As you may have already noticed, this week's sermon was not posted here to the Theophilus Project, and that is because my blog has new online digs, at my new website: ericatcheson.com.
I have loved this blog and getting to share it with you, but after nearly seven years, it was in dire need of a refresh, and as I begin a new phase of my ministry career, combining my blog with my professional website made obvious sense.
The blog is moving, but the writing and advocacy will continue. Especially with Oregon Trail Theology now well into the editing process and my doctoral thesis a little more than two months away from being defended, one of my short term goals is to resume writing content for the blog that goes beyond my Sunday sermons.
While my online presence will be moving, the Theophilus Project will remain up and available for the foreseeable future.
Thank you for reading and hearing what I have had to say over the years. I hope to continue to add to the conversation with you for many more years to come.
Yours always in Christ,
Eric
The Theophilus Project
"I too decided to write an orderly account for you, dear Theophilus, so that you may know the truth..." -Luke 1:3-4. A collection of sermons, columns, and other semi-orderly thoughts on life, faith, and the mission of God's church from a millennial pastor.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Sunday, March 4, 2018
This Week's Sermon: "A Great and Powerful Wind," 1 Kings 19:1-14
1 Kings 19:1-14
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he had killed all Baal’s prophets with the sword. 2 Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this message: “May the gods do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life of one of them.” 3 Elijah was terrified. He got up and ran for his life. He arrived at Beer-sheba in Judah and left his assistant there.
4 He himself went farther on into the desert a day’s journey. He finally sat down under a solitary broom bush. He longed for his own death: “It’s more than enough, Lord! Take my life because I’m no better than my ancestors.” 5 He lay down and slept under the solitary broom bush. Then suddenly a messenger tapped him and said to him, “Get up! Eat something!” 6 Elijah opened his eyes and saw flatbread baked on glowing coals and a jar of water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep. 7 The Lord’s messenger returned a second time and tapped him. “Get up!” the messenger said. “Eat something, because you have a difficult road ahead of you.” 8 Elijah got up, ate and drank, and went refreshed by that food for forty days and nights until he arrived at Horeb, God’s mountain. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. The Lord’s word came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?” 10 Elijah replied, “I’ve been very passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too!”
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand at the mountain before the Lord. The Lord is passing by.” A very strong wind tore through the mountains and broke apart the stones before the Lord. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire. After the fire, there was a sound. Thin. Quiet. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat. He went out and stood at the cave’s entrance. A voice came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?” 14 He said, “I’ve been very passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too.” (Common English Bible)
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he had killed all Baal’s prophets with the sword. 2 Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this message: “May the gods do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life of one of them.” 3 Elijah was terrified. He got up and ran for his life. He arrived at Beer-sheba in Judah and left his assistant there.
4 He himself went farther on into the desert a day’s journey. He finally sat down under a solitary broom bush. He longed for his own death: “It’s more than enough, Lord! Take my life because I’m no better than my ancestors.” 5 He lay down and slept under the solitary broom bush. Then suddenly a messenger tapped him and said to him, “Get up! Eat something!” 6 Elijah opened his eyes and saw flatbread baked on glowing coals and a jar of water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep. 7 The Lord’s messenger returned a second time and tapped him. “Get up!” the messenger said. “Eat something, because you have a difficult road ahead of you.” 8 Elijah got up, ate and drank, and went refreshed by that food for forty days and nights until he arrived at Horeb, God’s mountain. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. The Lord’s word came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?” 10 Elijah replied, “I’ve been very passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too!”
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand at the mountain before the Lord. The Lord is passing by.” A very strong wind tore through the mountains and broke apart the stones before the Lord. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire. After the fire, there was a sound. Thin. Quiet. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat. He went out and stood at the cave’s entrance. A voice came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?” 14 He said, “I’ve been very passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too.” (Common English Bible)
“From Haran to the Negev:
When God Foretells Transition,” Week Three
We
have just spent two weeks seeing world-class athletes compete not under their
own nation’s flag, but under the Olympic flag—as Russia was banned from the
2018 Winter Olympics for their state-run doping program, and even as they had
athletes test positive for performance-enhancing drugs during this Olympics,
the rest of their contingent continued competing under the Olympic flag.
There
is a long tradition of athletes competing at the Olympics under the Olympic
flag, often athletes who are stateless, like Guor Maker, also known as Guor
Marial. He is a South Sudanese-turned-American marathon runner who competed in
track and field in high school and college and eventually qualified to run the
marathon in both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, with the first being under the
Olympic flag as well. To answer exactly why he had to compete under the Olympic
flag, I’ll let the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
explain:
Guor lost 28 family
members during the Second Sudanese Civil War, including eight siblings, and
spent much of his early life on the run. He was eventually captured and used as
forced labour. In 1994, he joined relatives in the Sudan capital, Khartoum, where
he remained until leaving for Egypt at the age of 14. Two years later, he went
to the United States, where he was granted refugee status.
