No Buffer — Read or listen to Sunday's sermon here

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A sermon from Mark 1:14-20, preached on January 21, 2018. 

[Note: due to audio issues with the original recording, this recording is not from a live worship service]

It was 1986 when my parents moved into the house where we would spend the rest of my childhood and teenage years. It was new construction, and the kitchen was built to accommodate the very latest technological advances. For example, the cabinets had a special cut out in them, right above the oven, and that space was specially designed for the installation of a transformational device—the microwave oven. 

I looked this up. In 1986, only about 25% of American homes had microwave ovens. Which is to say, my generation was the first one that can’t really remember a time before microwave ovens. And that, of course, is what is wrong with me. 

I heard it all the time, growing up. “We have a microwave society now, everybody wants instant gratification. Nobody has any patience anymore; we just want to push a button and ‘zap’ it’s done for us.” Microwaves were blamed for all kinds of social ills—short attention spans, bad grades, greed. 

Fast forward a few decades and the tone of the complaints are the same, even if the objects are different. The internet is so fast that nobody bothers to learn basic facts anymore; communication is so fast and so effortless that it interrupts everything; rather than being doled out week by week, more and more television shows are being released as an entire season, all at once. Which is great if you have an entire day with nothing to do but binge watch, but there is a special kind of dread that comes when you are afraid someone will spoil 10 hours worth of entertainment for you, only two hours after it was released. The same goes for movies. Jennifer and I both love the Star Wars series, but this last December we couldn’t make it to the movie theater for almost 3 weeks after the movie came out. Every morning I’d do my quick scroll thru Facebook just to see what is going on in my friends' lives, and I'd have one eye closed and a hand over my face so that no one could give anything away. 

With every single day, our cultural conversation moves faster, so fast that it’s hard to keep up. We take it for granted that there is this ever-present possibility that our technologies may become, or may already be, too fast. 

But the truth is, in many ways, the more pressing problem is that they are too slow.

This last Wednesday morning, I woke up wondering how cold it really was. I could have grabbed my phone, checked my weather app, waited a few seconds for it to load. I could have seen that number in the twenties, and I could have compared that with the day before and with the previous night to give myself a sense of the temperature. But instead, I opened my door and stepped outside and instantly a million temperature sensors all over my body came screaming back with all the information I needed: it was too cold. If I was more patient, I could have looked up more accurate or precise information, but I am from the microwave generation. I need instant feedback. That blast of air to my face was so much faster, and it told me all I needed. 

A smartphone company recently announced that their computer chips can recognize faces by processing 30,000 points of light in just a couple seconds. Which sound really impressive, until you realize that even before an image hits your brain it has passed through your retina, which has 100 million neurons processing every single thing that it sees. Your eye can process 10 images, each of them with a million points of light, in a single second. 

I don’t care how fluent you are on you emoji keyboard, I promise I can say more with one eyebrow raise, and I can say it faster. 

And let’s pause just a moment to think about the phenomenon we call “video on demand” which is all well and good until it becomes “video-on-hold-every-time-you push a button, and wait…. push a button… wait. buffering, buffering… buffering…” you can waste 10 seconds or more that way. 

In the stone age, when we used VCRs, every single interaction gave you instant feedback. You picked up the box and knew instantly if the tape was in it, you could tell by the weight and the sound. You shoved the tape in the machine and instantly you heard “ka-chunk” if it went in properly, or you felt a too-soon bump if a child had left their peanut butter and jelly in the player again. When you needed to rewind, you pushed a button that actually moved underneath your finger, you felt every micrometer of resistance letting you know the button had been pushed, and then you heard the whine of the rewinder getting higher and higher as it drew near the beginning. Every single moment of the experience gave you instant feedback. You never wondered whether the issue was in your own wiring, or in the neighborhood, or down at some server in another state. You never just sat around waiting, wondering, hoping something would happen. 

The gospel of Mark has no time for waiting. We’ve just come out of the season of Advent and Christmas… that time when we build the anticipation of the birth of Jesus. We slow down; we dream; we wonder what it will be like this time.
 
