It was based on John 2:1-11, the story of Jesus turning water into wine.
Going to 11
Back in the early 80s comedian, actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner released a movie that changed the way films were made. He called it a “mockumentary”, in other words, a mock documentary.
The film was called “This Is Spinal Tap” and it chronicled the trials of a fictional rock band called Spinal Tap, but it did so by seeming to be a documentary about a real band. The film was so successful that Spinal Tap did become a real band for a while. The actors who made up the fictional band, and who happened to be musicians themselves, actually toured around the country. They even put out a couple of albums.
I was in college when Spinal Tap came out and like most of my college peers I memorized funny lines from the movie so I could quote them at random. For a couple of years while I was at school, almost every conversation would be liberally sprinkled with Spinal Tap lines thrown in at random by nearly every participant.
There was an insane amount of one-liners in the movie, especially considering that the film’s running time was only 82 minutes. In fact, the film violates one of my rules of movie watching. The 90 minute rule states that if a filmmaker cannot produce 90 minutes worth of movie, then it is not worth the audience’s time to watch that movie. Perhaps This Is Spinal Tap is the exception that proves the rule since I laugh like a fool every time I see it.
Out of the lines from the movie that we all loved to quote, the most famous has to be the following exchange between the mockumentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi, played by Rob Reiner who is an unseen voice offscreen and band leader Nigel Tufnel played by Christopher Guest. Tufnel is showing DiBergi around his studio and he points out a particular amplifier.
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
For a certain generation of young people, including me, this exchange became sort of a rallying cry. Not only did we quote the lines from the movie, but it became so deeply ingrained in our culture that we began applying this “goes to 11” logic to our own lives and our own experiences.
There were and still are t-shirts that say “Goes to 11” on the front signifying that the wearer is larger than life.
There are numerous web pages and blogs, most of them written by people from my generational cohort, bearing the title or subtitle “Goes to 11.”
A few days ago a friend of a friend who was close to my age passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. One of his friends had this to say about him:
"He didn't fit in a clique. He fit in ALL the cliques. He was a dancer, a singer, a cheerleader, a brainiac, a music lover, and above all, a friend. In one of my favorite movies, Nigel says his guitar amp "goes to eleven". Karl lived his life on eleven."
It was just a throwaway line in a low budget cult-film. A joke. It was written exclusively to make people laugh, not for people to take it as a mantra in life. The filmmakers probably didn’t think for a second that the movie’s fans would still be repeating this line almost 30 years later. And they certainly couldn’t have anticipated that we would be using it to compliment and extol the memory of a dear departed friend. I'm sure they didn't think that one day some Pastor would be using it as the basis for his sermon. “Goes to 11” has become a badge of honor for a certain segment of the late 30-something and early to mid-40-something population.
I myself aspire in some ways to “go to 11.” I want my sermons to go to 11… not in terms of length of course, or even volume but in terms of quality and effectiveness certainly.
I want to “go to 11” as a Dad, and as a husband and as a friend and a as a disciple of Jesus. I often don’t, but I want to… to go above and beyond to give it just a little bit more than is strictly necessary.
A little bit more than is strictly necessary.
That’s what Jesus did at the wedding at Cana. He gave the wedding reception just a bit more than was strictly necessary. He kicked the party up to 11.
They’re running out of wine at the wedding. Jesus mother appeals to him as only a mother can do. Jesus seems unwilling to do anything at first. I’ve often wondered why this unwillingness but lately I’ve begun to think that maybe he knew that if he got involved he wouldn’t be able to simply fix the problem. Jesus understood how the grace and love of God compelled him. Instead of simply remedying the problem, He’d go to 11. And if he did that it would cause a stir… people would certainly notice and he wasn’t quite ready for the whole world to know who he was.
In any event, he is compelled for some reason, a reason that seems to be about more than simply obeying his mother. And he instantly supplies 180 gallons of the best wine money-can’t buy. It’s enough for two feasts and it’s better than any wine the guests have ever had. Suddenly, it’s party time!
