09 Pentecost A 08
July 13, 2008
Romans 8:1-11
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law--indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Spirit and Flesh
We are preaching this month about the process of discernment, particularly as we ask the question, “What does God want Philippi to be and do?”
This relates certainly to the question, “what does God want me to be and do?” And I suppose there may be people here this morning who are wondering about that as well.
Last week we spoke about standing still and letting God’s grace wash over us. More importantly, we spoke about relying on God and not on ourselves for the direction we need as a congregation.
This week we speak more directly just how does one rely on God for direction.
Discernment is a fancy word that basically means making choices. The root word in Latin means to “perceive apart.” How do we “perceive apart” God’s particular will among the many choices available to us?
It would seem that when we get down to cases—“Should I do this or that?”—we are presented with a bewildering array of choices. So many good things we could do. What Paul is offering here is a bigger choice, a larger context in which to think about these things.
The word “Spirit” is mentioned ten times in this passage. The word “flesh” is used nine times. The theme here would seem to be obvious.
A choice is set before us. Spirit or flesh. What is meant by these words?
Paul says that the flesh weakens the law, so that the law cannot do what it was meant to do. Living according to the flesh is death. The flesh is hostile to God and does not submit to his law. The flesh cannot please God.
Paul is talking about sarx, which we translate into English as “flesh.” But sarx might be better translated as “instinct.” We all have natural instincts God has given to us. But if we turn to those instincts as ultimate things, which is our normal unreflective tendency, we become enslaved and caught up in sin. It is good to be married and have that pleasurable intimacy with one’s spouse, but if we want to have that same intimacy with many other people, we have become enslaved to our instinct. It is a normal instinct to provide for oneself and one’s family, but if we dedicate our whole lives to the pursuit of money, we have become enslaved to the instinct.
The law was given as a kind of dream of God to the people of God, God’s vision of how his people would relate to each other. But instincts, the natural desires God himself gave us for our benefit and growth, replaced God in the highest place within his people’s hearts. And so his law, his great vision for what his people would look like, was weakened, as Paul says, and was not able to do what it was meant to do.
Because these instincts for survival, in all their myriad forms, so easily take the place of God in the rule of our hearts, we really can’t completely trust our consciences. At the level of “sarx,” we are all hostile to God, because God calls us away from the things we hold the dearest, and demands that he take the top place. Paul even seems to suggest that the universal problem of death is due directly to this problem. The “sarx” is the present body that is decaying and dying.
In contrast to this, Paul says that the Spirit of God is a new kind of law that sets us free from this impossible situation. Those who live according to the Spirit are able to fulfill what the law was meant to do. The Spirit is life and peace. Indeed the Spirit is the Spirit of eternal life that is at work in each believer, transforming him or her into a new being, one destined to rise from the dead, one who is able to do what ordinary human beings are unable to do. Paul calls them elsewhere, “the children of light.”
A woman had a dream that she walked into a new shop in the mall and to her surprise, found God behind the counter.
"What do you sell here?" she asked.
"Everything your heart desires," said God. "Everything."
Hardly daring to believe what she was hearing, the woman decided to ask for the best things a human could wish for. "I'll take some peace of mind and love and happiness and wisdom and freedom from fear, " she said. Then as an afterthought, she added, "Not just for me. For everyone on earth."
God smiled. "I think you've got me wrong, my dear," God said, "We don't sell the fruits here. We only sell the seeds."
Perhaps we could think of the Holy Spirit as a seed, a very small thing, something you might miss if you didn’t look hard enough. It’s also rather fragile, particularly at the beginning of its life. It is implanted with the word of God, particularly that strange and disturbing and wonderful message, “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.”
Jesus tells the story of the sower in another passage appointed for this morning:
You remember the story? Some seed on the path that got taken by birds because it couldn’t even take root. Some seed went in the rocky soil where it couldn’t put down deep roots, so when the sun came out it withered and died. Some soil fell among the briars and so while the roots were deep, the briars choked the plant. But some seed fell on the good soil, took deep root, and produced much fruit.
And so the process we must turn to is the process not of trying to think up things to do, but rather of emptying ourselves of everything that could stand in the way of God’s spirit, clearing the soil so that our minds are no longer on the things of the flesh but on the things of the spirit.
What does this look like?
First off, I think a Christian community must be marked by self-honesty. There are those at Philippi that appreciate my self-revelation, my little confessions of fault. There are those who are made rather uncomfortable by them. I do them not to gain approbation or critique, but rather as an example to you of the self-honesty Christ calls us all to.
I’ll say it bluntly: if you can’t think of anything you do in disobedience to God, you are lying to yourself. No one can point these things out to you. God has not given that job to anyone but you. And of course, being bluntly honest with others about their faults is not being honest at all. It’s just being rude.
That being said, I want to make it very clear also that admitting one’s faults as fully and as completely as one can is a great relief. It is part of a path to real peace. How much time do I spend justifying myself, when I could be spending that same time building up someone else?
But self-honesty is also about being self-aware. So many people seem to walk around with one of those lead vests they use to block x-rays, burying their feelings under its weight. Self-honesty can also be about removing that lead vest and feeling ones’ real feelings.
And there are those too who genuinely feel they are hopelessly bad and unforgiveable. That is as dishonest as thinking one is beyond reproach. The truth is that with God all things are possible.
Being truly honest with oneself is the spiritual work of clearing the soil, or to put it in Paul’s terms, getting the mind off the flesh so that it can focus on God’s Spirit.
Moreover, public sharing of the truth of one’s self can be encouraging to others who are afraid. This is another important aspect of congregational life. An atmosphere in which people publicly evaluate themselves, without commenting on other’s self-evaluation, is a safe place to grow.
Secondly, remaining open to God’s Spirit necessarily involves regular and frequent worship, prayer, study. Nothing will come out of the soil if there are no seeds. God is the sower and God gives the growth in the soil.
And thirdly, witness and service, that is, the public testimony to Jesus Christ and the resurrection through outreach and evangelism in his name both locally and around the world is a part of remaining focused on the things of Spirit. Part of this work is generous giving to the church, so that all that is done is done in Christ’s name. To paraphrase the old saying, you can’t keep Christ unless you give him away.
I said in a newsletter article three years ago that the church grows when people are growing. The only one who can truly give the growth is God, and therefore, if we are truly growing, God is here with us. When individuals in the church grow, the work God does through them also grows. Moreover, when individuals are growing, they attract a crowd.
