Sermons

Our eldest son, Josh, was busy this week. He is completing seminary. To add a bit of drama, the denomination schedules ordination exams right before graduation. I offered the advice I've given to many Presbyterian seminarians looking to be ordained. When you write the exams, you need to give good answers, right answers to the questions, but you also need to be pastoral. Speak the truth with compassion, offer faith with care. Pay attention to the context.

A few years back I was asked to grade ordination exams.  I felt affirmed when I heard the instructions for grading: they need to answer the question and they need to write their response as someone with tact, maturity and balance. 

              It's not just an exam of what you know, but how you care.  The need for care is baked into each question of the ordination exams.  For instance, they don't ask for your opinion on the doctrine of predestination, they put the doctrine of predestination in a scenario. 

In your adult bible study an argument has boiled over.  One member suggests the idea that God would choose some to be saved and some to be damned is outrageous, backward, and meanspirited.  Another member has suggested, “our opinion about the doctrines is not a valid understanding.  This is the work of centuries.  We don’t pick and choose our faith. This is what is ruining the church.”  A third member weighs in.  “It's ruining the youth too.  Church and faith were a rule in our house, not an opinion. Anyone who does not make it a rule has abandoned their duty to raise children in the faith.” 

In no more than 1000 words, provide a response to the class. Provide a theological response utilizing our Reformed confessions.

              Don't you want to be a pastor?  Through the years when controversy or conflict occurred in real time, with real people, I have thought, if I get out of this alive, this will make a good ordination exam question.

              Josh and his peers were tasked with questions like this.  Some of the questions would be based in polity, the government of the church; some would be based in worship and sacraments; and still others would be a matter of Reformed theology, like the exciting adult study. 

              The remaining test, there are four, the biblical exegesis exam, usually combines all three of the above with a portion of scripture from the Old Testament or the New Testament. Here you need to write the outline of a sermon or the key points of a class lecture that demonstrates you can interpret the bible as well as "read the room." 

              Over the years several seminarians expressed to me their frustration with the exams.  The idea that someone would examine their faith.  How can this be?  It is my faith? How can it be graded?  My counsel to them has been this.  Your faith is your faith, true.  But is your faith Reformed or not?  You won't fail the exam if you give an answer that is not Reformed theology; you will fail if you don't know that your answer is not Reformed theology. 

Some might suggest I just failed the compassion aspect of the ordination exam right there.  Fair. 

              The toughest, most rigorous theological test given to me was not in the ordination exams; it was not in seminary.  The toughest exam was the grilling I received by the session of our home church just before we left for seminary.

              When you head to seminary, your home church's session should ask you some questions. Like "are you nuts?"  Or, what led to this path?  Which is a nice way of saying, "are you lost?"  The elders at First Presbyterian of San Diego asked those questions, but then they kept going.

              They asked about the cross and atonement and the idea of biblical authority.  They grilled me with questions on the trinity, the incarnation, the Reformation and how it was different from classical theology.  No lie.  This was intense and I loved it.  The examination was nearing 30 minutes when the senior pastor, a great, great man, waved his hand.  The Rev. Paul Pulliam waved his hand and the room fell to a hush.  This was impressive.

              With all eyes on him he laughed a bit and said, "well, I tell you, Fred, Fred is going to be just fine. He will do well."  And then he said, "he does not have one foot on the ground, true, but he's married to Kathy so it will work out.  It will work out."  Thirty-five years later I am ever stunned with how true those words were then and continue to be now.

              Having worked with many seminarians over the years, having graded their ordination exams, and, most importantly, guided new pastors as they entered their life in ministry, I have come to believe there needs to be a fifth exam.  One more ordination test. 

The fifth exam would be based on our little reading today.  The question of the additional test would be known long before the time of examination; it should be the same every year, for everyone.  The question given in advance for the fifth test would be this: what is the good news Jesus preached?  What is the good news?      

              Larry Norman, the musician, cast the seeds for this question when I was a teenager.  I heard him recount the awkward experience of a street preacher and some poor fool who didn't keep his head down.

