Living Words The Rev'd William Klock

A Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity
St. Luke 16:19-31 & 1 St. John 4:7-21
by William Klock


The crowd was settling down after that first frenzied crush when Jesus had come to town.  The sick had been healed.  The tears had been wiped away.  In Jesus the people had had a taste, they’d seen a pocket of what the world is supposed to be, of the world set to rights.  They’d had a glimpse of God’s kingdom.  Now it was time to listen as Jesus spoke.  There were all sorts of people there.  People from town, people from the countryside, regular people, poor people—even some Pharisees looking down on the town square from the rooftop of the richest man in town.  And Jesus began:



“There was once a rich man.  He was dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day.”

 

Jesus was smiling at some little kids sitting in front of him as he said this, but everyone else looked at the Pharisees up on their rooftop perch.  They were rich.  They weren’t feast-every-day rich or even dressed-in-purple rich.  Very few people were.  But they did wear fine clothes and only rich people could afford to live like the Pharisees with all their scruples and rules and everyday things.  Jesus continued:

 

“A poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores, lay outside his gate.  He longed to feed himself with the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.  Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”

 

Jesus paints a picture of extremes.  First there’s the rich man.  Super rich.  Ostentatiously rich.  Only kings could afford to wear purple and feast every day.  And in stark contrast there’s Lazarus.  He’s destitute.  He’s covered in sores, which means he’s almost certainly unclean.  He’s probably lame.  At some point he had either dragged himself to what he thought would be a prime spot for begging or someone else had deposited him there, at the gate of the richest man in town.  And the rich man and his friends would come and go.  He would hear the music and laughter from the other side of the wall.  He could smell the meat roasting.  He would have been happy with the bread the rich people used to wipe their hands.  But there was nothing for poor Lazarus.  And to make his life worse, as he lay there helpless, the feral dogs of the town would come to lick his oozing sores and leave him stinging.



Jesus puts a new spin on an old story the rabbis told.  There was a story—it’s been preserved in the Talmud—that originated in Egypt and was brought back to Judah by Alexandrian Jews.  It was a story about a rich tax collector and a poor torah scholar.  They both died and everyone attended the rich man’s funeral and no one could be bothered to show up the funeral of the poor man.  But a few days later, a friend of the poor man had a dream of paradise, and there in the middle of paradise was the poor torah scholar enjoying everything he’d sacrificed in life for the sake of God’s law.  And not far away was the rich man, parched and in torment, struggling to reach the stream, but forever held back.  When the story was told that way, everyone had sympathy for the poor torah scholar and hated the rich tax collector.  But Jesus changes it up a bit.  The rich man is just a rich man—maybe even a Pharisee.  And the poor man’s just a poor a man.  And when it’s told that way, given the thinking of the day, most people would have had their sympathies reverse.  Riches—so long as they weren’t gained from collecting taxes for the Romans—riches were a sign of God’s favour.  And the poor man?  Well, think of the disciples’ question to Jesus about the blind man.  “Who sinned?  This man or his parents?”  A lot of people would have chalked up the poor man’s state to his sins.  He was out of favour with God and deserved his miserable lot in life.



There’s another interesting change Jesus makes.  In the usual version of the story,

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday
St. John 3:1-17
by William Klock


Knock!  Knock!  Knock!  Someone was at the door.  Peter—or maybe it was John or James—got up to see who it was.  It had been a long day.  Everywhere Jesus went the crowds followed.  Some were full of questions, but most of all they were full of problems.  And they brought them all to Jesus.  The blind, the deaf, the sick, the dying, the demon-possessed.  This isn’t how the world is supposed to be, full of tears.  Everyone knew it then.  Everyone knows it now.  And everyone then and now hoped for a day when somehow it will all be set to rights.  And so the people flocked to Jesus, because wherever he went, there was a little pocket of the world as it should be, the world as God had made it, the world set to rights.  Wherever Jesus went, there was a little pocket of God’s future brought into the present.  A little pocket of the world where the tears are wiped away.



Knock!  Knock!  Knock!  There it was again.  They’d found a quiet place to spend the night away from the crowds, but someone had found it.  Peter was getting himself ready to tell whoever-it-was to go away, so image his surprise when he opened the door and saw Nicodemus standing there.  They’d never met, but everyone knew who Nicodemus was.  He was a rich man, he was one of the leaders of the Pharisees, but more than that, he was a member of the Sanhedrin—the ruling council of the Jews.  And here he was at the door of the house where Jesus was staying, standing there with a couple of his servants, politely asking to speak with the rabbi now that the crowds were gone.



Nicodemus had seen what Jesus was doing.  Nicodemus had heard what Jesus was preaching.  Nicodemus had watched from the edge of the crowds and listened in the temple court.  In Jesus he saw the hopes of Israel being fulfilled.  He saw that little pocket of God’s future following wherever Jesus went.  He believed—he just wasn’t sure what exactly it was that he was believing.  Have you ever had that happen?  You see God at work.  It’s obvious.  But it’s not what you expected.  So you believe, but you don’t really understand.  That’s where Nicodemus was.  He wasn’t one of the simple people who just needed some physical manifestation of the kingdom—like the blind and the deaf and the sick.  He knew the scriptures.  He knew how the God of Israel was supposed to fulfil his prophecies.  And Jesus was fulfilling them, but not in the ways anyone expected.  So the great theologian had come, not to be healed, but to ask how all this can be.  “We know that you’re a teacher who’s come from God,” Nicodemus said to Jesus, “Nobody can do the signs that you’re doing, unless God is with him.”



You can hear the unspoken question implicit in Nicodemus’ affirmation.  It’s the theologian’s equivalent of “Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief.”  It was like this for everyone.  The disciples saw, they heard, they believed, but whenever Jesus pressed them with questions, ninety per cent of the time they gave the wrong answer.  Peter knew with certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, the son of the living God.  But when push came to shove, he drew his sword and was ready to bring God’s kingdom with violence.  Even the disciples were full of all the wrong ideas the Jews had about the Messiah and the coming of the kingdom.  Nicodemus was in the same boat.  It’s just that he knew he was missing something and here he was to get it sorted out.  But Jesus doesn’t give him the answer he wanted, because even if Jesus explained it all, even if Jesus connected all the dots for Nicodemus, that’s wouldn’t solve the problem.  Nicodemus would still need something more.  And this is where Jesus answers his implicit question with those familiar words, “Let me tell you the solemn truth.  Unless someone has been born from above, he won’t be able to see God’s

A Sermon for Whitsunday
Acts 2:1-11
by William Klock


“Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  How about now…now are we there yet?”  As you read the Gospels the disciples’ questions about the kingdom of God feel a bit like that.  All Jesus needed was one of them kicking the back of his seat on the way to Jerusalem.  “When will the kingdom come?  How long?  Are we there yet?  Is it almost time, Jesus?”  But it wasn’t just the disciples.  It was First Century Judaism.  Pretty much everyone was on the edge of their seat with anticipation for the kingdom.  Everyone except the Sadducees, because of course, they were sitting on the top of the heap, already in control of everything.  They’d already arrived and weren’t particularly interested in anything that might upset the status quo.  But even then, they knew it was the Romans who were really calling the shots, so I suspect even the Sadducees were thinking “Are we there yet?”  They just didn’t say it out loud.  Everyone knew it was time.  It had to be.  And that sense was even stronger for the disciples, because they knew Jesus was the Messiah—the one come to usher in God’s kingdom and to set the world to rights.  So if the Messiah had come—well—the kingdom had to be really close.



