sermon suggestion for this month, there are those who aren't happy with God knowing such things either. This comes out of our adult form class on Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life. Warren says that God has chosen the exact time of your birth and death. The question is “Why worry or take care of yourself'” if the days of your life have been planned and ordained “...especially the date of your death?”

First, let's see if the Bible actually says what Warren says it does. He quotes Psalm 139:16: “You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book.” That's the Living Bible version, a popular paraphrase. It's popular because it makes the Bible easy to understand, even in passages which, in the original languages, are tough to translate and interpret. This passage is Hebrew poetry, which is notoriously difficult to untangle in some places. The Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh version renders this verse differently: “Your eyes saw my unformed limbs; they were all recorded in your book; in due time they were formed, to the very last of them.” Here the things being recorded are the body parts of a fetus in the womb, not the days of the person's life after they were born. And this translation fits the context of the previous verse, which is about the psalmist's frame and shape, much better than the paraphrase.

Either way, we do expect God to be in control of his creation and that includes us. So how much of our lives are predestined?

Mainstream Christians have differed more on this controversy than on most other theological matters. The positions taken are some of the most technically tough to delineate with precision. So I might be stepping on some theological toes and overstating some positions or neglecting certain nuances in what follows.

Basically, on the one hand you have John Calvin's idea that God's sovereignty trumps everything else. Sin has so crippled our wills that they cannot be considered free. We cannot choose good by ourselves. God has the right to condemn everyone to hell but out of his grace he has elected to save some. This has nothing to do with what they have done, good or bad, so he is not rewarding merit. In fact, God decided who would be saved before Adam's fall. The problem with this position is that it makes God's condemnation of any sinners since the original couple unjust since we had no ability to choose differently. Because God controls everything, it is hard to avoid the idea that God is ultimately the author of sin, despite what the Westminster Confession says. (cf. 1 John 1:5)

The opposite position is that of Pelagius, a British contemporary of St. Augustine. Augustine also emphasized predestination, though he did not develop it to the extent that Calvin did. Pelagius rejected the idea of original sin and held that our will is not biased towards evil. We can freely choose good or evil. So our condemnation for our sins is completely our fault. What we get is pure justice for what we have done. The problem with this position is that there is no need for God's grace or Christ's sacrifice. Since we can freely choose to change, why should God choose to have mercy on us and excuse us from the penalty for what we have done? It would be like declaring “not guilty” a murderer who was not insane or drug-addled or otherwise impaired or under compulsion or defending himself when he did the deed. He could have done otherwise but he chose to kill in cold blood. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

There is a modified Calvinist position. It was articulated by James Arminius, one of Calvin's followers who nevertheless disagreed with him on this matter. Arminianism holds that while our will was negatively affected by sin, we can at least choose to accept or reject God's salvation offered in Christ. Unlike the unconditional predestination of Calvinism, Arminius taught that our predestination by God is conditional in that God chose whom to save based on his foreknowledge of who would accept his offer of salvation. One consequence of Arminianism is the idea that believers can lose their salvation by exercising their will to reject God. The Methodist church is Arminian.

Now why am I talking about whether our salvation is predestined rather than whether the details of our lives are predestined? Because if we have no real choice in the biggest decision in our life, whether or not to accept Christ, then it follows that we cannot make any other decisions. My problem with traditional Calvinism is that it makes our lives one big puppet show by God. Why would Jesus tell people to repent if they had no choice? (Mark 1:15) Why would he tell them that their faith in God healed them if that faith wasn't really theirs but wholly supplied by God? (Luke 8:48)

What advantage is there in the Calvinist position? Well, if your accepting salvation is totally dependent upon God, then you needn't worry that you might lose it. It is not dependent on your sin-damaged self. It is pure grace. There are some passages in the Bible that seem to support it. But by the same token, it would seem to take away the responsibility of a person's sinfulness from them. Those bound for hell are literally irredeemable. To a Calvinist, asking the non-elect to accept Christ would be like asking a crippled person to dance. They simply can't. It is outside of their ability.

I lean a little towards the Arminian position. You know why? Ever try to feed a baby something it didn't like? Despite the fact that it can do almost nothing by itself, it can spit things out. And once it gets control of its neck and head, it learns to turn away from the bottle or spoon. It's not much of a movement but it is enough to frustrate a parent trying to give it what it needs. To change the metaphor, when it comes to our salvation, we are like addicts who cannot kick our addiction to sin by ourselves. But we can at least say “Yes” or “No” to someone who offers to save us, which is Jesus. Our moral capacity for choice is crippled but it is not completely absent.

But if we control our will, even to a limited extent, doesn't that mean that God is not completely in control of everything? And isn't a God who is not in control of everything a contradiction is terms? Not really. We're not saying that God can't control things but that it is possible that he may not want to. In other words, he can willingly limit his own actions in order to give us the room to exercise our own wills. And he does this out of love because love wants the consent of the loved one. God will not force us to accept him.

Also if you want a baby to learn to walk, you have to let it take steps on its own, despite the fact that it isn't very good at it and it's fighting gravity. A good parent realizes that just because they can control a situation doesn't mean that they should in every situation, especially if they want their children to grow and learn.

So does God decide what will happen every second of our lives? For some, to answer “Yes” is comforting. If you feel your life is not in your control, it is good to know that God is in control of everything. If you are in a less than ideal situation, you may find it more tolerable to think that God put you in that situation for a reason. And it can give you hope. God is in control and so some good will come out of even the bad things in our life.

For others they may find it intolerable to think that they are in a bad situation because God put them there deliberately. If God is good and in control, why would he put anyone in a less than optimum situation?

First, let's acknowledge that sin and evil are realities and that there are people in situations where those two terrible realities predominate. Think of a child raised in an abusive home. Did God put him or her there? Or did God permit them to be there? Even if God did not actively put the person in that situation, then he must have at least permitted them to end up there. Either way, they are there. So the real question is what is the reason they are there?

Gavin de Becker is a specialist in analyzing threats to security. He has worked for the government in assessing assassination threats, for corporations in determining whether certain disgruntled ex-employees will retaliate and for celebrities who are dealing with stalkers. His own childhood was less than secure. His mother was a heroin addict, who shot one of his stepfathers. When he tells his story in prisons, many of the inmates say to him, “That was my childhood. Why did I end up here while you are a free man?” De Becker says that it was a matter of how he reacted to his awful upbringing. To protect himself and his little sister, he learned to read his mother's moods and actions. He developed that ability into a field of study and as an adult he used what he learned about threats of violence to help protect others. He even wrote a book, The Gift of Fear, to help the average person recognize the red flags and precursors of potentially dangerous people and circumstances. His bad situation gave him the tools to help others avoid or manage their own bad situations.

