What Is A Pulpit

Preaching from the Pulpit

by Todd Elder

There can be much disagreement within groups when the issue of the pulpit because the pulpit connotes authority. When dealing with this situation, it would be better to start by asking if there should even be a pulpit.

The Form of the Pulpit

Within a modern church, the pulpit tends to be the area of focus during a worship service and is primarily used for a message or sermon. Sometimes the pulpit is placed front and center. Other times, the pulpit shares the front with a lectern used by the laity for the reading of Scripture or for announcements. A couple of centuries ago, the pulpits often had three levels with the lowest level for announcements, the middle level for reading of Scripture, and the top level for the main message or sermon. Before the Protestant Reformation, the pulpit was usually a single elevated level.

History of the Pulpit

During the first couple of centuries AD, believers would often meet in homes. The first reference to a pulpit does not appear until a letter in the third century AD. During the Middle Ages, pulpits became commonplace, but were not typically used much for sermons because the sacraments were more important to the Catholic Church. The preaching of the Word at the pulpit became more important with denominations after the Protestant Reformation. Since then, the authority of Scripture, the church, and the preacher became closely connected with the pulpit.

The Authority of the Preacher

The pulpit is generally considered the place where one has authority over a congregation. To have authority over a person or a group is a form of covenant and there are bonds, both physically and spiritually, within a covenant. For one person to have authority over a large or mixed group of people is inappropriate. One of the great problems associated with a regular preacher (whether a priest, pastor, reverend, or minister) is that the position lends itself to the idea of a spiritual superman. This person is expected to have a special relationship with the Almighty and then dispense what he has to offer to the entire group. Preaching of this type stifles the growth of everyone involved and only helps a few in any given message. It is much better if each individual in the group is learning the techniques for studying Scripture and developing the disciplines of worship so that each person can have that relationship with the Almighty. This enables each person to become mature in the Messiah and allows each to pass that on to their children and to other people as well.

Ultimately, the pulpit form of worship lends itself to placing one person in charge of a group rather than letting each individual grow in maturity and ability to help others. This type of authority, from either man or woman, should not exist and instead should be replaced by letting those who are mature in faith be examples to the others. By following the appropriate boundaries, everyone can benefit.

Additional notes:

In the eighteenth century triple-decker pulpits were often introduced in English speaking countries. The three levels of lecterns were intended to show the relative importance of the readings delivered there. The bottom tier was for community announcements, the middle for the gospel, and the top tier was reserved for the delivery of the sermon. This tended to elevate the authority of the message as given by the preacher over the authority of the scripture. However, some thought this represented the message as having the scripture as its foundation.

In churches where there is only one speaker's stand in the center of the front of the church, it serves the functions of both lectern and pulpit and is properly called the ambo. In common usage, however, ambos are incorrectly called pulpits.

In addition to the ambo, many major churches in Greece and Cyprus also have a raised pulpit on the left side of the nave, usually attached to a column and raised several feet high. This is reached by a narrow flight of stairs. It is considered an architectural element that is symmetrical to the bishop's throne, which is located on an equivalent position on the right. Pulpit and throne are usually similar in construction, usually made of either sculpted stone or sculpted wood.

How People Come Into The Church

Shifting Entry Points

by Susan Beaumont

 

Traditionally, worship has been regarded as the primary venue through which individuals enter the life of a congregation. In The Inviting Church (Alban, 1987, 74-75), Roy Oswald and Speed Leas linked new-member assimilation with spiritual growth. They named six levels of incorporation into the spiritual life of the church that progressed in this order: joining, belonging, participating, searching, journeying inward, and journeying outward. Oswald and Leas were careful to explain that individuals might not progress through the six stages in linear fashion. In fact, they argued that the first three steps may be disassociated from the last three. But they nevertheless assumed that people begin their engagement with the church through worship and then move through deeper levels of involvement from there.

