Archive: January 2022

The Year of the Lord’s Favor
Epiphany III; January 23, 2022
Luke 4:14-21

Last Sunday’s story told us some important things about Jesus; this story does too. This story also tells us something important about us.

It was the Sabbath, the day to go to shul, so Jesus was there. Luke makes a point of saying it was the custom of Jesus to go, since Jesus could find any number of excuses not to go. Luke, no doubt, was familiar with all the excuses people use not to go to church, so he points out that Jesus was in the custom of going, regardless. Anyway. Although a synagogue of the time would have a person who was in charge of running the service, the chazan, it didn’t necessarily have a regular preacher. So the Chazan might ask a visiting dignitary or a leading citizen to read Scripture and interpret it. Jesus was from Nazareth, and he was building a reputation around Galilee, so they asked him to read and preach.

By the way, that’s one place where the Old Testament reading (Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10) connects with this reading. Ezra read the Book of the Law to the people; he read it in Hebrew. Scattered among the crowd were a bunch of learned interpreters (their names are in verse 7, which we skipped) who translated what Ezra read into Aramaic and possibly added a helpful comment or two. Likewise, Jesus read the Scripture in Hebrew and then began to interpret it for his hearers in their language, Aramaic.

Jesus selected a reading from Isaiah 61 and, saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” applied it to himself. In other words, Jesus claimed that this prophecy from Isaiah was for him. Whether the Prophet knew it or not, Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophecy. He was saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and that the Lord had anointed “me” and that he, Jesus, was the one who would bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, and that he would proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

That’s Jesus’ personal mission statement. Some experts say that you and I will have more fulfilling, more meaningful lives if we have a personal mission statement. If you want to do that, you don’t have to make it up yourself; you can quote someone, as Jesus quoted Isaiah. Our church has a mission statement, to “seek Jesus Christ everywhere, every day, in everyone.” You knew that, I hope. Well, Jesus’ personal mission statement is to do all these things from Isaiah, concluding with “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

I admit that I fixated on that phrase, perhaps because we’re still early in the year, and we have no idea what this year is going to be like. It’s almost as though 2021 didn’t happen, but 2020 was two years long; we pray that it won’t be three years long. If we start the year with the idea that it is the year of the Lord’s favor, then what does that mean? It’s a nice phrase, right? “The year of the Lord’s favor.” But what does that mean?

I did what any responsible Presbyterian preacher does: I looked it up in the Hebrew that Jesus read and the Greek that Luke wrote. In both cases, it means “the year of the Lord’s acceptance.” That is, the year of the Lord’s welcome, the year the Lord receives the Lord’s people; I’ll say it again: the year of the Lord’s acceptance.[1] Jesus proclaims the year that the Lord takes the world into the divine arms and holds it close. That can be this year, can’t it?

Several other things go with that: helping the blind to see, releasing the captives, freeing the oppressed, bringing good news to the poor. Jesus did do all those things and so he did indeed fulfill the prophecy from Isaiah. But look where the quotation started. Jesus quoted the Prophet’s first line, saying that the Lord had anointed him to do all this. When did that happen? When he was baptized. And what’s something you and I have in common with Jesus? We are baptized. And just to drive the point home, when Harper is baptized today, she will be anointed.

Even though our Session has given us a good, pithy mission statement – to seek Christ everywhere, every day, in everyone – Jesus has given his entire Church a mission statement: to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Harper is about to become part of that mission, just as you and I became part of that mission when we were baptized.

Some folks get irritated when they hear about one of our members advocating for the people of Palestine, but if we are anointed to proclaim release to the captives, isn’t that part of our mission? Others may wish we didn’t talk about advocacy for public policy that would relieve the burdens of the poor – they’re fine with feeding the poor, but don’t talk about ways to reduce systemic poverty – but if we are anointed to bring good news to the poor, isn’t that part of our mission? Many are trying to forbid the teaching of systemic racism and the truth about the history of racism in our country, and get irritated when we Christians say that Black Lives Matter, but if we are anointed to let the oppressed go free, isn’t that part of our mission?

I would say, “There, I have stepped on a lot of toes” but the truth is that Jesus has stepped on a lot of toes. He claimed that this was his mission. Since the Church is the Body of Christ, then his mission is our mission. That’s what you’re in for when you sign on with Jesus and when you bring your children to sign on with Jesus.