In his book The Survivors Club, Ben Sherwood writes about Dr. Rachel Yehuda, a pioneer in researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. One of her patients was a Polish woman who lost her family in the Holocaust. The woman married another survivor. They moved to the US and built a good life. But in her old age, she got depressed after being widowed and losing both a son and grandson to cancer. She had always thought that her children were the way to triumph over the Nazis' attempt to exterminate her family. Now she found that she couldn't protect her family from death even in America. Why was God punishing her? Why did he allow her to see her son and grandson die? Why did he allow her to see her 14-year old granddaughter suffer the loss of her father and brother as the old woman had back in World War II?

Dr. Yehuda, the daughter of Holocaust survivors herself, made a startling statement. She said she thought the patient's granddaughter was fortunate. The patient got angry, thinking that her doctor was joining God in mocking her. But then Dr. Yehuda explained. The patient's granddaughter at least had someone who understood what it was like to lose family members when you're young. Imagine what it would have been like if the patient had a grandmother to comfort her at that time. She could offer her granddaughter what she, the patient, did not have when in the same situation. Seen that way, the patient consented to be treated for her depression so that she in turn could be there for her grieving granddaughter.

God is in the business of saving and healing. Whatever our situation, God is there for us. And we are to be in the same business of saving and healing as our heavenly Father. Which means that we have to be where suffering is. Whether God deliberately puts us in a bad situation or allows us to be put there or allows us to put ourselves in bad situations, the important thing is not how we got there but what we are to do while we are there. We can get bitter or we can work to make things better, for others if not for ourselves. Though Christians may debate the ultimate cause of our circumstances, we can agree on our basic mission wherever we find ourselves. We are here to help.

There are people we call first responders who are sent into disaster areas specifically to help. But there they find people who were living in the area when the disaster hit and who are already at work digging people out and helping them. Whether they were sent there or found themselves there, these people realize that the thing to do in a bad situation is to help one another and rebuild their lives so that they are better than they were.

People can debate whether God is like Shakespeare, in control because he decided beforehand how the characters in his drama will act, or if he is like a chess grandmaster, in control because he able to foresee his opponents' moves and has a countermove ready in each case, but this is not something that we will decide here. Nor, from our perspective, would we be able to tell the difference, just as we cannot tell if the date of our death is written in our DNA or not. Suffice it to say that God will achieve his ultimate goal, which is the redemption and restoration of his creation to the paradise he originally intended it to be. We can be part of his mission or we can sit around arguing the finer points of theology. Let us put our trust in God's justice and grace and love. And let us say “Yes” to his offer of life and purpose in Jesus. It's why we are here.

This sermon was first preached on April 11, 2010. It has been revised and updated.

Only the Right Ending Makes for a Proper Beginning

The scripture of the day is Luke 24:1-12.

We just read the gospel account of Easter morning. Imagine if it had gone like this instead: It's early on a Sunday morning. Women trudge through a cemetery in the half-light, toting spices. They are going to anoint the body of their beloved leader. One of them realizes that they cannot move the millstone-like door. As they discuss this, they come upon an empty tomb. They are surprised. They see a young man, who tells them that Jesus is not there. “See, the place where they laid him,” he says. And then he points to a nearby tomb where the stone is in place and a group of Roman soldiers stand guard. Somehow the women miss this and totally misunderstand that they've made an obvious mistake. Frightened by the gardener, they run off, tell the disciples, who all make the very same mistake about the tomb's location. None of them think to consult Joseph of Arimathea, the tomb's owner, who could set them straight. Almost immediately the disciples, grieving and sleepless, start hallucinating appearances by Jesus—not one of them but all 11 disciples. They do this several times over 40 days. Even James starts hallucinating that he is seeing his brother Jesus. Massively deluded, the band spreads the word and doesn't stop despite the fact that it gets most of them killed.

A pretty lousy ending to the gospel, huh? But that's the supposedly rational alternative to the accounts we have in the gospels and in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. If you eliminate the miraculous from the Easter story, you have to arrive at something like that, as incredibly improbable and easily correctable by those involved as it sounds.

Oh, there are variations. The once bestselling book, The Passover Plot, speculated that Jesus engineered his resurrection. Supposedly, he took a drug that made him appear to be dead. Perhaps it was administered by a co-conspirator in the sponge of sour, vinegary wine raised to Jesus' lips after he said, “I thirst.” Somehow Jesus was able to imbibe enough of this drug to suppress his respirations and heartbeat so that he seemed dead but not so much as to actually kill him, despite the fact that he was suffering from blood loss, respiratory distress and the trauma of being flogged, crucified and stabbed with a spear. In the tomb, Jesus is revived with the aid of the same co-conspirator. Somehow, though being a candidate for immediate admission to the E.R. and extended ICU care, this maimed man convinces the disciples that he is the victor over death and is able to travel to Galilee and back over a period of 40 days without collapsing from his severe trauma and succumbing to the infection of his many open wounds.

Frankly, as a retired nurse, and someone who survived a near fatal car wreck, and who spent 40 days in the hospital and an additional 100 days in a rehabilitation center, I find this less believable than what we are told in the gospel. (By the way, the author never names the drug, probably because no one has ever heard of such a miraculous substance. Even Agatha Christie, who acquired a formidable knowledge of drugs through her wartime nursing experience, would not have concocted such an implausible solution to a mystery, based on a convenient but wholly fictitious chemical.)

A variant of this theory has Jesus using a form of yoga to suppress his vital signs. It is true that people using meditative techniques can slow their heartbeat and breathing, though not to the extent where they are undetectable. And by using self-hypnosis, some Eastern mystics can endure having needles thrust through their tongues or hooks through their skin—under controlled circumstances. But as far as I know, no one has attempted to stay in a trance while being flayed with a cat o' nine tails, beaten, crucified and stabbed in the heart with an unsterilized spearhead. And let's not forget being wrapped like a mummy and being left unattended in a rock tomb for over 36 hours, sealed behind a stone too massive to be moved by 3 or 4 women. Perhaps this could be the premise of the next “reality” series, a kind of Fear Factor meets Jackass.

Or maybe Jesus did die. In this theory, Thomas was nicknamed “the twin” because he closely resembled Jesus. And yet, despite living with them for 3 ½ years, the disciples could still not tell the two apart. Then, after Jesus' death, they continually confused him with their dead leader. And apparently Thomas not only looked like Jesus but also sounded and moved like him as well. But then Thomas would not be merely a doubter but the deliberate perpetrator of a hoax. He didn't even call it off when his colleagues, whom he meant to inspire, started getting themselves executed for proclaiming his deception. So obviously he was not really their friend. I would love to know how Thomas engineered his famous post-resurrection meeting between himself and Jesus. At least Superman could use his superspeed to appear to meet his alter ego, Clark Kent. Perhaps there was yet another doppelganger and Thomas should have been called “the triplet.”

The Muslim theory is not only novel but incorporates poetic justice. They believe that Jesus was never crucified but through a monumental screw up, the authorities crucified Judas instead. I guess that official embarrassment at the clerical error kept them from announcing the mixup. So they preferred to stay silent and let the Christian lie spread throughout the empire.

