Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-23; 1 Corinthians 15:32; Matthew 4:18-20 Series: 2020
The final sermon in an Advent series on the ‘Four Questions,’ answering ‘What are we going to do about it?’ Using gourmet recipes and friction-stir welding as foils, the preacher argues we needlessly complexify faith to deny the world’s brokenness and our need for a savior, when Jesus’ call is simply ‘follow me’ and Paul’s command is simply to rejoice, pray, and give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:16-23). The kingdom shatters scarcity thinking and makes prayer a wasteful, unproductive, total life-response. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 15 and Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find,’ he insists the resurrection makes all the difference: it turns the whole world upside down and demands a step of joy that overflows to one’s neighbor.
Illustrations: complicated-gourmet-recipes, buche-de-noel, friction-stir-welding, follow-me-galilee, desert-fathers-mothers, good-man-hard-to-find
December 20 (Powerpoint)
What are we going to do about it?
1 Thessalonians 5:16-23
I like really complicated recipes. I like cooking. I enjoy cooking. If I use a recipe, I want it to be very complicated. Most of our cookbooks are from three-star and I have cooked maybe one dish out of the whole book, but the point of them is not to help prepare dinner on a busy Tuesday afternoon. Alina and I can handle that. We know what our kids like. We know what we like. We can work it together. But for special occasions, I like really complex recipes. Here is a recipe for White Asparagus (Slide 1) from the Alinea cookbook, which includes 8 (slide 2) different components.
Here is a recipe for Filet of Moose (Slide 3) with red fruits from one of the Noma cookbooks, with seven components.
Here is a recipe for Halibut Acorn Truffle Celery (Slide 4) from The Restaurant at Meadowood Cookbook with seven components (Slide 5).
One of the dishes I like to make at Christmas is a Bûche de Noël, (Slide 6) a yule log. I haven’t made one in a few years but I am doing it this year. I found a new recipe, (Slide 7) and it is exceedingly complicated with all sorts of extra decorations that are totally unnecessary. (Slide 8) There are a lot of steps and techniques, pastry things I have not done much of before. (Slide 9)
Some things in life are super complicated. It does not mean that it is impossible to know them, it just means that it takes a little extra time. My father-in-law, is a welding and materials science engineer. One of his specialties is friction-stir welding on aircraft carriers and planes and things like that. Here is a diagram of friction-stir welding. (Slide 10). You stick a piece of metal in two other pieces of metal and spin it. Maybe it is a little more complicated than that. What my father-in-law does is very complicated. (Slide 11)
Sometimes faith and Christianity are presented as very complicated things. This complicated list of “do these things, don’t do these things.” Sometimes Christians present to our children that faith is all about the Thou Shalts and the Thou Shalt Nots. What this kind of presentation does is that it gets away from the complexity of the problem of the brokenness of this world, which we talked about last week, as well as the perfect simplicity of the solution that Jesus offers.
My friends, we are finishing our series this advent season on the Four Questions, on why this season is different. The first question was, Who is coming? Who is coming is Jesus. Messiah, the anointed one of God, God-with-us, who will make our paths straight. The next question was, When is he coming? We talked about how God’s time is different from our time and that we must not look to God to fit inside of our expectations of time in our chronos time, and that God’s kairos time, the event of God that happened 2000 years ago, is happening in the future, but also happens right now. All these three times take place together. Last week, we talked about why he is coming? We looked at the prophet Isaiah and the need we have, as well as the brokenness of the world. That even if we are the kind of people who refuse to admit that we are wrong, and refuse to admit that we have needs, in those ways, we are lying to ourselves. We are denying the power of God in our lives and in this world. Today, we are going to talk about the what: what are we going to do about it?