As we reflect on Philippi’s mission for the next five years, each one of us might ask ourselves, “Am I growing in the Spirit of Christ?” If the answer is yes, we might then ask, “How and in what particular ways am I growing in the Spirit? What is Christ doing through me?” The answer to those questions could become your witness to your neighbors and friends about what Christ is doing for you. It could open the door to more ministries.
And if the answer is no, we might ask, “What must I do to ready myself for God’s power to work in my life? What is standing in my way? How can my pastor or my church help me?”
The same question can be asked of Philippi. Is Philippi growing in the spirit of Christ? How exactly and in what ways? Is there anything keeping us from growing into the fullness of Christ as a congregation full of the power of the resurrection in this particular place and time? In what ways are we focused on the flesh at Philippi, and in what ways are we obeying the Spirit?
More next week.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Eighth Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008
July Drafts 2008
08 Pentecost A 2008
July 6, 2008
Romans 7:15-25a
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
The Rescuer
Philippi is beginning to ask itself the question: What does God want us to do and be?
We are each accustomed, I suppose, to being concerned with God’s will for us as individuals. But how often have we given thought to our purpose as a congregation?
Today’s lesson opens the door on what we might term the problem the church addresses.
Throughout my life I wanted to do not just the right thing, but the very best thing. I craved success in life, a kind of success that would change the world in some hugely positive way. And in the process of doing this, I got in more and more and more trouble.
Along the way, for the sake of what I thought was my great mission, I hurt all kinds of people, destroyed all kinds of relationships, and had absolutely no clue that I was in the wrong. Quite the contrary, I was sure that everyone else was to blame and I was just trying to be the best person I could be. I ended up in a dark spiritual prison of my own making, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually shattered.
In the midst of my despair, God reached out to me through a whole set of amazing people from all sorts of quarters around me.
I had a wonderful mentor name Willie Steinbach, a layman. Willie is dying now, a slow death in the twilight of stroke-related dementia, at his home in Urbanna. I have asked Philippi to adopt him and his wife Judy and I encourage you to visit him. If you’re lucky, he’ll smile at you and you’ll see in his eyes the great joy in his spirit.
At the time he became my friend, I was just coming back from a wild ride in Nervous Breakdown Land. I was deeply afraid of slipping back into the madness I’d been living in for some years previous. I used to call him up or get together with him and I’d lay out all the things that were happening in my life and all my fears about them. I’d ask him what to do.
He’d say, “Stand still.” Just “Stand still.” In fact, a number of people who had been helped by Willie used to call him “Stand Still Willie.” Sometimes he’d add, “Just let this thing wash over you.”
By “this thing,” he meant God’s grace and power. I had been so used to conquering my problems myself, facing them down in the street like some lone gunman in an old western. What I didn’t realize was that this very belief was the bondage that nearly destroyed me.
I had no idea what real freedom looked like or felt like. I had no idea how light the yoke of Christ actually was. But once I stood still and let the grace of God wash over me, I began to have glimpses.
An amazing new discovery in the Spirit was the experience of falling in love with God. This is not a romantic kind of love, but it’s more like that passionate love a boy has for his mother or a girl for her father. This kind of love has no concern about the law of God. Why does anyone who loves God need to worry about the law of God? The only thing one wants is to please God in everything all the time. When in the Spirit, there is nothing short of perfection that any child of God wants to strive for.
And there is no desire to take any of the credit for what God is doing.
I think this is one of the things people find most difficult to accept. That the only real power in the world is God’s. That human power is really nothing but a kind of mass delusion in which humankind is more-or-less hopelessly trapped.
In Matthew Jesus uses the parable of people refusing, on the one hand, to dance to the flute of the wedding, and on the other, to mourn when hearing wailing. He was speaking about the resistance he faced from the religious leaders of his day. John the Baptist was ascetic and people accused him of being possessed, while Jesus came celebrating and people said he was an alcoholic.
I remember seeing a woman at a wedding trying to get her six-year-old son to dance. The little boy was not getting something he wanted, so he was pouting and refusing to participate. The woman, possibly the boy’s mother, tried drawing him out for a slow dance and letting him stand on her feet, but he was wooden and sullen the whole time. Then, when a faster song came along, she wiggled and jumped and smiled encouragingly at him, but he only stood at the fringes of the crowd with his hands in his pockets.
The gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an invitation to live a life full of holy joy and anticipation. It is above all an invitation to shake free of the burdens imposed on us by the decay and death we see all around and even within us. But are we able to, apart from the power of Christ?
Throughout the letter to the Romans, Paul struggles with this question and tries to interpret it through the lens of the Old Testament. How did human beings end up in such a bondage that they are not free to be what they deeply and truly want to be. Paul goes all the way back to Genesis and the story of Adam in the garden.
“He started it!” Do you remember that playground defense? Somehow we think if the other guy started something, then we are justified in returning tit for tat. In fact, we are such social creatures, God has made us so, that we tend to take as permission everything everyone else does.
Do you remember the old dialogue with mom? She’d ask, “Why did you do that?” and you said, “Well, Frankie was doing it too.” And Mom said, “If Frankie jumped off a cliff, would you jump off the cliff too?”
The fact is, yes, we probably would.
A study was reported in the book The Tipping Point about a rash of suicides on an isolated island in the South Pacific. All the suicides were teen-aged boys. It was found that all had killed themselves over unrequited love. The study concluded that when the first boy killed himself, and the event was reported along with its cause, others suffering unrequited love were, in a strange subconscious way, given permission to follow suit. This is how human beings relate to one another. We naturally follow along with the rest of the group with which we identify ourselves.
Paul makes the point that it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole darn bunch. Adam, by disobeying God, opened a Pandora’s box we are all absolutely unable to shut.
But Paul goes on to say that if one bad apple can spoil a whole darn bunch, one resurrected apple can make a bunch of spoiled ones fresh. If one man gave us all permission to disobey God, one man can also give us permission to obey him.
This is the message of the gospel. Christ is risen. Death is defeated and it’s only a matter of time before God sets everything right, every wrong will be punished, every victim redressed. Anyone who believes this good news begins to be transformed themselves.
Of course, very few actually believe this. Very few want to believe it. First of all, it takes the whole process out of human hands and that is offensive to wise and worldly people who think human beings are quite capable of straightening things out on their own. Those who cannot are simply deficient and deserve whatever they get.
In the mid-nineteenth century, when the Disciples were really taking off, a guy named Miller thought he had figured out when Jesus was coming again, and he set a date. A lot of people believed him.
Many people sold everything they had and gave the money away. Lots of people paid off old debts and reconciled themselves with former enemies. Others wrote passionate letters to the government about various social injustices they felt had to be addressed right now. In short, the concrete expectation of resurrection made a huge difference in how they thought about their lives, their world and their neighbors.