You and I are part of Christ’s mission to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of the Lord’s welcome, the year of the Lord’s acceptance. Let me push at this just a bit more before I stop. It is a commonplace among the majority culture in our country to talk about “tolerance,” about the need to tolerate people who are different from us: different colors, different ethnicities, different gender identities and sexualities. We must tolerate them, they say. Well, think about that word: tolerance. What does it mean to tolerate something? It means to put up with it; it means that it is an irritant, a pain, perhaps a disease that must simply be tolerated. But that’s not what Isaiah or Jesus said, in Hebrew or in Greek: this is the year of the Lord’s favor, the Lord’s welcome, the Lord’s acceptance. People deserve more than simply to be tolerated; they deserve to be accepted.

That is our mission. Especially this year; this is the year of the Lord’s favor.

Robert A Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] Hebrew (Isaiah 61:2) ratson; Greek dektos (from dechomai: to receive, approve, accept)

Joy Is in the House
Epiphany II; January 16, 2022
John 2:1-11

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one; and don’t spoil it by telling the punchline to the person next to you. The police officer pulled over a car that was being driven erratically and was surprised to see the driver wearing a clerical collar. Then the officer recognized the driver; it was the Pastor of the local Lutheran Church. As she looked in his window, she noticed a wine bottle in the beverage holder; it had been uncorked and stoppered. The officer said, “Pastor, have you been drinking?” He said that the bottle contained water; she asked if she could sniff it and said, “It smells like wine to me.” The Pastor replied, “Good Lord; he’s done it again!”

I have a lot of questions about this story. Whose wedding was it? Why were Mary and Jesus and his disciples there? Why didn’t the groom and the headwaiter plan better to make sure there was enough wine? Why did Mary think that the lack of wine was a problem Jesus should do something about? But John isn’t interested in those questions and so there are no answers to them. The important question – What does this tell us about Jesus? – John answers thoroughly. So settle in and hear what I think this story tells us about Jesus.

Did you notice how much wine we’re talking about? There were six stone jars there, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. We’re talking 120 to 180 gallons of wine. I don’t know how many guests there were at the wedding, but that’s still a lot of wine. Remember the story of the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1-14)? From five loaves of bread and two fish Jesus fed 5,000 people with twelve baskets of leftovers. What does this tell us about Jesus? That he does things in a big way. A hallmark of the presence of Jesus is abundance or, if you like, extravagance. Jesus doesn’t simply makes wine; he makes a lot of wine. Where Jesus goes, there is plenty and to spare.

During the pandemic a lot of churches have stopped doing things they had been doing. I remember one pastor lamenting that no one would volunteer to make their annual July 4 celebration happen. The pastor saw that as a sign of the scarcity of people willing to do anything. But another colleague changed the question; he asked, “Is it that? Or is the issue that this is something your Church doesn’t need to be doing anymore?” If wine were unimportant, Jesus would not have bothered with it. They needed wine at the wedding. And so Jesus made sure they had it and that they had it in abundance. If we think our resources are scarce, perhaps the real issue is that we’re misdirecting them; Jesus provides in abundance.

What else do you notice about the wine? It’s good wine, the best wine at the party. The headwaiter scolds the groom: Why did you save the good wine for later? Now here’s a bit of fun. Those who think there’s something wrong with wine claim that this was really grape juice or raisin paste. They can’t imagine Jesus drinking wine, much less providing it for a party. And so you’re left with this ridiculous statement from the headwaiter: “Everyone serves the good raisin paste first, and then the inferior raisin paste after the guests have become drunk.” Have you ever seen anyone drunk on raisin paste? Neither have I. Don’t mess with the Bible. It was wine. Jesus made water into wine, and Jesus used wine for the first communion.

When Jesus does something, he does it well. He makes good wine. Likewise, when he heals, he heals people completely: not simply making them walk or cleansing their skin, but forgiving their sins. He heals hearts and spirits. I find in my own life it can be rather slow, but the goodness of Jesus does overcome the works of the devil. In this respect, at least, you can see the presence of God in Jesus. The work of God is surely good. Sunrise and sunset are to be expected daily, but do they need to be so beautiful? Or do they witness to the goodness of God? We need nourishment, but eating is such a tremendous pleasure. What God does is not only necessary but good and so we can see God at work when Jesus provides wine and it turns out to be the best wine at the party.

