Whom Will You Serve?

Preached by Michael Cheuk
August 24, 2008, Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Exodus 1:8 - 2:10

Well, folks, they’re baaack!  Or to you students, “welcome back!”  What a difference one week makes.  Last week, Farmville was just a sleepy, little town, minding its own business.  The streets were clear, there were plenty of parking spaces, and restaurants had tables available without a wait.  But this past weekend, it seemed like a swarm of locusts descended upon the town, clogging the streets and parking spaces, and devouring food in restaurants.  Merchants like Walmart and Barnes & Nobles are literally minding their businesses as the “cha-ching” of cash registers are echoing throughout town.  Farmville, like so many small college towns, has a love-hate relationship with college students.  On the one hand, there’s no doubt that you students bring a lot of money into our local economy and energy into our community.  On the other hand, I hear the old-timers complain about swarms of students jay-walking across Main St., and how these “foreigners” from northern Virginia and the Tidewater region are taking over the town.

It makes me wonder if the Pharaoh of Egypt had similar feelings about the Israelites who were taking over his country.  These past several Sundays in August, we have been looking at the book of Genesis and focusing on the lives of some of the patriarchs of the Bible, Jacob and Joseph.  Today, we are in the book of Exodus, and a lot has happened since we left Joseph last Sunday.  Joseph had invited his father Jacob and his whole family to move down to Egypt where they would be taken care of during the famine that had struck the land.  Once in Egypt, the Israelites grew and prospered, and they were becoming as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, just as God had promised Abraham in Genesis 22.

But all was not well.  For a new king, one who did not know Joseph, rose to power over Egypt. 

The Blessing of Unity

Preached by Michael Cheuk
August 17, 2008, Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Genesis 45:1-15

Families.  They can be a source of great blessing, or they can be a source of great pain.  Or both.  And this morning, as we continue with the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, we encounter a family that was seriously messed up.  Joseph’s dad, Jacob, could have easily been a guest on the Jerry Springer show.  Jacob had four wives, but only one he really loved.  Jacob himself knew how painful it was to not be the favorite son of his father, and still he played favorites with his own children.  Jacob loved Joseph, the favorite first-born son of his favorite wife, Rachel.  Now, if you’re going to show favoritism toward one of your children, especially one of your youngest, it’s probably wise not to make too big a display of it.  Much better to slip in an extra twenty dollar bill with his lunch money than to buy him a Corvette when he’s still not old enough to drive.  Unfortunately, Jacob just couldn’t help himself.  In big families like that, usually the youngest kids do not get new clothes; they get hand-me-downs.  Oh, but not Joseph.  Joseph received from his father a glitzy coat of many colors - a coat that shouted “I am my dad’s favorite son!”  And while Joseph couldn’t help being his father’s favorite, he certainly didn’t help himself by flaunting that fact in front of his older brothers.  Joseph was a spoiled brat who ratted out his brothers with an evil report about them to their father (Gen. 37:2).  Joseph was also a dreamer of grandiose dreams that envisioned himself being the boss of both his brothers and parents as they bowed down before him.  And Joseph was either stupid or arrogant enough to share those disrespectful dreams with his brothers and his father.  Joseph really put the “diss” into that dysfunctional family!

Wrestling for a Blessing

Preached by Michael Cheuk
August 3, 2008, Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Genesis 32:22-31

When my kids were younger, they would often ask me to wrestle with them, especially Wesley.  It’s a game where the kids would get on top of me and try to pin down every part of my body-my arms, my legs, my fingers and toes and even my head-to the carpet.  And to make the wrestling match more interesting, while they grappled with my arms trying to pin them down as I laid on the carpet, I would stick my left leg straight up in the air accompanied by the sound effect: “boing!”  That would get their attention, and so they would scramble to my raised leg, and as they pushed it down, my left arm would go up in the air-boing!  Wes would then hold on to both my legs as Thea made her way to my raised arm to wrestle it down.  As she did that, I would lift both my legs and Wesley up into the air-boing!  Both kids would squeal with laughter as they went around and around trying to pin down my body.  As soon as they got both arms and legs pinned down, one of my fingers would lift up-boing!  As soon as they got that, my big toe would lift up-boing!-and then my head-boing!  Pretty soon though, I’d get totally exhausted, and when they had every part of my body pinned down, Wesley would reach out with his palm and tap my nose as if it were a hotel concierge bell-ding, ding!-thereby signaling that I lost the wrestling match.  The kids would go away happy for having won the match, and I would limp to the medicine cabinet for my tube of Ben Gay.