It is a miracle of insane extravagance. But John doesn’t call it a miracle. The evangelist calls this miraculous transformation of water into wine the first of Jesus’ signs.
Jesus inaugurates his ministry by performing a ‘sign’. We all know about signs. They exist not for themselves but to point to something else.
Interesting then, that Jesus starts by kickin the party into high gear. Why not just supply enough wine instead of providing enough for 2 or 3 parties? Why not simply provide half-decent wine since the guests who are already in their cups won’t know the difference anyway? Why not let the hosts, who obviously didn’t correctly reckon the amount of wine they would need, suffer the consequences of their own foolishness! In fact, why provide wine at all!?
Methodists and Baptists probably have a hard time with this scripture. Historically Methodists have been teetotalers and Southen Baptists still are. Methodists had very good reasons for their abstention from alcohol. We still use unfermented grape juice in communion, primarily so as not to provide encouragement to those who are tempted to abuse alcohol. And as a denomination we still officially support those who abstain as a way of bearing testimony to God’s grace and sufficiency in their lives.
The same social issues we face today existed in Jesus’ day as well. Read the book of Proverbs if you think that alcohol abuse wasn’t much of an issue in ancient Palestine. Yet Jesus seems not to care at all about these issues, at least for the moment. In fact he doesn’t seem to care that some people might question his ridiculously extravagant provision of enough alcohol to last through maybe two weeks of feasting.
This sign is a miracle of excess. Jesus flagrantly ignores whatever voices might be calling for moderation. He goes to 10 and then without even stopping to listen to how loud it is, he pushes the volume up that extra click!
Now, I don’t want you thinking that Jesus is giving permission to throw restraint and moderation to the wind. He’s at a party. The hosts have run out of wine. He has the power to do something about the situation and he does it. In fact, he does more than he needs to. His provision is more gracious than the wildest expectations.
It’s not about the alcohol. Remember, the transformed-to-wine water is a sign. It exists not for itself but to point to something else.
What the sign points to, at the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry is the profligate, insane, ridiculous graciousness of Jesus’ Father in Heaven.
Anyone remember the scripture on tithing from Micah? It’s Micah 3:10 – Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
We’re not talking about tithing today but we are talking about extravagant grace. Provision so generous that it’s hard to find a place to store it. God is the God who pours out so much blessing that it is embarrassing! And he does this not just for tithers but he even does it for those who are stingy when placing their catering order, or perhaps they were just poor party planners.
Jesus launches his ministry with a sign that says that the God who sent him is the God of overwhelming blessing. He is the Ridiculously Gracious Master. Jesus proclaims with 180 gallons of the best fruit of the vine that God’s Kingdom is a kingdom of generous blessing that exceeds even our wildest hopes. It is no wonder that those who were present put their faith in him.
And that’s it. That’s the point. There are no additions, there are no disclaimers. There’s no asterisk at the end of this first sign that says “some restrictions apply.” God is the God of extravagant blessing. Period.
"In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus will say later. Jesus isn’t blind to what he or his followers will face. He already knows about the cross. He already knows about the martyr’s death that many of his closest friends will face for his sake. He knows about the tragedies and the catastrophes that will befall his followers. He knows that life is hard and we live in a hard place. And it is because he knows that that his first sign says, “God bless you richly. God bless you to 11.
I know the title above is kind of trite but I’ve been thinking this over and over since Sunday afternoon when I sat down with a group of men and women who at one time were students in the youth ministry I used to lead.
They’re adults now with jobs and houses and stuff. One of them is a senior at Ohio state, one of them owns her own house and works for hospice, another is full time on the staff of the student ministry at the same church where I used to work and another works for an organization that helps the homeless.