Mark ain’t got time for that. There is no Christmas story in Mark - he skips right over Mary and Joseph and little baby Jesus. He drops us right in the middle of the action. And one of his favorite words is “eutheos” —“immediately”- some translations will say “at once” or “right away. The word is used about 80 times in the new testament - half of them are in the gospel of Mark. It shows up 9 times just in the first chapter. 

Jesus calls to Simon and Andrew and “immediately” the left their nets. Jesus sees James and John and “immediately” he calls them. 

Today’s passage begins with a summary of the gospel that Jesus preached. As Mark describes it, this is Jesus' stump speech: “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near you, repent and believe the gospel.” The King James version says “The time is fulfilled”; Eugene Peterson's translation puts it this way: “Time’s up!”

If all the promises of Christmas are true — if Jesus really is “God with us” — then there is some sense in which we are done waiting, and it’s time to follow. 

Maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you woke up this morning saying “I want to follow Jesus,” and then maybe you’ve heard where Jesus wants you to go, what Jesus wants you to do, who Jesus wants you to hang out with and you began looking at your calendar for a more convenient day to follow. "You go on, Jesus. I'll catch up. I'm almost done mending these nets, just a few more squares and I'll be done. Then, of course, I need to fold them and put them neatly on the shelf for the person who comes after me. Don't worry, I'll catch up, hopefully, tomorrow."

There is someone here today who has heard Jesus calling them out of an old and death-dealing way of life. Calling you out of destructive relationships, calling you out of habits and secrets that you’ve gotten so good at hiding. "Jesus, I'll catch up just as soon as I make sure these secrets are good and buried." But Jesus says, "Let the dead bury the dead, come and follow me."

There is someone else here who has heard Jesus calling them out of a life that is cozy and familiar and incredibly comfortable. Jesus is calling you to do things that you know you won’t do well, to follow him on trails that are a bit beyond your fitness; Jesus is calling you to love some unlovely people.

And in response we say, “Sure thing Jesus, just give me some time to really understand my neighbor and then I’ll love them.” And Jesus says “the time is at hand.” Stop trying to understand and just go love ‘em.

We ask “Jesus, where are you headed with all this?” And Jesus says, “That’s not the point. The point is that today I am here. And the point is that wherever I go tomorrow if you follow you will be with me.” 

We ask, “Jesus, but will everything that happened yesterday be wasted?” and Jesus says, only if it keeps you from me today.” If everything that has gone before has prepared you to say yes to Jesus today, then the time is fulfilled and nothing is wasted. But if all that has gone before is your reason for letting Jesus go by, then not only will your past be wasted, but also the eternal life that Jesus is offering to you. 

We say “I want to make sure I’m doing it for the right reasons, I want to feel it in my heart” And he says, "the right reason is that I said it. Trust my heart, and I’ll take care of yours."

And the more we talk to Jesus, the more we discover that our plans, our expectations, our timetables and even our precious patience can become a buffer that we use to keep Jesus at a safe distance, where he can’t ask too much. 

There comes a time when the only way we are going to learn the way of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the power of Jesus - is if we walk so closely that we have 24-hour continuous and instant feedback that comes from touching the people he told us to embrace, and listening to the unfiltered word of God that challenges us and comforts us in equal measure. There comes a time when we say that we are waiting for Jesus, but he’s already come by and already told us to follow, and he’s gone on ahead, and the longer we wait the less we’ll be ready. 

Sometimes, it turns out that waiting until we feel it in our heart is just another buffer. 

Sometimes, we just gotta follow. Immediately.

Sunday Sermon: Come Down Home (from Isaiah 64)

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Yesterday was decorating day at our house. We pulled down the tree from the from the upstairs closet where it resides; we put it all together we hung the ornaments on it. We are a one tree family. Maybe there is someone here who has more than one tree or maybe someone who has a tree that's all decorated according to a single theme. When I was growing up we had these wonderful ornaments my grandmother would needlepoint for us, and one year, my mother decided these these ornaments were so distinctive and so special that they deserved their own special tree. She took a small tabletop tree and that's where we hung my grandmother's handmade ornaments.

