Notes From Jon

Mealtimes at the Parks home have gotten significantly crazier in the last couple of years.  As the girls have grown older and are no longer strapped in to their seats, and as they have learned how to express their culinary likes and dislikes, dinner is more chaotic and unpredictable than ever before.

One thing is predictable, however.  Each day, we can count on the struggle over what will be eaten, and how much of it.  You see, for my daughters, mealtimes are a means to an end – all that chicken, rice, veggies, bread, fruit… all that’s just an appetizer for the main course:  DESSERT.  And the question is nearly always raised:  Just how much do I have to eat before I get a dessert?

The typical conversation goes something like this:

“Mama, can I have a treat now?”

“No, not yet.  You still have to eat your carrots.”

“ALL my carrots?”

“Yes, all your carrots.”

Then they’ll piddle around and play, and then two or three minutes later, you hear again,

“Mama, can I have a treat now?”

“Have you eaten your carrots?”

“ALL my carrots?”

“Yes ALL your carrots.”

And on and on and on it goes until the realization finally sinks in – “I’m not going to get the good stuff unless I eat what they’re telling me to eat.” Read the rest of this entry »

This sermon was actually delivered on November 23, 2008 – the last Sunday before Advent began.  Now that I’ve resumed the series on Romans, I am putting this sermon up as well, which actually covers just the first verse of Romans 12.  It also includes a summary of what’s come before – a good way to get re-oriented to where Paul has been and where he’s going.

Introduction: A Change in Tone

Today’s text marks a changing point in our walk through Romans.  A very important couple of words at the very beginning of today’s passage signal that something different is coming.

“Therefore… in view of God’s mercy” – in light of all that has come before

“I appeal to you” – Here’s what we should do about what we’ve heard Read the rest of this entry »

If we want to make a name for ourselves, if we want people to respect what we have to say, let it not be because we were the first person to cast stones.

As our newly sworn-in President Obama said in his inauguration speech: “Know that… people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

Is separate really better? I’ve been talking lately with some Christian people who sincerely believe it’s best to separate ourselves from the culture at large.  This is nothing new, nor is it completely unexpected.  As Christians we create a subculture that mimics and replaces mainstream.  One could be completely immersed in a totally-Christian world – reading only Christian books, hearing only Christian music, watching only Christian television and movies.  If you try hard enough, you could even eat only foods that are produced and prepared by Christians.

As an example, the cries for a mass “exodus” from the public schools is louder now than ever… if you have doubts, visit www.exodusmandate.org.  They have posted a video making a startling comparison.  The video tells the story of Dunkirk, a town on the French coast.  In 1940, at the height of WWII, more than 300,000 Allied troops were trapped in Dunkirk as the German Nazi army closed in.  Rather than allow their capture, an event that might have been a death knell for the Allied cause, French and British civilians gathered 860 boats of various sizes – from fishing boats to pleasure yachts – and ferried the soldiers to safety in Britain.

The founders of the Exodus Movement compare Christian children in today’s public schools to those troops at the village of Dunkirk – besieged by enemies who seek their utter destruction.  The best course of action, the movement claims, is a grassroots effort, much like the improvised armada of Dunkirk, that pulls all Christian children to “safety,” whether it be in Christian schools or to homeshool environments.

There is a constant tightrope for us as Christians.  We are called to be “in the world but not of the world,” a phrase we hear often that is actually drawn from Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17:14-15.  It is a tightrope we constantly walk, and admittedly most of us (myself included) have trouble with one side or the other – that is, we are either too much “of” the world, or we are not enough “in” it.

I would say the trend of Evangelical Christians today is toward the latter.  I can certainly understand this point of view.  In a world that grows increasingly hostile to the Christian faith (at least, to the Christian faith that keeps its substance), it’s easy to put up our defenses.  To avoid the sin that is so prevalent around us, it is easier to separate than to resist.  And so we build our own little cocoon, piece by piece.  We surround ourselves with all things Christian – books, movies, music, church friends.  And as we make our exodus from the public arena, we seal off the cocoon at last.  We’re safe.