The last line provides the clues to take us to the heart of this story’s purpose: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs…and revealed his glory.” Two things: John never calls this a “miracle;” he calls it a “sign.” A sign tells you something and often directs you to something else. This sign tells us that Jesus is the source of abundance and goodness, yes, but it also points to his glory. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus speaks of his glory, he is talking about his death and resurrection. He says, for example, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23) and begins to speak of his death and resurrection. Maybe that’s why Jesus didn’t want to do this yet; he told his mother that his hour had not yet come (2:4). True; the hour to be glorified had not yet come, but the hour to do a sign that will point to his glory had come. I gather that Mary knew that.

The glory of Jesus is to take the sin of the world to the Cross and to be raised from the dead for the world’s new life. The prophets Joel and Amos both gave this sign of the coming of the Age of God: “The mountains shall drip sweet wine” (Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13). When Jesus made the water jars overflow with wine he showed the world that the Age of God was upon them. The Age of God does not come when the government in Washington or in Lincoln enacts legislation that conforms to our political agenda. The age of God does not come when entropy overtakes the cosmos and it all comes to an end. The old age of sin came to an end when Jesus died on Golgotha; the new age of God came over the world as the sun rose on that first Easter morning. The age of God is here whenever and wherever Jesus is present, providing wine in abundance, good wine for all the guests of God.

To me personally that all adds up to joy. Is it a mere side issue that all this happened at a wedding, one of the most joyful occasions in human life? Is it a relevant issue that the water came from a source intended for a legal ritual and became the wine of celebration? Perhaps not, but I cling to that detail, because if I know anything about Jesus I know that where he goes there is joy. So let us eat and drink in the joy of the Lord, for the Lord Jesus is in this house. His presence is our abundance. His presence is our goodness. His presence is the glory of the Age of God.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

Not the Messiah
Baptism of the Lord; January 9, 2022
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Anxious times encourage us to look for someone to rescue us. It’s no wonder to me that people living under Roman occupation would expect the coming of Messiah. In the anxious 1970s Close Encounters of the Third Kind had aliens come for benign intervention. I wonder if the attack on Congress last year was not, in part at least, an expression of the anxiety of White folks losing their sense of dominance and looking for President Trump to restore it.[1] At any rate, with the firebrand preaching of John the Baptizer and his calls for repentance, it is no wonder that people thought he might be the Messiah they were looking for.

John had rough charisma and a no-nonsense attitude. If he had felt the urge to raise an army to storm the Fortress Antonia or the Praetorium to attempt to seize control of Judea, I’m sure he could have done so. He would not have succeeded in the conquest, but he certainly could have raised an army and tried. If his ego had been larger than his sense of calling, I imagine he would have accepted what people said of him and claimed the title.

But John knew who he was and what was his calling: to prepare the way of the Lord. And so he said, “I am not the Messiah. One more powerful than I is coming; he will baptize you in Holy Spirit and fire.” He said some other things too that portrayed an image of Messiah that people could pin their hopes to: he would clearly sort out the good people from the bad; that is, he would gather the wheat – the good people – into his granary, but the chaff – the bad people – he would burn with unquenchable fire.

We just celebrated Christmas; you know what sort of Messiah God actually sent to the world. Jesus had some pretty harsh things to say to his opponents, but he didn’t call for anybody to be burned. John eventually found himself disappointed in Jesus; he was no longer convinced that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, because Jesus wasn’t doing the sorts of things that John thought the Messiah should do. But let’s keep this thought in mind: even if he was disappointed in Jesus, he didn’t claim the title for himself. He kept an open mind. And didn’t aim to satisfy his own ego.

Well, I struggled what to do with this story specifically for this congregation today. Today is the day we celebrate Jesus’ baptism. Typically I preach a sermon about the meaning of Baptism. Today we also ordain and install the leaders God has called for this new year. Typically I preach a sermon about leadership. The message for us today came into focus on Thursday morning as I visited with our Prayer and Share group.