A lot has changed in congregational and mainstream culture since Oswald and Leas wrote about assimilation. People have shifted the way that they integrate into congregations. Joining is rarely the first step and may not even enter into the equation. Some would argue that the first three steps today are actually a reversal of the process described above, particularly among the millennial generation. People’s involvement is more likely to follow this path: participating, belonging, and then joining.

Some new arrivals at the church begin by participating in the outreach or service opportunities the congregation sponsors. They move from participation into a quest for deeper belonging, where they test out small group involvement or worship, and finally they move toward joining, taking orientation and membership classes much later in their church experience.

This reversal in assimilation patterns is particularly evident in the large church. While many continue to treat weekend worship as the center of church life, others do not. The large church offers so many programming options that Sunday morning worship is no longer the only feeder system. People who are attached to the church school, a fine arts program, or a recovery program or support group may not be particularly drawn to weekend worship. They may not be formal members of the church, but they often describe the church as their own.

This phenomenon introduces a number of interesting challenges into the congregation’s acculturation process. In the 1980s, our best guess for how to assimilate new members centered almost entirely on Sunday morning worship. We obsessed over the availability of parking and the training of our greeters, ushers, and welcome-table hosts. We tracked participation in worship services and mailed a carefully conceived series of follow-up letters that drew people ever more deeply into the life of the congregation.

For many newcomers, worship remains the primary entry point, and so all those things we worried about back in the ’80s are still relevant. However, if people are not regularly attending Sunday worship, then we need to have integration systems in place that will gather in those who are participating less traditionally. Every ministry of the church needs to have its own method for drawing people more deeply into the life of the congregation. Critical incidents or trigger points need to be identified for flagging people who are expressing an interest in the life of the congregation outside of worship.

Susan Beaumont is a senior consultant with the Alban Institute. This article is adapted from her book Inside the Large Congregation, with permission from the Alban Institute. Copyright © 2011 by The Alban Institute, Inc. Herndon, VA. All rights reserved. For more information, visit: http://www.alban.org/insidethelargecongregation.aspx. This book is also available from Amazon and Cokesbury.

Passwords

Zechariah 3: 8-9

Hebrews 12: 1-3

Mark 8: 27-30

Passwords

"I want to change my password," said the man who for two years had a secure savings account that required a password to access.”

Very well," replied the man in charge. "What is the old one?"

"Gladys."

"And what do you wish the new one to be?"

"Mabel. Gladys has gone to Vegas."

I know a lot of you are on Facebook. Facebook was created to help you connect and share with the people in your life. There are several ways that it can help you connect, but there can be a problem of connecting with people if you cannot get onto your Facebook account. That happens when you forget your password. But if you forget your password you just click on the "forgot your password" link and Facebook will help you reset your password so you can get back into your account.

I had not really thought much about it, but we live in a password happy world don’t we? At least if you use technology there are many passwords out there that you need to remember. You may have passwords at work to get onto computers or access certain files. We have passwords or pin numbers for our debit cards. Your social security number is a password. I have passwords for both my cell phone and home phone accounts. If you buy things on-line you have passwords for those accounts. I have ones for Amazon, email, and several others. All of that is for good reason, it is for security, but it still can be tough to remember everything. You are warned to not use the same one for everything, because if you do and someone manages to steal one, they have access to all the others, and you could be a victim of identity theft.

And the fun part is not just remembering the passwords, but the user names as well. Some accounts use my email address, which is nice. But other accounts I am known by other user names, but not my own real name. It can be hard to keep it all straight and online places realize that and this is why most, if not all, accounts have a "forgot your password" button.

There are applications you can install on your computer that give you a place to store all your passwords securely. But then, you have to remember the password to the password vault.

Of course, you don’t need a password if you don’t have an account and don’t care to open one.

By now you may be wondering what in the world does all of this have to do with our faith as Christians. Some organizations have secret passwords, some have secret codes. I was in a college fraternity once, and there was a secret handshake. Well, let me first say there are no secret passwords in Christianity. There are no secret codes, and God already knows your name. Nothing in our faith is meant to be kept secret from others.

