Sermons
“PEACE CHILD"
“Peace Child”Text: John 6: 51-58
Pastor Noel Anderson, First Presbyterian Church of Upland
MISSION STORIES
For August, we’re looking at Mission Stories. Over the next few weeks you’ll be hearing about missionaries and mission projects—all of which remind us that God is at work in the world revealing himself in unexpected ways.
As we prepare to come to the table, today we will have a most unusual meditation with an extraordinary application—one which ought to ready us all for communion. Our story today is called “Peace Child.” Our text is from the Gospel of John. [John 6: 51-58 NRSV]
MAVO OF HAINAM
Don Richardson and his wife met at Bible College in Canada. Once they fell in love, they jumped into the adventure of marriage, but also something else extraordinary—they jumped into the life of missionaries to unreached tribes of Papua, New Guinea in Irian Jaya.
Irian Jaya, in what was then called Netherlands New Guinea, is dense rainforest with hundreds of primitive tribes—all still living in a stone age civilization. Two of those river villages, Kamoor and Hainam, hold tribes that have been feuding on and off for hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years. One day, a man named Mavo from Hainam was fishing from a dugout canoe and ventured too close to the village of Kamoor. From the shore, he bent down for a drink of water when he found himself surrounded by Kamoor warriors. But this was a peaceful time. The soldiers reassured Mavo not to worry; they wanted him to serve as a go-between between his people of Hainam and the people of Kamoor. It was an honored position, and boosted his status at home in Hainam.
Mavo made many trips to Kamoor and brought communications back and forth—some resolving old differences and others portending new exchanges between their people. Mavo was to receive a special honor—a feast in recognition of all he had done in working between the two villages.
Wild pig, grubs, and sago(their staple) covered the table. It was a lovely event, but then the warriors slowly stood, all smiling, and they killed Mavo with stone clubs. After murdering him, they ate his brains and the whole village shared in eating him. Like most cannibals in the primitive world, they believed that when you ate the flesh of your enemy, you take in his life-force, his power, and his luck. Remember as well that ancients—even the Jews—believed that blood was literally “life blood” and one’s eternal soul resided in the blood. When one was killed, his lifeblood cried out to God from the ground. This is partially why the Jews had a strict prohibition against eating blood of any kind, let alone human blood. It is also why cannibals do drink blood—because by means of doing so you take greater soul and spirit into yourself, making your own life longer and more spiritually powerful.
MISSIONARIES TO THE SAWI
Don Richardson and his wife felt called to the Sawi people of Papua New Guinea. They travelled there with local missionaries and came to the village of Kamoor, telling the people they intended to move there and live among them. They were welcomed warmly. He told them they wanted to live among them and learn their language in order to bring them good news.
The Richardsons stepped into the stone age lifestyle of Kamool and began learning from the people. They found that the people treasured their young children above all else, but the mortality rate ran near 50 percent. Funerals were frequent. Death from animals, illnesses, and warfare between the villages was constant.
When there was a death, the people would wail and moan with a saying:
“Oh, message of immortality promised by our ancestors—where are you?”
The Richardson’s brought medicine (Carol was a registered nurse) and Don brought steel axes and saws which were vastly superior to their stone tools. He traded the people tools for their help in building their house among them. All the time, the Richardsons focused on learning the language of the Sawi peoples, ever eager to translate the story of Christ into their language.
BACKFIRE
In time, they could finally tell the story of God giving his son to save us. But something backfired, for when he told them about Judas betraying Jesus, they cackled—they loved Judas—he was their favorite, because for these people highly valued treachery. These were the same people who had cannibalized Mavo, so Judas—not Jesus—came off as the hero. They asked for the story again and again, only to celebrate Judas’ betrayal above all else.
The Richardsons were deeply discouraged and feared they’d never get beyond this cultural boundary. They prayed that they might yet find a way to tell the story of Jesus through the Sawi culture that could strike the right nerve. And it came, but it came through tragedy.
