First Presbyterian Church
Kneedy Things
Sermon for July 29, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our reading from Luke is on page 72 of the new testament in your pew Bibles. Chapter 11 of Luke contains one version of the Lord's Prayer. We are accustomed to praying the prayer from the gospel of Matthew, so it is a little different from what we are used to. We'll be reading from my translation. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Luke 11:1-13.

1 He was in a certain place praying, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, holy be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us our bread every day. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And never bring us into temptation.”

5 And he said to them, “Who among you, having a friend, goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him' 7 and he answers from inside, ‘Don't trouble me; the door's locked, and my children are with me in the bed; I can't get up to give you anything.'

8 I tell you, even though he won't get up to give him anything because he is his friend 1, because he wants to avoid shame 2, he will give him what he needs.

9 And I tell you, continually ask and it will be given you; continue searching, and you will find; continue knocking, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, who searches finds, and who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 What parent among you would, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?

13 If you then, who are sinful, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This ends our gospel reading. The letter to the Colossians was written in the tradition of the apostle Paul. In today's lesson, the letter writer is concerned that the church members at Colossae are being influenced by someone who is preaching a philosophy that differs from Christ's gospel. This person is complaining about the way the church handles holidays, and urges a disciplined self-denial with more fasting and less celebrating. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Colossians 2:6-19.

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.

He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

This ends our reading of God's word.

The head in verse 19, from whom the whole body grows, is Christ. Christ nourishes us, the body of Christ, holding together our ligaments and sinews, so that our growth is from God.

Ligaments and sinews have been on my mind lately. When I was in California on vacation, I went to a fitness center to work out. It was also a physical therapy center. Signs on the wall reminded patrons that physical therapy patients had first dibs on the machines. We healthy people were expected to let those recovering from injuries or surgery go first.

I was in the exercise room, on one of ten elliptical trainers. A young, fit physical therapist with all her arms and legs came in with a clipboard. Her two clients were sitting on the stationary bikes, waiting for her. She looked at her clipboard, then her clients, frowned, and said, “I don't usually have two knees.” I couldn't help it, I laughed. She had two perfectly fine knees. Even so, she looked at me in surprise, shrugged, and explained to the two women that they would have to take turns using the leg machines, since they both needed the same therapy.

Apparently when the therapist has a patient with a knee problem, her other patient has an arm problem. They can use different machines but she can supervise both at once. I suppose physical therapists are used to speaking of patients as wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees, but I wasn't. I know it was a convenient abbreviation, but it's funny. I did see one of the patients later, and explained I wasn't used to hearing a person referred to by her joints. I was relieved she could see the humor in it.

I learned that when you have an inflamed joint, you can't build muscle there. Strenuous exercise is difficult, painful, and damaging. You have to reduce the inflammation with ice and anti-inflammatory medicine. Once the joint isn't swollen anymore, then you can exercise it.

It's like forgiveness. In the Lord's prayer, we say “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That can sound like God refuses to forgive us unless we forgive first. In our reading from Luke it says “ And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” That can sound like God is supposed to forgive us because we did it first.

I appreciate this explanation: “If our hearts are filled with hate instead of love, God simple cannot cram in [any] forgiveness. There isn't room. The person who refuses to forgive destroys the very bridge over which he, himself, must cross. 3

When we are swollen with anger and hatred, we can't experience God's forgiveness.

One theologian said that “we forgive others not to earn God's forgiveness – that is a given- but to manifest God's forgiveness to those around us.” 4

In Colossians, this preacher is apparently not manifesting much of God. We don't know the problem exactly. It could be that this preacher has hunger-induced visions of angels and emphasized the holiness of the spiritual realm. The author of Colossians, on the other hand, insists that God's holiness lives in these church members. It says, “when you were dead in trespasses… God made you alive.”

How were these church members in Colossae not alive before? In the psalms, we read about existence in the realm of death 5. Disease, sin, alienation, and captivity are qualities of existence there. Those qualities resulting from the Colossians' trespasses are finished. In new life, the records of indebtedness were erased. The indictment was canceled, nailed to the cross. The believers are already being raised in Christ. They do not need any other resources than those Christ provides.

They just need to continue to live their lives in Christ. This is not an unfunded mandate or an impossible ideal. God gives them all they need to continue this life. They don't need to abase themselves, stop celebrating holidays, fast, or try to have angelic visions. God has given them what they need to grow.