Of course, thousands gathered on the day in question, which eventually came to be known as the Great Disappointment. Of interest is that some of those people clung to a belief that something cosmic had indeed happened, but had been hidden from view. That group went on to become the Seventh-Day Adventists.
We of course do not share these particular views of the coming kingdom. But it seems to me if we are going to think about our mission as a congregation, we need to come to some common understanding, however imperfect, of just what God is doing in the world through the church.
Today’s lesson from Paul gives us the beginning of an answer. People want to love God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their minds, and their neighbors as themselves, but they are prevented from doing so. It is our job to let them know that Christ offers us the power and the grace to be set free.
It is our job as a congregation to be that rush of grace that each new believers can just stand still and let wash over them.
Amen.
08 Pentecost A 2008
July 6, 2008
Romans 7:15-25a
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
The Rescuer
Philippi is beginning to ask itself the question: What does God want us to do and be?
We are each accustomed, I suppose, to being concerned with God’s will for us as individuals. But how often have we given thought to our purpose as a congregation?
Today’s lesson opens the door on what we might term the problem the church addresses.
Throughout my life I wanted to do not just the right thing, but the very best thing. I craved success in life, a kind of success that would change the world in some hugely positive way. And in the process of doing this, I got in more and more and more trouble.
Along the way, for the sake of what I thought was my great mission, I hurt all kinds of people, destroyed all kinds of relationships, and had absolutely no clue that I was in the wrong. Quite the contrary, I was sure that everyone else was to blame and I was just trying to be the best person I could be. I ended up in a dark spiritual prison of my own making, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually shattered.
In the midst of my despair, God reached out to me through a whole set of amazing people from all sorts of quarters around me.
I had a wonderful mentor name Willie Steinbach, a layman. Willie is dying now, a slow death in the twilight of stroke-related dementia, at his home in Urbanna. I have asked Philippi to adopt him and his wife Judy and I encourage you to visit him. If you’re lucky, he’ll smile at you and you’ll see in his eyes the great joy in his spirit.
At the time he became my friend, I was just coming back from a wild ride in Nervous Breakdown Land. I was deeply afraid of slipping back into the madness I’d been living in for some years previous. I used to call him up or get together with him and I’d lay out all the things that were happening in my life and all my fears about them. I’d ask him what to do.
He’d say, “Stand still.” Just “Stand still.” In fact, a number of people who had been helped by Willie used to call him “Stand Still Willie.” Sometimes he’d add, “Just let this thing wash over you.”
By “this thing,” he meant God’s grace and power. I had been so used to conquering my problems myself, facing them down in the street like some lone gunman in an old western. What I didn’t realize was that this very belief was the bondage that nearly destroyed me.
I had no idea what real freedom looked like or felt like. I had no idea how light the yoke of Christ actually was. But once I stood still and let the grace of God wash over me, I began to have glimpses.
An amazing new discovery in the Spirit was the experience of falling in love with God. This is not a romantic kind of love, but it’s more like that passionate love a boy has for his mother or a girl for her father. This kind of love has no concern about the law of God. Why does anyone who loves God need to worry about the law of God? The only thing one wants is to please God in everything all the time. When in the Spirit, there is nothing short of perfection that any child of God wants to strive for.
And there is no desire to take any of the credit for what God is doing.
I think this is one of the things people find most difficult to accept. That the only real power in the world is God’s. That human power is really nothing but a kind of mass delusion in which humankind is more-or-less hopelessly trapped.
In Matthew Jesus uses the parable of people refusing, on the one hand, to dance to the flute of the wedding, and on the other, to mourn when hearing wailing. He was speaking about the resistance he faced from the religious leaders of his day. John the Baptist was ascetic and people accused him of being possessed, while Jesus came celebrating and people said he was an alcoholic.
I remember seeing a woman at a wedding trying to get her six-year-old son to dance. The little boy was not getting something he wanted, so he was pouting and refusing to participate. The woman, possibly the boy’s mother, tried drawing him out for a slow dance and letting him stand on her feet, but he was wooden and sullen the whole time. Then, when a faster song came along, she wiggled and jumped and smiled encouragingly at him, but he only stood at the fringes of the crowd with his hands in his pockets.
The gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an invitation to live a life full of holy joy and anticipation. It is above all an invitation to shake free of the burdens imposed on us by the decay and death we see all around and even within us. But are we able to, apart from the power of Christ?
Throughout the letter to the Romans, Paul struggles with this question and tries to interpret it through the lens of the Old Testament. How did human beings end up in such a bondage that they are not free to be what they deeply and truly want to be. Paul goes all the way back to Genesis and the story of Adam in the garden.
“He started it!” Do you remember that playground defense? Somehow we think if the other guy started something, then we are justified in returning tit for tat. In fact, we are such social creatures, God has made us so, that we tend to take as permission everything everyone else does.
Do you remember the old dialogue with mom? She’d ask, “Why did you do that?” and you said, “Well, Frankie was doing it too.” And Mom said, “If Frankie jumped off a cliff, would you jump off the cliff too?”
The fact is, yes, we probably would.
A study was reported in the book The Tipping Point about a rash of suicides on an isolated island in the South Pacific. All the suicides were teen-aged boys. It was found that all had killed themselves over unrequited love. The study concluded that when the first boy killed himself, and the event was reported along with its cause, others suffering unrequited love were, in a strange subconscious way, given permission to follow suit. This is how human beings relate to one another. We naturally follow along with the rest of the group with which we identify ourselves.
Paul makes the point that it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole darn bunch. Adam, by disobeying God, opened a Pandora’s box we are all absolutely unable to shut.
But Paul goes on to say that if one bad apple can spoil a whole darn bunch, one resurrected apple can make a bunch of spoiled ones fresh. If one man gave us all permission to disobey God, one man can also give us permission to obey him.
This is the message of the gospel. Christ is risen. Death is defeated and it’s only a matter of time before God sets everything right, every wrong will be punished, every victim redressed. Anyone who believes this good news begins to be transformed themselves.
Of course, very few actually believe this. Very few want to believe it. First of all, it takes the whole process out of human hands and that is offensive to wise and worldly people who think human beings are quite capable of straightening things out on their own. Those who cannot are simply deficient and deserve whatever they get.
In the mid-nineteenth century, when the Disciples were really taking off, a guy named Miller thought he had figured out when Jesus was coming again, and he set a date. A lot of people believed him.