The preacher stopped a man on the street and said, "brother, can I ask you a question?”  “Sure,” the man said.  “My question for you is this: have you been born again?”  The unsuspecting man answered, "ummm, not lately."  The preacher was unprepared for this, so he tried another tack.  "Well, have you been washed in the blood?"  The man's eyes went wide, and he said, "I hope not."  The preacher was a bit flustered by these responses.  "Look, I am trying to tell you the good news."  The man asked, "the good news?  What's the good news?"  The preacher said, "well, you're going to hell." The man was surprised by this and said, "what’s the bad news." 

              I want to say it was 2009 when I stumbled over the question in our reading today.  I stumbled because I had never given much thought, much consideration to this strange truth.  And the strange truth may sound crazy at first but here it is: what I was taught, what I believed the gospel to be was not what Jesus taught, not what he preached.  The good news I was taught and preached was the gospel of the Apostle Paul not Jesus.

              The gospel of the apostle Paul, what he said was his good news, was this: Jesus was crucified for our sins and was resurrected so we could be reconciled to God.  Jesus atones for our wrongs; he is a new Adam, and we are born anew in him.  He offers this new life to us because he loves us and wants us to be righteous as he is righteous.  Sound familiar? 

Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, who sets us free by his suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus pays for our sins; he atones for our sin. He is the perfect sacrifice. This is Paul's gospel. 

If you have been part of a Christian church for any length of time you've heard this good news.  If you have even dipped your toe in the pool of Christian theology, you have encountered Paul's gospel. This is what he taught.  It was a life changing moment for me though when I realized, this is not what Jesus preached.  This was not his good news.

Paul's gospel wasn't what Jesus preached.  When Luke accounts for Jesus saying, my purpose is to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, he wasn't talking about himself, his crucifixion, certainly not his resurrection.  He preached the good news, but it wasn't about believing in him, or believing in his suffering.  The good news Jesus preached wasn't "hey, I am going to die for you, and in my death, you will be loved by God.  As I suffer you will be reconciled to God." That was what Paul proclaimed; that was his good news. But it wasn't what Jesus preached.

              If you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, if you listen to what Jesus taught and what he proclaimed, it was not about him.  Jesus didn't ask people to believe in him, didn't tell people he was the Son of God. This will sound strange, but in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he doesn't tell people God loves them, or that God wants to offer them eternal life.  That's Paul. But Jesus?  Not so much.

              So, what is the good news?  That was my question, a life changing question.  I say life changing because where before my faith, my theology, my trust in God was about the atoning sacrifice, the reconciliation achieved on the cross and made clear by the empty tomb, where before my faith was about heaven and eternal life and being saved and atoned for (which is good news), now I could see Jesus preached about our life here and now. 

When I stumbled upon the question, (what was Jesus' good news?) it changed my life because now faith became about this life, this earth, trusting, believing here and now, not somewhere far off, up above. 

              This is what I believed Jesus preached.  I believe as he walked around Galilee and Samaria, and Judea and preached to the crowds, he offered the good news that we can live in freedom if we are meek.  Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.  If you die to live, if you become least, if you lose to keep, if you live unto humility, then you will be free from anger and jealousy and pride.  You will be free.

              I also believe that in the last week of his life, the good news he preached was this, if you have courage, the courage to live what you believe when life is tragic, when the inequity of life weighs you down, when you are betrayed, if you take heart and have courage, then you will be free from all fear.

              All the teachings, what he preached, come down to humility and courage, meekness and resilience.  Again, this may sound a bit heretical, but humility and courage are not what Jesus taught about himself, he didn't point to himself, say, "believe in me."  He said, the kingdom of God is in you.  If you want to follow me, deny yourself, pick up your cross.  Find humility, have courage in yourself. 

              My persistent lack of compassion for the seminarians worried about their faith being judged is not my finest hour.  For in truth we have waged wars, persecuted and excluded one another because of what we believe.  There are tragically many times in the history of the church when giving the wrong answer of faith meant violence.  Look around you today.  As our politics are becoming religious and our religion is deeply tribal, it is as dangerous as it ever was. 

Failing to give the right answers to the tribal questions is dangerous.  We are demanding testimony and confession today as a threat, as a way of weeding people out.  These sorts of examinations are never born of humility. They replace courage with belligerence.  Who has the most bad news defines our culture today.

              The good news Jesus preached is that you will be free if you are humble.

              The good news Jesus preached is that you have the strength in you to live with courage.  In you.  Here and now. 

              That good news will change your life, set you free. Amen.

Speaker: Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

May 5, 2024

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