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Boy Scout Tr #240

Scripture: Luke 20:27-38

Call to Awareness: There is a story which I gleaned from Carter Heyward’s writings that reminds me of Jesus and his relationship with the religious leaders of his day. It is a story about a wise old woman who lived in a small village. Some people of the village were puzzled about her—her wisdom, her gentleness, her strength, and especially her magical powers. One day, several of the villagers decided to put the old woman to the test. They wanted to prove that she was not as wise as everyone said she was. They found a baby bird. One of them cupped it in his hands and said to his friends, “We will ask her whether the bird I have in my hands is dead or alive. If she says it is dead, I will open my hands and let it fly away. If she says it is alive, I’ll crush it in my hands and she will see that it is dead.” With their plan and the bird in hand, they went to the wise old woman and present her with the question. “Old woman,” the one with the bird asked, “this bird is in my hands—is it dead or alive?” The woman became very still and studied the hands that cupped the tiny bird, and then looked carefully into the villager’s eyes. Then she said, “It is in your hands. It is in your hands.”

Let us worship and sing and pray with attentiveness and humility as the Spirit touches our hearts and minds and leads us to new ideas, wisdom, dreams, and leads into action. I invite you to stand and sing!

Prayer of Preparation: We give thanks, O God of sacred stories, for the witness of our holy scripture. Through it you nurture our imaginations, touch our feelings, increase our awareness, and challenge our assumptions. Bless we pray, our hearing of your word this day. Speak to each of us; speak to all of us; and grant that by the power of your Spirit, we may be hearers and doers of your word. Amen.

Will Willamon told a story about an evangelist who visited Drew where he was the chaplain for many years. This evangelist was in fine form preaching a sermon very enthusiastically about heaven and hell. He came to the climax of the sermon where he leaned over the pulpit and asked, “And where will you spend eternity?”

At that point Will Willamon heard one student leaned over and whisper to his neighbor, “The way things are going, in German 101.”

I know what that student meant. PreCalculus at the University of Oregon was where I though I was going to spend eternity. It was suppose to be a quick review of everything I needed to know before taking Calculus. Halfway through the term was when I got lost—trigonometry was a foreign language to me and I wasn’t getting it. Three-quarters the way through the course I hired a tutor to help me, but I was beyond help. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it at all. So, I feared I was failing. I decided for the first time in my college career to ask the professor if I could take an incomplete. So, the week before finals, I went groveling to the professor, swallowed my pride, and asked him, please, could I take an incomplete. He looked at me and asked, “Have you been sick?” I said, “No.” “Did someone die?” “Uh, no.” I knew I was doomed. “Have you had any emergency at all?” I do not do well in these kind of situations. I said, “No, not really.” And then he said, with THAT tone of voice I have never learned to argue with to this day, “Don’t you think that it would be inappropriate for you, a graduate level student to take an incomplete.” And I left with no choice but to try to bring my grade up to passing with the final exam.

I crammed up until the last minute. It was a nightmare; it was hell. I took the exam. That took an eternity. I was the last one out of the room. Then I waited for the grades to come in the mail. There was no way I wanted to find out what I got earlier than that. And there it was—a capital N for “no pass.” In other words, “fail.”

Today’s scripture is about Jesus’ final exam before the chief priests, scribes, elders, they who watched him, they who sent spies, and the Sadducees. His final exam consisted of three questions in Luke, chapter 20. The third question was the text read this morning.

Question #1 on the exam was: “By what authority are you doing these things?” The question was asked by those who were in charge of the temple. Jesus was teaching in the temple. The question they were really asking was, “What right have you to be on our turf.”

Jesus responded: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” Their answer was “We will not say.” Jesus answered, “Then, neither will I.” The question was not answered.

Question #2: “Teacher, you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully… (notice the flattery?) Tell us then…. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

It was a set-up. If Jesus answered, “No,” the Romans would label him a Jewish revolutionary and have him arrested. If he answered, “Yes,” the religious leaders would say he had defiled God.

Jesus asked them, “Do you have a coin on you?” They quickly produced a Roman coin. “Whose picture is on the coin?” Jesus asked them.

“Why, Caesar’s,” they said, “Well, that settles it,” said Jesus. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.”

Those who asked the question had Caesar’s idolatrous coins on them. Jesus’ pockets were empty. Nothing more was said.

Then the Sadducees came with their question, today’s text. Exam Question #3, a story problem: A man died, leaving a widow who had no children. In obedience to the Law, she married his brother. He died. The widow married a third brother. He died. She married the fourth, and same thing, until she had gone through seven brothers and seven funerals. The question was, “Whose wife will the woman be after the resurrection?”

It was a multiple choice question: Brother #1-7. Jesus answer was “none of the above.” “Marriage does not exist in the resurrection as we know it. In fact, life does not exist in the resurrection as we know it…because human beings in the resurrection are equal to angels and are children of God.”

Then Jesus referred to the hero of Sadducee’s faith, Moses, and said, “Remember Moses and the burning bush?” Of course, the Sadducees would remember Moses. It was their story, their scriptures, it was Moses who brought them the Law. Jesus and the Sadducees had Moses in common, so Jesus continued, “In the passage about the bush, Moses called upon the Lord as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. Well, God is God of the living, not of the dead.” End of the exam. And some scribes said, “Well done, you passed the exam.”