It is interesting that the earliest attempts to rationalize the resurrection do not deny Jesus' death or the fact that his tomb was empty. Medical knowledge may not have been as advanced as it is in the 21^st century but the Romans had been crucifying thousands of people long enough to know how to do it right. We have Roman accounts of people removed from crosses while alive and they usually died anyway. In fact, when Pilate receives the request of Joseph of Arimathea for Jesus' body, he doesn't release it until he has a soldier confirm Christ's death in the most effective manner possible: a spear thrust to the heart.

And if the tomb wasn't empty, why didn't the authorities simply produce the body? Were they tough enough to beat a man into raw meat but too squeamish to touch his corpse? In fact, Jesus' burial was unusual because the bodies of the crucified were generally left to rot or were thrown into the city garbage dump as carrion for the dogs and birds. Joseph of Arimathea must have been very influencial to get the body from Pilate. And if there was a guard, whether Jewish or Roman, at the site, the leaders would know where Jesus was buried. So why not hold an open tomb day for all who had doubts that he was still dead?

The earliest skeptics instead agreed that the tomb was empty but suggested that the body was stolen. How the disciples got past the guard is an interesting question. In fact, in view of the disciples' cowardly behavior at the time of Jesus' arrest, the whole idea of them taking on professional soldiers to reclaim his body is questionable. But the biggest quandary is why? Why engineer a fake resurrection?

Not for money; that's for sure. The disciples got whipped, stoned, imprisoned and martyred for their beliefs but nobody ever said they got rich.

For grins? John Barrymore's Hollywood drinking buddies supposedly stole his body from the funeral home for an impromptu Irish wake but generally speaking, mourners aren't ones for playing pranks. And the disciples were of a different moral mindset than W.C. Fields and his friends.

For morale? But for whose, if the disciples knew it was a hoax? What fueled Christianity was the belief that Jesus was the Messiah and that his claim was vindicated by his resurrection. When the Spanish general El Cid was killed, an old romance says that his men strapped his armored body into his saddle and let his horse lead them into battle as a bit of psychological warfare. But the ruse only worked once and was meant to confuse his enemies, not to convince his followers. The disciples didn't use Jesus as a figurehead in an effort to overthrow Rome or even the temple leadership. In fact, the Christian movement saw the Messiah in a totally different way than he was previously conceived in popular thought. Rather than a religious/political/military figure, they saw the Messiah as the Lord come to live as one of us, to die as a sacrifice for our sins, and to rise again, inaugurating the kingdom of God as a community of the Spirit that crossed political, ethnic and class barriers. The earliest Christians were the first to envision a separation between church and state.

If Jesus didn't die and rise again, how is it that, of all the messianic movements of that time period, this one is still growing worldwide 2 millennia later? As respected scholar N.T. Wright points out, when the leaders of the other messianic movements were executed, their followers, if they weren't also killed, either joined another movement or returned to ordinary life, sadder but wiser. Only Jesus' students insisted that their leader and rabbi was resurrected. And by resurrected, they did not mean that he is still with them in memory or in a New-Age, moral-example way. By resurrection, they meant exactly what their contemporaries, the Pharisees, meant: a total restoration and integration of body, mind, and spirit, the entire person alive again.

But even in this, there was a new element. Jews believed in a general resurrection of all the dead at the end of the present evil age. Before Jesus, nobody conceived of an individual resurrection. That's why Paul calls Jesus “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Corinthians 15:20) He was recalling how the earliest part of the harvest was dedicated to God. Jesus is the pioneer of resurrection, opening the door of this possibility to all who follow him.

It was trust in this promise, anchored by the fact that Jesus had been raised, that gave his disciples the courage to spread the good news in the face of persecution and death. It was this faith that enabled Christians to brave torture in imperial prisons, wild beasts in the colossium, shipwrecks and pirates on missionary voyages, and bandits and hostile tribes beyond the borders of the known world. This is the faith that drove Patrick to return to the land of his kidnapping and slavery to confront the druids and evangelize the Irish. This is the faith that led the Irish to re-evangelize barbarian Europe bringing the light of learning and Christian hope to what have been called the Dark Ages. This is the faith that caused Francis of Assisi to abandon his wealth and dreams of military glory for a life of poverty, preaching and service. It is this faith that led Elizabeth Elliott to search out the tribe that killed her missionary husband and, by telling them of God's love and forgiveness, experience their transformation into her brothers and sisters in Christ. It is this faith that brought Mother Teresa out of her native Yugoslavia to India to serve the sick and dying in an overwhelmingly non-Christian culture. It is this faith that still calls Christians to risk their earthly lives in areas like Malaysia, China and Iraq. It is this faith that makes us call the day of Christ's death Good Friday. It is this faith that turns our Eucharist not into a sad remembrance of Jesus' death but a joyous celebration of his self-sacrifice, a participation in his resurrected life and a foretaste of his kingdom feast.

I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan and he famously said that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Skeptics claim that resurrection is impossible but all the non-supernatural explanations pile improbability upon improbability to the point where Greek and Roman expert Michael Grant said that while as an historian he could not say that Jesus was bodily resurrected, he found it hard to discover any other adequate explanation for the fact that this faith in a first century Jewish workman who was executed in the most shameful way possible could take over the entire Roman Empire in just 300 years. And such a bleak ending as Jesus' horrible death is extremely unlikely to lead to the beginning of a faith which has 2.6 billion adherents worldwide today and shows no sign of flagging 2000 years later.

Resurrection is only impossible if you eliminate God a priori, simply asserting his non-existence and ignoring the logical rule that you can't prove a negative. If God does exist, however, then not only is Jesus' resurrection a possibility, it is a better explanation than those convoluted arguments that assume absolutely everyone involved the event, both his disciples and their opponents, was unutterably stupid—or else had access to magical drugs and a Star Trek level of medical care to rehabilitate a nearly dead man.

The ending that makes more sense is the one in the gospels. In the pre-dawn hours of a certain Sunday, a group of soldiers, weary and chilled to the bone, stand sullenly in a cemetery. Suddenly one of the battle-hardened team screams in terror. They turn to see some thing approaching them. It may have appeared as a confusion of fire, wings, eyes and wheels within wheels, as dazzling as lightning. They freeze in horror as the ball of energy resolves itself into human form and approaches the tomb. The apparition extends a fiery finger towards the massive door. At his touch, the earth spasms and the stone rockets back along its carved groove. As the angel enters the tomb, the guards regain voluntary control of their limbs and beat a hasty and ragged retreat from the graveyard.