We talked about the general sense of depression in our society, which is also reflected in our church. A lot of us are sad a lot of the time; winter and COVID and isolation have combined to make even the happiest among us rather pessimistic. We also talked about the anxiety some of us have over the changes in our church that are coming. So I’m going to talk about that today. I don’t want to overdo this, because there is so much more to the Gospel than our church’s leadership issues, but I think it’s the right thing to say today.

Those of you who were part of the Benson Presbyterian Church have a long experience of pastoral transition, and your experience is diverse. You have had happy endings and difficult endings. Those of you who were part of the prior Presbyterian Church of the Master have had very few happy endings. You have seen pastors leave unhappily and pastors forced out. The ending of a pastorate has often meant that many folks have left the church. I understand the anxiety some of you feel.

Here is what I think you need to know about this. First, and foremost, like John, I am not the Messiah. Every pastor you have ever had would say the same: none of us is the Messiah. Whenever someone says that I’m not good enough because I’m not D. C. Davis or Clyde York or Keith Cook or Sara Tonje, I remember that someone no doubt said something like that to D. C., Clyde, Keith, and Sara. None of us is the Messiah. People tend to remember how great someone was and compare the incumbent unfavorably; I wish they didn’t, but they do. I said to the Personnel Committee that if your next Pastor preaches from a manuscript and you compare them unfavorably to the way I preach, I will be very vexed with you.

I have intentionally tried not to cultivate loyalty to me, but to the Lord Jesus and His Church. When I retire, I hope and pray that there is no one who stops participating because “things just aren’t what they were” or something like that. When you became a member, you affirmed that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. Not Keith Cook, not Sara Tonje, not Bob Keefer, but Jesus Christ. This is Jesus’ Church, not my Church. I am not the Messiah; Jesus is. If you, like John, are a little disappointed in Jesus’ way of being Messiah, then you had best take it up with Jesus, as John did.

By the way, your next Pastor will not be the Messiah either. Just as there are aspects of me and my work that disappoint you, there will be aspects of the next Pastor that disappoint you. Just as you have disappointments in everyone else in your life, and you manage to disappoint people too. Yet one of the things that has been an enormous blessing in my years here is your capacity to let people be who they are. That is why it is natural for you to be a More Light Church: you do not expect people to conform to some prescribed category. You have allowed me to be me, with my gifts and my failings.

And so I will make this prediction, and very confidently: you will get a talented interim pastor to lead you in your transitional work over the next period of time, and you will call a wonderful Pastor. You are a gifted people of God, loving and dedicated, and it is a privilege to be associated with you. And so I urge you to be hopeful: the ministers to follow me will not be the Messiah, any more than I am, but you have the capacity to engage someone as gifted and dedicated as you are. And I predict that you will.

While I’m being so personal, I should say this too: I am retiring because it is the right time in my life to do so and it is the right time in your life to seek a new Pastor. On my last official day I will have been here nine years; I honestly believe it is time for you to have a Pastor educated in a different era. And given my age and Kathleen’s age and our circumstances in life, the time is right for us. If there are rumors of anything else, stamp them out. Consign them to the same hole where you put the ridiculous conspiracy theories that plague our society. You and I have had quite a run together, and we will end it well.

But not yet: I don’t want to dwell on this over the next few months because there is so much yet for us to do together. And this will bring me to the conclusion for this sermon. Jesus is our Messiah, our Lord and Savior, and the Pastor’s job is to represent him. Yet the Pastor is not the only one here who represents Jesus. That is also the calling of our deacons and our ruling elders. I’ve used this line many times and it bears repeating: someone (I don’t recall who) said that the Presbyterian Church is not a representative democracy; it is a representative monarchy. You do not elect elders and deacons to represent you; you elect elders and deacons to represent the Lord Jesus to you. Their task is not to find out what you want and do it. Their task is to discover the will of God and to lead you in doing it.

You will not always like it, but if I know anything about the will of God it is that it doesn’t always suit us. So whenever you’re tempted to grumble about what the Session or the Board of Deacons does, please put a stopper in it until you’ve searched the Bible and the Constitution of the Church. Maybe they are wrong, or maybe you are resisting the will of God. These people being ordained and installed today are, in the grand scheme of things, more important to the future of this Church than is the Pastor.