Do you think Jesus passed the exam? I would have given him an incomplete My pre-calculus professor would have flunked him!

When I read this chapter in Luke, I feel the earth shaking underneath the feet of the religious leaders. They did not want to learn from him about how to be faithful. They were not innocently curious. These questions were put to Jesus to argue, to embarrass and trip him up. The questions were designed to kill Jesus. He was that threatening. But why? He sounds clever and wise to us because we automatically are on his side. We love Jesus and look to him for leadership. But if we had been there, I think we would be feeling the earth be shaking under our feet!

Another question Jesus asked his examiners in Matthew and Mark was, “Why do you put me to the test?” Some of us still put Jesus to the test today. It’s called bargaining with God. If you get me through this trial, O God, then I’ll increase my pledge to the church.

I think we put God to the test when our faith is based on our belief in God rather than our relationship with God. I am in awe of the way Jesus answer the questions on his exam because he did not exclude his examiners from having a relationship with him. He was not tearing down their belief system. He was doing something else. Let’s look at that exam again.

Clue #1: Jesus knew he was not the one with the problem and he kept it that way. The religious leaders had a problem with Jesus. They came to him with an agenda. They were threatened. They didn’t like what he was saying and doing. They were out to prove him wrong and make him look bad. They were out to make trouble for Jesus. However, Jesus did not take the bait.

Can you do that? Or do you take the bait, hook, line and sinker? Many of us are very skilled at making someone else’s problem our problem. Often the way we show we care is by jumping right in and rescuing each other. And believe me there are plenty of people who need rescuing and want to be rescued when the best thing for them is to rescue themselves! Jesus was so skilled at re-directing questions back to the religious authorities. “Just where did the baptism of John come from, was it from heaven or from human origin?” “Do you have a coin? Whose picture is on it?” Many, many times, Jesus answered a question with another question. That’s called re-direction.

Which brings us to Clue #2: Jesus redirected the problem back to his examiners by giving them the responsibility for thinking and decision-making. Jesus did not fight their fight. He did not react to their attitudes and agendas behind the questions. He responded with thinking words, with questions.

We all like to think we have some control. But control is an interesting thing. The more you give away, the more you gain. Jesus was not hung up on controlling people. He could have taken control. But he most often threw the ball back in their court.

Which brings us to Clue #3: Jesus did not let people walk all over him. He had his limits and boundaries. We all need our bottom lines or deal-breakers. It is our limits and boundaries that give us the room to have satisfying relationships. The more squishy and indecisive we are about who we are, then the more squishy and indecisive we are in relationships. Jesus was not indecisive or wishy-washy or inconsistent with anyone—even those closest to him.

The bottom line is that we really can’t change anyone except ourselves. Jesus knew that even though he came to save us. So, he re-directed the questions, gave us the freedom to choose, so we would save ourselves all the way into eternity. And we do that by opening ourselves to relationship—with each other, with our neighbors, with the poor, with God. We don’t do that by beating each other over the head with the Bible or our own belief system. We don’t do that by taking away people’s belief systems either. We do that by being in relationship, standing up for ourselves, standing with each other, where ever we are on the journey to salvation and eternity.

So, as you ponder your relationship with God, with our church, with each other, as yourself, where are you on your journey? How are you doing? How is it with your soul?

One thing about being in relationship and basing your spiritual life on relationships is that it requires us to be disciplined in our generosity. It takes time to be in a relationship—even when you are married to someone. It takes time to be in relationship with God. Good relationships require us to be generous with ourselves, with our hearts. The blessing and the joy and the richness of life you receive from what you give is priceless! Generosity begets generosity—I truly believe that. I also believe that in a mysterious way, what goes around, comes around. What we give, comes back to us. I can’t really explain it. I don’t really want to try to explain it. Jesus knew it intimately—for he gave and gave and gave, all of himself, to his last breath so that we would hopefully learn that our lives and how we live and what we give is in our hands. Jesus gave his life back to us—for us to live. It is truly in our hands.

Most of you received our annual pledge letter and card in the mail this week. If you didn’t get one, please let the church office know. Please take time to think about your relationships—with God and your church—and know that the future of Hillsboro United Methodist Church is in our hands. Let the Spirit move you to be mindfully generous as you prayerfully pledge to the church for the year 2008.

When I failed pre-calculus, I could have blamed that professor (which I probably did for awhile), or (better yet) I could have lied about my circumstances and gotten an incomplete. Instead, I gave it my best and most honest effort, in fact, I gave everything I had, I might have even prayed and put God to the test…and I still failed. But, it did not defeat me. I did not become a failure. It opened another door, and another, which led to another door, and eventually led me to the door to this church, and this moment in time. And from that perspective, that failing grade has been transformed into one of my greatest gifts. That’s the grace of God-- a priceless gift that I will never be able to re-pay. But no one, not even God has asked me to re-pay it. It is just that I can do nothing less than try to give back a portion of what I have been given because I feel so blessed that I have been given the opportunity. Thanks be to God. And thanks be to all of you!

Amen.