Many people sold everything they had and gave the money away. Lots of people paid off old debts and reconciled themselves with former enemies. Others wrote passionate letters to the government about various social injustices they felt had to be addressed right now. In short, the concrete expectation of resurrection made a huge difference in how they thought about their lives, their world and their neighbors.
Of course, thousands gathered on the day in question, which eventually came to be known as the Great Disappointment. Of interest is that some of those people clung to a belief that something cosmic had indeed happened, but had been hidden from view. That group went on to become the Seventh-Day Adventists.
We of course do not share these particular views of the coming kingdom. But it seems to me if we are going to think about our mission as a congregation, we need to come to some common understanding, however imperfect, of just what God is doing in the world through the church.
Today’s lesson from Paul gives us the beginning of an answer. People want to love God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their minds, and their neighbors as themselves, but they are prevented from doing so. It is our job to let them know that Christ offers us the power and the grace to be set free.
It is our job as a congregation to be that rush of grace that each new believers can just stand still and let wash over them.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008
07 Pentecost A 08
June 29, 2008
Romans 6:12-23
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Getting Used
Being human is about being used.
Most of us, when we think of being used, think about people manipulating us. It’s a vaguely dishonest thing. You know what I’m talking about. They come at you making it sound like they’re going to do something for you, but then by the end you’re the one doing all the giving.
Another way we talk about this is when we’re dehumanized by the world we live in. Do you ever feel like you’re a statistic? A demographic someone is trying to manipulate into buying or giving or serving or supporting? Do you ever feel like the world is this never-ending bartering game? The question is always, if you want something from me, well, what have you done for me lately?
Most of us think of ourselves individually as not participating in this syndrome. But really, what do we spend most of our time doing? If we’re not working for the boss, we’re working for the house, we’re working for the kids, we’re working for the spouse, we’re working for the community.
Being human is about being used.
People struggle very hard all their lives to get to the place where they are in a position to use others without being used themselves. A very few do attain this great goal. We call them the government.
Just kidding.
Make no mistake, you are being used. It is only a question of determining by what.
Certainly the economy is using you. The great and incomprehensible machine of world trade is using you. You bring your contribution and it is swept into the cycle and it spits out some of the things, though probably not everything, you want.
And yes, the government in all its varying levels is using you. It takes its bite out of your annual paycheck and spits out some of the things, though probably not everything, you want from it.
Certainly, your social circle is using you, your family and friends. You have a role to play that is important to them, and likewise, they have roles they more or less faithfully play, so that the whole thing produces some, though probably not all, of the things you want from your social circle.
We are so used to this world of barter and trade, this “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” culture, that we barely think about it. It seems, though, doesn’t it, that we all freely enter into these agreements, that we are choosing who or what uses us and to what extent they do. If we are used, we are allowing it freely.
But really, how much choice do we have? How much freedom do we have to willingly offer ourselves to any of these? What would happen if we stopped paying taxes? If we completely rejected any other human being from social involvement in our lives? What if we opted out of the economic system, stopped working, for example, or blew our pension and investments on movie tickets and dinners out?
Well, we’d have some consequences, wouldn’t we? We’d lose stuff. We’d lose security. We might be jailed or imprisoned. We might lose our lives!
This week we’ll celebrate the Fourth of July. One of the key themes of that celebration is the notion of freedom. I’d like to read to you from a sermon preached by one of the founders of the Disciples movement, Alexander Campbell:
In the book of Genesis, when God began this great project of building a nation for himself, he called Abraham, who was old and married to a barren wife, and miraculously gave him a son. This was the greatest joy of Abraham’s life, and his deepest love. But then, in a somewhat horrifying story, he called upon Abraham to sacrifice that very son.
The story haunts us because it asks us about our priorities, about what we are devoting our lives to and why. What is using us, and to what end?
Paul speaks to us about presenting our members to sin. This would seem to be self-evident, given the way most of us think about sin. But sin, understood from Paul’s perspective, is simply that unreflective way most of us live our lives, the millions of little decisions we barely think about, the thousands of ways we buy into the powers that are using us, the things we do that really, at the end of the day, are about our own survival, our own power, our own superiority, our own status, our own achievements, our own family, our own nation, our own race, our own wealth. We present ourselves to be used, and the ultimate user is ourselves.
We offer ourselves to be used by whatever power seems to be holding the gun to our heads, or by whatever power removes it even for a time. We offer ourselves to be used by whatever power is holding the biggest gun, particularly if that gun is pointed at someone else.
And what is the final paycheck these things issue to us? What at the end of the day do we really get from any of them? You’ve heard all the old clichés, haven’t you, about there being no U-Hauls on hearses? The final paycheck is death. Period.
But Jesus presented himself to be used by God. And God used him to reveal his love. God used him to announce that the terrible power of death would be defeated. God used him to heal and to forgive and to feed.
Jesus refused to be used by the biggest guns of his days, and they did exactly what they do whenever anyone defies them. They killed him. But then, three days later, God raised him from the dead. We know this because a whole lot of people at the time saw him. He was different than he had been before he had been killed. He was a new kind of human being. Yet he was real, and he was alive. He ate with his disciples. They touched him. God had defeated death.
If we believe this, nothing can ever be the same for us. The way is opened for us to present ourselves to be used by God.
Alexander Campbell completed his Fourth of July sermon with these words:
This is the practice of our baptism, the principle of repentance as a way of life. The world and all its powers are constantly at us, constantly threatening us, constantly demanding our obedience. Repentance is turning away from them in an intentionally way and presenting oneself to God.
Christian practice, worship, prayer, biblical study, meditation, self-examination, confession, these are the intentional practices of repentance, intentional work that we do to turn our backs on the powers of the world and present ourselves to Jesus Christ.
Here’s a quote from a Bob Dylan song. You can get it on his album Slow Train Coming.
June 29, 2008
Romans 6:12-23
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Getting Used
Being human is about being used.
Most of us, when we think of being used, think about people manipulating us. It’s a vaguely dishonest thing. You know what I’m talking about. They come at you making it sound like they’re going to do something for you, but then by the end you’re the one doing all the giving.
Another way we talk about this is when we’re dehumanized by the world we live in. Do you ever feel like you’re a statistic? A demographic someone is trying to manipulate into buying or giving or serving or supporting? Do you ever feel like the world is this never-ending bartering game? The question is always, if you want something from me, well, what have you done for me lately?
Most of us think of ourselves individually as not participating in this syndrome. But really, what do we spend most of our time doing? If we’re not working for the boss, we’re working for the house, we’re working for the kids, we’re working for the spouse, we’re working for the community.