The next day I had dinner with another former student. She’s a speech pathologist, with real clients and everything! But in my head they’re all still ‘kids’. And every time I see them, which isn’t nearly often enough, I have to reacquaint myself with the fact that time has passed for them as well as for me. In my mind they have remained falsely static. The college senior is still a seventh grader who is just now starting to find his talent on the piano and who writes decent worship songs for his age. His sister is no speech pathologist; instead she is our babysitter even though our kids no longer need a sitter. The twins, who work for hospice and the homeless aid organization, are still getting ready to go on our next mission trip and helping out as leaders in our middle-school youth group.
You get the idea.
It’s so good to see them on the rare occasions when I do get to see them, but it’s a little mind-bending to hear them talk about their grown up concerns; jobs, paychecks, houses, baby showers! It all makes me a little wistful that I wasn’t there to see the transitions in their lives with my own eyes. But then again, each of these people was pretty awesome when they were ‘kids’ and in that respect none of them has changed at all. When I come to town they go out of their way just to spend time with me, and I gladly do the same for them. That hasn’t changed either.
So time passes for all of us and the old life passes out of our reach. We become, whether we like it or not, more and more grown up. Yet the important stuff doesn’t need to pass away, and happily for these friends and for me, it hasn’t.
So I was sitting in my living room, this was some years ago when my kids were younger. It was a cold winter’s night that was so deep and I was sitting by the fire. And like a good Methodist, and even if I was Presbyterian at the time, I’ve always been a closet Methodist, so like a good Methodist, as the fire blazed I felt strangely warm.
We had bought our Christmas tree that day, and in honor of Advent I was wearing my favorite purple shirt. We spent the afternoon stringing lights, hanging balls, and placing tinsel. Not that new-fangled garland stuff, but the old fashioned kind, you know, that you drape piece by piece and branch by branch. And like those Christmas-y families of old, we carefully hung a single strand of aluminum tinsel on each branch of the tree: a Douglas fir, my wife’s favorite.
Snow skittered, wind-wafted, gently to the ground to make a pleasant dusting outside. The baby Jesus was nestled safely in his crèche, under the tree where we always put him, his ceramic face looking in my direction, his closed mouth grinning ever so slightly. All was calm, all was bright.
There came a knock at the door. Now it was very cold outside and frosty borders formed on all the panes of glass in the windows, and as I said before it was snowing, and a little breezy. “Who could be out on a night like this?” I wondered. Someone knocked again. I had intended to let Joy or one of the kids answer the door, but where were they? Come to think of it, they were very quiet, which was not generally true of my kids in those days, they must be up to something and I resolved to check it out after I answered the door.
I expected maybe the paper boy, making his collection and hoping for a large Christmas tip. But then I remembered I don’t get the paper. Maybe some Jehovah’s witnesses, or some kids trying at the last minute to make quota on their Christmas Nut Cluster Fundraiser.
To my surprise, however, there stood on the porch a man of average height, sort of middle-eastern looking I guess, with a beard and long brown hair framing an intense face. “That look in his eyes,” I thought, “Like he can see through me.” He wore a robe, or not exactly a robe, more like a night gown. He wore no gloves. On his feet, only sandals. Despite his rather thin garments however, and the absence of gloves or suitable shoes, he didn’t seem to be cold. He appeared serene, completely calm, as if he didn’t mind the weather.
“Hello,” I said.
“I have come,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
He didn’t repeat himself, so I went ahead.
“I’m not expecting anyone?”
All the stranger said was, “I think you are.”
“Well, come in then,” I said. “You can’t stand out there in the cold all night.”
“You’re inviting me in, then?” he asked.
“Yes, yes. Come in before you freeze.”
He crossed the threshold and I quickly shut the door behind him and embraced myself and ran my hands up and down on my arms to take away the chill.
“Come warm up by the fire,” I urged him, but he still didn’t look cold.
“I have come,” he said again.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Did my wife call you?” I searched for signs of a pizza box, but he carried nothing. A shame really, I was a bit hungry after all that tree-hunting.
“No, you called me.” He said. “Though your wife called as well. You’ve been expecting me for a long time. At least that’s what you said.”
“What I said? When?”