But they are not the Messiah either. They know that and none of them is doing this for an ego trip. All of us, like John, are pointing to the one who is more powerful than we, whose sandals we are not worthy to untie. He is the one to whom, when he was baptized, the Voice said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am pleased.”

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] Various sources support my hunch; see, for example, “Racist rage energized rioters,” Omaha World-Herald January 7, 2022, p. A4.

Open Your Treasures Daily
Epiphany; January 2, 2022
Matthew 2:1-12

These guys are amazing. Let’s start by being clear about what we know, what we don’t know, and what we can reasonably surmise. Matthew calls them “magi,” who were Persian priests. Although the word is the root of our word “magic,” they were not magicians; they used fire in their rituals and burned incense as part of their worship of Ahura Mazda, the great God of the Zoroastrians. One aspect of Zoroastrian faith was the expectation of the coming of a Savior.

So these men were priests from Persia who followed a new star. The star may have been a nova, or a comet, or a conjunction… or something entirely supernatural. We know there were at least two of them, since the word is plural, but we don’t know how many. We in the West have traditionally said there were three of them, since they brought three kinds of gifts, but in the East they have traditionally said there were twelve of them, to coincide with the Twelve Patriarchs and the Twelve Apostles.

They were probably not kings, despite the hymn we sang at the beginning (“We Three Kings of Orient Are”), but the idea that they were kings probably comes from Isaiah 60:3. These men were priests and scholars, recognizing that this new star heralded the coming of a new order, and they were probably inspired to follow it to Judea because of the prophecy of Balaam:

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near –
A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. (Numbers 24:17)

And what moves me most about them is the strength of their conviction. They had faith in the prophecy and they had faith in their interpretation of the prophecy and in where the star led them. Not only did they follow it on a long journey from Persia but – and this is what really moves me – they believed that this child they met was the King they were seeking. It makes sense they would have gone first to Jerusalem, to the palace of Herod the Great, to look for the scepter that would rise out of Israel. But there they didn’t find the King they sought; they went to Bethlehem and found a peasant child. And they believed. They believed this was the answer to their quest, this was the King they sought, and they opened their treasures: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When did they arrive? We ordinarily include them in our Nativity scenes, as though they arrived the night Jesus was born. Given what Herod did next, we can be sure they arrived sometime within two years of Jesus’ birth. In the West, we usually associate their arrival with Epiphany, which is January 6, twelve days after Christmas. That works as well as anything.

So yes, twelve days of Christmas: December 25 to January 5. In our British-oriented cultural history, Christmas Day was a quiet day of going to church and being with your family. Gifts were exchanged on January 1. The eleven days of December 26 to January 5 were for parties, open houses, games, and general merriment. Ask me someday about wassailing and about the Lord of Misrule.

In some cultures – Spain, Mexico, and other Spanish-oriented places – gifts are usually exchanged on January 6, Epiphany, and instead of being brought by Santa Claus they are brought by the Magi.

I have heard of families in our country that give twelve gifts – smaller ones, of course – one each day of Christmas. One may be, for example, a coupon to spend a day at the park of one’s choice. Instead of a blow-out on December 25, a twelve-day observance that isn’t over as soon as the retail calendar is done with it. That leads me to the thought of opening a treasure every day.

The Magi brought treasures – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – and opened them for the Child. I think that their greatest treasure, however, was the faith that kept them on the road and that led them to rejoice when they saw not a royal prince but a peasant child with his Mother. You too have treasures that you can offer the Child, because of the faith you have in Him.

2022 will be a year of great change for us. Although I will retire from the pastorate in May, I will not retire from being a minister of the Gospel. My task will be to identify what treasures I have to offer Jesus when I am no longer a pastor. Your task as a Church will be to identify what particular treasures you have to offer Jesus that make you unique as a congregation. And this is my challenge to you as individuals: spend some time this year identifying what treasures you have. You may have gold, frankincense, or myrrh. You may have a gift for tutoring young people. You may have insight into how mechanical or electronic things work. You may be great with numbers, or with paints and pastels. What treasure do you carry?

Identify your treasure and in 2022 commit yourself to opening that treasure for Christ every day. It will be a wonder to see what Christ will do with the treasure you open.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska