Sermon Notes for April 2nd

April 2, 2006
Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 12:20-33
“The Hour Has Come”

1. From the time of Moses to the coming of Jesus Christ, the Jews existed in the land of Israel (or Palestine) for over 1,000 years.

So, here, in a nutshell is a brief history of Israel:

They escaped from Egypt. Were led by Moses who was led by God into the promised land which they conquered from the Caananites and Philistines. For a time, King david and Solomon ruled in peace and prosperity. It was a Golden Age. But then other nations rose up and conquered Isreal. The Babylonians destroyed their temple and took them into captivity. After a while they returned, rebuilt the Temple and wrote down all of their laws and statutes. Then, they were conquered again by the Greeks under Alexander the Great. They revolted and regained Independence. And then, the biggest most powerful regime of all – the Roman Empire crushed them for good in 70 AD (or at least until the State of Israel was created in 1948).

That’s the actual history of it all.

2. But, during all this, what do we know about the religious beliefs of the Jews? What did all this long up and down history mean to the Jewish people? What was God supposed to be doing? These are important questions that they continued to ask and struggle with in the Hebrew Bible – which is their Sacred Scriptures which we call the Old Testament.

Well, we all must realize -- by now -- that despite their relatively small size and the fact they were always being taken over by one empire after another – they somehow miraculously survived. Why? How did they do it?

Well, here is what happened. First of all, in the period between the Exodus and the Babylonian captivity (especially under David and Solomon) life had been good and the Israelites had enjoyed the blessing of God. However, after the restoration of the Temple and up to the birth of Jesus the Jewish religion underwent a major change. This was because after the Babylonian captivity things were different for they certainly did not seem to be blessed any longer – at least not as they had been in the days of old when God had spoken directly to their leaders and to the prophets. And, as a result, it was believed that somehow the Divine Covenant with God had been broken. And this is what we hear specifically in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah for today:

31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to [a] them, [b] "
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

In other words … Jeremiah is saying that the old covenant was no longer in effect and this opened up the possibility for God to do something radically new and unpredictable. In other words -- a new covenant was coming in the future. But what would it be like? That is the big question everyone was asking because what had happened was, as I have said, that their original belief that God was with them and would intervene on their behalf had given way to an re-emphasis on the Law – the Torah. In short, forced by circumstance, the Jews turned inward. And, instead of relying on the prophets as God’s spokesmen (as they had done in the days of old), Israel saw the rise of the importance of Temple worship, and of the scribes and the increased elaboration of the Torah.

And, as time went along, as they also saw that the chances of their nation ever being restored to power beccoming more and more remote …and many began to look to God to intervene not so much as a merely national leader of Israel but as one who would have dominion over all the nations. And even others, such as the Essenes who had abandoned the world to live in the caves along the Dead Sea, increasingly looked forward to the coming of an otherworldly supernatural Messiah who would usher in the Day of Judgment. Very much, in fact, as many Christians today who expect Jesus to return very soon because of all the troubles in the world. It was a very bad time.
4. Now I go into all this for a very important reason. Namely because I have always wondered, “Why exactly was Jesus born when he was? Why did God act at that specific time? What was it? Why not some other time?

Well, the answer is fairly clear. It was the right time. For if there was ever a time in which someone would come forward there was no better time than the one in which Jesus was born.

31 "The time is coming," declared Jeremiah
"when God will make a new covenant.”When I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people.
However, and this is the main point, what happened next was not al all what the people expected. For God totally surprised everyone. Totally!
And that is my theme for today.

Which is that at times God can be a very surprising God! And, along with that idea, we may also say that Life, too, is full of surprises as well – isn’t it? Some are good, perhaps, and others are not. But, as much as we try, things are not always as predictable as we would like – and neither is God.


It is just like in the little joke I learned recently which goes like this:
Q -- Do you know how to make God laugh? A – Tell him your plans!

5. Well, speaking of plans -- as you know I just got back from Germany. This was not something I had exactly planned. In fact, I didn’t plan it at all!. It just happened because somebody else planned it and asked me to go along. So, I did.
Now the real surprise is that if someone had told me five years ago that I would be going to Germany this year to visit the hometown of my ancestors. I would not have believed it. Not at all.

This is mainly because after my aunt died in 1987 and my father before that and my grandfather before that … I had pretty much decided that it was the end of the Hucke family as far as I was concerned. And, since I didn’t do very well in German in high school there seemed to be no point in my going over there – besides as far as the Hucke’s were concerned – they had lost track of any German relatives long ago – or so I thought. Surprise! I was totally wrong.

6. Well, aided, especially, by the internet, it turns out that over the last ten years, two women who are the children of my second cousins (who, until recently, I didn’t even know I had) did an enormous amount of family research, discovered each other in the process and eventually found me and a lot of other people and even people in Germany besides.

So, last week a descendent (myself) of Martin J. Hucke finally set foot back in Zimmersrode, Germany, for the first time in 125 years. There weren’t many Hucke’s around – but there were many descendents of my great grandmother Martha Elizabeth Ditmar and we had a good time meeting them. I don’t know who was more amazed – them or us!

I am not sure if it was Divine Intervention – but it was for me a truly miraculous event – something I never thought would happen.

7. And then another very surprising thing also happened last week when I went to London for a few days to visit some friends.

But first a little background: As you know we have been experimenting with what we call EPIC worship on Wednesday nights. The original idea for this came from Julie Albrecht and Brian Manly and then Kari got involved and the thing sort of got off the ground a year or so ago. And now we are taking some of the ideas from this service and bringing them, very gradually, into the Sunday morning service.
And one of the ideas is the way we now are doing our communion liturgy -- as I have talked about before. What actually happened was that Kari found this particular service we will be doing today on the internet. But it was originally Julie who first introduced us to someone in England named Jonny Baker who originally designed the liturgy.

Isn’t it interesting that actually, once again, without the internet, this would not likely to have very happened, either.

8. So, before leaving for Germany, I emailed Jonny Baker and this past week, while I was in London, I had coffee with Mr. Baker and we had a nice chat and he learned, to his amazement, that people in Bemidji are using it in a United Methodist Church in northern Minnesota. He had no idea. I really think he didn’t have a clue even where Bemidji is in the world. In fact, I think he might well have thought I was more someone like from outer space who just dropped in on him. Again, I don’t know who was more amazed – him or me.

And yet, as we talked, we found we had quite a few things in common and what he basically said is that the world is changing incredibly rapidly. And we talked about how amazing it is that people can get from one place to another in practically no time … and with the internet we can communicate ideas in a matter of seconds.
In fact, while we were in Germany, I also met pastor Herbert Fuest of the German Evangelical Church in Obervorschutz where my great grandmother was born.

He is a young man serving two rural churches in that area. But these are not new churches by any means because, as we discovered, the bell tower of the Obervorschutz church which is made of stone was built in the 13th century – back in the Middle ages. While the rest of the church was remodeled around 1800. It is still an active church community. And it is the only one in town. I asked the pastor how many members he had and he said 1,000!

On one wall I noticed a picture showing the recent confirmation class. I looked at it closer to discover to my surprise that the kids didn’t look any different than our kids in Bemidji. Same clothes – same haircuts – everything!

9. So, what I want you to keep in mind today is the idea that life, especially nowadays, is rather unpredictable.

And what we also need to keep in mind is that God can be unpredictable – as well.

Now, this can be very disturbing to many people.

After all, do we really want to believe in an unpredictable God? Isn’t God supposed to be predictable? Isn’t God supposed to be the “Rock of Ages?” What are we supposed to think? For after all, what comfort is it to any of us if God isn’t there to provide some stability in turbulent times? Right?

Which is why, I suppose that we hear nowadays about all the books and novels and sermons and prophecies about the end of the world and how Jesus is going to return very soon because they seek to bring an end to the unpredictability of not knowing. If we know in advance, it is thought, there will be NO SURPRISES!

10. After all, it is common human trait. In fact, even Jesus’ disciples, like anyone else, wanted to know which of them would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And so they got into an argument as is recorded in Luke – Chapter 22
Isn’t that the way it is? We always want to know what is going to happen don’t we?. After all, we want things to be predictable.

But how does Jesus respond? Here is his answer from Eugene Peterson’s translation:
"Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. 26It's not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.
And here again – Jesus surprises them with an answer they hardly expect. In other words, he is saying, “the last shall be first.” He who wants to lead – must learn to follow. He who wants to be served must be willing to serve. He who wants to be great must be willing to be humble. In other words, Jesus turned things upside down.

11. And that is my point today – that God is a surprising God. Which doesn’t mean that God is abandoning us or that God doesn’t care or that God won’t be their if we are in pain or trouble. Not that at all. But, only, that God may be there in ways that we don’t expect. And at times we don’t expect. In other words, God will surprise us if we are willing to let him.

Now, as I was thumbing through my copy of the Good News for Modern Man paperback New Testament looking for that passage from Mathew which I just read – I was quickly reminded of all the many parables and stories which Jesus taught and how surprising they often are. And most of them are not at all what we expect, really.

For instance, hear these words from Luke 6:

35"I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never--I promise--regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. 36Our Father is kind; you be kind.

Or how about this one:

37"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, and criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. 38Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back--given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity."

12. Now, the United Methodist Commentary to the lectionary has this to say on the whole subject of Jeremiah’s prophecy

“ … the message Jeremiah is that God can do wonderful and remarkable things … even surprising things.” That’s what it says.

And yet, in the midst of fear, and uncertainty, the Israelites did the more understandable thing. -- the predictable thing. They made their religion predicable. They turned it into rules and complicated practices. Especially the Pharisees, who were basically very righteous and decent men and yet who were almost obsessed about obeying every single rule to the nth degree. Basically every action they took during the whole day was according to some rule or practice. St. Paul, too, was actually one of them. And almost everyone looked up to them for answers on how to live their life in accordance with the Torah. Except Jesus, of course.

But what the Pharisees forgot was what Jeremiah had said … that the law would be written not in rules but within their heart… and that a new Covalent was coming and that God would do a surprising thing.

And so they weren’t prepared when Jesus appeared. In fact, very few were prepared. This was because they weren’t asking the right questions. In fact, they weren’t asking questions at all because they thought they had all they answers.

And Jesus turned thing upside down. He asked the wrong questions. And when they questioned him – he gave the wrong answers. Because God had surprised them.

13. Now we must understand that God did this not just because God likes to be unpredictable. Nor was it because God likes to play tricks.

No, it is not that at all.

It is because God does not like to be narrowly pigeonholed by our attempts to define what and who God is and by trying precisely to predict what God will do when, where and how.

While I was flying back from London I bought a mystery novel to read on the plane. It was a short one which I bought in the airport bookstore. It was one of those tricky mysteries full of mathematical and mysterious symbols which I tried to decipher but, of course, in the end I failed. I would be a lousy detective – I think, sometimes.

But the mystery was supposed to have taken place at Oxford University and– so since I had just been there to visit I thought it would be fun to read. And it was quite good.

And in the book there was a quote which said:

Historically, humanity has only asked questions it can answer.

And, it went on to suggest that perhaps mathematicians, too, have only asked questions for which they can provide proofs. And it went on to show that in more theoretical mathematics … things are not as clear cut as they seem in everyday arithmetic.

14. So, I wondered if that isn’t sometimes the case in religion, too. That, out of our insecurity what we all want is certainty and so we create our religion to suit our needs. And so we end up defining God the way we want instead of the other way around.

And then life becomes predictable. And God becomes predictable and one day we wake up and wonder where God went -- because all of sudden God doesn’t seem very real any more. For what is gone is the mystery and the wonder and the awe and the unpredictable surprises that make God very real and alive like the God who appeared to Moses and the prophets and to Jesus.

And I wondered if maybe the reason God seems to go away is just God’s way of getting us to realize that there is more to religious faith than just being an idea or a bunch of rules or something.

And I thought that maybe the whole idea is that God is very real … or can be… and to be “very real” means that we need to allow God some room to surprise us just like Jesus surprised everyone by his actions like eating with poor people and people that were acceptable…and by healing people on the Sabbath (which you weren’t supposed to do). For after all, Jesus did a lot of really surprising things … even disturbing things, actually.

15. Well, as the scripture for today reads… in the midst of all this…some Greeks showed up in Jerusalem. Another surprise because they were Greeks - not Jews and actually they weren’t supposed to be there. What do you imagine Greeks were doing in a Jewish story, after all!

And yet the Greeks were very curious … and they wanted to see Jesus … for the Greeks were curious about a lot of things … and they were among the first gentiles who would become Christians because they were always asking questions … real good questions.

And then Jesus, very surprisingly, says … that’s it! My time has come. What is going on here? We don’t exactly now for sure but, for whatever reason, Jesus realizes that now his ministry is over. And he speaks the famous words which are nowadays said mostly at funerals out at the cemetery:

24"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. 25In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.

Isn’t that a little surprising, too? And, of course, Jesus is both talking about himself … but also about us, as well.

And it is not just about our death as we commonly think, but Jesus is really talking about how we should live in this life too … right now – today.

And what it means is that we will only begin to live when we are willing to stop merely holding on to what we think are the rules … in order to carefully avoid making mistakes … or by trying to define exactly who God is and what is the appropriate set of beliefs in order to define who is accepted and who is not accepted … but, instead, we will truly live by letting go and by be willing to let God surprise us …at least once in a while.

That’s what Jesus meant by really living.