Orientation Day

Getting our Bearings
BACK TO SCHOOL SUNDAY
Deuteronomy 6:4-13; Mark 12:28-31

Watch the video:


...or listen to audio:


...or download a printer-friendly PDF file [click here]

...or read it online here: 

Back-to-School season is a time of year people get reoriented.

That’s most obvious to students, teachers, and other educators,

as new school years begin.

Many of you here likely already attended

an “Orientation Day” of some kind at your school.

As we begin a new church year at Park View,

we mark milestones for children and youth

moving into a new grade level,

a new worship year starts up in two weeks,

a new Congregational Council is forming,

a new Congregational Chair and other roles are just beginning,

and a brand new Nurture Team is being put into place.

Many are getting oriented to something new in this church.

But you know,

it’s important for the spiritual lives and practices of all of us,

to regularly get reoriented in faith, in community,

and in our covenant with each other and with God.

Our tradition is not always as intentional and focused

in our orientation practices,

as compared to other faith traditions.

The Deuteronomy text we read this morning

is the primary orientation text,

and has been for thousands of years—

for the Jewish people.

In the time of Moses, the Israelites

needed orientation for a very specific reason.

They were at risk of losing themselves in new surroundings.

As the children of Israel were entering into the promised land,

God’s main concern for them—and therefore, Moses’ main concern,

was that they not get lost in the land of milk and honey.

Which is ironic, when you think about it.

During 40 years of wandering around in a desolate wilderness,

God was not terribly worried about them getting lost.

It was only after they settled in the promised land,

and started raising crops, building houses,

driving in stakes, and putting up markers—

that God started worrying about them getting lost.

So let’s see how God addressed that worry, in  Deuteronomy 6.

It’s in your bulletin.

But if you have your Bible, even better to look at it there.

Because you’ll see that this short passage

is part of a longer speech—

a speech that takes up almost all of Deuteronomy.

It’s a speech Moses gave to Israel—

his final instructions before his death—

before they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.

Let’s start with the second part of the reading,

beginning in verse 10 of Deuteronomy 6.

Here God and Moses explicitly state their worry.

For the last 40 years, the Israelites roamed the wilderness.

living in tents, scavenging for food,

depending utterly and completely on God for survival.

Now, things would change, radically.

So Moses said, and I’ll paraphrase . . .

“Look and listen, people.

Until now you depended on God for everything you need,

quail, manna, water . . . one day at a time.

Soon you’ll be swimming in milk and honey.

You will live in cities you didn’t build,

in houses full of stuff you didn’t buy.

You’ll get water from wells you didn’t dig,

wine from vineyards you didn’t prune,

olives from groves you didn’t plant.”

Then he said, “So, when you kick back,

stomachs full, feet propped up,

don’t forget where you came from!

Whenever you start thinking you can handle life,

new gods will tempt you.

Remember the God you depend on, and owe everything to.

Remember Yahweh, who brought you out of slavery in Egypt,

and fed you in the desert.

There is only one God

who loves you, delivers you, and calls you ‘my people.’

Only one.”

_____________________

That is the context for the most famous verses in the Hebrew Bible.

Deut. 6:4-5.

These are the heart of this passage,

the heart of Hebrew scriptures,

and the heart of the Jewish faith . . . to this day.

“Shema, Israel . . . Hear, O Israel:

The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

There it is!

Keep those words.

Recite them to your children.

Talk about them when you are at home,

and when you are away.

When you go to bed at night.

And when you get up in the morning.

Tie them onto your hand, and onto your forehead,

write them on your doorposts and on your gates.

It’s safe to say that all Jewish adults and children today,

from Orthodox to Liberal, and probably even secular Jews,

have Deuteronomy 6:4 memorized, in Hebrew.

“Shema, Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.”

“Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

We Christians have a few scriptures that come close,

in terms of wide recognition,

but nothing quite like the Shema for Jews.

Most Christian adults and children,

if they have any Bible knowledge at all,

know the phrase from John 3:16,

“For God so loved the world,

that he gave his only begotten Son.”

Or they could recognize and recite at least some of

the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.

But there’s a big difference between

the way practicing Jews live with the “Shema,”

and the way practicing Christians

live with our important phrases of faith.

For Jews, the “Shema” is part of daily life.

Many of them repeat it, every day.

Some of the more devout, do so many times a day.

The Jewish people—as a community—

fully immerse themselves in these words,

to the point they are no longer merely words.

They are a spiritual home base.

They keep the Jewish people from getting lost,

just as Moses hoped.

Many of them do as Moses said.

They teach the words to their children at night and in the morning.

They tie them onto their hands and foreheads,

in little leather boxes called tefillin.

They place them on doorframes and gate posts,

inside tiny mezuzahs,

that they touch or kiss as they walk by.

These words have become deeply ritualized, and repeated often.

True, the practice becomes rote.

They do it by pure muscle memory, without even thinking.

But, I’ll bet you anything, having these words—

“The Lord our God, the Lord is One”—

so deeply embedded in their sub-conscious,

when time comes for active thought and contemplation,

these words have profound power to shape their thinking,

and their actions.

And don’t forget—these words were the spiritual home base for Jesus.

Like other Jews, he gravitated to these verses in Deuteronomy.

And when asked what the greatest commandment was,

he went right to that text, no hesitation.

He was formed by that text.

I think we, too, should have words and phrases of faith formation

that are so often repeated,

that they become a spiritual home-base for us,

embedded in our subconscious,

until we have a need to make them rise to the surface,

and shape our conscious thought,

in all their power.

For me, the Lord’s Prayer has become that kind of thing.

I repeat it privately almost daily, if not daily.

And we recite it every Tuesday morning, as staff,

in our morning prayers.

We sing it every Sunday here in worship.

When I’m alone, I even let my body participate in the prayer—

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

forever. Amen.”

There is nothing at all magical or mystical about this ritual of mine.

It’s just a choice I made,

to take some words that Jesus taught us,

and do more than use my brain to say them once in a while.

But rather, repeat them often,

and pray them with my body as well.

It embeds them more deeply in me, I think.

So when I may run out of words to pray,

I still have these at the ready.

With very little effort.

These words have become a prayer of orientation.

They keep me from getting lost,

in this land of milk and honey.

They help me remember who I am, where I came from,

and on whom I depend every day.

_____________________

No matter who we are—students, teachers, pastors, laborers,

merchants, retirees—

we all need to periodically get reoriented.

Make this your Orientation Day.

Live life on purpose.

Know what grounds you, and keep returning to that.

Perhaps you, too, can find these Hebrew words of the Shema

meaningful to you.

Or the words of Jesus where he quoted the Shema,

and added “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Or perhaps the Lord’s Prayer could become that to you.

I made up bookmarks a while ago,

and I just reprinted a bunch of them this week.

On one side is the Shema, in Hebrew,

and the words of Jesus where he quoted it.

And on the other side is the Lord’s Prayer.

I have them on stacks on the round tables at the exit doors.

Feel free to pick one up as you leave.

Put it somewhere that you will see it often,

and be intentional about reciting it,

in whatever way works best for you.

Do it at least daily.

As you see it, and are reminded of it.

You may be surprised at the power of these words

to orient you.

As a confession, let us sing VT 388.

This song is likely inspired by Jesus words,

where he quoted the Shema,

then quickly added some other words of Torah.

Love the Lord your God with everything in you,

and love your neighbor as yourself.

You can’t have one without the other.

—Phil Kniss, August 27, 2023

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below]

It's all for love

Patience both ways
2 Peter: True to the Root
2 Peter 3:1-11a, 14-15a, 17-18; Matthew 24:42-44


Watch the video:


...or listen to audio:


...or download a printer-friendly PDF file [click here]

...or read it online here: 

It won’t surprise you to hear me admit

I’m not big into preaching about the apocalypse and the last days.