“In church last week,” he continued. “I guess you actually sang it, not said it to tell the truth, but you called me; “O Come, O Come,” you said and you called me “Long Expected.”
At this point of course, I knew I had either let a crazy man or an actor into my house. Someone was playing a trick on me. At least I now knew what was up with the costume.
I decided for the time being, to play along.
“Ahh! Yes! Of course, I have been expecting you! But why come here and not somewhere else.”
“I do have many other places to go, but for now I am. Here,” he said.
“Well, make yourself at home,” I said. He just sat there looking at me. Not impatiently; he remained serene the entire time, but his stare unnerved me. And he seemed just as unfazed by his closeness to the fire as he did standing in the cold outside my door.
He looked like he was waiting for me to do something. Finally I remembered my manners, “I’m so sorry, I have offered you nothing, would you like some food or something to drink?”
He replied, but to some other question, “well, you seemed cold at the door, you’ll need a coat I think.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You don’t want to freeze, do you?”
“Of course not, but that’s why I lit the fire,” I said.
“It’s a good fire, but we’re not staying here. That’s why you called me.”
“What?”
“You recited some words in church last Sunday about guiding your feet into the way of peace, and preparing the way, and making the rough ways smooth, etcetera…”
“Yes, it’s advent. Those were the scriptures from last week.” I recalled.
“Right, about my cousin, John,” he said.
“Ummm, yes.” This guy was really throwing himself into the role. I continued, with just a trace of worry, “We read those passages together as a congregation.”
“Well I’m here to guide your feet into the way of peace. The way that has been prepared. So, are you ready to go?”
“Well, I hadn’t counted on going anywhere exactly, not on a night like tonight!”
“What were you planning on doing then?” he asked.
“I was planning on sitting here, enjoying the fire. I’ve got a great book called the Christmas Box that I read every year, it’s very inspiring. I was planning on reading that later. I might make myself a little warm spiced cider. And of course, there are those chestnuts I bought. These are my advent traditions. It just wouldn’t be Christmastime without them.”
“But what about giving good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind? What about releasing the oppressed and proclaiming the time of the Lord’s favor?
This guy sure knew how to ask a flurry of annoying questions!
“Yes, of course,” I said. “But that’s Luke chapter four. This is advent, and we’re still in Luke 2 and 3. And besides, it’s really cold outside.”
“Luke three?” he asked.
“Just a minute,” I said. I thought maybe, since he was here, I might be able to witness to him. He knew something of the scriptures it seemed, but only selected passages. So I ran to my library and selected a bible from my collection. I have maybe four or five different versions, plus commentaries and all sorts of study guides. Anyway, I picked the NIV since that is a bit easier for non-theologians, like this fellow, to understand.
I brought it out to him, open to Luke chapter 3, where it talks about John the Baptist and the baptism of repentance. I placed the opened bible in his hand. He looked down at it for a second, but then he looked up, staring at me with those eyes again, and with great, deep calm he began to speak,
“The Word of God came to John, son of Zecariah, in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the words of Isaiah the prophet,
A voice of one calling
In the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord
Make his path straight.
Every valley shall be filled.
Every mountain laid low.
The crooked shall be made straight
And the rough places made smooth.
And all mankind will see the salvation of God.
“The axe is at the root of the tree…” he continued without listening to me at all. “Bear fruit in keeping with repentence!”
He had moved on to a passage that wasn’t one of my favorites. Nonetheless, he really did have a gift for reading the scripture. So I said, “Beautifully read, sir!” I exclaimed. “You have considerable skills—you should come to our church and join our lay readers’ guild! You really make the word of God come alive!”
“Come alive?” he asked. “Would you like to live the Word instead of just reading it?”
“But the word of God IS my life already, my friend.”
“Not yet,” he said. “Though I would like to call you friend.”
“You have some nerve to be questioning my faith, sir.” I said, perhaps a bit too huffily.
“I have come, at your call, so that you might have life. You look to the scriptures so that you might have life, but will you follow me in the way and find life?”