However, if there is one password in Christianity, it is the name of Jesus, but that name should be made known to all. It should not be a secret. There is power in the name of Jesus.

So I am not going to share a password with you today or ask you to come up with one. What I want us to do is work on remembering. See, if you are a Christian that means you are already signed up. You made your profession of faith, accepted the terms that Jesus is both your Savior and your Lord. You have been there, done that, but perhaps you have forgotten something. This is what happened to the church in Ephesus according to the book of Revelation. Ephesus is a town in modern day Turkey. Let me read from Revelation 2.

The passage started out by saying some positive things about this church. It said that this church was hard working and persevered in the midst of hardships. When there was persecution this church stood its ground and pulled through. It also said this church tested the teachings of people that came along to see if their teaching matched the Scriptures and Jesus. They did not want to be led astray. They held true to the Gospel and were not distracted.

But then it goes on to say, even with the good going on, there was one thing missing. It was said they had forsaken their first love. They were going through the motions, but were an empty shell no longer filled with the love for Christ.

You see this church was doing good things. They endured hard times and pressed on, but they had forgotten something. They had forgotten their first love. They had forgotten the reason they endured hardships. It seems to me that they were doing many of the right things on the outside, but were missing the internal passion and reason for their actions.  They had forgotten that Jesus is the password to vitality.

Too many churches today have forgotten their reason for existence. They do good things, but they have forgotten the only reason a church exists is to make disciples for Christ, teach them all he taught, and to serve others as he served. Jesus did not preach from a pulpit, or build a building, or create an institution—he created a movement, to take his message to all people. Too many churches have turned inward, becoming institutions rather than missionary movements, Sunday morning clubs of fellowship rather than bases for outreach. They have forgotten their password, Jesus.

As individuals we sometimes get that way as well. Do you remember when you first realized God’s presence with you? As Christians, we sometimes forget why we believe in God or we forget that God has a purpose for us. We too often take it for granted and just keep doing what we have always done. But this is not what God wants for our lives. God wants more than just the action or outward appearance of faith. God wants that internal passion to be living and the Holy Spirit our guide. So we need to reconnect. We need a reminder. We need to relearn that Jesus is our password to understanding God’s purpose for our lives.

And that is the message for today. Remember why you first fell in love with God. We dare not forget. We dare not forget why we first started to follow Christ. We dare not forget those times God has really touched us and changed us. We dare not forget that God has set us free from sin to live our lives. We need reminders of God’s love and purpose for us, and that Jesus as Savior and Lord is our password to everlasting life.

Amen

Repentance

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13

2 Corinthians 7:9-11            

Luke 24: 46-47,  Acts 26: 19-20

Repentance

Reverend Alan Tison tells a story about a country church that was having their annual revival meeting. On the first night the preacher preached a message about repentance and the need to return to the Lord. At the altar call, a man came down the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

The next night the preacher challenged the congregation with the need to totally surrender their lives to Christ in complete obedience. Again the altar call was extended; like the night before the same man came down the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

The third night of the revival preacher warned his congregation of the evils of sin and urged the congregation to live lives of holiness. Again at the invitation was made to give one's life to Christ, the same man came up the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

To which someone in the back of the church yelled; "Don't do it Lord, He leaks!"

The truth of the matter is we all leak from time to time. We all lose our way, there are times we tend to lose our fire for Christ, or we wade in the pool of the lukewarm.

Wabash, a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada, was completely isolated for some time. But recently a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only way he or she could leave---by turning around.

Each of us is a sinner. Each of us, no matter how hard we try, at times falls off the path God intends for us, and get lost. A recent nationwide Gallup poll by shows there is little difference in ethical behavior between the churched and the un-churched. It turns out there is as much pilferage and dishonesty among the churched as the un-churched. And I'm afraid that applies pretty much across the board: religion, per se, is not really life changing. Faith is life changing, truly accepting, following, and serving Christ is, but religion as such is not—religion doesn't have primacy in determining behavior.  Many people are caught up in religion,--they go to church regularly, do lots of work in the church, maybe even read their bibles regularly-- but unfortunately far fewer live a life of true faith, and as a result too often find themselves sorry for decisions they have made.