For most of my four decades of preaching,

I have held at arm’s length these NT apocalyptic texts

about the second coming

and the importance of being ready and alert

because Jesus will come like a thief in the night.

If there were other texts available,

and I was given an easy out, I took it.

Part of that, to be honest, is some spiritual trauma

I incurred in my childhood and adolescence in the 1960s and 70s.

I’ve told you some about that from this pulpit,

the movies we brought into the church, like Thief in the Night,

and some others about being left behind in the rapture,

and evangelistic preachers and books and Christian rock music

all reinforced our fear that we would miss out on the rapture.

I nearly wore out the needle on my turntable

listening to Larry Norman. Here’s a short clip [video].

In my early teens I endured more than one sleepless night,

worrying I would be left behind for some sin I committed

that I wasn’t even aware of.

So as a preacher, for many years, I just looked the other way

when these texts were given as an option by the lectionary.

Trouble is, when preaching from a lectionary,

it’s hard to keep avoiding, year after year and year,

the scriptures you’d rather not deal with.

Whether the old faithful Revised Common Lectionary,

or the newer Narrative Lectionary,

neither one cuts me a break,

they both keep shoving these apocalyptic scriptures at me,

saying, here, preach it, preach it.

So in the last 10 years or so, I’ve been doing it more.

I think I’ve preached as many sermons on the second coming

in the last ten years,

as I did my first 30 years of preaching.

Maybe I’m getting bolder, or maybe I ran out of excuses.

But I find the more time I spend in these texts,

and the more I immerse myself in the

social and religious context they emerged from,

the more I love them, and am actually drawn toward them.

It takes some adaptation, for our context,

but they are relevant, and needed, I believe,

if we understand them more deeply and authentically.

I’ll just be frank and say that we Mennonites,

and the most of Christian evangelical world,

have long been drawing the wrong conclusion from these texts.

Yes, there are many who find courage and hope

in the notion that Christ is coming, sooner rather than later,

to extract us from this evil world and take us away to heaven.

For those whose lives in this world are nearly unbearable,

I don’t fault them for holding on

to an escapist view of the end times.

But I would say, emphatically,

I don’t believe it was the intent of Jesus,

or the Gospel writers documenting Jesus,

to instill fear and dread into the psyche of the disciples,

nor to convince the church of Jesus that God’s #1 goal

was to safely remove them all from this earth,

before God obliterated the earth,

and condemned to hell all the people

who hadn’t accepted Jesus or prayed the sinners’ prayer.

A God that would do such a thing,

is not a God I recognize from the scriptures.

I think it’s a God we created,

prompted by the American church in the 60s and 70s

that felt highly threatened by all the

social and political turmoil and change going on.

It was our contextual response to a season of civil unrest

and the social decline of the church,

and then it got institutionalized in evangelical theology,

and it hasn’t gone away.

Apocalyptic Christian movies haven’t gone away, either.

This one, Heaven’s War, came out just three years ago.

In fact,

the continuing marginalization of the church in Western culture,

keeps on fueling this battle mindset of the church against the world,

and it still fires up the culture wars among Christians,

and stokes the fires of the political polarization

we are seeing even today.

We end up with Christian churches and preachers

obsessed with a God doing war against the world,

and calling us Christians to join the battle to the death.

Is it any wonder the close association of God and guns,

on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and placards

wherever there are angry people protesting

against the so-called deep state.

I want to suggest this morning,

that the best antidote for this violent mindset

and corruption of religion,

is a better and truer reading of these apocalyptic scriptures.

We start with the most basic affirmation of God’s character—

God’s love and compassion for this world and all humankind.

Can we all agree to make that our foundation,

and build on that?

So what was our God of love and compassion

most concerned about in the first century of the church

in the Roman Empire?

God sent Jesus into our world as an expression of love, not terror.

Jesus came for the healing and reconciliation of all creation. All!