In June 2013, to mark
World Refugee Day—and after nearly 20 years away—Guor returned to his village
in South Sudan from his new home in Arizona. With the help of UNHCR he was
reunited with his parents and other family members who had last seen him in
1993.
If
you caught the use of the term “forced labor” in that story—that means “slavery.”
He was enslaved. But he escaped. He found sanctuary and security as a refugee
here in the United States and, on top of competing in two Olympics, just last
month enlisted in the United States Air Force as an airman.
Not
too bad for someone who was kidnapped into slavery during a genocide.
I
don’t want Guor’s story to just fall into the “heroic, noble refugee”
stereotype, though. What I want us to take away from this is, if we can imagine
even a fraction of it, the sheer abandonment that one feels in being kidnapped
into slavery during a genocide, because it is that sort of abandonment that
followers of God have felt at so many points throughout history, and what can
help us understand Elijah’s predicament here in 1 Kings 19.
This
is both a new sermon series and my last sermon series for you here in Longview.
With my last few weeks as your pastor, I want to speak to you in spirit and in
truth about the nature of our transition into new roles in one another’s lives,
and what my own hopes are for this mighty family of Jesus followers when I am
no longer here.
To
do this, our Lenten sermon series will cover different stories of transition,
moving, and new starts throughout Scripture. We began this series with one of
the oldest and greatest—the calling of Abram and Sarai by God to pick up their
lives at Ur in Mesopotamia and relocate to Canaan by way of a place called
Haran, from which this sermon series takes part of its name.
Haran
is located in what is now southern Turkey (and is now called Harran, with the
extra ‘r’), and its name comes from ancient Akkadian to mean “road” or
“crossroads,” which is an appropriate name for both a waystation for a
traveling couple and this series as we approach a crossroads in the life of our
congregation. So, this series derives its name from it and from the ending of
that passage from Genesis 12, which says that Abram and his household continued
on toward the Negev.
Last
week, we talked about the the story of Moses at the burning bush. The voice of
God has just told Moses that God has seen the suffering of the Israelites in
Egypt and is sending Moses to right this historic wrong, but there is still
more: Moses needs to know who it is that is sending him to undertake this
monumental task. God simply replies, “Say to the Israelites, “I AM” has sent
you.”
Today,
God has sent another Biblical hero—the prophet Elijah, whose defining trait is
the passion with which he opposes the worship of the false deities in the Old
Testament such as Ba’al. It so determines Elijah’s sense of faith and public
ministry that his name, Elijah, means, roughly, “My Lord is my God.” (From the
Hebrew words “Elohim,” for “Lord,” and “Yah,” for “God.”)
Elijah’s
fierce opposition to Ba’al worship lands him in trouble, though, because he has
just bested in public, and subsequently killed, the priests of Ba’al and Ahab,
the king of Israel who worships Ba’al and opposes Elijah, has his wife and
queen, Jezebel, pursue Elijah. Jezebel is used as an antifeminist archetype in
Christianity today, but essentially who she was is the result of ancient Near
Eastern diplomacy: an alliance sealed in marriage, and she brings with her the
worship of her gods, in this case the Canaanite god of rain and storms.
Elijah’s
fear of Jezebel is so acute, though, and his sense of failure so great, that he
literally curls up and wishes for death, praying for God to take him because he
sees himself as no better than his ancestors who came before him.
But
God is not finished with Elijah just yet. And God makes sure that Elijah knows
that. As endangered as Elijah feels, God’s messenger makes it clear to him that
God is still present.
A
great and powerful wind tears through the stones on the mountain, but 1 Kings says
that God was not in it. Then an earthquake, and then a fire. But then God’s voice
reappears, in what is now known as the “still, small voice.”
It
may feel as though a great and powerful wind is strong enough to rip through
the cornerstone of a church, but that does not mean that God is in that wind.
God may well appear afterwards, after the initial shock and trepidation.
That
may not have initially reversed Elijah’s feelings of loneliness and
hopelessness or helplessness. But they eventually, as the chapter progresses,
spur Elijah back to his feet to go and find his apprentice Elisha so that they
may continue their public ministry together.
We
do not always escape in this lifetime the very lowest moments of this world.
Such moments take the lives of millions, through injustices like the
trafficking and slavery of people like Guor Maker, or through addiction and
homelessness, or domestic violence—the ways in which we are brought down by one
another are seemingly endless, and many do not end in as happy a way as Guor’s
story, or Elijah’s for that matter.