And so Luke, as he opens the book of Acts with the Ascension of Jesus, he tells us of Jesus’ promise to his friends: “Don’t go back to Galilee.  Stay in Jerusalem.  As John baptised you with water, in a few days I will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.”  But they hadn’t asked Jesus about the Holy Spirit.  They wanted to know when the kingdom was coming, because it had to be soon.  And so even as Jesus was leading them up the Mount of Olives and about to ascend to his throne, they were pestering him, “Is this the time?  Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?”  And, remember, in answer to their question Jesus ascended, up on the clouds, into heaven, to take up his throne, to rule and to reign.



And as he did that, he commissioned his disciples to do something that I don’t think they expected.  He commissioned them to be his royal heralds, to go out and to proclaim this good news to Jerusalem, to Judea, even to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.  Now, this wasn’t the first time Jesus had sent his disciples out to proclaim the kingdom, but when he’d sent them out before, it was to a people who were also asking those “Are we there yet?” questions.  The disciples had gone out and told the people that in Jesus the Messiah had come and that the kingdom was in sight.  But now Jesus is sending them out to proclaim that in his resurrection and ascension the kingdom has come and that was no small task.  Because even though the disciples had seen their risen Lord and even though they saw him ascend to his throne, this wasn’t how anyone expected the kingdom to arrive.  They thought everyone would be resurrected all at once.  They though the Messiah would put down the enemies of God’s people and cast down their empires.  They expected a king like David who would punish evil, wipe away all the problems, and make everything as it should be.  Instead, the wrong people were still in control, evil people still did evil things, so much was still wrong with the world—and yet Jesus had inaugurated something, he really had risen from the dead, and they’d seen him ascend to his throne with their own eyes, so they knew he was truly Lord and that the kingdom had come.  The Lord’s plan was to work through them, to spread the good news and to tell the world that Jesus is Lord, and to grow the kingdom.  That wasn’t what anyone expected, but they should have, because that’s how the Lord had been working in the world ever since he called Abraham out of the land of Ur and set him apart from everyone else, and made him and his family a witness to the world—that one day, through this

A Sermon for Ascension Sunday
1 St. Peter 4:7-11 & St. John 15:25-16:4
by William Klock


Today is that Sunday in the Church Year that has us sitting with the disciples as they wait for the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise of God’s Spirit.  It’s a little bit like the scene of them on Easter Day.  Think of Mary, confused and distressed, running to tell Peter and John about the empty tomb and finding them, hunkered down in a dark house with the doors and shutters locked tight.  Both times, the disciples sat in a house in Jerusalem waiting.  On Easter Day, they were waiting out of fear.  Jesus had been executed and, if they weren’t careful, they’d probably be executed too.  They were waiting for the Passover festival to end, for the crowds to start leaving the city, so that maybe they could just blend into the crowds streaming out through the gates and down the roads, so they could make their way back to Galilee and hopefully just go back to their old lives and forget—and everyone else forget—that they’d been followers of Jesus.  And so they waited.  In the dark.  Fearful.  Barely talking in whispers.



Today the disciples are, again, waiting in Jerusalem.  But today is different.  Late on Easter Day Jesus had appeared in that locked room, risen, and not just alive like, say, Lazarus was alive again after he came out of his tomb.  Jesus wasn’t just alive.  He’d been made new.  The same Jesus they knew, even bearing the marks of his crucifixion, and yet different.  This new Jesus, resurrected from the dead, was as at home in heaven as he was on earth and as at home on earth as he was in heaven.  This Jesus embodied their hope of an Israel, of a whole human race, set to rights.  In him they were confronted with the birth of God’s new creation.  And everything the Prophets had said and everything Jesus had said about God setting the world to rights now made sense—at first, suddenly, it made sense at a gut level, but then as this risen Jesus walked them through the scriptures—probably the same scriptures he’d walked them through umpteen times before—gradually it all finally started to make sense in their heads, too.  Jesus’ resurrection changed everything.  But most of all, they saw the hopes of generation after generation after generation of Jews for a world set to rights, they saw that hope fulfilled in Jesus, and in that they saw the glory of God like no one had seen the glory of God since—well maybe since the Exodus.