John 3:16-17:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him may not perish

but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world

to condemn the world

but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

As I said from this pulpit in my last sermon on this topic,

just a few months ago,

the resurrection of Jesus was evidence

to his followers that the hope

of a political deliverance from Rome wasn’t over.

The cross may have looked like a loss.

But Jesus defeated Herod and Caesar with the empty tomb.

Jesus would soon return with the angels of heaven,

they believed,

and would take vengeance on the evildoers who killed him.

He would sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem, as prophesied,

and execute justice and judgement

against the Empire and everyone responsible

for his crucifixion.

The real world, here and now, would be made right—

for the Jews, and for everyone else.

That’s what “salvation” meant, it seems,

for the first Jewish followers of Jesus.

But that definition of salvation made sense

only if Jesus’ return was very soon,

before winter turned to spring and summer.

So the imminent return of Jesus to set things right in their world,

was the dominant mindset of early Christians.

As the faith spread into new churches popping up

all over the Empire,

this view started to seem less realistic and relevant.

Not only were they far away from Jerusalem,

where this was all supposed to take place,

it didn’t seem as urgent to

Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Asia Minor.

And even less urgent to Gentile believers.

So, Jesus started to fade in importance in the scattered church.

Some called him a fraud outright.

And one of their big arguments was, “See?

He didn’t return as he promised!

He’s dead and gone and irrelevant.”

Remember, this was before the Gospels and the Epistles

were familiar to the church,

long before they were considered to be scripture.

Before there was a well-established Christology.

So as Jesus and his teachings faded for some,

their ethical framework faded as well.

All manner of morally corrupt behaviors became commonplace,

even among leaders of the church,

including abuse of power, exploitation of others,

and they started looking more like their neighbors,

more like the Empire.

This is why the writer of 2 Peter wrote in v. 3 . . .

“In the last days (in other words, now) scoffers will come,

jeering, living by their own cravings, and saying,

“Where is the promise of his coming? . . .

Nothing has changed.”

You see, in its proper context,

that statement makes complete sense.

And so does the rest of 2 Peter, and the Gospel of Matthew.

They are speaking to present reality on the ground.

The point is not to scare people out of hell,

and whisk them off to heaven.

The point is to remind people

of God’s deep and everlasting love and patience.

Listen, v.9:

“The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness,

but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish

but all to change their hearts and lives.”

And v. 15:

“Consider the patience of our Lord to be salvation.

Therefore, dear friends, since you have been warned in advance,

be on guard so that you aren’t led off course

into the error of sinful people,

and lose your own safe position.

Instead, grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

It’s all for love, that God is being patient with us.

God’s heart, God’s deepest desire,

is to see the human race reconciled to each other,

and reconciled to God,

and all creation reconciled as well.

God big project is a shalom project—

where all are whole and complete,

and living the lives they were created to live.

God is not in a hurry to shut down the project.

And we should have the same mindset,

the same love toward our world today,

and keep our eyes on Jesus.

2 Peter is a call for Jesus-followers to be patient,

because God is patient.

And what looks like “slowness” or inaction

from a human point of view,

looks like love and compassion from a God point of view.

That kind of thinking is a great antidote

against the fear-based, church-against-the-world,

mindset that grips so many people today

who call themselves Christian,

and who resort to ways of violence and coercion

and political foul play

to bring about the kind of world they believe is the right one.

Let us, instead, because of love,

be patient,

as God is patient.

Let us be strong and bold in our witness,

but let that witness be steeped in love,

and look like love.

And let God be in charge of any timeline.

Yes, there is a place for accountability in God’s economy.

This doesn’t do away with the judgment side of God.

But love and reconciliation always come to forefront.

That is the message of scripture.

I think that attitude and point of view is entirely consistent

with a careful reading of these apocalyptic scriptures.

And it’s a truer reading,

than what Hal Lindsey and others gave us 50 years ago,

and which still shape Christianity today.

It’s all for love.

Let us confess our faith together.

Before we do, go ahead and turn to Voices Together #407.

Or just follow what’s on the screen.