As in Wabush, there is only one way out--a road built by God himself. But to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there's no way out of town.

Now repenting is not being sorry for what we do that we wish we didn’t.  Too often people will say they are sorry for something, but then go ahead and do the same thing again at some point—or they say they are sorry, and do not really mean it. So repentance is not sorrow.  In fact, repentance is an outcome of true sorrow—it follows sorrow.

And, repentance is not conversion. Repentance alone does not mean a changed life. There have been millions who have come forward at alter calls to say they are sorry for their sins, but that does not mean they have had a conversion or have salvation.  Peter makes this very clear in scripture in the book of Acts chapter 3, verse 19, when he says “Repent and then become converted…”

So what is repentance? It is a change of mind, a decision to turn away from sin followed by a decision to turn to God.

The steps then are, first true sorrow for wrong behavior—sin.  Second, a decision to turn away from the past behavior and change to a life lived for God.  And then, at some point, actual conversion which means a changed life and living in God’s will.

Think of a husband and wife in a car, the wife tells her husband to turn right at the next junction and by mistake, he turns left. When he realizes what he has done, he says to his wife “I’m sorry love, I went the wrong way.” But if that is all he does, it isn’t enough. His saying sorry isn’t getting them any closer to where they want to be; it isn’t even stopping them getting further away. To get where they want to be, he needs to stop the car, turn it around and go back on to the correct road that his wife told him to take in the first place. That is repentance.

What leads us to repentance? We find the answer in what was read in 2 Corinthians.  It is being made sorry in a Godly manner, that leads to salvation. Many people—most of us—experience worldly sorrow, where we regret something because we got caught, or it makes us look bad in front of others—we are sorry mostly because we are suffering.  But being sorry in a Godly manner means we recognize that we done something against God, and he and his purpose suffer.

What are the signs of true repentance?  First, working to stop doing what has brought the deep sorrow, and accepting God’s forgiveness.  Then an eagerness to be obedient to Christ’s command to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength,  and love others as he loves us, and then an eagerness to obey his Great Commission to work to make disciples. 

That is followed by a desire to serve God, by serving others as Christ did.  Repentance is not seen in apathy or half-hearted service.  Instead, it is seen in a longing, and a readiness to, as we read in Acts, see justice done and prove our repentance by our deeds. If we have not made a decision to live as Christ has commanded, to loving others as he loves us, and if we are not yet ready to serve others eagerly      we have not yet repented.

The question before each of us as we come to the table for Holy Communion is, can we look at our lives and see signs that we have really had "a change of mind", to truly make "a decision to turn from sin and to turn to God"?

Josh Billings….It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.

Seeds

Isaiah 55:10-13

1 Corinthians 3: 1-9

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Seeds

I grew up on a farm in NW Ohio which was neighbored by the farms of uncles. My uncles and other neighbors planted corn, beans, wheat, oats, and such other things as sugar beets, pickles, and tomatoes. Sugar beets went to Findlay where they were converted into table sugar.  The left over fiber was used for livestock feed, or to make insulation panels used in ceilings of commercial buildings. Tomatoes went to Campbell’s soup. All of those plants were started as seed, after careful soil preparation.  Pickles and sugar beets and tomatoes had to be cultivated several times during the growing season, and as the plants grew and spread out that cultivation was done by hand hoeing. One of the earliest jobs I had.  Hot sweaty summer work, in fields that were usually about a mile long – everything in NW Ohio is on the mile square, and many farmer fields take up nearly the entire 640 acres of a square mile.

Jesus spoke a lot about farming. In that day, everyone was very familiar with what it took to grow food, even those who lived in towns.  So Jesus used farming stories or parables to teach many things. Today, such a small percentage of our nation’s population farms, or has any direct relationship with farmers, that such stories might hold little meaning.