A small group of women carrying jars start out from inside the city in the dark and see the sky lighten and the sun rise as they arrive at the tomb outside the city walls. As they see the stone has been moved, their talk ceases and their mouths hang open, unconsciously mirroring the gaping tomb. Mary Magdalen summons her courage and looks inside. She, who struggled with her demons until Jesus freed her, quails at the sight of the angel. As he tells her that Jesus is not there, she backs out of the tomb only to confront another angel atop the stone, voicing the same news to her friends. “He is not here. He is risen.” Terrified, the women run back to the city and to the sanctuary of the upper room where the disciples are hiding.

Though initially skeptical, Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb, examine the still wrapped but empty grave clothes, and leave, bewildered but hopeful. Mary returns to the tomb, still unable to believe that this isn't some cruel trick. When she hears Jesus, she doesn't realize at first that it is him. Then she wipes her teary eyes and becomes the first to see the risen Christ. Next he appears to Peter, to the men on the way to Emmaus, the ten and then to Thomas. James learns that his brother wasn't crazy in very dramatic fashion. 25 years later, Paul writes that nearly 500 witnesses to the resurrection are still alive, including himself. Today billions of lives over thousands of years have been changed by the fact that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. That is the foundation of our faith and the essence of our hope.

The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

This sermon was first preached on April 11, 2004. It has been revised and updated.

Why Do We Call It Good Friday?

The scripture of the day is John 18:1-19:42.

In various countries, today is called the Day of Preparation, Day of the Lord's Passion, the Passion of the Cross, and Long Friday. The Eastern Orthodox call it Great Friday. Those make sense. But in English-speaking countries, it's called Good Friday. And the question is, in view of the great evil done to our Lord this day, why do we call it good?

Jesus died on the Friday we are remembering. But it wasn't a “go to sleep and die in bed after a long life” kind of death. It was a “get flogged with a cat o' nine tails within an inch of your life, carry a heavy piece of wood on your shoulders, get stripped naked in public, have your hands and feet nailed to a cross and hang there until a combination of blood loss, shock and asphyxiation kills you” kind of death. In what way is that good?

The usual explanation is that out of Jesus' death on the cross come benefits for us: forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God and eternal life. (1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:19; 2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:9) Those are great and good benefits indeed. But they were not obvious on the Friday that he died. As the disciples on their way to Emmaus said of Jesus, “But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21) Notice the past tense: “...we had hoped...” In their eyes that hope died on the cross with Jesus. It was only the resurrection that allowed them to see his horrible, humiliating death as something good and even glorious.

We can indeed see goodness coming from what Jesus did. But I think we can see goodness in what Jesus did.

We often think of being good as synonymous with being nice or decent. Someone who is sympathetic and listens to others, or does little things like remembering birthdays, is often considered a good person. And I'm not saying that such people aren't really good. They are. But, let's face it, there are so many people constantly doing terrible things that simply not being a jerk can make people think you are a good person. We have lowered the bar on what is good behavior in reaction to the frequency with which we see bad behavior.

But to say that merely not being rude or egregiously selfish is good is to diminish the concept of goodness to the point where merely being passive is sufficient for a person to be seen as moral. It reminds me of the post on Facebook that says something like “Kevin sees a post he doesn't agree with. Kevin doesn't get into a big argument in the comments section. Kevin just keeps scrolling past it. Be like Kevin.” Yes, it would be nice if people didn't make a big deal every time they see something on the internet they don't like. But that doesn't mean that Kevin is a saint. He may just be apathetic. In fact, if you saw something that said “Hitler was right about everything,” and had no reaction to it, it could be that you simply don't care that a Nazi posted on your feed. Or, it could mean you secretly agree. The Nazis executed not only 6 million Jews but an additional 5 to 7 million non-Jews like disabled persons, sick children, gypsies, Slavs, Poles, gays, priests, and pastors who didn't agree with them. How many of those people could the Nazis have killed if the vast majority of Germans had actively resisted what their government was doing rather than just ignore the mass murder? As the Rev. Charles F. Aked said, “...for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing.”

There were people who did actively work against the Nazi policy of killing people merely for what they were. Diplomats like Chiune Sugihara from Japan and Raoul Wallenberg from Sweden provided official papers that put Jews in Nazi-occupied areas under the protection of their governments. Officials of the Nazi-occupied country of Denmark managed to ferry 7200 Jews to neutral Sweden when notified that they were going to be rounded up and shipped to concentration camps. When the mayor of the Greek island of Zakynthos was ordered to give the Nazis a list of the Jews there, Bishop Christostomos presented a list with only two names: his and the mayor's. Meanwhile the island's residents hid and saved 275 Jews. Christians like Corrie ten Boom and her family in Holland, the Catholic priests and nuns of the monasteries in the Italian town of Assisi, Pastor Andre Trocme and his French village of La Chambon-sur-Lignon, Eastern Orthodox nun Mother Maria Skobtsova and many others hid Jews or helped them escape. Many of these protectors of the lives of others paid for what they did with their own lives. They weren't good people in the sense of being nice and polite and inoffensive. They were Good with a capital G.

For the Christians who did this, the inspiration for these feats of self-sacrifice was Jesus, who gave his life to save us. Because they saw what he did as the very definition of goodness. They went above and beyond what most people would consider good behavior because Jesus did. They realized that when Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me,” he meant it. (Luke 9:23) He was serious when he said we must follow his way of love even if it leads to our death. They didn't just pay him lip service. They really believed him and their faith led to deeds most of us cannot imagine putting ourselves on the line for.

This deserves to be called Good Friday because it reveals what goodness truly is. It is the goodness of God, who essentially took on a suicide mission by entering his creation and becoming one of us though he knew that we would find his goodness intolerable and kill him as we have his prophets.

And even on the cross Jesus asked forgiveness for his executioners, assured a condemned man who had repented that he would be with him in paradise and made provisions for his widowed mother's care while feeling abandoned by God. Were he merely a man this would be regarded as remarkably noble and heroic. But knowing that he is also divine reveals the unimaginable grace that flows from the heart of the God who is love. (Luke 23:34-43; John 19:26-27; Mark 15:34; 1 John 4:8)

On Good Friday we see the horror of the cross, something we humans created to make the death of others more terrible and painful and humiliating. And yet we also see the unfathomable goodness and love and humility of the God who chose to live and die as one of us. This is the God who calls us to use the gifts he has given us to help and heal rather than to harm. This is the God who can say with first hand experience, “In this world you will have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33) This is the God in whose image we all were created. This is the God who has redeemed us. This is the God who indwells us. This is the God who has chosen us to follow him, denying ourselves, shouldering our crosses, and willingly going through hell if need be, knowing that he will never leave us or forsake us, in order to reach on the other side the paradise of his eternal loving presence.

Feet First

The scripture referred to is John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

If you knew that this was your last night, what would you do? Cry? Go out and get drunk? Call up an old love? Go to church? Eat all your favorite foods? Or would you gather your friends together and have a party? That last option is what Jesus did. The Last Supper was a farewell party of sorts. And what would you do at the party? Sit around and let your friends tell you what a great person you were? Or would you clean everyone's shoes?