We will go immediately into singing that hymn,

when we finish the confession,

in which I incorporated some phrases from the hymn.

one In a wounded world that often overwhelms us,

we are tempted to long for our escape to another world,

rather than wait for your promised restoration,

and your return to us, 

and to this world of ours that you still love.

all Come, Lord Jesus.

one Help us view the present through the promise,

all “Christ will come again.”

one Help us trust despite the deepening darkness,

all “Christ will come again.”

one May we let our daily actions witness,

all “Christ will come again.”

one May we make this hope our guiding premise,

all “Christ will come again.” (Phil Kniss, adapted from Thomas Troeger)

—Phil Kniss, August 13, 2023

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below]

It's the Gospel truth

Telling true from false
2 Peter: True to the Root
2 Peter 1:16-2:2, 15-19; John 15:4-5

Watch the video:


...or listen to audio:


...or download a printer-friendly PDF file [click here]

...or read it online here:

I promised last Sunday,

that in my second sermon from 2 Peter,

we would slog through some pretty harsh and polemical words

from the letter writer.

I also suggested there might be a way to better understand the context,

so that we could actually appreciate this text a bit more.

Let’s see how we do on that.

And just to up the ante,

let me read a few more verses from chapter 2

that our lectionary skipped over

for reasons that may become apparent as I read them.

Beginning at v. 12—

“These people [referring to the false teachers] . . .

are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct,

born to be caught and killed.

They slander what they do not understand,

and as those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed,

suffering the wages of doing wrong.

They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.

They are blots and blemishes,

reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you . . .

[etc, etc, then picking up at v. 21]

It would have been better for them

never to have known the way of righteousness

than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment

that was handed on to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

“The dog turns back to its own vomit,” and,

“The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”

“The Word of the Lord, thanks be to God.”

Do any of you still wonder why 2 Peter

doesn’t get preached from very often?

But what’s actually going on here?

Well, let’s start by just noting that there is a cultural difference,

between then and now,

in terms of the value of “polite discourse.”

In the church today,

we couldn’t speak like that publicly,

without being dismissed for violating basic norms

for acceptable public speech.

It sounds just mean-spirited to our ears.

But then, read some writings of our Anabaptist forebears.

Even in the 16th-century,

when gospel truth was at stake,

Anabaptists did not hold back their tongues.

They may not have picked up a sword.

They were not physically aggressive.

But their words were sometimes quite sharp.

So let’s just admit a cultural difference,

in what is an acceptable way to speak.

Secondly,

let’s think about what was likely happening

in these churches that 2 Peter was addressing.

To repeat briefly from last Sunday,

the recipients of this letter

were likely churches emerging in mostly urban areas

around the Mediterranean,

where Greek and Roman culture and values dominated.

These newer churches were being formed

by Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews

(that is, Jews who had already

drifted far from their roots in Jerusalem)

and by Gentiles who had no roots

in communal Hebrew and Jewish values.

And—most importantly—

this was when the written accounts of the life of Jesus—

our Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—

were only beginning to be written down and passed around.

No one, yet, thought of those writings as scripture.

Same for the letters of Paul.

So, the place of Jesus in the church was at risk.

It needed to be defended.

What did Paul mean by calling the church the “Body of Christ?”

And did everyone agree that “Christ,”

the Messiah being referred to,

was the very same Jesus of Nazareth,

the Jew from Galilee,

whose earthly life ended on a Roman cross?

Could the folks gathering around the Roman Empire,

continue to trust that Jesus had it right,

back there in Jerusalem?

Was Jesus, indeed,

not just a renowned prophet who paid with his life,

but also the Anointed One,

the Son of God?

The answer was disputed, especially in the heart of the Roman Empire,

far away from Jerusalem.

So yes, the place of Jesus in the church needed a vigorous defense.

Because, apparently, this was more than doctrinal drift.