And so, for forty days, Jesus met with his disciples and with hundreds of others, and they studied the scriptures and, I expect, they worshiped and glorified the God of Israel who had done this amazing thing and, who, right before their eyes, was fulfilling his promises.  And then he led them out to the Mount Olives and ascended into the clouds.  Jesus had prepared them for this.  He’d said before that eventually he would be leaving them.  These passages have been our Gospels for the last three weeks.  Remember John 16: “In a little while you won’t see, but a little while after that you will see me, because I’m going to the Father.”  Or two Sundays ago, “I’m going to the one who sent me and it’s important that I do, so that I can send the one who will come along side you on my behalf, the Helper.”  And last Sunday, “I’m leaving the world and going to the Father.  In the world you will have tribulation, but I have overcome the world.”  That last bit from John 16:33 surely underscored for them the lordship of Jesus.  Now it was time for him to take his throne in the heavenlies.



And so Jesus commissioned them to take this gospel, this good news, back to Jerusalem and to all of Judea, and eventually even to the Samaritans and then to the nations.  And as he commissioned them he rose on the clouds to his throne.  Jesus didn’t have to do it that way.  It’s not like heaven is literally up there somewhere.  You can’t get

At That Time
Daniel 12:1-13
by William Klock


Daniel 12 begins with the words, “At that time”, which means we need to remind ourselves what time Daniel’s vision was talking about.  Remember that these last three chapters of the book are one long vision.  It began with Daniel lamenting what he could see.  Pagan kings, instead of being judged for their wickedness, were getting strong and stronger.  And his own people, an awful lot of them, seemed apathetic about the end of the exile.  They’d made lives for themselves in Babylon and simply weren’t interested in returning to Jerusalem.  And those who did return were facing opposition at every turn as they worked to rebuild the city and the temple.  Daniel was losing hope.  And so an angel appeared and in the first part of the vision the angel explained that there was more to things than what Daniel could see.  Unseen forces fought a battle in the heavenlies that somehow corresponded to events on earth.  In fact, Daniel was told, the angel Michael fought for the people of God.  Even if he couldn’t see any of it, Daniel had reason to hope.



And then, in Chapter 11, the angel gave Daniel of vision of things to come, as if to show how God is sovereign even in the wars and intrigues of pagan kings.  First the Persian kings and then the Greeks, as they squabbled and fought over the land of Judah.  That was most of Chapter 11.  Things would get worse before they would get better, but here was a chance to hope—to put into practise that truth that sometimes there’s more going on than what we can see.  Even in the intrigue, the subterfuge, the assassination of those Greek kings of Egypt and Syria, even in all that, the God of Israel remained sovereign.  Even as the worst of them came to power.  And that was the heart of Chapter 11: this evil king who wanted to convert the Jews into pagan Greeks. Antiochus made it illegal to live by God’s law, he desecrated the Lord’s altar, and he forbade the daily offerings made in the temple.  1 and 2 Maccabees tell us how he tried to force Jewish men to eat pork, torturing them and even killing them when they refused and how women who circumcised their sons were thrown off the city walls along with their children.  To remain faithful to the Lord in those days came at a great cost.  Many even paid with their lives.  Meanwhile, a significant segment of the Jewish people capitulated, finding ways to compromise or abandoning their faith altogether.  The faithful died and the unfaithful lived.  It wasn’t supposed to be like that.  Daniel was written for these people—to exhort them, to give them hope, and to assure them that the Lord remained sovereign and would vindicate them in the end.



And that’s where Daniel’s vision gets difficult.  Up to the events of about 167BC the vision maps right onto history, but then at 11:40 the angel says, “At the time of the end…”  As I said last week, the natural way to read this is as a continuation of the events that took place under Antiochus Epiphanes.  Verses 40-45 describes another war between Egypt and Syria.  They describe tens of thousands falling, but also being delivered out of his hand.  The king conquers Egypt, Libya, and Cush.  There’s a vague description of him going off to another war—or something—and pitching his tent between Mount Zion and the sea, and then—suddenly—he comes to his end.