The task of cleaning people's feet was the job of a slave. The roads of Jesus' day were dusty when dry, muddy when wet. Animals relieved themselves as they walked the streets. And there were no such things as sewers or garbage pickup. A pair of sandals didn't protect you from what you walked through. So in a rich household there was a jar of water by the door and a slave to wash people's feet before they entered. Poor people washed their own feet, of course. In today's gospel, we read how Jesus stripped off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the muck off of his disciples' feet. Why?

In Luke's account, the disciples have been arguing about which of them is the greatest. This was not the first time they did this. Perhaps this is Jesus' response, a demonstration of how the values of the kingdom of God are different from those of the world. The leader of all is the servant of all. This is Jesus' last chance to impress upon his disciples the unusual way in which the kingdom works before he goes to the cross.

So he acts as a slave. But this isn't just an act. When Peter protests that Jesus will never wash his feet, Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Letting Jesus wash his feet wasn't optional; it was mandatory. It's part of being Christian.

And think about this: normally a person's feet were washed before entering a rich man's domain. What other washing do we undergo as an entrance rite? Baptism. Perhaps Jesus is deliberately drawing a parallel between the two. We think of baptisms as something we do so God will forgive our sins. But really it is a cleansing God does to us so that we can enter his kingdom. If we want to be part of his kingdom, we must reveal to God the most disgusting and dirty parts of ourselves and let him go to work on them. It's like showing the doctor an ugly sore or a misshapen mole or a discolored toenail. The Divine Physician will not work on what we hide from him—or hide from ourselves. He wants our consent. For every part of us to be cleansed, they must be offered.

I hesitate to use this example but here goes. There was a “reality” series called Extreme Makeover. In order to get the plastic surgery and everything else the series offered, people had to be brutally frank about their defects. They not only had to reveal these things to the doctors and physical trainers and other experts, but to millions of viewers as well. In return, they were transformed. And the final results could be amazing. I once caught the end of an episode of The Swan and the women barely resembled what they looked like before. What made me hesitate to use this as an example is that all of the changes were external and it was obvious that these women had extremely poor self-esteem. One woman, who ended up looking a bit like Sarah Michelle Geller, still had problems despite the therapy she had been given. This reminds me of studies that show that after a few months lottery winners end up no happier (or sadder) than they were before they hit the jackpot. We've all heard of actresses and supermodels who deep down cannot see the beauty in themselves that others see, and who loathe themselves so much that they self-destruct. This kind of beauty is truly only skin-deep.

What is missing is the spiritual dimension. While therapy is important, ultimately all it can do is push you towards accepting yourself. But the problem may be deeper. A study found that depressed people actually saw themselves fairly accurately, much more so than happy people. Clinical, as opposed to situational, depression is a mood disorder and it can exist without the depressed person having a delusional assessment of him- or herself. One part of the The Swan that haunted me was that one of the contestants saw herself as “just so average.” And she was right. She was neither grotesque nor ravishing. She was on the pleasant side of average. But for her, being normal was not enough. She had to be extraordinary. And I wondered how long it would take her to find flaws in her new face and physique.

But the other extreme is not the solution. Studies have shown that bullies, far from having low self-esteem problems, are usually pretty satisfied with themselves. They don't see any of their personal flaws. So while acceptance might be a step towards having better mental health, it is not the final step. Ultimately we must find a way to accept ourselves without being either smug or blind to our faults. This comes from accepting God's love.

God loves us in spite of our faults. He deems us worth dying for. So we could not be more precious to him. And because he is God, his assessment of us is accurate. Our self-worth does not depend on our own faulty perceptions of ourselves nor on those of others. We are lovable because God says we are. In fact, God in Christ demonstrates how much he loves us through his self-sacrifice.

As Paul reminds us in Romans 5:7-8, it is rare for someone to die for a good man but Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. God doesn't expect us to get all fixed up before coming to him. We can come as we are. We needn't, so to speak, clean up the house before the cleaning lady arrives.

As Anne Lamott says, God loves us as we are but he loves us too much to leave us that way. He wants to make us better. That same woman who felt that to be average was to be lacking in some way revealed where this feeling came from. When she was in elementary school, her father told her teacher not to expect too much from her. That cut her to the quick. Studies show that children, students and even adults tend to live up or down to the expectations we have of them. High expectations are actually good for a person's self-esteem, provided those expectations aren't ridiculous.

God has high expectations. He created us in his image. He gives us talents and abilities. He gives us roles and principles to live up to. And any progress we make pleases him. But he expects us to keep progressing. When we fail, he forgives us and helps us start over. God does not give up on us and he expects us not to give up either.

Jesus also expects us to be like him. We call this Maundy Thursday because Jesus mandates or commands that we love one another as he loves us. Jesus knew that he was going back to the Father soon. He knew that eventually the disciples must carry on his mission. So he promises them and us the Holy Spirit who empowered him, because now we are to take on the role of acting out God's love on earth. We are to proclaim the good news of God's love with our lips and with our lives.

We leave this life feet first, so to speak, on a stretcher or a gurney. We enter the new life feet first as well—by stepping out in faith. It all comes down to trust—trusting Jesus enough to stop hiding our dirty feet, trusting him to clean us up so that we can enter the domain of the forgiven, trusting him enough to strip down for service, trusting him enough to open ourselves to rejection and to getting kicked in the teeth and to getting our hands dirty while helping others. We do it because he'd do the same for us. Indeed, he already has.

This sermon was originally preached on 4-8-04. It has been updated and revised.

Crossroads

It was a glorious spring day in Jerusalem. As the early morning sun rose behind the temple, glinting off its gold and making its white marble walls dazzling, the father and the 2 boys were overwhelmed by its beauty. What a perfect start to the climax of their visit to the holy city.

It was the first time for them all. Growing up in the Jewish community of Cyrene, Simon had heard over and over of the promised land. Every year at Passover, they would conclude the seder by saying, “Next year in Jerusalem.” But in the 300 years since his family had been transplanted there by Ptolemy Sotor, none of them had ever managed to make the trip back to their homeland. Simon had smarted over that. The Jewish community in Cyrene, the Roman capital of the province just west of Egypt, was large and influential. He himself had sent contributions to the Cyrenean synagogue in Jerusalem. Tomorrow his family would be worshiping there. And tonight they would celebrate the Passover in the city of David.

Simon looked down at his boys. They would remember this all their lives. Alexander, his elder son, was taking his role of leading the lamb seriously, fiercely protecting it from the jostling crowd. The lamb must be unblemished when it was sacrificed. Rufus however was dubious about the whole affair. He was petting its flanks morosely. Seeing his father's gaze, the younger boy said, “Why do we have to kill Wooly?”

Oh, no, thought Simon, he's given it a name, This will be harder than ever. “Because God commanded Moses that each family must kill a lamb and wipe its blood on the doorframes of the house. That way when the angel of death visited the Egyptians, he would spare our firstborn.”