Well, this morning’s Old Testament lesson from Genesis recounts another wrestling match, a smackdown seemingly straight out of World Wrestling Entertainment.  On one corner of the ring was Jacob, a “heel” if there ever was one.  Jacob’s name in Hebrew means “heel holder” because he was born holding on to the heel of his older twin brother Esau.[1] The name “Jacob” also means “supplanter,” one who usurps the place of another, especially through intrigue or underhanded tactics.  For most of his life, Jacob was a “Heel,” like wrestling villains Ric Flair, Chris Jericho or “Edge” in pro wrestling, whose tactics matched the behavior of a “heel” as defined by fellow wrestler Jesse Ventura: “Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.”[2]

Wheat and Weeds Together

Preached by Michael Cheuk
July 20, 2008, Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42

When Beth and I lived in Charlottesville, we had a yard about the size of a postage stamp.  We had a push mower, and every other week or so, I’d go out to the yard and mow that sucker in about eight minutes flat.  Then we moved to Farmville and bought a house with a pretty big yard.  We thought it would be great to have a place for church parties and picnics and play dates with the kids.  All that’s true, but it takes me a lot longer than eight minutes to mow the lawn!  So we got a riding mower, and I experienced my first sense of manly pride in mowing.  A few swipes of a push mower just doesn’t do the trick - but riding my Cub Cadet, feeling the power of the engine - now that’s pure masculinity!  I remember finishing the job that first time, pleased with my accomplishment, wiping the sweat from my (manly) brow - when Thea came out of the house and said, “Daddy, what happened to my flowers?”  “Flowers?  What flowers?” I said.  Beth came out and joined the conversation.  “You know, the seeds she planted last month.  The ones she’s been patiently waiting to blossom.”  “You mean those gangly weed looking things were flowers?” I asked.  Ooops.  As a side note, you should probably know that Beth is now the one who mows our lawn.  Talk about a blow to my masculinity!

Thea took it well - and if I remember correctly, the plants themselves somehow survived and sprouted forth a few days later.  But the experience made me do some thinking.  You see, Thea planted those seeds, and when she looked out in that corner of the yard, she saw young plants rapidly growing and on the verge of blossoming.  I looked at that same corner of the lawn and mistakenly saw some leggy weeds - and I mowed those bad boys down.  Frankly, my own vision probably wasn’t entirely wrong; I’m sure there were plenty of weeds mixed in with Thea’s flowers, but I didn’t have the vision or understanding to know the difference.

Our story today encourages us to have vision and understanding, as well.  Jesus continues his series of parables using the commonplace example of farming to paint a picture of what the kingdom of heaven is like. 

Extravagant Investments, Extraordinary Returns

Preached by Michael Cheuk
July 13, 2008, Ninth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

I’ve got a question for you this morning.  How many of you either presently or in the past have farmed or cultivated crops?  Oh good!  I need your help, since, being a city boy, I know very little about farming.  What are some things that you need to prepare the soil to successfully plant a crop?  How would you go about sowing your seeds?  (This is not a rhetorical question, you can go ahead and answer.)

From everything that I’ve read and seen, if a person is going to make a living out of farming, then the farmer will need to prepare the field carefully, ridding it of big rocks, tilling the soil to break up lumps of dirt, and then carefully plant and fertilize the seed into the well-prepared soil.  As I travel around, I’m often struck by the beauty of farmlands that have rows and rows of crops lining the field.  You can tell that not much was left to chance in the planting of those seeds.

Now suppose you hear about a farmer who, one day, decided to plant a field.  He loads up his broadcast seed spreader, hooks it up to the back of his John Deere, fires it up, and starts spreading seed while still rumbling down the asphalt driveway, indiscriminately scattering seed onto the road and gravel pits, into the side ditches, and upon the briar and weed infested patches before he even gets to his fields.  There are three words that might describe this sower: “dumb,” “crazy” and “ex-farmer.”  Everyone knows that seed is a precious commodity, and one doesn’t just indiscriminately scatter it around if one wants to maximize the return on one’s investment and maximize the size of the harvest.