TRIBAL SKIRMISHES
Warriors of Hainam (Mavo’s people) challenged Kamoor to battle. The women of the village sounded the alarm and all the warriors quickly gathered.
There was much bad blood between these villages with many old scores to settle, including the murder of Mavo. The challenge was accepted by Isai, the warrior chieftan, with many threats and much boasting. The Richardsons found themselves surrounded with wounded and many dead. They implored Isai to end the conflict to no avail. They finally set down an ultimatum: either Isai and his warriors stop fighting or they would move to another Sawi village.”
Isai and his people wanted steel tools and medicine, so they agreed to make peace. But how can peace be made among villages whose greatest virtue is treachery, deception, and betrayal? How would any offering of peace be believed by their enemies in Hainam?
THE PEACE CHILD
Isai arranged a ceremony. Hainam and its warriors stood across from Kamoor and its warriors—all were prepared for a very solemn ceremony. Painfully, chief Isai took his own infant son—his only child—from his wife. She wailed with the loss. Isai walked his infant son down the line of his warriors. After each one touched the child, Isai offered his son to the chief warrior of Hainam, who accepted him as the parro—The Peace Child—and walked him down the line of his own warriors, each of whom touched him. The child was given into the care of a Hainam woman who would raise him as her own. As long as the child lived, the peace would be kept, and all the wrongs of the past would be as though they had never been.
Next, the two chiefs, standing side by side, were bound together by a warrior’s bow placed around them. When the bow string was cut, the peace was sealed. Then all the warriors of both sides cheered together as one. Don could now deliver the good news
“In the same way,” said Don, “God saw there could be no peace unless He gave His Son.”
For the Sawi, the peace lasts only as long as the child lives, but God sent the once-and-for-all Peace Child—and He will never die.
Isai, the chief, became the first Sawi Christian. He in turn shared the good news with the people, saying “Our ancestors’ promise of immortality has now arrived!” Jesus is God’s peace and eternal life for all who believe.
AFTERMATH
Don finished his translation of the New Testament into Sawi, and theThe Word spread. Before long, Sawi villagers from all over who had feuded endlessly for hundreds—even thousands—of years now gathered to worship in Jesus’ name. They gathered with music, joy, and fellowship—just like here.
Isai became one of several lay preachers, and for communion they had to use a tin can for a communion cup, because the people had no other drinking vessels.
THE BODY AND BLOOD OF GOD
How can we begin to imagine what these people feel when they take communion? It is far beyond us. We take a piece of bread and a sip of wine with some symbolic understanding of what we eat and drink. But these Sawi Christians experience something unthinkably large. When they are offered “The body and blood of Jesus Christ,” they know and feel that they are bringing into themselves the life-force of divinity. They take eternal life into themselves and the Spirit of God into their life. When they sip from the cup, it isn’t a measly splash of grape juice, but the lifeblood of God Almighty entering into their own bloodstreams.
Our text from John cannot avoid the cannibalistic imagery, no matter how hard you try. Verse 53:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
You may want to think of it as “merely metaphorical,” but Jesus leaves no room for that. Verses 55 & 56:
“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
Given the chance to explain and clarify, Jesus does not sidestep the gruesome imagery, but embraces it, which was so repugnant to the Jews that he lost disciples over it.
I tell you this morning, the Sawi of Irian Jaya in Papua New Guinea are closer to the gospel truth of Jesus than the Jews, and most evangelicals as well.
I love this text because it offends our civility and self-importance. We would be perfectly normal in asking, “Why is this even in the Bible?” Yes, why indeed would Jesus speak in such patent offenses to our sensibilities?
A couple possible reasons:
- Because we need to have our civilized sensibilities violated and disrespected. We are not the center. What we think and like are not important, but rather what God says, no matter how hard we find it to swallow.
- Because Jesus is the stumbling block who divides us out from our personal preferences and cherished comforts. The Gospel should trouble and offend us or else we live only in service of our own pride and dignity.
- (My favorite) Because this is there for the Sawi people and everyone like them. It is their blessing and their transformation, for by these words their former lives as cannibals privilege them with a unique and deep spirituality which, again, you and I can only imagine and make guesses at.