“I’m beginning to lose my patience with you, sir,” I said. “Perhaps you had best be going. I did not call you; you must be mistaken about that. Someone is playing tricks on me and using you to do it. I love the spirit of Christmas. I love to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I have made here a happy home full of warmth and light and pleasant memories. I’m raising two wonderful children, I’m almost done my Christmas shopping, and I’m trying my best to have the spirit of Christmas at all times. In you come with your challenges and your insinuations and your demands that I leave my house with you on perhaps the worst night of the year. You’re messing up my advent! Don’t mess with my advent!”
He stared at me again and there appeared to be a tear sitting at the base of his eye. His gaze made me exceedingly uncomfortable, almost as if he could see everything about me with only a glance. But there was something else there as well, an invitation maybe, an invitation to a place that I longed to go. With him looking at me like that I began to think it was a mistake to ask him to leave.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not come to demand anything from you. I came because I thought you had invited me. It’s funny, almost everyone I visit has called for me, they’ve said the same words you said, and sang the same songs. When I visit them however, in answer to their call, and give them the opportunity to walk a new way with me, they always answer with a “don’t” or a “but”, like you did just now.
“It is just like Malachi wrote about me,” he said. And this time, he didn’t even turn the page of the bible, which still sat open in his lap. He simply spoke the words as if they came from somewhere deep inside him, “See I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come… the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming… But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears?
“When John was sent ahead, he called my people to walk a different way, because I was coming. To cease their selfish quest for what little comfort and peace they could make for themselves, and begin giving themselves away.
“But then, as now, the people who said they delighted in me refused to turn away from their quest for comfort. The thing is,” and at this point, he looked into the fire and his eyes reflected the flames, “I am their comfort. I am their peace. If they would only turn to me I would give them life. I would refine you like gold and purify you like silver until you would shine brighter than the sun. If you would only realize that you can celebrate my coming by giving yourselves away to each other in self-denying love; this is much better than piles and piles of wrapped-up gifts, like those that sit under your trees.
“John proclaimed a baptism of repentance,” he continued, “which means turning—he called people to turn toward me and walk in the Way in which I walk. But instead, people looked at what they would be turning away from instead of the one they could turn toward. And the Way of self-giving love seemed to them harder to follow than the way of self-serving comfort!
“There are a few who’ve chosen to walk with me. Sadly, however, most have turned me away at the time of their visitation. You have asked me to turn away as well. I shall grant your desire and leave you now, but the choice I have given is always before you.”
Suddenly the stranger began to fade away before my very eyes! And then an odd sensation came over me, a sense of dread and warmth all at the same time. I closed my eyes and began to cry, softly at first, but then a bit louder.
“Wait! Wait! Don’t go! I want you to stay, Lord!” I cried out, and at that moment I awoke, still sitting in my easy chair, the fire sputtering, needing another log. I had extended my hands in my sleep, they hung in the air before me, as if reaching and pleading for something that I longed to receive but which was just out of reach.
“The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight,” I said softly to myself. “Indeed, he is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.”
One of my children came bounding into the room. “Did you say something Daddy?”
I said, “The Lord is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.”
“The choice is always before you,” she said, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
In yet another ploy to make money off of what is arguably the most monetizable catalogue in pop/rock music history, the folks at Capitol Records and Apple Corp Ltd now bring you the entire Beatles oeuvre, remastered. The recordings are available individually or as one of two box sets: the Mono Box and the Stereo Box.
based on Hebrews 10:11-25
The minister stands and walks to the pulpit. A gorgeous anthem has just been sung by the choir. The congregation sits silently, many of the men reaching slowly behind their backs to retrieve their wallets. The minister adjusts the microphone, takes a look at the congregation and says, “There is no more offering.”
The chairman of the stewardship committee suddenly gets a little restless; he turns up his hearing assistance device while simultaneously looking at his wife, “What did he just say?”
Around the sanctuary, in every pew, people are staring, not toward the chancel where the minister stands, but at each other, confused.