Some of you probably noticed that in our gospel reading, our pew bible has the word ‘persistence' which I translated as ‘wants to avoid shame.' This Greek word, ‘anaidea' doesn't mean persistence in any other ancient text, and I don't think it means it here. Literally, it means ‘no-shame.' In Jesus' story, the sleeping man doesn't want to get out of the family bed where children are sleeping, unbolt the door, light a candle, find the bread, and give it to his neighbor. But he does it anyway, not out of friendship, but from fear of shame. Either the householder would be shamed by denying the request, or the friend would be ashamed by not feeding his surprise guest.

The disciples ask Jesus how to pray, and Jesus tells them to pray to a holy God, for the peace, justice and glory of God's kingdom, God's realm. And then to ask each day for bread and for forgiveness. They need not just food, but forgiveness. And then they are to ask not to be lead into temptation. In other words, for deliverance from anything that would threaten our lives or our relationship to God.

And then Jesus tells the disciples about the nature of God. If a neighbor who cares so much about his reputation does what's welcoming, how much more will God do it? If a sinful, ordinary parent knows how to feed a child, how much more will God!

The prayer Jesus teaches the disciples is one where we know who God is, the Father with the holy name, and we ask for our need, our daily bread. But first, we ask for God's will, seeking God's kingdom. In the Hebrew Bible, the old testament, the kingdom of God is a place and time of mercy, justice, and peace. In the gospel of Luke the kingdom of God is called good news, proclaimed when people are healed, and described as becoming large and growing quickly.

A German man wrote about the new life and forgiveness he found while he was a prisoner of war.

“In September 1945, in Camp 22 in Scotland, we were confronted with pictures of Belsen and Auschwitz. They were pinned up in one of the huts, without comment. Some people thought it was just propaganda. Others set the piles of bodies which they saw over against Dresden. But slowly and inexorably the truth filtered into our awareness, and we saw ourselves mirrored in the eyes of the Nazi victims. Was this what we had fought for? Had my generation, at the last, been driven to our deaths so that the concentration camp murderers could go on killing, and Hitler could live a few months longer? Some people were so appalled that they didn't want to go back to Germany ever again. …

For me the turn from humiliation to new hope came about through two things—first through the Bible, and then through the encounter with other people. In a Scottish labor camp, together with some other astonished prisoners, I was for the first time given a Bible by a well-meaning army chaplain. Some of us would rather have had a few cigarettes. I read it without much comprehension, until I stumbled on the psalms of lament. Psalm 39 held me spellbound: “I was dumb with silence, I held my peace and my sorrow was stirred (but Luther's German is much stronger—“I have to eat up my suffering within myself.”) My lifetime is as nothing in thy sight…Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not thou thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were…” They were the words of my own heart and they called my soul to God. Then I came to the story of the passion, and when I read Jesus' death cry, “my God, why have you forsaken me?” I knew with certainty: this is someone who understands you. I began to understand the assailed Christ because I felt that he understood me; this was the divine brother in distress, who takes the prisoners with him on his way to resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope. …

The other thing was the kindness with which Scots and English, our former enemies, came to meet us half way. In Kilmarnock the miners and their families took us in with a hospitality that shamed us profoundly. We heard no reproaches, we were accused of no guilt. We were accepted as people, even though we were just numbers and wore our prisoners' patches on our backs. We experienced forgiveness of guilt without any confession of guilt on our part, and that made it possible for us to live with the past of our people and in the shadow of Auschwitz, without repressing anything and without becoming callous.” 6

That POW is Jürgen Moltmann. He became a pastor, then a professor, and is the premier systematic theologian in Germany.

The good news is God is ready to feed us and welcome us and give us fullness in Christ, where there is new life. Amen.

1 some manuscripts omit “because he is his friend.”

2 NRSV translates anaidea ‘persistence', but it doesn't mean persistence in any other ancient text. It means no-shame; either the householder doesn't want to be shamed by not giving his friend some bread, or the friend is shamed because he doesn't have any bread to give his visitor.

3 Hilton, C. Thomas, “You are what you believe; sin that is forgiven,” Clergy Journal, July 1999, p. 18

4 Greeley, Andrew, Chicago Sun-Times, 1/24/03, quoted in Context, May 1, 2003, p. 3

5 Sheol.

6 Moltmann, Jürgen, “Wrestling with God: A personal meditation,” Christian Century, August 13-20, 1997, p. 727.