There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from this parable, and from farming itself, that are applicable to being a Christian and a church.  Some lessons are obvious and we have talked about them before. Obviously, if you aren’t careful about where your seed goes, a lot will be wasted. So a good farmer wants good soil to begin with.  However, good farmers will work to develop their soil, to make it better and more fertile so it will be productive.

Unless a farmer plants, there is no harvest. Unless a farmer prepares well ahead of time, and works hard, the harvest may not be worth the effort.  As hard as a farmer works and as skilled and careful as he or she might be, there are many things beyond his or her control that affect the outcome. Farming takes commitment. It is a continuous job. You cannot prepare well, plant carefully, work hard, gain one good harvest one year, and then sit back from then on and do nothing. The more you plant, the more opportunity you have for a large harvest. The next year you have to do it all over again. Famers have to be open to change, and try new things. The yield is directly related to the amount of learning, preparation, commitment that a farmer puts in. Farming is a risky business, but unless you try there is no harvest.

Now you might think that one of the lessons for us as Christians and as a church is to not waste our time on the rocks or the weedy areas. And maybe we shouldn’t waste our time on the well worn areas that have been trodden down. After all, we can judge who out there would make a good Christian can’t we? There are people we just don’t want to waste our time on, right?  Some are just too rock hard against the church and God. Some live such undesirable weedy lives that we just don’t want to be among them. Some we have talked to before, and tried to bring in before, with no productivity. Some actually have shown up to church once or twice but then not again. All a waste of time right?  Especially when we already have good soil right here in our sanctuary and membership that needs to be taken care of. So let’s take care of ourselves first, and foremost. The problem with that is, old plants eventually die. Without new seeds being planted, there is no future harvest, and unless the new plants are cared for, they wither and fade away.

Every soil scientist will tell you that the best soils are made up of tiny particles of rock, worn down over time.  Then it is mixed with dead stuff, that once was growing. And it is full of creepy crawly things, bacteria, tiny bugs, fungi, worms.  Kind of like our communities around our churches. Out of that mix, properly cultivated, can come a wonderful harvest. We must remember, that God provides soil everywhere, and can bring a harvest from everywhere sooner or later. But unless we are willing to plant there is no harvest at all. And to keep that harvest up, we have to be committed, and plant every year.

There is another lesson though in Jesus’ parable. In that story the seeds are scattered indiscriminately. It sounds foolish and wasteful, but Jesus taught and ministered and served indiscriminately. Some grew on his teachings, some didn’t.  At the end his work may have been seen as a failure. He was left with 11 of the chosen ones out of 12. One had betrayed him. Of all the thousands he preached to, and served, only about 500 were there at the ascension, and some of those doubted, even after seeing him after the resurrection. But he was faithful to his calling to the end. He did God’s will, though his harvest of a few fearful, though faithful, followers may not have seemed worth the effort and certainly not worth his death. But now look at the harvest over the centuries. You see, God begins the soil preparation—we call it prevenient grace, and sometimes he prepares it where our judgment would say “forget it”.

His call upon us is to faithfully plant seeds. Prepare well, work hard, remain committed, but scatter seed everywhere. When seed does grow, care for it, nurture it. When we baptize someone, or when someone new comes into our midst we are called upon to nurture them so they do not wither away. Jesus said, go, make disciples everywhere, and teach them. God provides us soil all around us. Our job is do the planting and cultivating, and to keep trying new ideas, risky as that may seem. If we are faithful the Holy Spirit will bring a harvest. Too often we quit sowing seeds because we don’t see the crop fast enough in our judgment.

Clarence Jordan was a man of unusual abilities and commitment. He had two Ph.D.s, one in agriculture and one in Greek and Hebrew. So gifted was he, he could have chosen to do anything he wanted. He chose to serve the poor. In the 1940’s, he founded a farm in Americus Georgia, and called it Koinonia Farm. It was a community for poor whites and poor blacks. As you might guess, such an idea did not go over well in the Deep South of the ’40’s. Ironically, much of the resistance came from good church people who followed the laws of segregation as much as the other folks in town. The town people tried everything to stop Clarence. They tried boycotting him, and slashing worker’s tires when they came to town. Over and over, for fourteen years, they tried to stop him.