The minister has expected this. He leans closer to the microphone so no one will miss a word, “There is no more offering.”
“Why, he’s kidding,” says the astonished Sunday school superintendent to her equally astonished seventeen year old daughter, “How are we going to buy new curriculum!”
Many in the church at first rejoice. But then come the second thoughts. “No more offering! How are we gonna keep this church alive?”
Two hands hover over the organ keyboard. The organist doesn’t know what to do. “Should I play the offertory anyway?” she wonders to herself.
Three men and a woman stand at the back of the sanctuary, flummoxed. One of them begins walking very slowly up the aisle. The woman tries to call him without breaking a whisper, “He said no more offering. Should we go up anyway?” The first usher just shrugs his shoulders and keeps walking. The other three, not knowing what to do or who to follow anymore, fall in behind him.
Seeing the ushers moving, the organist begins playing the piece she has selected for the offertory.
The minister still stands at the microphone though hardly anyone notices. He whispers now, but in a more urgent voice, “There is no more offering.” The ushers however, pay him no heed. They get the plates, they pass the plates. The offering proceeds as always. The minister sits down, and the individuals in the congregation quietly resolve never to tell anyone about their pastor’s brief vacation from sanity.
It does seem insane doesn’t it? I mean, who would think of canceling for all time the one thing that actually works to keep the church alive these days. Crazy, right?
But whoever the pastor was who wrote the letter to the Hebrews penned these very words, “There is no longer any offering…” to his flock. And it had to seem just as crazy to the Hebrews in their day as it would seem to us in our day. Of course, the offering these days is a lot different than it was for the Hebrews. We won’t be killing any animals on the altar today. And the weekly collection (which is still a part of our worship service) is for a different purpose than it was thousands of years ago.
In those days, one of the priest’s main jobs, if not THE main job, was to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people, every day. Sin offerings. There was only one problem with these sin offerings—they didn’t work. They never did. The priests stood up every day and made a sacrifice for the sins of the people that could never take away their sins! Yet that was the system. Every day. Sin offerings. They never worked, but what else were they gonna do? How else were they going to get God to show them favor? How else were they going to earn their place in God’s eternal, glorious kingdom?
Even though we don’t make sin offerings anymore, we live with the same questions as the Hebrews, “How am I going to get God to bless me? How am I going to get to heaven? What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Oh, I know, I know—Jesus is the way the Father, and I assume that most of you know that and believe it. But let’s face facts. Though we say that Jesus is the way, we often live our lives as if it all depended on our good behavior. Even though this crazy pastor who wrote to the Hebrews tells us it isn’t so.
There must be a way to get God’s favor, though. There must be something we can do. We’re to be obedient, right? We’re to live as sin-free as we possibly can, and try harder every day to check off one more sin on the victory list.
Yet the message is the same. There is no more offering for sin. Our offering of obedience won’t get us in either, just as our acts of penance won’t get us in.
There is nothing you can offer that will cause God to be good to you. There is nothing you can offer that will cause God to be gracious to you. There is nothing you can offer that can cause God to forgive your sin. There is no sacrifice you can make, no mound of effort that you can undertake, that will put you right with God.
No sin offering remains because the old offerings couldn’t get the job done in the first place. The only offering that ever could work to take away our guilt has already been offered. Just like the reading says: The ancient priests stood every day at their service offering again and again the ineffectual sacrifices that could never and would never take away the guilt of even the most righteous, holy person living, here or anywhere.
Jesus made the ultimate and only sacrifice that could take away our guilt, and that caused the Old law with its regulations and holiness code to be set aside. Jesus did it once. It worked. And he sat down, his work accomplished. And from that seat he saw the priests continue to make ineffectual sacrifices day after day. He saw generations of his followers try their best to get it right, to live right, to not sin, and he watched each of them fail, and fail again. “Um, excuse me.” You can almost hear Jesus saying, “You don’t have to do that anymore. I already took care of the whole guilt thing. You’re free now. There is no more offering.”
