Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are Integral For Unity Being One Race And One Blood”

“Do Not Succeed At Something That Doesn’t Matter” –  Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Mark 10:17-31

 

Grace Presbyterian Church aspires to make fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ who are remembering, telling, and living the way of Jesus. Today’s Bible readings remind us that God enters our real-life circumstances and experiences.

Malcolm Gladwell published Revenge of the Tipping Point this month. Gladwell writes, “The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea,” I began, “and the idea is very simple.”[1] Historically, the tipping point idea of solving financial problems by robbing banks was made famous by celebrity bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Gladwell writes,

In 1965, a total of 847 banks were robbed across the entire United States—a modest number, given the size of the country…In the early afternoon of November 29, 1983, the Los Angeles field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a call from a Bank of America branch in the Melrose District. The call was taken by Linda Webster…The suspect was a young white male wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. Slender. Polite. Southern accent. Well dressed. He said please and thank you. Webster turned to her colleague, William Rehder, who ran the FBI’s local bank robbery division. “Bill, it’s the Yankee.” The Yankee Bandit had been active in Los Angeles since July of that year.[2]

The Yankee robbed one bank after another and on the afternoon of November 29^th, he hit six banks in four hours. An idea of dealing with financial problems by robbing banks was implemented by thugs until the Yankee arrived on the scene. The Yankee was a class act.

And so, we face a tipping point in our approach to the 2024 Operating Budget and the 2024 Generosity Campaign for the 2025 Operating Budget. Finances, a social epidemic for institutions, individuals, families, and churches, are at a tipping point. At last Sunday’s Town Hall Meeting, we learned that Grace, like many mainline churches, is confronted with the chaos of the hurricanes of societal and cultural change.

Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Job 23 demonstrates we know that the question “Where is God” is answered by the church’s historic answer, “God is here.”^[3] In the preceding speech to Job by Eliphaz, Eliphaz accuses Job of wickedness particularly in depriving others of clothing, water, food, and land. Eliphaz also blames Job for his own suffering. Job’s response was a clear argument with God about being elusive and absent. Job wants to present his case of innocence to God. He wants to learn and understand God’s reasoning. Job believes that God is hiding.[4]

Mark 10:17-31

Mark 10 exhorts the community of faith to be selfless. Jesus taught the man who approached him and teaches us that sacrificial living is God’s way. The point of the story of the rich man and the disciples is the relationship between discipleship and riches. Jesus states five imperatives to the rich man in the earshot of the disciples to go, sell, give, come, and follow. These five imperatives make one solid and seamless command with a promise inserted, between go, sell, and give and come and follow, “you will have treasure in heaven.” No matter how we might spiritualize this text, that is not to take it more literally as a lifetime journey, all disciples are implicated on what we do with wealth.[5]

God does not abandon the faithful.[6] Leveraged giving spends your intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical, and time capital, sacrificially. Sacrificial and responsible giving makes the community stronger. Mike Slaughter in The Christian Wallet writes, “Responsible investing means taking all that God has placed into our hands and fully deploying it in every sense of the word toward God’s preferred future picture—both for our own lives and for the lives of others. Investing in tomorrow also requires a simultaneous trust in God’s provision for both today and tomorrow.”[7] Leveraged giving spends your intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical, and time capital, sacrificially. It is responsible investing.

Dependency on God combines God’s action and human action into experiencing the kingdom of God. According to Barna Research, U.S. teens and adults have reported that, while they have mostly positive opinions of Jesus, their perceptions of the Church and Christians as a whole have often led them to doubt Christian beliefs. Other data Barna studies shows that the Church’s reputation in specific areas like pursuing justice and stepping up to help solve local problems is wavering among both teens and adults alike. It appears that most Christians (57%), including over seven in 10 practicing Christians (76%), are at a point in their spiritual journeys where they want to help the Church refocus on what’s truly important. Christians want to help the church realign with Jesus’ priorities.[8]

What are Jesus’ priorities? Micah 6:8 reads, “He (God) has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Might Grace rethink and organize a different way of being church when it comes to growth in membership? What about providing seminars at Grace on parenting, legal documents such as a Living Trust, Will, Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and living on a budget? How about Parent’s Night Out for parents in our children’s ministry as well as the parents of children in the neighborhoods of College Hill and Crown Heights? As it is the case in Kirk’s youth ministry, could we as a congregation and congregants develop a heart for reaching the unchurched and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed?

Depend on God as you ponder your 2025 Pledge of Time and Treasure and a gift to replenish our cash reserves. Believe that dependence on God will lead you to obedient and sacrificial behavior in the volunteering and financial aspect of your Christian discipleship. Remember the tipping point is the unfolding of an idea that develops behaviors of transformation. As Gladwell writes so eloquently, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.[9]

Your life is designed by God to be a wallet. As we read the Bible, we discover that God has given us prescription glasses enabling us to see more clearly the way of leveraging our giving from our life wallet. John Calvin refers to the Scriptures as spectacles for weak, failing eyes.[10]

Grace Presbyterian Church exists to demonstrate and offer others a better way to live. We do that by leveraging our giving. Jesus says, go, sell, give, come, and follow. Leverage your giving by spending your intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical, and time capital, sacrificially. Amen.

 

This sermon was preached the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday, 13 October 2024

by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and  Sanctuary at

Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright Ó 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point (New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2024), ix.

[2]Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point, ix, 13, 15.

[3]My thanks to Thomas Edward Frank in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4 (Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 146, 148, and 150.

[4]In this paragraph of textual analysis, I have benefited from the thinking of Mark McEntire, Wyndy Corbin Reuschling, Anna George Traynham, Zaida Maldonado Perez, William Yoo, Matthew L. Skinner and Richard W. Voelz in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 127-129, 129-131, 132-134, 135-137, 137-139, 140-142 and 142-143.

[5]Adapted from Lamar Williamson, Jr., Interpretation Commentary, Mark (Louisville, Kentucky, John Knox Press, 1983), 182-188.

[6]This insight is gleaned from Kathleen Bostrom in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 154.

[7]Mike Slaughter, The Christian Wallet (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 128.

[8]Adapted from Barna’s State of the Church Initiative, 2024.

[9]Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point, ix.

[10]For the analogy of spectacles for weak eyes see John Calvin in Book I, Chapter VI of Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, translated by Ford Lewis Battles and edited by John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 69-74.

Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are Integral For Unity Being One Race And One Blood”

“Take Courage and Do Not Worry” – Job 1:1; 2:1-10

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, Mark 10: 2-16 (13-16)

Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. Twenty-five years ago, Gladwell published The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference. This month he published Revenge of the Tipping Point. Gladwell writes, “The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea,” I began, “and the idea is very simple.”[1]

It is that best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.[2]

Ideas and behaviors follow strange pathways in Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas, The United States of America, and the world.

And so, we face a tipping point in our approach to the 2024 Operating Budget and the 2024Generosity Campaign for the 2025 Operating Budget. Finances, a social epidemic for institutions, individuals, families, and churches are at a tipping point. Listen to our sibling in Christ and Trustee Tom Rhoads. Tom…

Jesus teaches that healthy change occurs from a base of child-like dependence on God. To make any relationship work obstacles need to be embraced as opportunities for making things better. For Christians, having a child-like dependence on God is the best approach. In this regard, Bobby Schuller in Change Your Thoughts Change Your World writes, “When we face setbacks in life, our temptation will be to curse them, dwell on self-pity, blame others, or hurry on to something that isn’t meant to be…. There is no tragedy [setback] God can’t redeem. Though you cannot see it now, God will get you through whatever it is you’re facing, and you might even find a gift within.”[3] Believe that God is with you. Believe that God will see you through to a better outcome. Therein lies the significance of thinking and self-examination: Learn. Evaluate. Plan. Dream. Get back up after a fall. Press through the pain.[4] See obstacles, things that are in the way, as opportunities to grow. The Old Testament and Gospel Readings remind us that obstacles emerge for all people that can become opportunities for growth as a person. Satan tells God that Job only loves God for the things God does for him.

Job 1:1, 12 reads, There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil….The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. And Mark 10:15 reads, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” Remember, everything works for good for those who love Jesus, who place child-like dependance on God.