When Jesus comes to Peter and Andrew on the side of the Sea of Galilee, he says, “Lay down your nets and follow me.” This is not a complicated request that Jesus makes. We are the ones who make it complicated. Jesus speaks simply and directly: follow me. It is not a complex thing. Jesus doesn’t offer a 60 page position paper or a 120 page contract, not like buying house. He says two words: follow me. The simplicity of the statement is radical and points all the way to the cross and all the way to Easter and resurrection and beyond. We see that the simplicity of God’s call cuts against many of the false complexities that we have developed in order to maintain our own position in this world. We complexify ourselves, not in the way of friction stir welding or in the way of Bûche de Noël, but we complexify ourselves by rationalizing the things that we refuse to change or refuse to admit about our lives. We complexify it to deny the brokenness around us. We complexify it to deny the brokenness inside of our own heart, to deny our need, our continual need for a savior. Paul gets to it in a different way in 1 Thessalonians, one of the earliest books of the New Testament.
Rejoice always. 17 Pray continually. 18 Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Don’t suppress the Spirit. 20 Don’t brush off Spirit-inspired messages, 21 but examine everything carefully and hang on to what is good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil.
Rejoicing is not denying needs around us. Sometimes the world is so overwhelming that we feel like it is unfair to rejoice. And there are certainly ways of doing it falsely, just as there are ways to be indifferent to the suffering of others, but that is not what Paul is talking about here. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In our rejoicing is our prayer. And so what kind of prayer? Is Paul saying that we should not do anything with our lives except pray? Maybe. Maybe there is someone who is called to that kind of life. In the early church, the desert fathers and mothers were called to that kind of life, to go into the desert to pray without ceasing. To accept the radical simplicity of God’s call on their life.
But there is also a way to live a life in response to God that fills all the actions of our life, that bathes those actions in prayer. Not as a burden, though. And this, again, is a way that the church has strayed from what God has called us to be. Prayer without ceasing is not a form of social control, or a way of making people feel guilty for what they haven’t done or what they feel they should do. But instead, to make prayer a part of a total life-response to the fact that Jesus is coming. That Jesus is coming soon because the world is in need, and we should rejoice, because the kingdom of heaven is here.
The in-breaking of God’s kingdom shatters the scarcity mindset of this world. Scarcity thinking makes us act only for ourselves or the people around us. It makes us seek productivity and promotion and worldly purpose. Prayer does not fit in this. Prayer is wasteful. Prayer is unproductive. Prayer is not about getting anything. There are some known health benefits to meditation and pray but if you prayer for the health benefits, who are you praying to?
Rejoice. Pray. Give thanks. These three actions are lifted up by Paul and not given a time limit. As well, they are not complicated. We can make them complicated. We can add clauses and rules and excuses, but at its heart, joy is a response to good news, thanks is a response to a gift, and prayer is how we rejoice and give thanks to God.
But if all we have are these abstractions or if all we have is Christmas, the child and the manger and the angels and wise man, then the rejoicing should cease because not much will have changed.
This is why we need the resurrection even in Advent. Easter isn’t just about a day in the springtime but the turning of the whole world upside down.
“What do we do now?” can only be fully answered in light of the resurrection. I think this is found most clearly in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. I think the heart of good news is found in this story of a serial killer and a family just trying to go on a road trip. Nothing is going right for the family and the grandmother is just nitpicking about everything. Nobody is good enough for her. And then they hear the news that this guy has broken out of prison and is on the run. Soon, the car breaks down. More tough times ensue which end with a conversation between the serial killer, called the Misfit, and the grandma.
“Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!” “Lady,” The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, “there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip.” “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead,” The Misfit continued, “and He shouldn’t have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can-by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness,” he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.
This is just like 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul says, if there is no resurrection of the dead, let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But if there was, everything changes.
My brothers and sisters, this is what we can do about it. It doesn’t start with this super complicated and impossible set of rules on how to be good. It doesn’t start with an explanation like how to make a Bûche de Nöel, or how to optimally test fracture percentages in Friction-Stir Welding. You don’t need a seminary degree for this. It begins with the words of Jesus: Follow me. It begins with the words of Paul to Thessalanika: Rejoice always.
This day, take this step of joy that comes because of what Jesus has done. Take that step of joy that does not end in yourself but expands to your neighbor, expands to the people around you. The joy that you cannot contain. The joy that overflows from your heart. You are loved. You are forgiven. God is not done with you. May you step out this season to do the things to get ready for Christmas.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.