But that’s exactly what this sower in Jesus’ parable does: he indiscriminately “sows” the seed onto all sorts of unsuitable places. 

Invitation to Rest

Preached by Michael Cheuk
July 6, 2008, Eighth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

During these summer months, many of us look forward to taking our vacations.  In the United States, the average number of vacation days per year is 13 days.  In Korea and Japan, it is 25 days.  In Germany it is 35 days.  And in Italy, it tops out at 42 days of vacation a year.[1] Now, that’s some serious rest and relaxation!  And while 42 days of vacation might sound wonderful to us now, I hazard to guess that after five days of vacation, most of us will get restless and antsy about work, calling the office and sneaking an email here and there.  And after ten days of “vacation,” our spouses and children will be begging us to return back to work because they’ll need a vacation from us!  We in the United States live in a workaholic culture where much of our identity and significance are derived from how busy we are, and we demand high levels of productivity from ourselves and from others.  We live hectic lives.  We burn the candle from both ends.  At the end of the day, when we are spent and exhausted, we want to be like that woman in the old TV commercial who luxuriates in a bubble bath while saying, “Calgon, take me away!”  But bubble baths can only do so much.  The fact is, we are a people who are chronically weary and burdened.  And Jesus here is seemingly offering us a gracious invitation to rest.  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

What a wonderful invitation!  Those words are like a peaceful oasis of refreshment in the midst of the desert of our busyness and restlessness.  Now, if only Jesus could have stopped right there, I would have been totally with him, for who doesn’t need a break from work and the burdens of everyday living?  But Jesus continues his invitation in verse 29: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”  Now, what could Jesus have meant by that?  When we think of the word yoke, we have in mind a crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen working together.  A yoke is something that binds two beasts of burden together for the purpose of farm work.  It is usually a metaphor used for any burden or bondage, not for rest and relaxation.  You won’t find one picture of a yoke in a brochure for some cushy spa vacation.  If Jesus had taken lessons from Madison Avenue, He might have said, “Come to me and take my hammock.  Come to me and have an umbrella drink by the beach.  Come to me and enjoy a massage.”  But “Come to me and take up my yoke”?  Doesn’t that seem a little sadistic for Jesus to add an additional burden of a yoke on people who were already weary and burdened?

The Great Physician

Preached by Michael Cheuk
June 8, 2008, Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

My roommate from college and I are both doctors.  I have a doctorate in religious studies, and he is a medical doctor.  Though there’s a world of difference between being a minister and being a physician, we still share some things in common.  First, when we’re at parties or meeting new people, many times, we hesitate to reveal our occupations.  Here’s my situation: I can be having a great conversation with someone, laughing, and telling stories, and then out of the blue comes the question, “So what do you do for a living?”  “I’m a Baptist minister,” I tell them, in the most casual and least-guilt-inducing way I can imagine - but it’s too late.  Their faces blanche, their eyes get wide, they shift their beers to behind their backs, and say, “Well, uh, nice talking to you.”  My former college roommate perhaps gets it even worse.  When his new acquaintances find out that he’s a doctor, they often say, “An ear, nose, throat doctor, eh?  I’ve got this growth on the back of my throat.  Would you mind looking at it? People are always trying to get him to give free medical advice or sample medicines.  I know, because I’ve tried to do that too when I visit him!  The second thing we have in common is that, in our different callings, we are both interested in healing-I am interested in healing in the spiritual realm, and he in the physical realm.

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, we find Jesus involved in both spiritual and physical healing.  In the previous chapters in Matthew, Jesus has been gaining fame and acclaim throughout Galilee for his healing ministry.  He had just healed two demon-possessed men and a paralytic, and now, he invited a tax collector named Matthew to follow him as his disciple.  In response, Matthew had Jesus over for a dinner party and invited a few of his friends.  And what takes place is an interesting story filled with an interesting cast of characters.  I’d like to spend a little time this morning highlighting these characters.