Problem is, when we are in the cocoon, we don’t have any way to influence the world outside the cocoon.

Isn’t this what the concepts of “epiphany” and “incarnation” are all about?  Jesus could easily have appeared as a fully-grown man, walked up to the cross and died.  For that matter, he could have found a quicker, less painful and humiliating way to die.  You and I understand this idea, too – we call it efficiency.

But that’s not what happened, is it?  Instead, Jesus took the inefficient route – he really came to be “in” the world.  Born in the messy business of childbirth, surrounded by cattle and dung.  Learning and practicing the all-too-mundane carpenter’s trade as he grew into a man.  Sleeping under the stars, a homeless man wandering from town to town with his band of friends.  Spending the great majority of his time not holed up in the courts of the temple or surrounded by the holy-rollers, but out in the streets, with beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Attending weddings, telling jokes, breaking down in tears because he’d lost a good friend…

It doesn’t sound like Jesus kept himself in a cocoon.  In fact, the holy people of the day accused Jesus of leaning toward the “of the world” bit they were so afraid of!  If there was any Dunkirk-ery going on, it was not geographic or social in nature, but spiritual.  Rather than Jesus being an allegory of Dunkirk, Dunkirk is an allegory of Jesus – who rowed in, got his hands wet, and pulled us from the water that meant certain death for us otherwise.

Jesus was in the world – he pitched his tent, but he didn’t build a permanent home.  He touched the world, but didn’t hold on too tightly.  He listened to the world, but he remembered and reminded us of the story that is beyond the world.  He enjoyed the world and its God-given pleasures, but he regarded them as shadows of the true pleasures that awaited beyond this world.  He took the world in, but he didn’t let the world take him over.  It was only by walking this balance – not efficient, but definitely effective – that Jesus was able to touch so many lives so deeply while he was here that his story is still being spread today.

Jesus is our role model in all things – so why not in this?

How must our cocooning seem to those who really need rescuing from danger?  Think how it must look to people outside the cocoon. We’re saying “come join us! Things are better in here. Just give up all the fun stuff and then we’ll talk.”  Why would anyone want to be a part of that?  No wonder people treat most Christians with distance at best, contempt and loathing at worst.

All of this ranting doesn’t make the fine line any bigger:  It’s still a tough road to walk.  But with Jesus leading the way, the path becomes clearer with every step.  We may not like where it leads us at times, but one glance at Jesus in Gethsemane reminds us that Jesus didn’t always like it either.  We may face ridicule sometimes.  We might even be persecuted, though we’re a long way yet from that.  We might even have to (*GASP*) enjoy the things of the world and enjoy them discerningly.  We might have to resist temptation rather than always run from it.

That path might not be as efficient and clean.  But it comes a lot closer to effectively following Jesus than the cocoon ever will.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of “New Year’s Resolution,” I think of failure.  We talk about them a lot at New Year’s time, but the rest of the year, the resolution has become an emblem for well-intended but failed plans.

If we realize – as all of us must certainly realize – that most Resolutions are doomed to fail, why do we keep making them?  Each year, about this time a few days after the New Year, I remember that I forgot to make a resolution.  Then I make a resolution to make a resolution sometime in the next few days.  Want to take a guess how well that has come out in the past?

Behind the idea of a New Year Resolution lies a deep desire.  Each of us longs for something new – we long for something to be different.  Life gets stale after a time, and we begin to lose hope that things can be different.  Our sins overwhelm us; our sorrows seem too great for us to bear; the brokenness of the world around us seems never-ending; we are flooded daily with the news of the wrongs others do.  In sum, sometimes you and I get fed up with ourselves and others – our complacency, our laziness, our loneliness, our unfulfilled dreams.