Being human is about being used.
People struggle very hard all their lives to get to the place where they are in a position to use others without being used themselves. A very few do attain this great goal. We call them the government.
Just kidding.
Make no mistake, you are being used. It is only a question of determining by what.
Certainly the economy is using you. The great and incomprehensible machine of world trade is using you. You bring your contribution and it is swept into the cycle and it spits out some of the things, though probably not everything, you want.
And yes, the government in all its varying levels is using you. It takes its bite out of your annual paycheck and spits out some of the things, though probably not everything, you want from it.
Certainly, your social circle is using you, your family and friends. You have a role to play that is important to them, and likewise, they have roles they more or less faithfully play, so that the whole thing produces some, though probably not all, of the things you want from your social circle.
We are so used to this world of barter and trade, this “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” culture, that we barely think about it. It seems, though, doesn’t it, that we all freely enter into these agreements, that we are choosing who or what uses us and to what extent they do. If we are used, we are allowing it freely.
But really, how much choice do we have? How much freedom do we have to willingly offer ourselves to any of these? What would happen if we stopped paying taxes? If we completely rejected any other human being from social involvement in our lives? What if we opted out of the economic system, stopped working, for example, or blew our pension and investments on movie tickets and dinners out?
Well, we’d have some consequences, wouldn’t we? We’d lose stuff. We’d lose security. We might be jailed or imprisoned. We might lose our lives!
This week we’ll celebrate the Fourth of July. One of the key themes of that celebration is the notion of freedom. I’d like to read to you from a sermon preached by one of the founders of the Disciples movement, Alexander Campbell:
Talk not of liberty which only makes men greater slaves. Under the monarchies ofI think many of our members don’t realize how ahead of their time our founders were. Campbell said that while our system of government is a great blow against the idea of one person’s tyranny over another, it opens up and encourages a new idolatry, the worship of the self.
the Old World men are more free from themselves than under the free government
of these United States. The reason is, under this free government the citizens
have the opportunity and the liberty of improving and bettering their
circumstances to such an extent as to engross all their energies, to call forth
all their powers: hence, upon themselves they impose such tasks and inflict such
toils and privations as few of the monarchies of the East would be so cruel as
to impose upon their subjects. Here in this land of liberty we see all men
striving for power. The accomplishment of one or more projects does not diminish
their labor or their enterprise. Quite the reverse: the more successful, the
more eager to commence again. And how often, how very often, do we see men dying under the whip of their own cupidity, in full harness pulling up the hill of
their own ambition, when death kindly interposes, takes the burden off their
galled shoulders, and strips them for the shroud! Yet they boast of being free!
Free!—yes, to make slaves of themselves!
In the book of Genesis, when God began this great project of building a nation for himself, he called Abraham, who was old and married to a barren wife, and miraculously gave him a son. This was the greatest joy of Abraham’s life, and his deepest love. But then, in a somewhat horrifying story, he called upon Abraham to sacrifice that very son.
The story haunts us because it asks us about our priorities, about what we are devoting our lives to and why. What is using us, and to what end?
Paul speaks to us about presenting our members to sin. This would seem to be self-evident, given the way most of us think about sin. But sin, understood from Paul’s perspective, is simply that unreflective way most of us live our lives, the millions of little decisions we barely think about, the thousands of ways we buy into the powers that are using us, the things we do that really, at the end of the day, are about our own survival, our own power, our own superiority, our own status, our own achievements, our own family, our own nation, our own race, our own wealth. We present ourselves to be used, and the ultimate user is ourselves.
We offer ourselves to be used by whatever power seems to be holding the gun to our heads, or by whatever power removes it even for a time. We offer ourselves to be used by whatever power is holding the biggest gun, particularly if that gun is pointed at someone else.
And what is the final paycheck these things issue to us? What at the end of the day do we really get from any of them? You’ve heard all the old clichés, haven’t you, about there being no U-Hauls on hearses? The final paycheck is death. Period.
But Jesus presented himself to be used by God. And God used him to reveal his love. God used him to announce that the terrible power of death would be defeated. God used him to heal and to forgive and to feed.
Jesus refused to be used by the biggest guns of his days, and they did exactly what they do whenever anyone defies them. They killed him. But then, three days later, God raised him from the dead. We know this because a whole lot of people at the time saw him. He was different than he had been before he had been killed. He was a new kind of human being. Yet he was real, and he was alive. He ate with his disciples. They touched him. God had defeated death.
If we believe this, nothing can ever be the same for us. The way is opened for us to present ourselves to be used by God.
Alexander Campbell completed his Fourth of July sermon with these words:
Conscience makes slaves as well as cowards of multitudes who boast of being
free. No person who is under the fear of death ever can be free. They who are
afraid of the consequences of death are all their lifetime in bondage. To escape
from this vassalage is worth of the greatest struggle which man could make.
This, however, is the first boon which Christianity tenders to all who put
themselves under its influence. It proclaims a jubilee to the soul—it opens the
prison-doors, and sets the captive free. The corruptions of anti-Christian
systems are admirably adapted to increase and cherish this fear, which tends to
bondage; but to those who embrace and bow to the real gospel, there is bestowed
a full deliverance, and gracious exemption from this most grievous bondage of
the soul.
This is the practice of our baptism, the principle of repentance as a way of life. The world and all its powers are constantly at us, constantly threatening us, constantly demanding our obedience. Repentance is turning away from them in an intentionally way and presenting oneself to God.
Christian practice, worship, prayer, biblical study, meditation, self-examination, confession, these are the intentional practices of repentance, intentional work that we do to turn our backs on the powers of the world and present ourselves to Jesus Christ.
Here’s a quote from a Bob Dylan song. You can get it on his album Slow Train Coming.
You may be an ambassador to England or France,Amen.
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sixth Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008
06 Pentecost A 08
June 22, 2008
Romans 6:1b-11
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
A Death Like His
I saw the movie Nanking last night. This is the film we’ll be showing next Friday at our first Thoughtful Christian Movie Night. It’s about the invasion of the Chinese city of Nanking in 1937. It was a nightmarish and awful event, one of the most violent and hellish in the 20th century. In the film, a number of Westerners decide not to accept the opportunity for evacuation and instead to stay and help. Most of them were missionaries. One said, “this is an opportunity for service of the highest order.”
Most of them said goodbye to their families. All of them risked their lives.
A pastor told the story to his congregation about Millard Fuller, a powerful businessman and millionaire who had an intense conversion experience and dedicated his life to Christ. He gave up his lucrative business and devote his considerable fortune to founding Habitat for Humanity. In doing so he gave up his lavish lifestyle. After the sermon, one of the pastor’s congregation came up and asked, “How old were his children when he did this?” His point was the Fuller had no right to deprive his children for the sake of his own spiritual life.
Among people recovering from addiction in the twelve step fellowships there is a saying. “Whatever you put before recovery, you will therefore probably lose.”
So often people come to the fellowship and say, “My family is my top priority.” The sponsor will immediately tell the person, “Recovery needs to be your top priority, otherwise you’ll probably lose your family.”
Many, many addicts end up dead or alone or in institutions because they decided to stay home from meetings to be with their families or to work some extra hours. Without the spiritual medicine the meetings provide the addict, he ends up drifting inexorably back toward the problem. The addict finds this mystifying. “Doesn’t God want me to be with my family? Doesn’t God want me to be a success in my job? Aren’t you people telling me if I do God’s will I won’t use or drink?”
The great wisdom here is that it is not the doing of sinful things that is the primary reason people sin. People sin most often because they think the matter so important that God’s rules can be suspended. When it is a matter of some exalted value, like family, personal fulfillment, patriotism or financial security, people think, “well, surely God didn’t mean this situation.”
God said, “Don’t murder other people,” but he surely didn’t mean for us to apply that to a self-defense situation. God said, “Don’t commit adultery,” but surely he didn’t mean when one’s marriage is really, really miserable. God said, “you shall have no other Gods,” but surely he didn’t mean we should put him first in everything. God said, “you shall not steal,” but surely he didn’t mean I couldn’t take a little from the expense account, particularly since I’m underpaid.
I read portions of a study of religious-based warfare and insurrection, and found it very interesting that the deeper causes of such conflict were thought to be found much more in the bonds of family than in religious beliefs. The way people got into the fight was when a beloved uncle or aunt was killed. This fuels the battle much more strongly than do religious differences. Religious differences are brought in to legitimize simple vengeance.
Some of you may have seen the television documentary some years ago about the Catholic-Protestant conflict in Ireland. One of the things the interviewers asked was, “what are the religious issues that separate you from each other.” Those being interviewed had no answer. “They’re protestants, we’re catholics. That’s all I need to know.” Deeper questioning revealed many memories of beloved relatives murdered by the opposition.
Putting one’s family above all other things is one of the great values of human society. And yet, this great value becomes the fuel for great societal evil.
Going back to Nanking, remember the quote, “service of the highest order”? The man who said that, and who became a hero in the story, was a card-carrying Nazi. It is possible for good people, for good reasons, to be drawn into great evil.
It is most often for the sake of something good that we stoop to the despicable. This is precisely why sin is so insidious. No one rises in the morning and says, "Today I will make the world a worse place than it was yesterday." Rather, people say, "Today I will do the best I can to live to the highest possible standards." And then, off they go to commit great evil.
How, to paraphrase Paul, can we be saved from this insidious sin?
Paul says “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
He’s talking about baptism. Now, I don’t want anyone to miss this. Baptism is the most important thing that has ever happened to you. I sometimes think we don’t talk enough about how important and singular and magnificent this thing called baptism is. Maybe it’s because Disciples got so caught up with how people should be baptized they forgot to talk about what baptism is.
What do you think baptism is? The washing away of sins? Yes. The promise of salvation? Yes. The initiation into the church? Certainly.
Paul says here that in baptism we are united with Jesus in a death like his.
Jesus was executed because he was more loyal to God than he was to his nation, more loyal to God to the popular religious leaders of his day, and more loyal to God even than he was to his own family. He regarded God as his only king, and therefore snubbed the emperor of Rome and King Herod of Israel. He regarded the scriptures as his only religious teacher, and so he snubbed the most respected and powerful religious experts in his time. Jesus welcomed as his followers people rejected by his religious community, and so really irked the religious leaders who depended on the divisions to keep themselves in power. He regarded his family as those who did the will of God and not his earthly mother or father or siblings, and so he snubbed the ancient convention of family unity. For all of these snubs, for the simple fact that Jesus lived his life toward a higher and better power, the powers of the world conspired together not only to snuff him out but to do so in the most horrific way they could think of.
This is the death of baptism. It is being removed from the power of the world’s conventional authorities and willingly accepting the punishment that comes with it, in order to be faithful to a greater and better authority, the authority of the living God.
To be baptized is to be killed. I’m putting it that way to provoke you, but it is pretty accurate. It is to be changed on such a fundamental level that the person you were ceases to exist.
Now we have said this for a few Sundays now. God’s righteousness is not like ours, God’s faithfulness is not like ours, God’s justice is not like ours. Christ opens the way for those things of God to be given to us. We are not born with them and the world cannot give them to us.
Baptism if the symbol of the process by which God transforms us.
A new person is born to take the old person’s place. Now even though the rite of baptism happens only once, the process unfolds throughout your life. By practicing the way of life Jesus modeled for us, by praying, examining ourselves honestly, worshipping frequently, giving generously and serving willingly, we grow into the fullness of our baptism. We die to sin and rise to Christ.
When I was a kid, I remember my mother would buy me jeans that were two sizes too big. I hated that. Did your mother do that to you? The idea was that you could roll up the pant leg and tighten in the belt to make them fit. First you’d have to roll them two or three times to keep them off your shoes. Of course, inevitably as you ran around all day, they’d come loose and you’d look like a goober walking around with your pants dragging behind you. So off you’d go and eat like a pig and play like there was no tomorrow and sleep the sleep of the dead in between. And then the day would come when you’d only have to roll them up only once instead of twice. And then you’d forget about it and eat and play and sleep and pretty soon, you wouldn’t have to roll them up at all. A little longer and your ankles would be showing and oops, here comes another pair two sizes too big!
Baptism is like that. It’s as if God put a big beautiful robe over your head that was three times bigger than you were. At first, you stumble around barely able to see, barely able to accomplish anything. But as you eat and drink of the grace of God and play in the garden of his love, you grow.
And as you grow, the robe fits better and better. It gets in your way less and less. Eventually it fits you just fine, and you are able to do everything in it.
This is what baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus is like. It is like that robe. The robe is everything it is supposed to be, all given at once. But our response is not like that. Very, very rarely do people immediately transform. Instead, they practice the way of Christ, serving him and obeying him as a student serves and obeys his master.
And eventually, they come to share in the death like his, the crucifixion to all the things the world thinks are most important, and because of this, they are assured they will be raised into a resurrection like his, to transcend death and bless the world forever.
Amen.