I remember also many years afterwards going to the Biltmore house in Asheville North Carolina - which took the idea of a theme tree to another level entirely. The Biltmore house was at one time the largest private residence in all of America; it belonged to the Vanderbilt family, and now it's kind of a museum and tourist site, and Christmas is when they really do it up right. Every room has these 12 or 15 foot trees. One tree will be the blue tree and will have all these different ornaments and lights with everything on a particular theme. Another tree will all be toy themed, it's all unlike anything I had ever seen. And as I was reading this passage from Isaiah this week I just couldn't help but thinking what would it be like if Isaiah had theme tree...

That would be the most metal Christmas tree ever made.

Lord I know that you would come down you would tear the heavens open

So we've got storms - maybe we got we had clouds and thunder and lightning, it seems like the world is falling apart above us.

When you come down the mountains quake

Wouldn't that be a nice needlepoint scene - earthquakes and mountains crumbling into the sea, swallowed up in the ground.

Our righteousness is like a menstrual rag...

That's some pretty intense tinsel.

And then, I imagine the tree topper comes from the image at the end of Isaiah's prophecy:

our house, our glorious house is destroyed in fire

I have an image of just a tower sitting on top of the tree with cellophane flames crackling all around it.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Isaiah is the great prophet of preparation - we we quote him all the time during the season of Advent, and we oftentimes use the more hopeful parts of the put the passages from Isaiah. In other years as we get ready for Advent, we hear from the parts were Isaiah tells us that we are awaiting one who will be called by the Wonderful counselor, Almighty God, everlasting Father the Prince of peace.

But in today's passage, Isaiah's preparation looks very different, Isaiah prepares us for the savior by reminding us that everything is not ok. This is so different than how we usually prepare for Christmas - we usually prepare by trying to make everything look as if it is the most OK it has ever been!

I'm not casting stones here; I'm looking at myself on this one. I think that my house is going to be ready for Christmas there's a place for everything and everything is in its place. I feel like my house is ready for Christmas when it is ready for guests to come and be astounded and amazing to think that it is perfectly on point the garland is in the right spot, the Christmas tree has all the lights on carefully and perfectly. That's when I am ready for Christmas, but Isaiah says "We are ready, Lord, because we are falling apart. We are ready for you, and we know that we are ready because the world is going up in flames! We need you so badly that even if you cause an earthquake we are okay with it - just please, Lord, come quickly! Come and make this place your home.

We often tell the story around the time of Christmas about how it was that Jesus came into the world, and the world wasn't ready for him. We hear all the stories - how his parents go to the city of Bethlehem, and they find that there is no room for them in the inn or the guesthouse, or however you want to translate it - there's no spot for them in Bethlehem. We tell how wise men come to King Herod and say "Where is this new King and Savior that is born?" and King Herod is not ready. Herod sends them on as as his spies because he wants to do away with this new threat. And we seem to think that our job every Chrsitmas is to prove that we are not making the same mistake. We think we're gonna get it right. We think there's no way we would ever miss Jesus, we're gonna roll out the purple carpet; we'll have everything ready for you Jesus. We will build a picture-perfect scene where the only thing missing is that baby in the manger, and then when he comes softly, slowly, backlit as he floats down from heaven - Jesus will find a softlanding because we madewe lined the manger with the softest, pest-free synthetic hay. We aren't like those first century failures. We will be ready.

But Isaiah keeps saying the best way to be ready is to know how unready we are. The best way to be ready is to know how badly we need a Savior. But we spend most of our Advent trying to prove our home doesn't need one.

In Isaiah's time, Jerusalem was the spiritual home of the people of Israel. At least once a year, all the people of Israel expected to go up to Jerusalem — and that's how they always refer to it, "We are going up to Jerusalem." In the Hebrew language, Jerusalem had such an exalted place in people's minds but it was always up. No matter if you're coming from the north or from the south, or the east of the west - you still have to go "up" to get to Jerusalem. It didn't matter if you lived in the high lands on top of a mountain that was much higher than the Mount Zion where the Temple was built — you are still going "up."

But Isaiah looks up and he says our holy house, the temple on that mountain, is in ruins; it is burned with fire. Isaiah says we can't go up there anymore, and even if we do, there's nothing for us. And so, and now Isaiah says "Lord, oh that you would come down! Oh that you would tear open the heavens! We've given up on getting up there to you God; our only hope is for you to come down. We are not going to be ready for you.

