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 Sunday, November 22, 2009 Sermon: "The Unchanging Christ" Scripture: Revelation 1: 4b-8 Reverend Larry M. Gerber In a world where change is the norm and sometimes necessary it is time to give thanks for the unchanging attributes of Jesus Christ. The longer we live, the more of it we see. Change. Consider a few childhood classics that have left nostalgia behind while looking to change with the times. The board game Monopoly was built on obscure geographic locales from Atlantic City. Without Monopoly, nobody outside of Jersey would know Marvin Gardens and Oriental Avenue. But because 750 million people around the world have played the game, Parker Brothers has now released a globalized World Edition. City streets have been replaced by actual cities, which were determined by Web site voters. Boardwalk is replaced by Montreal, Illinois Avenue by London, and Water Works and Electric Co. by Solar and Wind Farms. Instead of Dollars, players spend Monos, a fictional currency based on the Euro. And they no longer buy, sell and collect rent with cash; they do it by registering electronic transactions on their calculator-like personal banking units. The game Clue also got a face lift. The murder-mansion game board now has a spa and home theater. Professor Plum is Victor Plum, a billionaire video-game designer. Colonel Mustard is now former football star Jack Mustard. Nostalgic food favorites have changed as well. Recently, M&M's have gone "Premium," with new flavors including almond, raspberry almond, mocha, mint and triple chocolate. The Premiums, which lack their predecessors' hard shell, come in an upscale, trendy box instead of that tired brown-paper wrapper. And most of us remember the nation-gripping taste-drama that surrounded Coca-Cola becoming New Coke, reprising Classic Coke, then reverting back to just plain old Coke. Another changing classic is the Bible. Think about the medium by which we read the Bible. In the ancient world of Judaism, Scripture was memorized and passed on orally. Hebrews took papyrus technology from the Egyptians and wrote on scrolls. Later, they wrote on sturdier parchment -- dried animal skins. These were combined into exorbitantly expensive booklike codices. In the 15th century, just 500 years ago, 1400 years after the ministry of Jesus, the printing press revolutionized the world by getting Bibles into the hands of nonclergy for the first time. Today we beam texts onto PowerPoint slides, and people bring Bibles to church on the iPhone. Think about all the ways technology has altered age-old interactions between people. We used to talk face to face. Then we created the telegraph and eventually saw a phone in every home. Now we carry our phones, ditch our land lines and drop text messages to avoid those pesky, lengthy human interactions. But the point isn't to disparage change. It's to recognize that change is the air we breathe. In our country change took place when the first interstate highway was built, bridges over water ways, inner loops and outer loops in and around our cities, sky Scrapers, tunnels through mountains and under rivers, and in Phoenix a tunnel under a city park and library. In the United Methodist Church change has taken place. In 1725, at the age of 21, John Wesley dedicated himself to Christ and Christ alone. During that time the world was entering the dawn of Enlightenment, coming on the heels of the Age of Reason in the 17th century. The Age of Reason emphasized rationalism and science over moral, spiritual, and Biblical truth. The scientific discoveries of Galileo and Newton inspired a scientific revolution that caused men to believe in the power of the intellect over the wisdom of God. Humanism was on the rise and with it came moral decay. That was nearly 300 years ago. Along with the scientific changes England found itself in the grip of the "Gin Age". Gin was being distilled in one of every four homes in London, and it was sold openly on the streets. Living conditions were harsh, parliament adjourned early many times because its members were too inebriated to conduct affairs of the state. Drunken parents would often abandon or, worse, sell their children in order to feed their addictions. Nearly 75% of the children in England died before their fifth birthday in the 1700's. Often the parents would maim their children in some hideous way so that their apparent deformities would earn the money as beggars on the streets. Through the years such people as Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Dwight Moody, and Billy Graham, to name a few brought the ever changing world back to the unchanging Christ. Are we loosing touch again? In our congregations, change has taken place over the past 30 years. Some of you were here when you gathered as a small group of Christians to strategize on forming a United Methodist Church in Sun City West. As you developed your ministry and programs you grew in numbers because you attracted like minds. You changed locations, you bought land, you built the first building and then the second. You expanded as needed. Change took place in order to accommodate the hundreds of persons who were seeking Christ in their lives. The church was growing and changing as was the community. But the center of the church, Jesus Christ, remained unchanged. Every day brings about change and it is our challenge, responsibility, and commitment to keep Christ in the church and in the community. Today's text offers hope for today's changing world - the unchanging Triune God. The reality is that Revelation freaks out a lot of us. The imagery in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ seems more like the work of a '70s concert-poster artist on LSD than it does Scripture. And many of us don't know what to think about Revelation because we've seen it taken captive by too many end-of-the-world