The Pharisees often attempted to trap Jesus over his abandonment of traditional thought and practice in Judaism. And Job teaches us to ask hard questions of God and patiently listen for the answers as an act of depending on God and being faithful to God.[5]

And so here we are experiencing a tipping point. Yes, the financial woes facing Grace Presbyterian Church are staggering, in fact insurmountable. Yes, insurmountable when we try to muster up our strength to solve them. But here is the tipping point. Jesus states that a child-like dependency on God combines God’s action and human action into experiencing the kingdom of God. To trust that God will lead each one of us to sacrifice by increasing our pledge in 2025 and make a sacrificial gift to replenish our cash reserves….is embracing the tipping point idea and its corresponding solution, behavior of sacrificial giving.

Depend on God as you ponder your 2025 Pledge and a gift to replenish our cash reserves. Be that dependent child believing that dependence on God will lead you to obedient and sacrificial behavior in the financial aspect of your Christian discipleship. Remember the tipping point is the unfolding of an idea that develops behaviors of transformation. As Gladwell writes so eloquently, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.[6]

See God work things out to a good and kingdom end in the obedience and sacrifice of following Jesus in your financial giving. Take courage and do not worry. Amen.

This sermon was preached the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday, 6 October 2024

by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Sanctuary at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point (New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2024), ix.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Bobby Schuller, Change Your Thoughts Change Your World (Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Books, 2019), 147.

[4]Adapted from Bobby Schuller, Change Your Thoughts Change Your World, 33.

[5]In the two paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Rebecca Abts Wright, Jill Duffield, Kimberly Bracken Long, Osvaldo D. Vena, Michael Lodahl, Leticia A. Guardiola-Saenz, and Peter J. Paris in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021), 353-356, 356-358, 359-361, 362-364, 364-366, 367-369 and 369-371.

[6]Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point, ix.

 

Series: “For Such A Time As This”

“Living the Vision”

Esther 5

 

We continue our series on Esther titled, “For Such A Time As This.” Living the vision is this week’s emphasis. The vision is to live a faithful life in an unfaithful culture. Living the Vision in kindness and generosity is significant in making a positive, hopeful, joyful, and non-anxious impact in society and the lives of others. As you recall, Esther is the story of the Jews protecting themselves from persecution during the Babylonian Captivity. It is a story filled with suspense, conspiracy, and bad decisions all being used for God’s purpose. It’s a story of a people delivered. It was a complicated time.

Thinking about living the vision is important. But actually living the vision is most important. Thinking about the vision develops new attitudes and expands one’s worldview. Living the vision puts attitudes and worldview into action. Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. In her book Quiet Strength she writes:

 

When I sat down on the bus that day, I had no idea history was being made. I was only thinking of getting home. But I had made up my mind. After so many years of being a victim of the mistreatment my people suffered, not giving up my seat—and whatever I had to face afterwards—was not important. I did not feel any fear sitting there. I felt the Lord would give me the strength to endure whatever I had to face. It was time for someone to stand up—or in my case, sit down. So I refused to move.[1]

 

Living the vision of being free, a person created equal to everyone else, caused Rosa Parks to live such a vision in kindness, compassion, and non-violently. Remember, the purpose of the book of Esther is to help us understand that God is active in all aspects of life. The Book of Esther helps us see that God positions each one of us to accomplish God’s will. Now what is the vision God has for us through the life of Esther?

King Xerxes, Haman, and Esther Have Dinner Together (Esther 5:1-8)

Esther 5:1-8 articulates the vision God placed in the heart of Mordecai and was implemented by Esther. That vision is living a faithful life in an unfaithful culture. Esther takes the initiative to raise the issue about the Jews and Haman’s plot against them to King Xerxes. Esther takes the lead and Mordecai takes a step back. Esther dons her regalia as queen and enters inner court with the throne room door open. Queen Esther catches the king’s attention. The king asks Esther what her request is and he states she could ask for half of his kingdom. She asks Xerxes that he and Haman join her for a banquet that she has prepared. King Xerxes is delighted with the plan. At the banquet, Esther does not make the accusation against Haman. The plot is thickening. Instead she answers the question about whether she would like half of Xerxes’ kingdom with this: “If I have found favor with the king, may Haman and the king come again tomorrow for another banquet. There I will answer the king’s request of me.

