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“READ THE WARNING LABEL”
Selections from Proverbs
Job 28:20-28
One day, my parents bought a new brown, vinyl ottoman for the living room. Underneath it
was that ubiquitous label which warned: “Do not remove under penalty of law.” I don’t remem-
ber how old I was at the time, but I was old enough to understand what “under penalty of law”
meant. Shortly after we got this ottoman – which was on casters – I was rolling around the living
room on it. I somehow managed to get that label on the bottom of the ottoman caught under
one of the wheels, and it tore off. I was mortified, believing that once my crime was revealed,
the police would show up at my door with an arrest warrant. After several floundering attempts
to glue it back on, I took the label out to the back yard and literally buried it; then hid myself in
my room. I was relieved to learn sometime later that such warnings applied only while the pro-
duct was still on the store shelf. Now to this day, I get a weird thrill ripping those labels off.
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"Mother's Love, God's Love"
Selections from Luke 15
Romans 8: 35-39
Their small home was simple, but adequate. It consisted of one large room situated on a dusty
street. Its red-tiled roof was one of many in this poor neighborhood on the outskirts of a Brazilian
village. Yet it was a comfortable home. Maria and her daughter Christina had done what they
could to add color to the grey walls and warmth to the hard earthen floor – a woven mat; an old
calendar; a faded photograph of a relative; a wooden crucifix. The furnishings were modest; only
straw-filled beds on either side of the room; a washbasin; a small table; a wood-burning stove.
Maria’s husband had died when Christina was just a baby. The young mother, stubbornly refusing opportunities
to remarry, got a job as a housekeeper and set out to raise her young daughter as best she could.
Although her wages afforded few luxuries, it was reliable, and it did provide food and clothing. Now Christina
was old enough to get a job to help out.
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"Beatitudes 411:Feet to the Fire"
1 Peter 4:12-19
Matthew 5:10-12
On this which we call the “3rd Sunday of Easter,” I’d like us to return for a moment to the incident
of Simon Peter’s denial of Jesus; attested in all four gospels. As he stood near the fire in the court-
yard of the High Priest, Peter was recognized by others as being a follower of the renegade Jesus of
Nazareth, who had stirred up so much unrest, in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Three times, you’ll re-
member, Peter was questioned about his relationship to Jesus. And three times, Peter denied even
knowing Him let alone following Him. We wonder how Peter – the very one whom Jesus called
“Petros,” translated “Rock,” upon which the church would figuratively be built – could do such an
about face.
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"Beatitudes 316: Blessed Are the Shalom Promoters"
Matthew 5: 9
Ephesians 2: 13-22
Psalm 122
Now on the other side of Easter, we return this week and next to our study of the beatitudes of
Jesus as recorded in the 5th chapter of Matthew. We come this morning to the 7th beatitude in
which Jesus claims this: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
The first issue to be considered is: what does Jesus mean by “the peacemakers”? Who exactly are
these “peacemakers.” What do “peacemakers” look like? What is the profile of a maker – not
merely a lover or a keeper -- of peace?
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“REMEMBERING THE ONE WE KNOW”
Text: Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24:1-11
I can’t say that I knew my paternal grandfather, whose first and middle name I bear – Lorenzo
Giacomo; in English: Lawrence James. My almost three year-old grandson – who we call “LJ” – bears
that name as well; now into a sixth generation in which grandson is named after grandfather. In so
much as my grandfather Lawrence passed away when I was very young, I didn’t really know him in
the conventional sense. He left me too early. Even so, I can and do say that I remember him. And
through that remembrance, fashioned from a hundred stories which have been carefully handed
down to me from my dad and mom, my Aunt Eleanor, and others – all of whom have gone home to
be with the Lord – I suppose I could say that in the deepest sense, I do know my grandfather.
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"Inside Out and Outside In"
Matthew 21:1-17
Once upon a time, there was a church which was studying how it could do a better job reaching
out to its surrounding community. The mission board met several times to discuss how to best
accomplish this. Since there were many homeless in the downtown area around the church, a
men’s overnight shelter was considered. After all, the board thought, the massive church building
with its shrinking congregation had more than enough available space; even showers adjacent to a
now dilapidated gymnasium. Along with the homeless hungry were the hungry with homes. Were a
free lunch program or food pantry feasible options? With the spiraling costs of basic health, dental
and eye care, could a free or low cost medical clinic of some type be a possibility? Or how about a
weekday worship service designed especially for those who might not be comfortable with the
traditional Sunday morning worship experience? As the church was endowed to the tune of over
sixteen million dollars, funding for any or all of these mission efforts was a non-issue.
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"Beatitudes 304: Makarios Are the Katharos in Heart"
Matthew 5:8
1 Peter 1: 18-25
Isaiah 1: 16-20
This morning, we focus our collective attention on what is possibly the most demanding, if
not impossible to live out, of Jesus’ beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see
God.” How many of us in all good conscience can say we’re pure in heart?
What comes to mind when we hear that word “pure?” For some reason, I always think of Ivory
soap. In TV commercials, it was called 99.4% “pure;” so pure that it floats. Now what a bar of soap
that floats has to do with purity, I don’t know. If we call the Culligan man, we’re assured of buying
a water purification system which will leave water pure of even the tiniest traces of mercury, lead,
copper and benzene. A skilled gemologist or jeweler looks for gemstones which are pure of imperfections,
and gold which is pure of alloys. A metallurgist in a high-end steel producing facility aims to generate a ladle
of molten steel which is pure of dirty elements such as phosphorus and sulfur. These physical examples of purity
in our day have their parallels in the age and culture in which Jesus taught.
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"Beatitudes 202: Mercy, Mercy Me"
Matthew 5:7
Matthew 18: 23-34
Psalm 69: 13-18
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”
The 5th beatitude under our consideration this morning is the only beatitude which could be cast
into what’s called in literary terms chiasm; that is to say, an A-B B-A structure. Here’s what that means
in plain English: “Blessed” (A) “are the merciful (B), “for they (the merciful) (B) “will receive mercy
(A).” Maybe a simpler way to understand chiasm is this: what goes around comes around. So the flip
side of this chiastic beatitude is that if one does not give mercy, one will not receive mercy. Buddhism
and Hinduism might call that “karma.” At any rate, since mercy is both the demand and the promise of
this particular beatitude – both its requirement and its reward – we need to understand what Jesus
means when He speaks of “merciful” and “mercy.” Let’s spend some time there.
The word “mercy” is translated from the Greek word eleos (eleos). Eleos actually derives its
meaning from a Hebrew word – chesedh – which occurs more than 150 times in the Old Testament.
Almost every time chesedh shows up, it refers to God’s mercy toward people.
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“BEATITUDES 201: BE HUNGRY, BE FILLED”
Matthew 5:6 Ephesians 3:14-21 Psalm 107:1-9
The 4th beatitude of Jesus states that “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteous-
ness, for they will be filled,” or in some ancient manuscripts, “satisfied.” So we start:
makarios, happy, favored by God are those who, first, “hunger and thirst…..”
How are we impacted by the force of “hunger and thirst?”
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"Beatitudes 102: Blessings in Mournings and Meekness"
Matthew 5: 4-5
2 Corinthians 7: 9-10
Isaiah 61: 1-4
This morning, we are confronted with, and challenged by, the 2nd and 3rd of Jesus’ nine beatitudes
which open His Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” As with the first beatitude we talked about last
week, we are again hit in the chops with statements which, on the face of some of them, seem
oxymoronic; self-contradictory. In fact, all of the beatitudes hold within them the potential to shake
us at the level of our foundational beliefs about life, and how things are supposed to work.