It
is important to acknowledge that not all stories end the way we necessarily
want them to.
But
it is equally important to set all our stories up for as much success as
humanly possible.
A
new chapter in the story of this congregation will soon begin to be written.
What it will say, and how it will end, is up to you, as the Holy Spirit leads
you.
My
hope and prayer, though, is that what you will write—in a job description, in a
congregational profile, even in words of encouragement to each other—will be
something that reflects the faith in God that lives within you, and does right
by that faith.
Elijah
felt he could no longer to right by his own fierce faith in God, and for a
moment, he let go and waited for death. It is really not a bad example to look
to—letting go of certain things can be an important moment of faithful surrender,
because Elijah is completely real before God. He is not pretending to be
anything other than distraught. There is real honesty and authenticity in that.
But
that moment of letting go did not end Elijah’s story. Nor should this time of
letting me go, and me letting you go, end your story. Do not think that God has
placed a period where, in fact, God may well have placed a comma instead.
There
is still much more story to be written. And you remain the ones whom God can
use to write it.
Write
the story well, my church. Write it well.
May
it be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
March 4, 2018
Sunday, February 25, 2018
This Week's Sermon: "I am Sending You to Pharaoh," Exodus 3:11-20
Exodus 3:11-20
But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.”
13 But Moses said to God, “If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”
15 God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me. 16 “Go and get Israel’s elders together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me. The Lord said, “I’ve been paying close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 I’ve decided to take you away from the harassment in Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land full of milk and honey.”’ 18 They will accept what you say to them. Then you and Israel’s elders will go to Egypt’s king and say to him, ‘The Lord, the Hebrews’ God, has met with us. So now let us go on a three-day journey into the desert so that we can offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’ 19 However, I know that Egypt’s king won’t let you go unless he’s forced to do it. 20 So I’ll use my strength and hit Egypt with dramatic displays of my power. After that, he’ll let you go." (Common English Bible)
We tend to see our Olympians as champions, representing what is supposed to be the very best of our nations, and whose dedication to their craft is unparalleled. It has to be if you are going to end up on an Olympic podium in any event.
But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.”
13 But Moses said to God, “If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”
15 God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me. 16 “Go and get Israel’s elders together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me. The Lord said, “I’ve been paying close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 I’ve decided to take you away from the harassment in Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land full of milk and honey.”’ 18 They will accept what you say to them. Then you and Israel’s elders will go to Egypt’s king and say to him, ‘The Lord, the Hebrews’ God, has met with us. So now let us go on a three-day journey into the desert so that we can offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’ 19 However, I know that Egypt’s king won’t let you go unless he’s forced to do it. 20 So I’ll use my strength and hit Egypt with dramatic displays of my power. After that, he’ll let you go." (Common English Bible)
“From Haran to the Negev:
When God Foretells Transition,” Week Two
The
images were quintessentially Olympian, but also personally poignant. One, a
devastated second-place finisher, skating on home ice, trying and failing to
hold back the tears. The other, a newly-crowned Olympic champion, but taking
her first moments in that newfound status to embrace and comfort her vanquished
opponent.
Japanese
speed skater Nao Kodaira had just won gold in the women’s 500m event, but
beside her was an inconsolable Lee Sang-wha of South Korea, who lost the gold
to Kodaira by less than two-fifths of one second.
We tend to see our Olympians as champions, representing what is supposed to be the very best of our nations, and whose dedication to their craft is unparalleled. It has to be if you are going to end up on an Olympic podium in any event.
But
what is very best in us cannot be limited only to the physical. The very best
of us spiritually matters as well. It mattered then, on that ice rink, and
especially so given the extremely fraught history that Japan and South Korea share,
as the latter bears extensive historical trauma from being conquered and occupied
by the former.
Every
two years, we send our very best to the Olympics, knowing that they are our
very best. But even then, our very best find ways to confound us, to be even
greater. The nature of their greatness are made known through their deeds. Such
are the ways of God, and of what God expects of us.
This
is both a new sermon series and my last sermon series for you here in Longview.
With my last few weeks as your pastor, I want to speak to you in spirit and in
truth about the nature of our transition into new roles in one another’s lives,
and what my own hopes are for this mighty family of Jesus followers when I am
no longer here.
To
do this, our Lenten sermon series will cover different stories of transition,
moving, and new starts throughout Scripture. We began this series last week
with one of the oldest and greatest—the calling of Abram and Sarai by God to
pick up their lives at Ur in Mesopotamia and relocate to Canaan by way of a
place called Haran, from which this sermon series takes part of its name.