Created in the Image of God

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 18, 2008, Trinity Sunday, Year A
Genesis 1:1-2:3; Psalm 8:1-9

Today is Trinity Sunday, a day in the Church year when we acknowledge the belief that we worship and serve one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This doctrine is one of the most difficult to understand, and it is a stumbling block for many Christians and non-Christians alike. In the next 10 minutes or so, I’ll try to explore one aspect of this doctrine to the best of my ability, but at the end of the day, I must acknowledge that our affirmation of the unity of God in three Persons is a holy mystery. Explaining the mystery of the Trinity is like trying to explain the mystery of love—we can try to apprehend it, but ultimately, we are called to live in that mystery even though we might not fully understand it.

The Bible never explicitly teaches the doctrine of the Trinity—in fact, the word “trinity” never shows up in the Bible. Nonetheless, within the pages of the Bible, there are intimations that there are three distinct Persons in the one God we worship. In the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, we read that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the process of creation, the Spirit of God hovered over the dark, chaotic waters before the word of God was spoken to create light and the rest of the world out of chaos. Also, in the beginning of the Gospel of John, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” In these verses here, John is writing about Jesus as the Word of God who was in the beginning with God in the creation of all things. Through these two passages, we can see how a Trinitarian God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—created the universe.

The Breath of Life

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 11, 2008, Pentecost Sunday, Year A
Psalm 104:24-34; Acts 2:1-21

Today, we are celebrating a very special birthday in the life of our church. Yes, Cecil Yeatts is celebrating his 80th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Cecil! 10 more years and you’ll get to celebrate your 90th like Billy Johnson did yesterday! And yes, today also happens to be my birthday. Happy Birthday, me! But more special than these two birthdays, today is Pentecost Sunday, a day on the Christian calendar in which we celebrate the birthday of the Church. Today, we celebrate our birthday as the community of faith of Jesus. Happy Birthday, all of us!

It’s always been interesting to me that we go all-out celebrating the birthday of Jesus during Christmas and we make a big deal celebrating the resurrection of Jesus at Easter, but when it comes to celebrating our birthday as the Church of Jesus Christ, many Christians, we Baptists included, mostly ignore it. In fact, I’m willing to guess that most evangelical churches today will emphasize Mother’s Day more than Pentecost Sunday.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Mother’s Day and recognizing the role that mothers play in bringing forth, sustaining and nurturing life. After all, everyone in this room came into being through a biological mother. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here today. Our mothers carried us in their wombs for around nine months, giving us sustenance and life during a time when we couldn’t do that for ourselves. And then for many mothers, they had to go through a painful labor and delivery process. Bill Cosby once quoted Carol Burnett’s description of what labor pain is like: “Take your bottom lip and pull it over your head!” And through all the breathing and the pushing, our mothers gave birth to us. And we can all be extremely thankful for that. Even so, no matter how much our mothers did for us while we were still in the womb, once we were out, we still had to draw our first breath of life in order to stay alive out in the world apart from the protective cocoon of our mother’s womb.

On that first Pentecost Sunday described in Acts chapter 2, Jesus’ disciples went through a similar birthing experience.

A Prayer for the Church

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 4, 2008, Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A
John 17:1-11

Have you ever unknowingly walked in on a person who was praying?  It can be a somewhat awkward situation.  I remember one Sunday morning at University Baptist Church, and I was preparing for the worship service.  I had one quick question for Tom Leland, my senior pastor, and so I walked into his office.  I found him in front of a chair on his knees, hands clasped, head bowed obviously deep in prayer.  I quickly turned around and stepped out of his office and waited until he came out before I asked him the question.  He knew that I had entered his office while he was praying, but he was gracious enough not to mention it.

His response was quite different from mine when we had a group of friends over one night for dinner.  One couple, who was notorious for always being late, was of course, late for the meal.  The food was all set out on the dinner table and our other friends were all ready to sit down when we heard that couple’s car drive up.  So we all quickly found our places around the table, and pretended we were saying the blessing.  And right as they walked into the front entrance near the dining room, I prayed: “And O Lord, please be with the Wilsons, as once again they are late.  Let them know that we waited as long as we could before deciding to partake of this meal.  Inspire them to bring a very nice dessert to make up for their tardiness!”  Our tardy friends were at first very quiet and reverent, until they quickly realized that my prayer was part of a joke.

Well this morning, in our Gospel lesson from the book of John, we are given the opportunity to overhear a prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples.  This was a prayer that Jesus prayed to his Heavenly Father, but it was also a prayer that was intended to be overheard by his disciples.  And this prayer was no joke.