Sowing the Seeds of Love – a sermon

From Asbury Church sermon series Conspiracy of Kindness. 02.22.09 Click here to listen or download.

Pretty darn excited about this week

I’m headed to Paris, KY tonight.  The kiddos and I are going down this afternoon and the plan is for them to hang with the Grandparents while I go visit The Rock and Aaron Mansfield tonight.  Then tomorrow (I’m really excited about this) DG and I are meeting with and interviewing some folks for the Praxis Podcast:

- Ryan Koch (at Third Street Stuff, favorite coffeeshop in Lex) – he’s the Executive Director of SeedLeaf – “The purpose of Seedleaf is to increase the amount, affordability, nutritional value, and sustainability of food available to people at risk of hunger in central Kentucky.”  And he’s part of the Communality community.

- Will & Lisa Samson – also part of Communality and both authors.  They co-wrote Justice in the Burbs (could be good book study in PRidge, NKU, or Asbury Church) and Will just came out with Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess.

- Nancy & Matthew Sleeth – authors and Wilmorians.  Matthew wrote Serve God, Save the Planet and is a former ER chief of staff from New England.  They got all Jesusy, downsized to Wilmore, and are Green advocates for the Church.  Nancy has a new book coming out Go Green, Save Green.  I’m pretty excited that we get to have dinner at their house and see how they live green in Wilmore.

Later this week I’m looking forward to meeting with Devin Schenk and Chris Curran, both faculty at NKU and involved with living ecologically sound lives and environmental sustainability and preservation.  Likewise, I’m eager to meet Edward Goode, new pastor here in Cincy with Presbyterian Church of Wyoming (suburb of Cincy).  I’m headed downtown in few minutes (noon on Monday) to have lunch with a couple prophets….

Actually, this exciting week started yesterday.  I had the honor and privelege to speaking at Asbury Church in Northern Kentucky.  We talked about Matthew 13 and some of the seed parables there.  The mp3 will be up on here soon (I’ll post it on this blog and Facebook when it is).

Here are a few links, including the videos I used, from the sermonizing that may be helpful for those who heard/hear it:

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, by Rueben Job – book

1. Do No Harm
2. Do Good
3. Stay in Love with God

Swarm Theory, article in National Geographic by Peter Miller

“how swarm intelligence works: simple creatures following simple rules, each one acting on local information. No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do. Some ant species may go about this with more sophistication than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for example, can rate the quality of a potential nest site using multiple criteria.) But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required. “Even complex behavior may be coordinated by relatively simple interactions,” he says.”

YouTube – 300,000 Starlings in motion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzlcH2q6Vo]

YouTube – Timelapse film of growing cress

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky1kBLwCBHg]

Scriptures:

Matthew 13:3-9

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Mark 4:26-29

John 12:20-26

and, for those who were there, don’t forget to plant those wildflowers!

The Message of Suffering and Help – Jesus was thirsty

Good Friday
March 21, 2008
Covenant-First Presbyterian Church
1:45-2:10

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.”

- John 19:28-29

Surely Winston Churchill’s oft quoted phrase applies to this scripture, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.” Perhaps there is a key. And perhaps we can uncover a bit of that today.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ gathered on this Good Friday of 2008, I want to speak a great truth to you – Jesus was thirsty. I know, you were expecting more, surely there are more profound things being said today. “Jesus was thirsty” Hopefully though, the simplicity of the statement won’t undermine the depth of the intent. First we must examine the parameters of this text, then we can ponder Jesus’ thirst in the appropriate context.

Let’s examine some questions…

What was “now finished”?

- In John 17:4 Jesus prays “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do. And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began”. That mission is now complete. He has completed his divine agenda. The Father has been glorified in his acceptance of the cross.

What Scripture was fulfilled?

- Of this there is much ambiguity. There is no clear indication which scripture the gospel writer is referring. However, the most compelling connection can be draw to Psalm 69 – a psalm the writer John refers to on several other occasions.

“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”

- Psalm 69:21

To this it begs the most interesting question:

Why would Jesus say, and even more, why would John specifically record, “I thirst”? Given the whole cacophony of physical ailments that Jesus had at the moment why would he focus exclusively on his thirst? I must admit it seems almost comical! It’s as if Jesus looks down from the cross and says, “I seemed to have skinned my knee when I fell back there. Would you happen to have a Band-Aid handy?”

If Jesus knew he was about to die, if he was further convinced that his mission was completed why would he be concerned about feeling parched?

** update (3/24/08) – after an enlightening conversation with my neighbor and friend Ben (who happens to be a doctor), I stand corrected – one of the experiences of a dying person is an acute feeling of thirst.  So, that makes sense (now) from a medical “this guy is dying” point of view, what I continue to find intriguing – and it works with my line of reasoning – is why would John the gospel writer include it and what does it have to do with fulfilling scripture.  What is his driving concern, beyond telling a true story, what is he evoking from us as readers? ** 

Was a sponge of sour wine helpful or slap in the face? Some have suggested that the sour wine of vinegar would have acted like a stimulate giving Jesus the stamina to cry out “It is finished” in the proceeding passage. Others have viewed the giving of sour wine as pour substitute to nourishment, a slap in the face of a dying Christ.

Was the hyssop branch a subtle reference to the Exodus story where the Hebrew slaves are instructed to use hyssop branches to paint their door frames with the Passover lamb’s blood?

And so we return to our Great Truth – Jesus was thirsty.

Perhaps John is drawing us as a readers to earlier in the narrative when Jesus speaks of drinking his blood (John 6) or when he tells the Samaritan woman that he would give Living Water (John 4) or even when he turned water to wine at a wedding in Cana (John 2). Jesus seems to be dealing with liquid and thirst throughout the Gospel of John. But in all those other instances, Jesus was the one offering the drink and quenching the thirst. Here we find Jesus himself thirsty.

What are we to do with this oddity? I believe Psalm 69 gives us a clue. Perhaps it is even the key to unraveling this mystery….

In Psalm 69 – to which John refers several times – we find a righteous person being mocked and humiliated by enemies. (vv. 19ff) Into this dilemma God shows up as Divine Rescuer. In this context we see Jesus as the Suffering Servant, in submission to the will of the Father. This is not the Nietzschean super-man. His life is lived – and he dies – in accordance to the Father’s design.

This is not the Gnostic envisage of Christ – the disconnected spiritual being who eschews the material world. No, this is Jesus who suffers. He shares our pain, our weakness, our humiliation. This is Jesus who receives an unjust sentence, an unfair accusation. This is a Jesus who bleeds, who falls, who needs help carrying the cross. This is a Jesus who thirsts.

Jesus was thirsty.

And by his stripes we are healed.

Jesus was thirsty.

And we receive him as a drink offering poured out for many.

Jesus was thirsty.

And he is for us living water by which we will never thirst again.