June 22, 2008
Romans 6:1b-11
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
A Death Like His
I saw the movie Nanking last night. This is the film we’ll be showing next Friday at our first Thoughtful Christian Movie Night. It’s about the invasion of the Chinese city of Nanking in 1937. It was a nightmarish and awful event, one of the most violent and hellish in the 20th century. In the film, a number of Westerners decide not to accept the opportunity for evacuation and instead to stay and help. Most of them were missionaries. One said, “this is an opportunity for service of the highest order.”
Most of them said goodbye to their families. All of them risked their lives.
A pastor told the story to his congregation about Millard Fuller, a powerful businessman and millionaire who had an intense conversion experience and dedicated his life to Christ. He gave up his lucrative business and devote his considerable fortune to founding Habitat for Humanity. In doing so he gave up his lavish lifestyle. After the sermon, one of the pastor’s congregation came up and asked, “How old were his children when he did this?” His point was the Fuller had no right to deprive his children for the sake of his own spiritual life.
Among people recovering from addiction in the twelve step fellowships there is a saying. “Whatever you put before recovery, you will therefore probably lose.”
So often people come to the fellowship and say, “My family is my top priority.” The sponsor will immediately tell the person, “Recovery needs to be your top priority, otherwise you’ll probably lose your family.”
Many, many addicts end up dead or alone or in institutions because they decided to stay home from meetings to be with their families or to work some extra hours. Without the spiritual medicine the meetings provide the addict, he ends up drifting inexorably back toward the problem. The addict finds this mystifying. “Doesn’t God want me to be with my family? Doesn’t God want me to be a success in my job? Aren’t you people telling me if I do God’s will I won’t use or drink?”
The great wisdom here is that it is not the doing of sinful things that is the primary reason people sin. People sin most often because they think the matter so important that God’s rules can be suspended. When it is a matter of some exalted value, like family, personal fulfillment, patriotism or financial security, people think, “well, surely God didn’t mean this situation.”
God said, “Don’t murder other people,” but he surely didn’t mean for us to apply that to a self-defense situation. God said, “Don’t commit adultery,” but surely he didn’t mean when one’s marriage is really, really miserable. God said, “you shall have no other Gods,” but surely he didn’t mean we should put him first in everything. God said, “you shall not steal,” but surely he didn’t mean I couldn’t take a little from the expense account, particularly since I’m underpaid.
I read portions of a study of religious-based warfare and insurrection, and found it very interesting that the deeper causes of such conflict were thought to be found much more in the bonds of family than in religious beliefs. The way people got into the fight was when a beloved uncle or aunt was killed. This fuels the battle much more strongly than do religious differences. Religious differences are brought in to legitimize simple vengeance.
Some of you may have seen the television documentary some years ago about the Catholic-Protestant conflict in Ireland. One of the things the interviewers asked was, “what are the religious issues that separate you from each other.” Those being interviewed had no answer. “They’re protestants, we’re catholics. That’s all I need to know.” Deeper questioning revealed many memories of beloved relatives murdered by the opposition.
Putting one’s family above all other things is one of the great values of human society. And yet, this great value becomes the fuel for great societal evil.
Going back to Nanking, remember the quote, “service of the highest order”? The man who said that, and who became a hero in the story, was a card-carrying Nazi. It is possible for good people, for good reasons, to be drawn into great evil.
It is most often for the sake of something good that we stoop to the despicable. This is precisely why sin is so insidious. No one rises in the morning and says, "Today I will make the world a worse place than it was yesterday." Rather, people say, "Today I will do the best I can to live to the highest possible standards." And then, off they go to commit great evil.
How, to paraphrase Paul, can we be saved from this insidious sin?
Paul says “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
He’s talking about baptism. Now, I don’t want anyone to miss this. Baptism is the most important thing that has ever happened to you. I sometimes think we don’t talk enough about how important and singular and magnificent this thing called baptism is. Maybe it’s because Disciples got so caught up with how people should be baptized they forgot to talk about what baptism is.
What do you think baptism is? The washing away of sins? Yes. The promise of salvation? Yes. The initiation into the church? Certainly.
Paul says here that in baptism we are united with Jesus in a death like his.
Jesus was executed because he was more loyal to God than he was to his nation, more loyal to God to the popular religious leaders of his day, and more loyal to God even than he was to his own family. He regarded God as his only king, and therefore snubbed the emperor of Rome and King Herod of Israel. He regarded the scriptures as his only religious teacher, and so he snubbed the most respected and powerful religious experts in his time. Jesus welcomed as his followers people rejected by his religious community, and so really irked the religious leaders who depended on the divisions to keep themselves in power. He regarded his family as those who did the will of God and not his earthly mother or father or siblings, and so he snubbed the ancient convention of family unity. For all of these snubs, for the simple fact that Jesus lived his life toward a higher and better power, the powers of the world conspired together not only to snuff him out but to do so in the most horrific way they could think of.
This is the death of baptism. It is being removed from the power of the world’s conventional authorities and willingly accepting the punishment that comes with it, in order to be faithful to a greater and better authority, the authority of the living God.
To be baptized is to be killed. I’m putting it that way to provoke you, but it is pretty accurate. It is to be changed on such a fundamental level that the person you were ceases to exist.
Now we have said this for a few Sundays now. God’s righteousness is not like ours, God’s faithfulness is not like ours, God’s justice is not like ours. Christ opens the way for those things of God to be given to us. We are not born with them and the world cannot give them to us.
Baptism if the symbol of the process by which God transforms us.
A new person is born to take the old person’s place. Now even though the rite of baptism happens only once, the process unfolds throughout your life. By practicing the way of life Jesus modeled for us, by praying, examining ourselves honestly, worshipping frequently, giving generously and serving willingly, we grow into the fullness of our baptism. We die to sin and rise to Christ.
When I was a kid, I remember my mother would buy me jeans that were two sizes too big. I hated that. Did your mother do that to you? The idea was that you could roll up the pant leg and tighten in the belt to make them fit. First you’d have to roll them two or three times to keep them off your shoes. Of course, inevitably as you ran around all day, they’d come loose and you’d look like a goober walking around with your pants dragging behind you. So off you’d go and eat like a pig and play like there was no tomorrow and sleep the sleep of the dead in between. And then the day would come when you’d only have to roll them up only once instead of twice. And then you’d forget about it and eat and play and sleep and pretty soon, you wouldn’t have to roll them up at all. A little longer and your ankles would be showing and oops, here comes another pair two sizes too big!
Baptism is like that. It’s as if God put a big beautiful robe over your head that was three times bigger than you were. At first, you stumble around barely able to see, barely able to accomplish anything. But as you eat and drink of the grace of God and play in the garden of his love, you grow.