Finally, in 1954, the Ku Klux Klan had had enough of Clarence Jordan, so they decided to get rid of him once and for all. They came one night with guns and torches and set fire to every building on Koinonia farm, except Clarence’s house, which they riddled with bullets. And they chased off all the families except one black family, which refused to leave. Clarence recognized the voices of many of the Klansmen, and, as you might guess, some of them were church people. Another was the local newspaper’s reporter. The next day the reporter came out to see what remained of the farm. The rubble still smoldered and the land was scorched, but he found Clarence in the field, hoeing and planting.

"I heard the awful news," he called to Clarence, "and I came out to do a story on the tragedy of your farm closing." Clarence just kept hoeing and planting. The reporter kept prodding, kept poking, trying to get a rise from this quietly determined man who seemed to be planting instead of packing his bags. So, finally, the reporter said in a haughty voice, "Well, Dr. Jordan, you got two of them Ph.D.s and you’ve put fourteen years into this farm, and there’s nothing left of it at all. Just how successful do you think you’ve been?"
Clarence stopped hoeing, turning toward the reporter with his penetrating blue eyes, and said quietly but firmly, "About as successful as the cross. Sir, I don’t think you understand us. What we’re about is not success, but faithfulness. We’re staying. Good day."

Beginning that day, Clarence and his companions rebuilt Koinonia and the farm is still going strong today. They continued to plant seed, even in what seemed terrible soil of prejudice and hatred. God is reaping the harvest.

Amen

Evil

Proverbs 28: 4-8

Hebrews 4: 12-13

Mark 6:14-29

Evil

This summer has seen the “resurrection” of an old tale of family rivalry and betrayal. The show that started an industry of prime time “soap operas” is back on the air. It was so popular that some organizations had to schedule evening meetings around its night on the air. Do you know show I’m talking about? . . . . Dallas.

The ever-evil “J.R.” Ewing and all his battling, back-biting, embittered family have returned, with new generations, all of whom are admirably carrying on the family tradition of unabated greed and hatred. Added to yet another season of “Kardashians” and the History channel’s presentation of “The Hatfields and the McCoys,” “family life” is looking pretty grim. That is not even to mention the recent scientific study that put a question mark over the value of nightly meals together as a family. It found that eating together on a regular basis could be bad, not good for teenagers, if the family is dysfunctional. The family routine of eating together is very good for you if the family dynamics are good, very bad for you if the family dynamics are dysfunctional. Dysfunction too often leads to evil.

Herod’s actions were evil. There is no question. He really did not expect that he would be asked for John The Baptist’s head. He could have said no, but he made a promise, and to save face he ordered John’s execution.   

Yes, there are times that we wonder about God. It is true there is horrible evil out there. There are evil people - the sociopaths, the mass murders, the vicious child and spouse abusers. There are evil moments when otherwise good people are drawn in - that scene played over and over on TV several years ago of a dozen police officers beating and kicking a wounded suspect.

There are evil systems in which, unfortunately, we all participate - people going without food and shelter in a nation of abundance, people not getting medical care because of no other reason than lack of money (and greedy insurance companies). There are even evils born of sheer stupidity, like the stupid promise Herod made to Salome.

Do you remember the novelist William Burroughs? He wrote a lot of short stories and several off -beat novels. Burroughs died in 1997 at age 83. During a drunken party in Mexico one night in 1951, he undertook to play William Tell - he used a pistol to shoot a glass off his wife's head. He missed...and put a bullet in her brain instead. How stupid. How evil.  Unintentional, but the result was evil. Yes, it often seems that the evil wins.

Not all evil is huge, like Hitler, or what we see in Syria, or the streets of Chicago. Evil often begins with what seem to be innocent decisions or events, that result in things happening against God’s will. It is just as often the result of sins of omission as commission. There are two kinds of evil: Physical and moral.