So New Year’s Resolutions aren’t just a self-improvement itch.  They represent our hope that something can be different, that something can be new. Read the rest of this entry »

My series on Romans is not over yet, but it has taken a break for Advent.  In the meantime, I was able to deliver two more sermons – including this one covering difficult passages in chapters 9, 10 and 11.  I took these as a chunk because they seem to fit together as one long “tangent” Paul chases – albeit a very important and informative tangent.

As some previous entries, this post is more notes and commentary than sermon – I referred to these notes as I preached, but the final format was much different.

This week, we’re going to cover a little more ground than we have been so far.  At this point, Paul gets into a discussion that certainly has theological value, but is aimed more for his audience in the Roman church.

He gets into a discussion about the place of the Jews in God’s plan.  And he talks about it for three chapters.  This was a difficult topic for the Christians of the early church – they KNEW that their religion had sprung from Judaism.  Jesus himself was a faithful Jew!  And because of this, they knew the history of the promise that God had made to the Jewish people almost as long as they had existed – that he would be their God and they would be his people. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already posted the audio version of this sermon, and I still think the audio version is the better version.  But in case you had trouble loading it, I’ll post the text here as well.

Intro: Looking Back

Up to this point, things have been pretty grim.  It’s almost a if Paul has been holding back – every now and then, he breaks into a quick doxology or hymn of praise.  But for the most part, Paul has spoken of forces that are beyond our control, and the news is not very hopeful.

• All human beings are without excuse.
• Ignorance is not our problem – we know the truth and we still turn away from it.
• Quantity and Quality of sin are no matter – any sin at all is detestable to God.
• Our only hope is to trust in God.
• In some way, God has made us responsible for our fellow human beings – to share the good news with them.
• We have been set free from the Law – but we are still drawn to it and still sin from time to time.

All these forces are acting on us – Satan, evil, sin, our sinful nature. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just added a new page which can be accessed from the top menu entitled “Audio Sermons.”  I don’t have many recordings of my sermons in digital format, but when I get copies of them I’ll put them on this page.

At the moment, the playlist includes the Romans 8 sermon mentioned in the previous post, and two other sermons delivered at other churches in recent months.

I haven’t made it to the end of Romans yet, but I’m making progress.  And a couple of weeks ago, I tackled one of my favorite passages – Romans chapter 8.  It’s quite a bit to take all in one sermon, but I think I got the gist of it.  I didn’t want to just print the text on the blog – I was really looking for a way to get the audio on here, too (this is one of those times when the delivered sermon was better than the prepared sermon).  So I think I’ve figured out how to do it… we’ll see!

[PLEASE NOTE FIRST:  While the following is not graphic, it shares my experience of researching the Jonestown Massacre.  It is disturbing at times, and rightfully so.  Be forewarned!]

Yesterday afternoon I had a very disturbing experience.  I was checking up on the news on cnn.com, when I saw that Soledad O’Brien was doing an extended piece on the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.  Next week will be the 30^th anniversary of that tragedy, and I realized that while I had heard a lot about Jonestown, I had never really found out much about what happened there.  In today’s information age, this kind of stuff is easy to find, so I decided to do a little research.

Now I wish I hadn’t.  But in a way, I’m glad I did.  The story might be familiar to many of you – but it wasn’t to me.

First, I saw some videos of Jim Jones, and he sounded just like a normal preacher – he had a powerful voice, a strong delivery, and a familiarity with the bible that showed in the little “scripture snippets” he wove into his narrative.  I didn’t agree with all of what he said, particularly his interpretation of some passages, but he seemed solid in his understanding.  But I did agree with his assertion that Christians should be involved in repairing a broken society.  In fact, if I didn’t know the rest of the story, I probably would have thought he was just another preacher like myself… just a bit more conservative.

Jones’ popularity and wide audience in his early ministry, along with his strong convictions for racial equality, made him a natural choice as director of the Human Rights Commission in Indianapolis.  His speeches about the treatments of blacks were impassioned and persuasive.  African-Americans were drawn to his cause and to his “church.”

Read the rest of this entry »