Haman Becomes Ill (5:9-14)

Esther 5:9-14 describes Haman leaving the banquet. When he passed Mordecai at the Palace Gate, Mordecai did not kneel before Haman. Mordecai never knelt and bowed to Haman. He was faithful to God and kept his integrity intact. Haman went directly home. When he arrived home, Haman’s expansive ego took over and he rages on about Mordecai and his disrespect by not bowing to him when he walked by. Haman’s friends and wife instructed Haman to build “gallows” some eighty feet high. The Hebrew is literally translated “a tall tree trunk or pole”. Yes, this is how the Persians disposed of their enemies. By impalement. The friends and his wife tell Haman to build the “gallows” first and then tell King Xerxes to hang Mordecai on it. Impalement adds an additional component of disgrace. Haman was implementing his plan. He could no longer be patient. Mordecai was already a condemned man but the edict would not take effect for a year. Haman wanted Mordecai disposed of now. With this plan, Haman had his damaged ego placated. He could now go to the banquet the next day with the king in good spirits.

Christians can learn much from the journey that Mordecai and Esther undertook of living the vision of being faithful in an unfaithful culture. Mordecai, Esther, and the Jews in captivity in Persia, known as “the Diaspora”, learned how to live a productive life in such a time of threatened extermination.

How do we live the vision of being faithful in an unfaithful culture in North America? Daily, North American Christians must deal with the tensions that arise between the full Gospel and our individualistic and consumeristic culture. Daily, we have options. We can deny there’s any tension in this regard and become like “the nations”. Do we cut ourselves off from contact and relationship with outside influences, becoming isolationist? Or do we seek and discover a compromise, which adapts to the culture without losing the integrity of our faith, just like Mordecai and Esther?

Think with me now. Yes, limited control is the key. It’s like steering a canoe only from the front. It can be done, but it is exhausting. Mordecai and Esther were steering from the front. Neither of them steered the government from the back. Yes, Esther was queen and Mordecai was the king’s right-hand person. Esther and Mordecai had limited control. And they remained faithful in an unfaithful culture.

God has purposed a vision for us to live having limited power. Why, so we remain faithful to the One whose name is YHWH, “I am who I am”. Lean into God when you feel out of control, because you are. Trust Jesus when trusting yourself isn’t working, because it isn’t. Take Jesus’ hand for it is strong and reliable, because the hand of an individualistic and consumeristic cultural promise is weak and unreliable. Bank your hope on the One who knows you the best and loves you the most. Amen!

 

This sermon was preached the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday,15 September 2024

by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Sanctuary

at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

 

Copyright Ó 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Today in the Word (Spring 2002), 19.

 

 

We continue our series on Esther titled “For Such A Time As This.” Favoring, not shaming, is this week’s emphasis. Giving favor to others in kindness and generosity is significant in making a positive, hopeful, joyful, and non-anxious impact in society and the lives of others. As you recall, Esther is the story of the Jews protecting themselves from persecution during the Babylonian Captivity. It is a story filled with suspense, conspiracy, and bad decisions, all being used for God’s purpose. It’s a story of a people delivered. It was a complicated time.

Thinking about dispensing favor to others is important. Dispensing shame on others is not helpful. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines favor as “approval or liking…an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual.”  The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines shame as “a feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. A person or thing bringing dishonor.” Max Lucado writes this about favor and its benefit over shame:

There are many reasons God saves you: to bring glory to himself, to appease his justice, to demonstrate his sovereignty. But one of the sweetest reasons God saved you is because he is fond of you. He likes having you around. He thinks you are the best thing to come down the pike in quite a while. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart. And the Christmas gift he sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you![1]

Bringing favor to another is a proper use of power. Bringing shame to another is an abuse of power. King Xerxes shamed Queen Vashti. King Xerxes favored Esther and made her Queen. Unfortunately, the book of Esther is a consistent use of favor and shame in manipulative ways. Ahh, but God is in it. Remember, the purpose of the Book of Esther is to help us understand that God is active in all aspects of life. The Book of Esther helps us see that God positions each one of us to accomplish God’s will.