Haran
is located in what is now southern Turkey (and is now called Harran, with the
extra ‘r’), and its name comes from ancient Akkadian to mean “road” or
“crossroads,” which is an appropriate name for both a waystation for a
traveling couple and this series as we approach a crossroads in the life of our
congregation. So, this series derives its name from it and from the ending of
that passage from Genesis 12, which says that Abram and his household continued
on toward the Negev.
We
pick up today with the story of Moses at the burning bush. Moses is itself an Egyptian name, because as a child, Moses's Israelite mother set him adrift in the Nile to save him from Pharaoh's purges of the Israelite boys, and he was in turn discovered and raised in Pharaoh's own household. Moses subsequently went into exile after killing an Egyptian, and we pick up with him here as a shepherd in the service of his father-in-law, Jethro.
The voice of God has
just told Moses that God has seen the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt and
is sending Moses to right this historic wrong, but there is still more: Moses
needs to know who it is that is sending him to undertake this monumental task. God
simply replies, “Say to the Israelites, “I AM” has sent you.”
Well,
that clears things right up!
What
God’s name communicates, though, is that God is beyond all our finite words,
labels, and classifications such that only God’s name is capable of accurately
depicting and describing God. Only God can accurately describe God. Indeed, the
name God gives to Moses, Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, is perhaps best translated as “I will
be what I will be,” not the more traditional Christian translation of “I am what
I am.” Or, as my Jewish Study Bible puts it, “My nature will be made known
through my deeds.”
God’s
nature will be made known through God’s deeds. God, in other words, will be
shown through God’s best, the love, grace, and protection that God has to
offer. God is made known by expressions of those virtues, and we are mean to
see those expressions in our own lives.
God
is, and will always be, the very best, but it is not God who appears before
Pharaoh. It is Moses, through whom God eventually performs the plagues that
lead up to the Israelites’ liberation.
It
is emphatically not a role that Moses wanted, and one that he spends a great
deal of the following chapter trying to plead his way out of, and really,
understandably so. This isn’t what he has signed up for. He killed a man and
expected to live out the rest of his life in exile from his former existence as
a prince of Egypt. Why would he, of all people, be the one to now return and be
sent to Pharaoh to demand the freedom of Egypt’s Israelite slaves?
Because
he still, with all his failings, represented Israel’s best. He became their
champion. He was the one to represent them, and he did so movingly.
We
do not always get called by God to do that which we think we have signed up
for, either. Our circumstances change, the communities around our churches
shift, and as much as we might want our church to feel like a time capsule, in
which only the bare minimum changes from year to year, we know that this is not
a sustainable way to be church. More is required of us. Just look at the children of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This is never what they signed up for. But they have taken on new roles as our nation's consciences with grace and composure.
We
cast about, then, for our own freedom as a parish—freedom from insecurity,
freedom from fear, and freedom from a mentality of scarcity. We have been
blessed with an incredible story and space, and as poor as we may sometimes
feel, we must remember in those moments that spiritually, we truly are not.
It
is easy, far too easy, to forget the feeling of being blessed. That ease is why
spiritual disciplines are needed of us, for while negative reinforcement tends
to turn into stone, positive reinforcement often evaporates into the ether.
So
even though I will no longer be here several weeks from now to cheer you on, I
hope that you will continue cheering each other on with that positive
reinforcement that comes from a belief that your Christian faith still has a
role to play in our community. I hope that you will continue to see what is
best, and bring that to the fore, during the transition period you are about to
undertake.
For
I realize that this upcoming interim period will require strength that I
imagine will at times, feel herculean or Olympian in nature. You may wonder or
even worry if you have such strength in you at all. Rest assured, you do. I
have faith in this church to do what is right by God, by the Holy Spirit, and
by the Body of Christ. I have faith in what is the very best of us.
That
faith does not, and will not, change after I leave. I will always be praying
for you and cheering you on from afar. God asks an awful lot of us, but generally
rightly so, and I will be hoping for you to keep rising to God’s call in your
ears.
I
continue to believe that God is calling you to be something new and freeing,
that, whatever it is, might unshackle us from feelings of scarcity and back
into faithful abundance. It is a big task, but nowhere near as big as what God
is asking of Moses here, to free a people from not just spiritual scarcity, but
physical and existential scarcity that comes from being enslaved.
Moses,
understandably, thinks that God has picked the wrong person. But we know that
God did no such thing. Nor, then, should we believe that God has picked the wrong
church or congregation.
The
Exodus story is one that is, at its core, about liberation from the bondage of
slavery. It simultaneously belongs to Judaism while also inspiring generations
of abolitionists and liberation theologians to change the course of human
history for the better. I pray that it, in turn, inspires you to change the
course of our own community, and of your own faith and its deeds, for the
better.
For
there is still much work to do. And you are still among those who can do that
work.
Do
not ever forget that divine truth.
May
it be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
February
25, 2018
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