These were communities, in some cases,

led by influential leaders who had lost their trust in Jesus,

and were enamored by their own growing wealth and power,

and began to lead the church with values and ethics

that resembled the excesses of the Roman Empire,

far more than the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

So at stake here in 2 Peter is not just something

you could describe as doctrinal heresy.

This was a denial of basic moral responsibility.

It’s one thing if the conflict is over theological differences only,

if you are contending over the exact words used

to describe the nature of God and humankind.

It’s another whole level of urgency,

if leaders are pulling people away from Jesus altogether,

denying the validity of his ministry, his claims,

and saying his promised return is a hoax.

If so-called Christian leaders

convince their followers that there IS no moral code

based on the Hebrew tradition of Torah,

and enhanced by the life and teachings of Jesus . . .

if they openly embrace the values of the Empire,

and use wealth and power and sexuality

to exploit others for their own gain—

then there is something to stand up against, strongly.

Strong forces of evil demand strong words and actions in response.

So let’s be clear that the “false teachers” being talked about in 2 Peter,

are not merely teachers the letter-writer disagrees with.

They are teachers who have rejected the way of Jesus,

and have embraced the way of the Empire.

_____________________

Understanding that context—

that the church was facing a deadly threat from within,

and that harsh discourse was more culturally acceptable—

I think we can actually appreciate the passion and love

the letter writer has for the church of Jesus Christ.

So I think we should cut him some slack.

In fact, let’s ponder, together,

whether his letter might even be seen

as something we could look to as inspiration for today.

Is that going too far?

Maybe. But maybe not,

given the extremes that we see today,

that get put out there in the name of Christianity,

that do not in the least resemble Jesus of Nazareth,

but look an awful lot like purely

secular, self-centered, circling of the wagons . . .

or that slap the name of Jesus right on top of

the same pile of racist and patriarchal language

that white-supremacists have used for generations . . .

or Christian nationalists,

that push for a so-called Christian nation-state

to advance the Kingdom of God?

At what point do we just stop and call them out as false?

as Christian pretenders?

The Christian church today,

is no less at risk, than was the church of 100 A.D.

We are also growing up in places far away from our roots,

immersed in the values and practices of the Empire,

of a way of life that honors wealth, exploitation,

self-indulgence, abuse of power, and violence.

The church and the Empire are incompatible.

They are just as much at odds today in our world,

as they were in the first-century Mediterranean world.

Let’s not be fearful of calling a spade a spade.

If looks an Empire, quacks like an Empire, walks like an Empire,

it’s an Empire.

And we should be able to say so,

in the spirit of a biblical prophet.

But if it looks like Jesus, talks like Jesus, and walks like Jesus,

it’s Jesus, and we can embrace it.

And of course, caution is in order.

We should use words carefully, and judiciously.

We should use a tone of voice that people can actually hear,

instead of shutting us off prematurely.

And we should be humble enough to know

we sometimes don’t see the whole picture.

But there is a place for speaking truth, and not apologizing for it.

But let’s choose the right things to get urgent about.

These days, it’s easy to get fired up and mean-spirited

about anything we believe in.

Let’s reserve the open calling out of others,

for those so-called Christians who have actually,

and verifiably,

rejected the character of Jesus revealed in scripture,

not those we just have disagreements with.

Doctrine and lifestyle and political differences,

we can and should sort out,

with honesty, humility, clarity, and kindness.

But denying the life and witness and character of Jesus?

Using Jesus as a prop for violence, nationalism,

and racist ideology?

Then, bold, prophetic words and witness are much needed.

And we, as a church, should be ready to stand up and speak out.

Let’s bring our whole-hearted and whole-bodied commitment to Jesus

with us whenever we gather as a church.

And especially whenever we gather at the table of communion.

The table is a place steeped in symbols of conflict—

the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.

At the table, we are reminded of the cost

of standing up and speaking out.

We are also reminded of the new life and healing that is possible,

when the real human Jesus, and the risen Messiah,

is host at the table, and invites us to come and dine.

—Phil Kniss, August 6, 2023

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below]