TO THE TABLE
So let’s think about it. Let’s consider the words of Jesus which violate our civilized selves and transform our former sins into God’s glory.
Let us tremble at the Table, awake to the reality that our participation in this sacrament is neither civilized nor safe, but threatens us at the level of our souls. It is insufficient that we merely participate, for these elements—the bread and the cup—enter our bodies and become part of our chemistry. But that ain’t the half of it. We eat the flesh of God and drink His blood, and in doing so, we take His life-force into us—His lifeblood becomes our lifeblood—running through our veins with divine power and eternal life. And we receive His true, spiritual power and empowerment in doing so.
Do not tame what is essentially wild. Let us not mock God by making his bodily sacrifice a mere metaphor.
By the Holy Spirit, we receive nothing less than He Himself in this meal.
“Take!” He says. “Eat!” He says. Do you hear? Those are commands not gentle requests. Jesus is not user-friendly; He is The Lord. He means to remake us and transform us. There is no other way we can be saved—no other way we can be at peace with Heaven. †
SOME QUESTIONS
- What were some of the keys to the Richardson’s mission success?
- Look again at the text from John. There is clearly no way to “lawyer out” the cannibalistic imagery. Why do you think Jesus positively embraced what was so patently offensive the the Jews?
- How does Jesus and his gospel offend you, us, and our cultural sense of decency?
- Why is the disruption of our dignity necessary for spiritual transformation?
- How might you think differently about the Lord’s Supper given Jesus’ words and the experience of our Sawi brothers and sisters?
“REBELLION AND ACTIVISM"
7/3/21
“Rebellion & Activism”Pastor Noel K. Anderson
Text: 2 Chronicles 28: 1-7
1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestor David had done, 2 but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals; 3 and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 4 He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. 5 Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with great slaughter. 6 Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand in Judah in one day, all of them valiant warriors, because they had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors. 7 And Zichri, a mighty warrior of Ephraim, killed the king’s son Maaseiah, Azrikam the commander of the palace, and Elkanah the next in authority to the king.
Ahaz was a failed leader, a rotten king, one who lowered the moral bar as low as it could get. He set up idols and made child sacrifices in Gehenna. His own sons “passed through the fire” which means horrible, pagan things you don’t even want to know.
Ahaz failed spectacularly as a king, falling far below God’s expectations for a king. God sent the prophet Micah to speak truth to Ahaz’s falsehoods.
In any era, when we see leaders make morally questionable decisions we feel like things are headed into a downward spiral. With low morals in our leaders comes low public morale, and we wonder whether things will ever come back into order and right control.
It’s like this: [clip: Lucy in candy factory].
We Celebrate a Founding
Today is Independence Day, wherein we celebrate our founding as an independent country. We waged a revolution against the British Empire and won our liberty.
How moral—how Christian—is our founding? Have you ever wondered what role Christianity played in sparking the American Revolution? While it’s more than I can cover here, I will say a few things and chiefly that it is problematic.
How in the world could Christians justify fighting and killing to claim the colonies as their own? They were British colonies, owned and governed by the King of England. How could the founders justify saying, “No, it’s not yours anymore; it’s ours”? Just like that—it’s yours because you say it’s yours?
Pulpits were used to drive the revolution. Today’s text from 2 Chronicles was used by many to say that God only supports a just and righteous king. If the king is bad, the people may serve their own liberty.
We can’t find this in the New Testament at all. What we do find is Romans 13: 1-5:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.
and 1 Peter 2: 13-15
13 For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, 14 or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.
Remember: when Paul and Peter wrote they were under pagan emperors and magistrates, who persecuted them and other Christians—taking their possessions, rights, and even killing many—and yet the Apostles commanded honor and respect, done consistently in obedience to God. This is what the loyalist, Anglican clergy taught—and without a doubt—they were closer to the true interpretation of the text.