The book of John gives us the the explanation of Christmas that is going to drive our next several weeks of this sermon series on the meaning of home. John tells us in chapter 1 that in Jesus Christ, "the Word became flesh and he made his home among us." We can't go up to him, so he made his home among us.

John thengoes on to say that "Christ came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." It used to be when I read that passage, that I thought it meant most people just hated Jesus. They though they were better off without him. But the longer I live, and the more I talk to people about their faith and their struggles, the more I come to discover that for at least as many peoplae as there are who reject Jesus outright, there is an equal number who won't receive him because they think they're not ready.

"Oh Jesus, I would love for you to come by, let's break bread together! Just gimme couple weeks - I'm going to get my home together, get all the decorations in the right place. If we are going to do this, we are going to do it up right!" Jesus is knocking, and we save, "Give me just a moment." But the moment becomes two weeks, and then a month, and Jesus is still at the door, and we are still tidying up. The old spiritual says "Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart, I will pray." But we say "Lord I'm just not in a good place for prayer right now. It's a little too chaotic around me right now. But I tell you what, tomorrow morning I'm going to get up really early, when it's nice and quiet and it will be just you and me. Jesus keeps knocking, the morning comes, and it's busier than we expected. Before we know it, our lives have fallen into CHAOS. You know what CHAOS is right? Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.

CHAOS is you have such a lofty picture of what you ought to be presenting to other people or to Jesus that your big and beautiful vision becomes the reason that you're never ready.

Jennifer and I once had the unique experience of living in a parsonage, which is always a tricky thing as a pastor. You are living in a house, and everybody tells you to make yourself at home. The church owns it, but they tell you to live in it it as if it was yours, and they are lying. Someone knock on the door, they just want to ask a question but you see them looking over the shoulder, seeing what you've done with the place. It's an intimidating thing; it was especially intimidating at that church becausethe woman who was in charge of the parsonage committee was known throughout town for keeping the neatest, most beautiful home in all the city. But she gave us an amazing gift when she first met us. It was a bit of pastoral care advice as well as a bit of a relief from the burden about the home that we lived in.

She told us 'Preacher here's what you need to understand. If you're coming to visit me, you can drop in anytime. If you're coming to see my house, I need three days' notice. And I promise you, if I am at your house unexpectedly is because I want to see you, not your house.

Which one do you think Jesus from you? When Jesus says he wants to dwell with us, he'll take care of making the house. What he wants is to be with you. He came down to make his home in the middle of our mess because he knows the mess is the reason we need him.

In our own day and time our homes have replaced Jerusalem is the place a great pilgrimage. Some of you right now are planning for the pilgrimage you are going to make the hometown, to the parent's house, to the auntie and uncles - wherever it is you're going. Some of you are preparing for someone to make a pilgrimage back to your house. You're worried about whether everything will go just right; will it go as smoothly as the plan; is the food going to be all out at the same time; will it all be just as hot as it needs to be will I have every single decoration in the right spot to remind everyone of all those wonderful memories that we want.

And yet you know at the core of your being that when you're in the middle of it, the house will become a home when you are no longer paying attention to the things on the walls, or the temperature of the food, or the timetable you set for your perfect celebration. You know you are ready when you are able to receive the person who is right in front of you, and they are ready to receive you and you share with one another something more than just the pleasantries - when you share the fullness of your life, the back-and-forth, the good and bad. You share your hopes and your disappointments. that's what makes the house a home.

Our lives are no different for Christ. Jesus is not waiting you to get it all figured out, to have it all picture-perfect. Christ is already ready for you. And we get ready for Christmas simply by unlocking the door. If this morning you don't even know what you need to be ready for Christmas, then hear the good news: you're really ready.

Maybe the most faithful prayer you can pray on this first Sunday of Advent is to start at the very beginning. "God I don't even know what to pray for. Lord, come down. When we are ready to pray like that, then we are really ready for Jesus. And when Jesus comes it will be a glorious surprise to discover what sort of place and what sort of heart he can make into a home.