Physical evil includes all that causes harm to persons, whether by bodily injury, or by preventing the full development of his God given capacity, or through the various social conditions. Some evils are ones over which we do not have full control, such as accidents, or death itself. Poverty, oppression, and some forms of disease are instances of evil arising from imperfect social organization. Mental suffering, such as anxiety, disappointment, and remorse, and the limitation of intelligence which prevents humans beings from attaining all God wishes for them are forms of evil.

Moral evil results from failure to live according to Christ’s teachings and commandments, to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength, love others as he loves us, and to make and mature disciples in his name.  Moral evil too often causes, or perpetuates, physical evil.   

But the message of our faith says that evil does not have the last word. God does, and the word is "love."

One real lesson of John The Baptist’s life is that doing good and right things cannot protect you from being badly hurt. There is real danger in identifying what is wrong in the world and trying to change it.

Why is this awful story even mentioned in the Bible? Well, it just might be that some of us who try to follow Christ have been following too safe a course, sitting in mighty comfortable seats at the banquet, so much so that we need this awful story to help us ask if we are following the One whose way was full of danger and whose final destination was a cross. How willing are we to follow Christ wherever he leads regardless of what in means to us in inconvenience or even danger?

John loses his head but gains the kingdom. Herod saved his face but lost his soul. Here there is another triumph in the midst of suffering. John's martyrdom is not a defeat. Twelve more preachers are sent in his place. Ironically even Herod suspected that John would ultimately triumph when he said, "John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead."

When we attempt to live a life worthy of the Gospel it is because our understanding of "worth" is far different from the world's. John the Baptist was not beheaded because he went along with the status quo. John gave his life because of his commitment to truth as he understood it, much like Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his struggles with Nazism and Hitler during World War II. As a pastor in the German Lutheran Church, Bonhoeffer was forced to choose between his loyalty to God or loyalty to an insane ruler. He was executed in 1945 for the opposition he voiced to the satanic rule of Hitler.

Few of us will ever face any challenge to our faith like Bonhoeffer.  But loyalty to Christ is challenged every day, and the decisions we make have an impact on the lives of others, most who we do not know, and in ways we do not suspect. But if we are loyal to Christ and his commands God will guide our decisions to keep our actions from doing harm, and instead result in good.

Life has many roads to travel. However, as Christians we choose the road on which the shadow of the cross falls. It always leads to freedom and to victory when the final lap of the race is run. Some 2000 years later, we speak of the reigns of the Herods and Caesars with pity and disdain, but the names of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ live on as those for whom life was lived with devotion and courage.

As  the religious writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton so concisely wrote: "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but tried and found difficult."  Amen

Storms

Psalm 34: 4-7, 17-18

2 Corinthians 4: 8-9

Mark 4: 35-41

Storms

 Chippie was a happy parakeet who loved to sing. But, poor Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over. The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She’d barely said "hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.

The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned. Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted Chippie with hot air.

Yep, Chippie never knew what hit him. A few days after the trauma, a good friend contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn’t sing anymore -- he just sits and stares."

Every felt that way? Sucked in, washed up and blown over? I suspect all of you have at some time.  Like the disciples you’ve been on stormy seas, and if by some strange chance you haven’t - you will.

Storms came in the life of Jesus as well. He and the disciples found themselves in the middle of a ferocious squall out on the lake known as the Sea of Galilee. This was nothing unusual there. It is in a basin surrounded by mountains and notorious for furious storms. Rising just to the North over the lake is beautiful Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon is capped with snow, and sometimes the cold air from the top of Hermon rushes down the mountain and blows across the lake. The force of the cold air meeting the hot moist air around Galilee can be explosive, as it was on the day in our story. Jesus and his friends are in the middle of the lake when the squall hits. It is terrifying and it looks as though they will not survive the storm.