preachers and street crazies. But this week's text is a classic -- well known and easy to understand. No dragons. Nothing with wings. No fire to interpret. In fact, it just as easily could have been nestled inside a Pauline epistle somewhere. It's good to remember the complex first-century sociopolitical context in which John wrote. Though exiled, John was writing to and about the Jewish-rooted church emerging in Palestine. Its history was one of theocracy -- God as commander in chief of culture and country. Its new reality was one of imperialism -- occupied, ruled and persecuted by a Roman Empire that pushed its own pagan religion and claimed Caesar as god. That context gives rise to pointed, apologetic descriptions of our Triune God. Father, Spirit and Son are the givers of "grace and peace" (v. 4) -- entities entirely unknown to a people being persecuted by a foreign government imposing its will on them. And each person of the Godhead has an aspect of eternality and constancy to him. Father: God is called the one "who is and who was and who is to come" (v. 4) "I am who I am." Though the times are uncertain, John is sounding a classic apocalyptic message: This God controls the past, present and future and can be a source of comfort. God is eternal. Unchanging. The same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Spirit: Most see "seven spirits" as a reference to the sevenfold Spirit. Like Zechariah 4:10, the perfect Spirit ranges through the earth and sees all things. The misery of John's audience isn't going unnoticed. Son: John describes Jesus in three important ways for a persecuted people: -A "faithful witness" who modeled perseverance and martyrdom, -The "firstborn of the dead" ? sovereign over death and a promise to those who would be raised with him, -One who ruled earthly leaders like Caesar. Despite what the people's situation told them, this Jesus loved them, freed them and made them into royalty instead of the ruled. This passage preaches an unchanging God who sees all and can redeem all. But what do we do with this God if our life is changing way too much -- or if it isn't changing like we need it to? Trust in stability: It's difficult to trust anyone or anything that changes. The economy of the last year has proven that the job market, the housing market and the stock market are no place for our faith and comfort. Because God is the same yesterday and tomorrow, God can serve as an anchor point to a chaotic life. His words and the lifestyle he commands are a constant. Trust in redemption. Christ the King has established a throne in the middle of our filth. He "freed us from our sins by his blood" (v. 5). But that "us" is no longer just John's audience. It is the audience of Christian history. It's us today. It's the church tomorrow. Without taking away from the individuality of each one of us, our mess is exactly like that of a lot of other people whom Jesus also redeemed. Paul reminds us that "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Our sin doesn't surprise Jesus, and it isn't outside his reach to forgive. Period. No exceptions. But we haven't just been redeemed from. We have been redeemed to. Jesus redeemed strangers into his priests. In Scripture, priests always bring God to the people and bring the people to God. How has God made us uniquely to do that? What have we done this week that fits with our role as priests? We are the priesthood of all believers. Trust our history. An old Russian proverb says, "He who dwells on the past loses an eye, but he who forgets the past loses both eyes." Because God is unchanging, Christianity by definition is a historical faith. We should learn how the saints before us approached God, who was the same 1,500 years ago as he is today. This is why we care about the beliefs and experiences of Augustine, Theresa of Ávila and Calvin. Their God is our God and will be our children's God. Trust our theology. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral rightly includes Christian Experience as a component of our theological method and reflection. But like Reason and Tradition, Experience always remains subservient to the Bible as the primary truth about God and reality. The situation of the believers in Asia Minor called this reality into question, and many experience-driven Christians face the same danger today. We hesitate to believe that Jesus "loves us and freed us." After all, look at our unemployment. Look at our chronic pain. Look at our loneliness. Look at our Internet-browser history. God won't change on his position of grace and peace. Despite what we do, what we leave undone and what is done to us, our theology remains constant -- God is unchanging. God loves us. God frees us from sins. God makes us royalty. God calls us to serve him.These remain unchanging realities even when Christian experience calls them into question. Over the past 200 plus years our church changed names, split on issues, formed men and women's groups who changed their names, but kept Christ the centerpoint. Today we recognize women in ministry in the Methodist/United Methodist Church for 140 years, women in SHUMC celebrate the formation of the UMW 29 years ago, and members and friends of SHUMC celebrate 30 years of ministry in Sun CityWest. We live in a fad-driven culture. Our technology pushes change faster than we can learn the bells and whistles that showed up last month. Everything comes and goes, yet Christ remains constant. In our changing world today's Scripture and today's worship service can be a source for thanking God for the beauty of the Unchanging Christ. We salute and we celebrate women in ministry; we salute and celebrate our own UMW, and we salute and celebrate the ministry of SHUMC for 30 years and counting... Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game). Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002. |