Rufus looked at his older brother for a moment and said, “I'd rather have Wooly.” Alexander shot his sibling a venomous look and pulled the lamb's tether harder.

“No, you wouldn't,” said Simon. “Besides, in a way, the lamb's blood was the price of our freedom. God freed us from our slavery to the Egyptians that night.”

“Why didn't he free us from the Romans?” said the boy sullenly.

Simon stiffened. Looking about in what he hoped was a casual way, he bent down and talked in a low but distinct voice to the boy.

“Don't mention the Romans again. You hear me? They know what Passover is about and they will kill anyone who says anything bad about the troops or the emperor. Understand?”

The boy, eyes large with fright over his father's sudden change in demeanor, nodded slightly. The father stood and strode off.

Simon regretted scaring his son but he might as well learn that a Jew cannot be too careful. Still, Rufus' question was valid. Why did God let his people come under the thumb of this blasphemous empire? It was hard to be a Jew in a Gentile city, trying to protect his children from the idolatry and immorality of that place. But here in Jerusalem, their own capital, Jews had to mute their celebration of freedom. Why?

As if reading his mind, Alexander said, “Father, why aren't we free from...you know?”

Simon sighed. He knew what his rabbi would say: sin. If all of us Jews just observed God's law, God would vindicate his people. But who was so perfect as to observe every one of the Torah's 613 laws? Anyway, now was not the time to get into all of that. So Simon did something that found irritating about his own father, something he swore he would never do to his own sons: he would give them a non-answer just to shut them up. In fact he would give them the same answer that his rabbi would use whenever asked a really tough question. Simon said, “We will find out when the Messiah comes.”

“When will that be?” shot back Rufus.

“When God feels the time is right. Look, boys, this isn't the time or the place to discuss this. Remember what I just said?”

And they fell silent, prompting a quick prayer of thanks from their father.

The crowd got larger and their pace through the narrow streets got slower. Simon expected this. They were approaching the temple and people from all over the city would be converging on it. Still, when the crowd before him began to reverse itself and push backward, Simon started to get irritated as he tried to keep the boys near him. Simon shouted over the hubbub, “What's happening?”

“A procession,” said a man crushing up against him. A thought hit Simon. He hoped it wasn't that Galilean who had made such a fuss entering the city a week ago. He and the boys were touring Jerusalem when they ran into a parade of people waving palms and throwing their outer garments on the ground, so that this man on a donkey could ride by. Everyone was singing and dancing. His kids wanted to join in. But he had been warned by a pilgrim about how brutally the Romans put down riots here and he wanted no part of that. He did hear the man later, teaching in the temple. He'd like what he heard but the man was a troublemaker by all accounts. Simon hated trouble. If this fellow was staging another demonstration today, the Day of Preparation, that might bring the Romans down on them all right now. Simon felt uneasy.

So it was with an odd kind of relief that he saw the long spears and gleaming helmets of the Roman soldiers bobbing through the crowd. That's right, he thought. The Antonia fortress is on this side of the temple. The Roman governor was probably sending out a military parade as a show of force just before the holy days to dissuade any would-be revolutionaries. He just hoped it wouldn't take too long. They had to get to the temple and back home with the sacrificed lamb before the Sabbath started this evening.

As the procession got closer, the crowd parted and pressed against the buildings on both sides. Alexander swept the lamb up into his arms to keep it from getting trampled. Rufus helpfully lifted its hindquarters. That's when Simon noticed that there were only a handful of soldiers and the one in front was carrying a plaque on his spear. It was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek but between the swaying of the sign and the jostling of the crowd, Simon couldn't read it. But an instant later, he discovered what was coming.

The soldiers marched in a square formation around three men stumbling under the weight of beams of wood, laid across their shoulders and tied to their arms. Oh, my God. The poor wretches were going to be crucified.

Simon instinctively clutched his children close to him and tried to cover their eyes with his hands. But they struggled to see. And when they had, they tried to squeeze back behind his legs. He could not take his eyes off of one of the condemned, a wreck of a man who teetered towards them. Simon had seen victims of official justice and unofficial vengeance before. He had never seen anyone so abused in his life.

His face was swollen from blows and appeared unnaturally large. Around his head was some sort of wreath, such as an athlete might wear. But this was no laurel branch but something with thorns. Blood ran down his face from his grotesque head gear as well as down his sleeves and his legs from hidden wounds. As he lurched towards Simon, the Cyrenean flinched involuntarily.

To Simon's horror, the condemned man began to topple just in front of him and his children. With his arms tied to the crossbeam, the prisoner could not stop his fall and landed face-first on the pavement. He did not move and Simon thought for a moment that he had died.

The soldiers prodded their charge with their spears and the man shuddered. They ordered him to get up and the man tried using just his legs and failed. Looking exasperated, the ranking officer began to scan the crowd, his spear acting as a pointer. People shrank from his gaze more than from his weapon. The circling spear stopped at Simon, who was, after all, closest to the prone man. The officer slapped the flat of the blade on Simon's shoulder and said, “You! Take up his cross!”

Simon realized he must respond immediately. “Sir, I have my children with me...” The next thing he knew, Simon was sprawled in the street, his ear ringing, his cheek burning.

As he got to his feet, Simon's head swirled with emotions—anger at the Roman soldier, shame at being humiliated in front of his sons, fear for those same sons. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice reminded him that they were strangers in a large foreign city and he swallowed his anger and bitterness and managed to say, “Yes, sir.” Then as he bent to help the condemned man, he said in a low voice, “Alexander, watch your brother. Wait for me here.” A ghost of assent crossed the stricken boy's face and Simon turned his attention to his burden.

It took some work to lift and then squirm under one of the prone man's arms, tied to the heavy crossbeam, and heave him to his feet. He heard him grunt something that might be a word of thanks but Simon didn't want to be thanked. He was just as mad at the man as at the soldiers. What had this fool done to make the Romans beat him half to death before killing him? But it did no good to speculate. Simon concentrated on getting the criminal to his appointment with death so he could return to his family.

As his father and the bloody man began to lurch off down the street, Alexander tried to think. Should he stay right at this spot or someplace near that is not so busy and crowded? Was there a place where he and his brother could get a better view of the street? How long would his father be gone? He was trying to answer these questions to keep at bay the one question that loomed over the rest: Was his father coming back? Would they go ahead and crucify him too? He had never seen a crucifixion before. All he knew of it was what the older boys told him. He used to think they exaggerated the tortures just to scare him. Now he wasn't so sure. Alexander began to panic.

So it was almost a relief when two things happened in rapid succession.

Rufus screamed “Daddy!” and ran after his father. As Alexander was startled by this and yelled at his brother, the lamb wriggled free and ran off into the crowd. After a brief thought of how mad his parents would be about the lamb, he realized they would be more upset if he lost his brother. Alexander turned and pelted after Rufus.