But just as our imaginary congregation went on with their offering, ignoring their pastor, many of us pay no attention to that man seated to the right of God the Father, there behind the curtain that is now torn in two. Instead we stand outside the holy of holies and continue to promise that we will get it right one of these days.
But Jesus opened up a new way to be reconciled to God. Through his one sacrifice, the giving of his very life, the curtain that separates human beings from the presence of God was torn in two. The throne room is open. The Welcome sits in the doorway. Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father and invites us in.
There is still an offering that we can give, but this new offering is one we give not to earn this grace, but to respond to it.
The church, in general, has busied itself with many other things, bible study, youth programs, potluck suppers, fundraising, administering of sacraments and worship, pursuing corporate models of organization and growth. The church has been busy, busy, busy. And the busy-ness starts to seem like offerings given, sacrifices made in order to get on God’s good side.
The new offering is something else. I’m almost afraid to say the word because we’ve so lost its meaning.
The Church… and I mean the institution here, not any one church in particular… the Church will urge holiness, the church will sometimes uphold discipline, the church will run programs upon programs, gather in worship on a weekly basis, hold capital campaigns and stewardship campaigns and yard sales and bake sales and mission trips and potlucks and Christmas Pageants and bible studies, they’ll maybe even pray. They will offer their busy-ness on the altar in the hopes that busy-ness as usual will save them when they’ve already been saved. But what the church seems less willing to do is love.
Jesus does talk about obedience—no question about it! Jesus also talks about “sinning no more”, as do the other New Testament writers. But when it came time to give his final charge to the disciples, he said “my command is this—love one another.” And the other writers go out of their way to make the point about love being the basis for everything in the Christian life: in John’s letters, “love one another, for love is from God,” in Paul’s writings, “nothing counts except faith working through love”, or here’s what love looks like, it looks “patient, kind, unselfish, etc….” Peter says, “Love one another with a tender heart, and a humble mind.” And the writer of Hebrews says, since we’re now free to enter the throne room of God with a clear conscience and lives sprinkled clean by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, let’s consider how we can encourage each other and spur each other on to love one another.”
In other words, since access to God has now been granted to you for free, stop thinking about how to perform for God and start thinking about how you might live a life defined by the love of God.
It’s easy to do the church thing. It’s easy as a church to do the activity thing. It’s a lot easier to do a ton of stuff and view it all as a sacrifice for God, than it is simply to love in response to the sacrifice that God made for you.
And if we’re talking about loving someone who is difficult to love (we ourselves, are of course, not difficult to love), than it gets really tricky.
It’s tricky because you have to stop and think about it. “Wow, that person is, well, I don’t know, difficult! How do I love him in Jesus’ name?”
Do you want to be made right with God? Good! You already are. Do you want God to be gracious to you? Excellent. He already has. Are you thankful for this grace and this reconciliation that God has provided for you through Jesus? Super. There is one thing you can do to express this gratitude. Forget the striving to do better and be better through your own efforts.
Instead, receive from God the pronouncement that all is forgiven and that you can have life in His name, not because YOU are good enough but because HE is good enough. Then, in response to this grace you can start asking, regarding your relationships with both those who are easy to love and those who seem impossible, what does it mean to love this person in Jesus name?
Forget about repeatedly offering again and again your efforts to do right and be worthy, efforts that can’t do anything that hasn’t been done already; working so hard to get a love that is already yours. See access to God is open and free, the throne room is open. God who made you sits on his throne with the Son beside him, both of them with arms wide open. Waiting to embrace you and give the love of God to you and through you to others.
We still do take an offering here at Temple Church. But I hope we can understand that our offerings don’t do anything to make us right with God. That’s already done. Instead our offerings are to be used to sustain our efforts to love one another, to love our neighbors and to love the world in Jesus’ name.
One of the fringe benefits of preaching from the revised common lectionary. It repeats every three years!
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During the summer of 2001 I was with some students on a mission trip. We went out to the Pine Ridge reservation for a week and then headed to Rocky Mountain National Park for a couple of days.
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