Revolutionary pastors—many of them Presbyterian—stretched or even twisted Scripture to fit their political worldview. In doing so, they were less disciples of Jesus Christ than of English philosopher John Locke and the Whig ideology of England.
Is it strange to consider that our beloved America was founded less upon Scripture than on worldly ideas of liberty and the desire to escape tyranny? It has kept me awake more than one night, but it’s not really strange; it’s just kind of. . . funny.
Lucy at the Wheel
America remains kind of funny in that same vein. We have always been semi-Christian, but moreso Christian than anything else.
Today, we seem a long way from the spirit and and attitudes of the founders. In the past year and a half or so we see an America we’ve never seen before. Madness, rioting, Antifa fascism, Black lives matter, Critical Race Theory, preferred gender pronouns, and the enforcement of Trans-friendly sports and military. News media have rejected objectivity and a just the facts approach for corporate propaganda, telling us what big tech and big money think we need to hear. Parents fear sending their children to public schools because they don’t trust the state curricula not to peddle the same propaganda.
Things are complex, complicated, and seem to be moving more quickly every year. And though we celebrate our American system, it seems like a long time since we’ve had good, moral, competent leadership in Washington D.C.
Rather, we see Lucy at the wheel, and governance often appears to be fighting a losing game. Our borders look a lot like that candy factory, with Lucy and Ethel monitoring immigration.
To make it worse, the national discourse has broken down. It feels like the last days at the Tower of Babel—people talking past each other, using different words and vocabularies. “Yes, you can say this and no, you can’t say that…” As a once- liberal nation, we formerly allowed all questions to be asked by anyone, but today everything is vetted through filters of
wokeness—racial filters, gender filters, and a zillion other ways for people to make or take offense at whatever you may think, say, or do. So it is harder than ever to talk about hard things.
Woke is a Joke
I’ve been asked why we haven’t had forums here to discuss things like race gender, but I do not trust that anyone is presently capable of rightly framing these discussions. To frame these issues in contemporary terms will be perceived as either advancing them or obstructing them, which is beyond the pale of fair discourse.
We Christians do not need the world’s newly-popularized vocabulary.
We do not need to talk about things in that way, because we Christians frame things differently than the world does.
Righteousness cannot be defined by the world, but only by the Word of God.
To put it bluntly: woke is a joke. It is a false righteousness. It’s not our righteousness.
Who remembers psychobabble? The 70s and 80s saw widespread amateur analysis made by people with a mere smattering of psychological terms. I’m Okay, You’re Okay, Co-dependent No More, The Culture of Narcissism—these were popular book titles in their day. But as populists picked up and ran with these pop-psychological terms, Amerca had to endure two decades of public punditry and daytime talk shows whose hosts played at being psychologists. In time, the country grew weary of psychobabble and saw that it was mostly hot air, so with ratings and book sales in decline, psychobabble retreated into obscurity and the people once again had to leave real psychology to real psychologists, as it should be.
Today, it’s not psychobabble, but socio-babble.
The New York Times best-seller list is now full of bad sociology. Socio-babble consists of a smattering of sociological terms recklessly wielded by pop theorists. White Fragility, Critical Race Theory, The Patriarchy, Gendered No More—these are part of the falseness of woke. Socio-babble demands that we split humanity in to false categories—race, sex, sexuality, nationality, or religion—and deal with that group as it if were some kind of homogenous, real entity. But these grouping are not a real things; they are imaginary categories with little actual bearing on reality.
Consider: whenever we hear a sentence beginning:
“White people. . .”
“Black people. . .”
“Hispanic people. . .”
“Muslims. . .”
“French people. . .”
“Gays. . .”
we falsely assume that something meaningful can follow. It usually cannot. There is no “All black people anything.” Because black people are as diverse as any other race. There are black conservatives, black liberals, wealthy blacks, poor blacks, Christians and non-Christians, capitalists and socialists, urban and rural, English blacks, Indonesian blacks, and Japanese blacks. Now copy for every other race. Copy for every nationality, both sexes, etc. People in any of these “groups” run the full gamut of complexity to the degree that it is pointless to group them at all.