Simon quickly realized how hard it was to coordinate his steps with that of his yokemate. He looked at him and saw that rivulets of blood had run down the man's forehead and into his good eye. He reached over and wiped the eye with the sleeve of his tunic, the tunic bought for the occasion of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This time Simon clearly heard a raspy “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it, “ said the Cyrenean grimly.

It became evident to Simon that he could not set the pace, despite the urging of the soldiers. He would have to adjust to what the condemned man could tolerate. Still, though weary, wounded and weighted down, the prisoner wasn't dragging his feet. He pressed on with as much strength as he could muster, as if hurrying home after a long day. “Why are you so eager?” thought Simon.

They stumbled over the uneven sections of the ancient city's streets. They swayed like drunkards whenever taking a set of stairs. They fought to keep their balance when making turns. After several minutes, Simon began to suspect that the prisoner was trying to bear most of the weight of the cross. Not knowing whether to feel insulted, embarrassed or grateful, Simon said, “Let me take the brunt of it.”

“It's my cross,” the man croaked.

“I'm supposed to help,” Simon protested.

“You are. And everyone will remember you for it.”

Not knowing how to reply, Simon looked back down, which was the only option they had with the crossbeam on their necks. He noticed that the man left faint bloody footprints on the pavement.

Simon and the condemned man struggled together in the hot Mediterranean sun, limbs aching, sweat mingling and possibly their blood as well. Simon could feel his neck and shoulders being rubbed raw. His hands had been pierced with splinters which he could not stop and remove. His back began to scream. But since his companion was in worse shape and did not complain, he would not either.

Physically, climbing the Hill of the Skull was the worst of it for Simon. But it was after he laid the man at the foot of the stripped and branchless tree that the soldiers indicated, that Simon felt the worst. He didn't know what to do. It had nothing to do with whether he was officially dismissed in the eyes of the soldiers. He did not feel that he could simply leave this man to face his final hours alone. And yet he had to go find his children. “I will leave when he passes out,” Simon thought. The soldiers quickly and efficiently nailed the man to the crossbeam, hoisted him onto the tree that served as an upright, and then nailed his heels to it. As they did the same to the two other men, one soldier climbed a ladder with the placard and hung it in place above the man's head. Only then did Simon discover with whom he had labored so intimately that morning.

“It's the guy on the donkey!” said Rufus, suddenly appearing and clutching his father's leg.

Just then Alexander ran up, berating his brother. “It's all his...fault...” His voice trailed off at the sight of the grotesque scarecrow hanging before them.

Just then the man struggled to pull himself up painfully and fill his lungs. “Father, forgive them for they don't don't know what they're doing.”

After that they couldn't leave. When it was over, Simon and his sons retraced their steps into the city. They passed people carrying their slaughtered lambs. They did not attempt to buy another one. They had decided that enough innocent blood had been shed that day.

They returned to the place where they were staying for the Passover. Simon's wife was in a state somewhere between fury and hysteria when they showed up just before sunset, having been gone so long and yet having brought back nothing. But the somber mood of her family and her husband's ruined and bloody clothes rendered her tirade stillborn. They stood and hugged each other for a long time before they spoke.

Their neighbor invited them to share his Passover lamb and feast that evening. But neither Simon nor the boys had much of an appetite. When it came to the part of the seder where Alexander, the oldest boy, asked, “Why is tonight different from every other night?” the question struck Simon with a force it never had before. It took him a few moments before he could regain his composure and answer.

“It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord...” he began and halted. “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord...” he repeated and fell silent. “Oh, my God...”

Simon probably decided to stay in Jerusalem when he first heard the rumors about the empty tomb. He may have contacted the rich man he had seen claim the body for burial. He probably met with Peter and the disciples. He and his family may have been among the 500 who saw the risen Jesus. (1 Corinthians 15:6) His family may have been among the other Cyreneans at Pentecost. (Acts 2:8-10) They may have joined up with other Cyrenean believers and gone to Antioch where they founded a church. (Acts 11:20) That church took in a man called Saul and supported him when he left to preach to the Gentiles. (Acts 13:1-3) Paul mentions a Rufus and his mother whom he said was like a mother to him. (Romans 16:13) And sure enough, when the gospels were written, what Simon of Cyrene had done was remembered (Matthew 27:32; Luke 23:26) and he and his sons, Alexander and Rufus, became part of the story of his passion. (Mark 15:21)

Originally preached on April 4, 2004. It has been revised and updated. 

SWEEPS: Service

Hearing someone yelling “Help!” would mobilize most of us. It is especially galvanizing when you are a nurse. And it's distressing to hear when you are in the midst of treating another patient. I wrapped things up as quickly as I could and left the patient's room, only to find the source of the cries not 10 steps from the doorway. As soon as she saw me the old woman in the wheelchair ceased bleating and, in her most imperious manner, ordered me to get her a snack. I don't know if this woman was once rich or not but she treated the staff at the nursing home as if we were hired help. Furious both that she was not actually in physical distress and at the tone she used, I went up to her and said, “We are not your servants! We are medical personnel who are here to keep you healthy! I have more than 2 dozen patients, many of them a lot sicker than you! If you want a snack, you don't bellow; you ask politely like a civilized person. And when we have the time, we will get your snack. Do you understand?” Quite abashed, she muttered an apology. And then, since I had finished with the other patient, I went and got her a snack.

Today we regard being called a servant as an insult. How much more so if we realized that often when the word is used in the Bible a more literal translation would be “slave.” Frequently in scripture the difference between “slave” and “servant” is not clear. Some forms of the slavery practiced then were not like the rigid, permanent condition of slavery that we had in pre-Civil War America. In ancient Israel, people might even sell themselves into slavery to pay off a debt or to keep themselves from starving. The Bible says that a slave had to be fed and clothed and released after working for 6 years, with generous provisions. (Leviticus 25: 35-37; Deuteronomy 15:12-15) Such slaves were usually better off than poor freemen. A slave might be promoted to become the steward of a master's estate, as Joseph was. In the Roman empire, slaves could practice a craft, such as blacksmithing, or work as an artisan, or have a profession, like teaching or medicine. In addition, a debt slave could be ransomed from slavery by a relative who paid the debt. This relative was called a redeemer. (Leviticus 25:47-49)

The fact is that for most of history the majority of human beings have been servants to someone. If not actual slaves, they were tenant farmers, herders, soldiers or household servants. Most societies were hierarchical and technically, everyone was the servant of the local lord. He was in turn the servant of the king, who might be the servant of an emperor, who was supposed to be the servant of God. Being somebody's servant was just a fact of life.