I was watching the fireworks from Washington D.C. the other night, and they started to play the William Tell Overture, with the cannons firing as the fireworks exploded. If there were a soundtrack to the story of the disciples and Jesus out on the lake that night, the William Tell Overture would fit well. As the story begins, in the background you’d hear the wind blowing and the waves rising. Then wind hits in full force, the waves crash against the hull, the disciples are screaming, the tension mounts, all hope is gone, and then, the climax music. Here comes the hero--- Jesus. What happens next is something for which the disciples are not prepared.

Like these men, maybe your boat has been thrown around. Perhaps you’ve been plunged into the eye of the storm, and if that hasn’t happened yet, just wait - it’s coming. Maybe it was a family disaster. Death, or disease, or divorce. Maybe it was a financial storm. You lost your job or got heavily in debt. Maybe your tempest came in the form of depression, whose gale force winds can rip down your sails and leave you dead in the water, feeling overwhelmed and underpowered. I don’t know what it has been, or what it will be in your life, but I know this: storms come to everyone. That is the first lesson from this story. Storms will come.

The second lesson of this story is, Jesus is with us in the storm. It you are going to be in a storm, the one person you want your boat is Jesus. Jesus could have stayed on the shore and let them take all the chances by themselves, but he did not do that. Where they went, he was there. However, notice that Jesus is asleep. In the middle of this storm, when the disciples are frightened for their lives, Jesus was asleep.

We have all been there, haven’t we? You are in the middle of a crisis and it seems like God is off somewhere taking a nap. You can almost hear him snoring. He doesn’t seem very responsive to your need. At least we know that we are in the same boat as the disciples. But what is Jesus’ response when he is awakened? After he rebukes the storm, he rebukes his disciples. He asks them two questions: “Why are you so afraid?”, and “Do you still have no faith?”.

Here is the third lesson: Jesus will calm the storm. At the perfect time during the perfect storm he exercises his power over the storms of life. God is never in a hurry, and the reason he is never in a hurry is because he knows exactly what to do at exactly the right time. He does not go by our time. At just the right time, not the right time as far as the disciples were concerned, but just at right time, Jesus stood up and calmed the storm. Don’t worry, God has you in mind. He knows and understand you and your situation. He cares for you. His timing is perfect.

Here is a fourth lesson from this story. It is what a storm in your life does NOT mean. It does not mean that God does not love you. It does not mean that God is angry with you, or that he is paying you back for something. God is not toying with you. Sometimes the storms that happen in our lives are self-made. But many times it is just that storms happen, and trying to analyze what happened or assign blame is a fruitless activity. As Jesus once said, “God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). In other words, good and bad happen to all. What  is important  is whether or not we are prepared for them, and trust God’s promise that he will be with us through it all.

Jesus rebuked the disciples because he was hoping that what they had seen him do in the past would provide a stronger faith in the future, but that was not the case. So first Jesus had to calm the storm, and then he had to calm his disciples. Has God ever done anything for you in the past? Has he solved any problems or answered any prayers? He is hoping that his faithfulness in the past will cause you to trust him in the future.

And a final lesson we can take from this story is, it is only in the storms that we can come to truly understand who Jesus is. It is in those crisis moments, at times when we no longer have control, that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we really understand who Jesus is and how true God’s promises are. If you place your complete faith and trust in Jesus, you will have a greater understanding of him, a deeper relationship with him, and a new love for him when the storm is over. You will see his power over darkness and the depth of his love for you. Jesus is telling us to live by faith, not by fear.

God uses storms. I do not believe he causes every storm. God loves each of us, and I know God does not afflict anyone with pain, or harm. But I know God uses every storm. We bring many storms upon ourselves, sometimes we suffer from storms caused by others. And some storms just happen.  But storms become God’s best tools, because they make us humble, and they give us the opportunity to think about what is really most important in our lives.

I hope you’re ready for the next storm when it comes. Not, "If it comes", but "when it comes."  Ask God to deliver you from the storm, and then believe that God will fulfill his promise.  He will deliver you from the storm.

Amen