The vision changes in these verses.  What was very specific suddenly becomes vague.  The language becomes more grandiose.  And what’s described here doesn’t map onto historical events as easily as the earlier parts of the vision do.  So some people think with those words “at the time of the end”, the vision is jumping to some time in the future and that the king is no longer Antiochus Epiphanes, but a future antichrist.  But as I said last week, the vision itself doesn’t suggest at all that the timeframe has changed and to inte

“Rhabarberbarbara”
Daniel 11:2-45
by William Klock


On Wednesday a friend at the pool stopped me and asked if I’d watch a video on her phone and tell her what it was about.  It was in German and she didn’t understand.  So she hit “play” and two men started singing and I laughed.  I said, “It’s ‘Rhabarberbarbara’ and they’ve set it to music.  “Rhabarberbarbara” is a German tongue twister poem.  Imagine “She sell seashells down by the seashore”, but it’s all ba…ba…ba sounds, and with each stanza the tongue twisting part gets longer.  Barabara opens a bar to sell her rhubarb cake: Barbaras rhabarberbar”.  But pretty soon bald, bearded barbarians in need of a barber show up.  It’s a funny poem and it’s hard to say, but these two guys set it to music and sang the whole thing perfectly.  My friend said she liked how catchy it was, but had no idea what it meant.  I laughed, because this is how the Greeks came up with the word “barbarian” for foreigners.  Their languages just sounded like “Bar…bar…bar”.  If you don’t know the language, your ear hears the repetitive sounds, but you have no idea what any of it means.  Imagine hearing “She sells seashells down by the sea shore” if you didn’t speak English.  It’s just rhyming repetitive gibberish.



As I was walking away I started thinking how this is a metaphor for how a lot of people might hear Daniel 11, which is what we come to today.  It’s the longest chapter in the book and most of it describes a long conflict between the King of the North and the King of the South.  The actual kings are never named.  The places involved aren’t named.  It goes on and on, back and forth between north and south.  In this case the language is history, not German, but if you don’t know the language it’s not that different than my friend listening to that German tongue twister that’s all bar…bar…bar.  It’s just repetitive gibberish.



But if you know the history, Chapter 11 describes the historical events that were whirling around Judah from the time of Daniel in the Sixth Century up to the 160s BC.  If you know the history a story emerges from the Rhubarberbarbara.  That said, knowing all the historical details isn’t the important thing you need to take away.  I’ll give you the big picture and skip the nitty-gritty.  If you want to know all the details, the actual historical events are well documented and you can look them up in a history book or Wikipedia.  If you’ve got an ESV Study Bible, it’s all there with nifty maps and genealogies and historical outlines.



But before we get into that, remember the lesson from Chapter 10.  That was the first part of this vision.  The lesson from that first part is that there’s more going on than what we can see.  Daniel was frustrated and discouraged by earthly circumstances and—as we’ll see—things weren’t going to get any better.  It’s easy to lose hope.  But the angel explained to him that the battles he saw being fought by kings on earth corresponded to battles being fought in the heavenlies.  The point of knowing this isn’t to burden us with some new responsibility—as if there’s something we can do to win those battles in the heavenlies.  Just the opposite.  Those battles in the heavenlies are not our responsibility.  Apart maybe from praying, there’s nothing we can do to assist the angels.  God has given us things to do and battles to wage in our sphere and he and his heavenly forces will do battle in their sphere.  And the point is that we should find hope in that.  The battle here may feel hopeless.  But knowing that God fights a battle in the heavenlies that somehow corresponds to the one we fight here and that the outcome in the heavenlies corresponds to the outcome here—that should inspire hope to stand firm, to keep the faith, and to fight the good fight.



Knowing that, the vision now continues wit