The current discussions about race which emphasize race perpetuate racism; they don’t solve it. We create divisions by constantly naming those divisions. It doesn’t work in the long run; no one benefits.
Our airwaves and internet are chock full of people yakking away pretending to sort it out in the public eye. MSNBC, FOX news, The View, Oprah— all look like Lucy and Ethel in the candy shop, trying to win an unwinnable game.
But, of course, there is a solution to racism, sexism, and all the pop-phobias. You already know it because it is biblical.
The End of Racism
We move beyond racism, sexism, and all the pop phobias when we abandon socio-babble and frame all our discussions in terms of personal, moral responsibility and love. By the way, that’s what the prophets like Micah said. That’s what we learn from Christ. It’s like this: We are commanded to love—even our enemies. That’s it! That’s all it needs to be, though that does not make it easy.
I’m white and I know white people that are very easy for me to love, but I also know white people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know black people that are very easy for me to love and I know black people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know hispanic people that are very easy for me to love and I know hispanic people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know Asian people that are very easy for me to love and I know Asian people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know Jewish people that are very easy for me to love and I know Jewish people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know Muslim people that are very easy for me to love and I know Muslim people that are very difficult for me to love.
I know Gay people that are very easy for me to love and I know gay people that are very difficult for me to love. I know Christians that are very easy for me to love and I know Christians that are very difficult for me to love.
I suspect every one of you here—whatever your sex, race, or other modifier—are exactly the same. There are people of all kinds that are easy for us to love for whatever reason and there are people who are very difficult for you to love.
This is the only framing that really matters for us. We answer to Christ and ultimately to Christ alone.
But as we are each called to love our enemies—those people whom we find it difficult to love—our responsibility is to pray and meditate upon our limitations there.
What is it that makes loving some people so difficult? You can say “it’s them” but it’s not—it’s you. The Christian is one who takes personal responsibility for either giving or withholding love, and Jesus commands to not withhold love from anyone.
So who is it a challenge for you to love? Whatever race, sex, nationality, religion, or sexuality—what is it about YOU that makes it difficult for you to love them?
Examine yourself and you’ll uncover all sorts of judgments and insecurities that you carry around as justification to withhold loving others. But I tell you, Jesus doesn’t allow for that.
Here is your spirituality—how are you going to overcome having so little love for certain people?
Please: leave sociology to the real sociologists. Leave psychology to the real psychologists. Let us reframe the cultural storms around us with the language of biblical love.
It’s time we give Lucy and Ethel a much-needed break.
Independence Day
Today is Independence Day. Let today be the beginning of some genuine independence in our spirituality. As we come to the table, you and I are called to repent of our sins, to turn away from our selfish and self-serving ways and turn again to The Lord seeking to serve Him alone.
We must renounce that within us that justifies withholding love from anyone.
We must take personal responsibility for turning our every arrogance into love.
As we come to the table, let us all come as those who are weary of trying to be righteous in our power and good intentions. Let us come to the table utterly empty wanting only to be filled, humbled and seeking to be clothed in Christ. This meal is for those who hunger and thirst for God, and Jesus says, “Take. Eat.”
Come to the table in personal submission to Christ, or do not come at all.
Come knowing yourself to be a sinner, for Christ is here for sinners, not the righteous.
Bring you sickness and brokenness, because He is our healer, savior, and friend. †
Questions
- What happens to people when their leaders can only lower the moral bar?
- If “psychobabble” comes from a mere smattering of psychology, then what is “Socio-babble”?
- What is the danger of discussing people in such categories as race, sex, nationality, and/or sexuality?
- Why do such categorizations fall short of fruitful thinking?
- What does it mean to say, “You get whatever you discuss?” What is the likely result of constantly talking about race? Or gender? Or nationality?
- When we take personal, moral responsibility for ourselves, what happens to former habits of blaming people, society, or systems for the evils of the world?
- How does love completely reframe all social problems?
- Who is difficult to love? Whose fault is that difficulty and what can be done for it?