Injustice Dealt to Mordecai (Esther 3:1-6)

The feud between Haman and Mordecai is palpable. In fact, the feud between the people of Agag (Haman) and the people of Benjamin (Mordecai) is historical. King Xerxes had promoted Hamen to be a prince above all princes. All bowed and paid reverence to Haman—all but Mordecai. Mordecai was a Jew one who bowed and paid reverence to God and God alone. Mordecai’s lack of reverence moved Haman to develop a plan to kill all the Jews. You see, Mordecai’s lack of bringing favor but shame to Haman was considered treasonable.

Haman Plots a Mass Murder (3:7-11)

Esther 3:7-11 describes Haman’s priests casting a lot before Haman. This lot casting was to demonstrate the day when Haman was to carry out his proposed pogrom in killing the Jews in his land. On the thirteenth day in the first month, Nisan, in King Xerxes’ twelfth year of ruling, the lot fell on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. That was the permission giving casting of the lot for Haman to ask King Xerxes to issue the edict to kill all the Jews throughout the provinces and that Haman would pay ten thousand talents to those who had charge of the king’s business and carried out the mass murder of the Jews. The killers would put the ten thousand talents in the king’s treasuries. If the ten thousand talents were in gold, by today’s standards, they would convert to $11.9 billion and if in silver, by today’s standards, they would convert into $161 million.[2] Hamen implemented King Xerxes’ edict, as discussed.

The Edict for Death Is Issued (3:12-14)

            It is clear that King Xerxes goes whichever way the wind is blowing, whichever advisor’s opinion carries the day. He is not a strong leader. Xerxes hands are always clean. King Xerxes ordered the Jews to be destroyed, slayed, and annihilated. All Jews, both young and old, little children, and women, were to perish. And once the edict was issued, Haman and King Xerxes sat down to drink.

The intense nationalism in the Book of Esther cannot be brushed aside or even explained away. Although we do not have evidence of the slaughter occurring in such high numbers, Haman’s plan has been carried out in history, from the persecutions of Antiochus to the Nazi ovens at Buchenwald.

King Xerxes’ edict threw the whole country, particularly the province of Susa, into chaos. Was it appropriate for King Xerxes not to tolerate the Jews? King Xerxes did not understand dispensing favor. The Jews were contributors to the economy. The Jews were not causing problems. Haman, the insider, was causing the problem. Queen Esther made an appropriate response in 7:4, “If we had been sold merely as slaves, men, and women, I would have held my peace, but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.”

In her book Roadmap to Reconciliation, Brenda Salter McNeill writes,

The system of apartheid in South Africa, a sophisticated but oppressive structure of racism…, was based…on theological doctrines that were formed at Stellenbosch University in the 1930s and 1940s. The Afrikaner nationalism and distorted Christian theology…fueled many Afrikaner’s belief that they were God’s chosen people. They saw themselves as biologically superior to other races. Therefore, they felt called to create a new segregated society…These doctrines gave the white South Africans religious justification for horrific crimes against their countrymen and women. More than 3.5 million black, Indian, and biracial people were removed from their homes…Nonwhite political representation was obliterated. Black South Africans were denied citizenship and relegated to the slums called “bantustans.” The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, providing black, Indian, and other “colored” people with significantly inferior services. The result was a segregated society where people were dehumanized based on beliefs that were supported by bad theology.[3]

 

Christians can learn much from the Jewish plight and experience in the Book of Esther. Haman’s nationalistic plan for extermination of the Jews is no different than we saw in Hitler and other autocratic leaders who launched genocide against particular people groups. And then there is Apartheid in South Africa.

Is our country headed to a time of leadership rooted in Christian Nationalism, which would persecute certain people groups for who they are and what they believe? What would Jesus do? Would he lead with favor or shame? Amen!

 

This sermon was preached the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday,1 September 2024

by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary

at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

 

Copyright Ó 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder (Word, 1995).

[2]According to Wolfram and Alpha.

[3]Brenda Salter McNeil, Roadmap to Reconciliation (InterVarsity Press, 2015), 22-23.