The world hasn't changed all that much. Most of us work for someone who has the ability to fire us. Few of us have unique skills that are in such demand that others will offer us a job the minute we are free from our current employment. In today's economy, people who thought they could pick and choose among positions at other companies have received a nasty reality check. In fact, the idea that having a government job provides a safe and secure career is no longer true. Right now, if you have a job, plus a mortgage, utility bills, car payments, and the need to gas up that car, you are as good as an indentured servant. As the Bob Dylan song goes, you gotta serve someone.

So why would we want to voluntarily act as servants to others? That is the topic of our last SWEEPS sermon: service. And, as you can imagine, it is one of the least practiced parts of Christianity. We might go on service projects and short missions. There's nothing wrong with that. But as Christians we are to act as servants of Christ daily. (Mark 9:35) We are to imitate Jesus, who, at the Last Supper, stripped down and wore a towel to wash the dirty feet of his disciples the way a slave would. Then he said, “I have set you an example that you should so as I have done to you.” (John 13:15) This is one answer to the question “What would Jesus do?” (Matthew 20:26-28)

The most popular thing about Jesus is his ethics. I should amend that to some of his ethics. While his sayings about love and forgiveness are well-liked, by and large, non-Christians and even some Christians ignore Jesus' ethical teachings on sex and marriage. Very few will commit to loving their enemies. Denying yourself and taking up your cross isn't a big hit with a lot of folks either. Being a servant gets a lot of lip-service and that's all.

Jesus' leadership style, called servant leadership, is quite popular, at least in management books and seminars. But what about plain old servanthood? In an era when being assertive is good and being a doormat is bad, you don't hear much praise for acting as a servant.

Part of this is a misunderstanding of the role of a servant. We are not committing ourselves to satisfying every whim of others. That is what the older woman thought I and the staff were there for. That is the sense of the word that I objected to. But we nurses are servants in the sense of doing what is necessary and helpful to others. We medicate, feed, wash, dress, treat, exercise, and otherwise care for those who cannot do so on their own. That is a form of service. And it is probably the best analogy of what Christian service is like.

We usually think of a servant as someone to be ordered around. But not all servants are like that. As I said, in the ancient world a servant could be a teacher. A teacher has at least some limited form of authority over their students. They are serving by imparting their knowledge but to do so, they need to be able to assign work and grade the results. In this case, in order to serve others, it is the servant who calls the shots.

A physician is a servant in this sense. Doctors ask questions, subject the patients to tests, and prescribe medicine and courses of treatment. But if you do not follow the doctor's orders, he or she will be of very little service to you.

As a nurse, I wasn't able to give orders in that sense. But I followed the doctor's orders and acted as his agent, asking questions, performing some tests, taking samples for other tests, giving prescribed medicines, treating wounds and other conditions. Other healthcare personnel also carry out doctor's orders, taking X-rays or using other imaging methods, giving physical, occupational, or speech therapy, dispensing drugs, even laying out a dietary plan of what the patient can and cannot eat.

Obviously there are tensions here. Patients can and do sometimes refuse to follow doctor's orders. They would rather lie in bed than undergo tiring and perhaps painful therapy that would enable them to walk again. They may object to a medication, sometimes over legitimate concerns, but sometimes for reasons that have more to do with comfort than health. For instance, patients may object to taking a diuretic because it means going to the bathroom frequently. But taking the diuretic can be the best way to get rid of fluids that are causing legs and ankles to swell up or that are threatening to drown the person's lungs in their own fluids.

When a person has a legitimate problem, we nurses will discuss it with the patient and ask the doctor if something in the treatment plan can be changed. Perhaps pain meds can be given an hour or half-hour before the patient goes to physical therapy. Perhaps the diuretic can be given earlier in the day so the patient can sleep through the night without having to get up every few hours to go to the bathroom.

Sometimes patients can be unreasonable. Maybe they heard bad things about a drug or have a completely mistaken idea about what it does. Doctors and nurses get this a lot, partly because of real doubts raised about other drugs in the past, partly because of the ubiquitous ads for medicine, partly because of the internet which spreads both good information and misinformation. We try to correct these things but the result can still be that the patient may refuse life-saving drugs or clamor for inappropriate ones. She may refuse to go to physical therapy which means she may become an invalid despite her newly replaced knee or hip. He may continue to eat the wrong foods or refuse to eat the right ones, causing his blood sugar or his blood pressure to rise or drop dangerously. She may take her breathing treatments and then go outside to smoke.

Legally this is tricky territory for a nurse. Patients have rights. They can behave badly, like refusing to shower, and then we can be cited for neglect. They can refuse to believe that they cannot get out of bed without help and then we can be investigated when they fall. All we can do is try to persuade them to do what's right.

That resonates with me as a Christian. There are a lot of spiritually unhealthy people out there and not all of them want help. Or they only want help on their own terms, which may not be compatible with getting better. On our part, all we have is the truth of the power of the love of God in Christ, the power of persuasion and the power of prayer. That's the challenge of serving others.

In most professions, you can serve God by serving those created in his image. You can look for Jesus in the people he died for and serve him by caring for even the least of his brothers and sisters. (Matthew 25:37-40) But you can't force them to let you serve them. And you have to resist being persuaded to enable them to harm themselves. That's a big temptation for those who serve. We can confuse serving others with pleasing others.

There is a peculiar effect of serving others. It can lead to loving others. Usually we think that first you must love people in order to devote yourself to serving them. But I've found that it works the other way around as well. In serving people, you learn about them. In learning about them, you can discover things to love about them. You discover their strengths and weaknesses. You discover their quirks. You discover their vulnerabilities. If you really get to know them, you learn their fears and their hopes. You see their humanity and ideally, they see yours. You touch their lives and they touch yours.

Serving is always about helping and not harming. But sometimes it can include hurting people inadvertently. There is nothing so heartrending as a patient crying out in pain as you are cleaning and dressing their wounds. But it must be done. Untreated wounds get toxic. In seeking not to hurt a patient at all, you can do them greater harm. Sometimes you have to help a person face and deal with their trauma, whether physical, psychological or spiritual, so that they can heal.

So serving others takes wisdom. You need to know why you are doing what you are doing. You need to know the principles so well that you can envision alternatives that preserve the essentials. And you need to keep communicating with the Great Physician. He is the ultimate authority on spiritual health and healing.

And finally, you need to take breaks. You wouldn't run a machine nonstop 24/7. It would break down. You need to rest or else the quality of the service you offer will suffer. You need to pray, to praise and to relax. God not only knows this, he made it one of the Ten Commandments. Servants rest on the Sabbath, too. (Exodus 20:8-10)

All of the topics of our SWEEPS sermons are forms of service—stewardship, worship, evangelism, education, and pastoral care. They are all ways of meeting people's needs. They are all ways of serving Christ. They are all ways of glorifying God.

But they are not all of the possible ways of serving God through serving others. And discovering new ways to serve is yet another form of service. So I leave you with this challenge: How are you serving Jesus in what you do? And how could you do it better?

Originally preached on March 21, 2010. It has been revised and updated.