And as you grow, the robe fits better and better. It gets in your way less and less. Eventually it fits you just fine, and you are able to do everything in it.
This is what baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus is like. It is like that robe. The robe is everything it is supposed to be, all given at once. But our response is not like that. Very, very rarely do people immediately transform. Instead, they practice the way of Christ, serving him and obeying him as a student serves and obeys his master.
And eventually, they come to share in the death like his, the crucifixion to all the things the world thinks are most important, and because of this, they are assured they will be raised into a resurrection like his, to transcend death and bless the world forever.
Amen.
Monday, June 16, 2008
05 Pentecost A 08
Father’s Day
June 15, 2008
Romans 5:1-8
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
A Different Kind of Hope
We’d barely gotten to know Vic McLawhorn here at Philippi before he died way too young. As I spoke with his grown daughter, I learned of an interesting story about him.
It seems that after Vic’s kids had grown up and moved away, Vic and Marietta had all the windows replaced at their home. When the workmen took out the old windows, Vic told them to let him keep the upstairs front bedroom window, though they didn’t know why. Vic then called his daughter and said, “I kept your bedroom window. I thought that since you climbed in and out of it so often you might like to have it.”
Fathers have a way of holding us accountable and at the same time loving and forgiving us. I sometimes think this, and not the fact of gender, accounts for why Jesus referred to God as “Father.” This unusual way of loving is part of what Paul is talking about this morning.
And Paul is talking about hope in this reading. There are three mentions of the word in the passage.
“…we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God.” And then later, he says, “character produces hope” and that finally, “…hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
We talked a few weeks ago about God’s righteousness being different from ours. God’s righteousness is his faithfulness. He stays with us even when we don’t stay with him. Somebody wrote that human freedom is more about letting us hoist ourselves by our own petards. God wants us to go off and try to make our own future, and then when it all comes crashing down, we come back crying and he says, “So how’s your way working?”
Some of you might remember the TV show, The Twilight Zone. One episode, called “The Button,” told the story of a couple in desperate need of money. A stranger comes to them and offers them a button. He tells them that all they have to do is press the button and someone they don’t know will die and leave them $100,000. Well, they debate the question, how much they need the money, the fact they don’t know the person involved, and so on.
Finally they push the button. The stranger shows up and gives them the $100,000 and asks for the button back. They ask him what he’s going to do with it. He says, “Don’t worry, I’ll give it to someone who doesn’t know you.”
So God’s righteousness is different from ours. We’re on the tit-for-tat, “I’ll rub your back if you rub mine” program. I’ll do right to avoid getting punished and to get the reward. But God’s on the “I’ll be there no matter what” plan. He does right even when the reward is hatred and rejection.
In the same way, God’s glory is different from our idea of glory. My idea is that glory is getting exalted by everyone, being on top, getting praise from all sides, winning the big prize. And I suppose God’s glory ends up being that in the long run. But it doesn’t begin there.
It begins on the cross. It begins in the Christ, crucified and risen. Here’s the mystery from the heavenly places, friends, the mystical truth of Christian faith. God’s glory is his mercy.
God’s glory is that deeply entwined in his great power and superiority and perfection is his decision to forgive and love and bless those who hate, despise and ignore him.
That is God’s glory. Just as God’s righteousness is not our righteousness, so God’s idea of glory is different from ours.
I was talking with Mrs. Miller a few weeks ago about the propensity we humans have to hold grudges. It amazes me how I can nurse and nurture a grudge over a long period of time. There must be some pleasure in it I suppose, or people wouldn’t do it. But in a way, it’s a lot of work for not much payoff. Still, we can summon to mind the wrong that was done and it will awaken our rage afresh and we can rededicate ourselves to our everlasting condemnation of the wrongdoer.
There are a lot of other forms grudges can take. It can just be that one story we remember about somebody, some not-very-flattering story, and whenever that person’s name comes up, we remember that story. We might know a whole lot of stories about that person, but only the most unflattering one comes to mind. Worse, we might make a point of telling it.
I’ve heard a lot of those kinds of stories in this town, boy.
So Mrs. Miller and I were talking about grudges and at some point she sighed and said, “Why can’t we just give up and love everybody?”
It’s what we want to do, but well, everybody else just makes it impossible, don’t they? If you really were to love everybody, you’d not only have to forgive your enemies, but actively bless them and serve them. You’d have to give up on trying to change other people, and try to serve them instead. You’d have to give away what you had to anyone who had need.
And you know, those enemies, well, they deserve our anger, don’t they? It’s not our fault we’re angry. And it would be easy to love those people in our lives that need to change, they just have to change first. It’s not our fault they don’t see the light. And those people who don’t have what they need, well, they can go out and get it just like I do.
And besides, if I don’t fight back, that means the enemy wins.
Of course, God doesn’t stop blessing us when we turn against him. God doesn’t stop loving us even when we refuse to change. God doesn’t stop giving to us even when we are lazy. And God doesn’t fight back, but wins anyway. Christ, who was crucified because he refused to fight back, rose from the dead.
So this simple message is very troubling to the world and the way the world works.
The world doesn’t like God. The world, that is to say, the fallen creation in which we live, governed by greed and fear and brutality, does not like God.
God, however, loves the world.
The world doesn’t want God’s love. The world doesn’t want to dissolve differences, erase boundaries, or share equally. And the tit for tat, I’ll rub your back if you rub mine system is excellent for maintaining those boundaries. It’s what people like to call “reality.” But this is a misnomer. We construct our reality. It’s real because we made it.
Somebody said the church exists precisely for the people who won’t go near it. We who are called to this assembly exist to very intentionally proclaim this love from God that the world really would rather not hear about it.
I was reading Fred Craddock’s classic book on preaching, “As One Without Authority.” There’s a sermon on Mark’s Easter story called “And They Said Nothing to Anyone.” It refers to the strange line about the women, filled with fear, running off from the empty tomb and not telling anyone. Of course, as he points out, the literal translation of the Greek in Mark is “they said nothing to nobody.” Let me read:
Father’s Day
June 15, 2008
Romans 5:1-8
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
A Different Kind of Hope
We’d barely gotten to know Vic McLawhorn here at Philippi before he died way too young. As I spoke with his grown daughter, I learned of an interesting story about him.
It seems that after Vic’s kids had grown up and moved away, Vic and Marietta had all the windows replaced at their home. When the workmen took out the old windows, Vic told them to let him keep the upstairs front bedroom window, though they didn’t know why. Vic then called his daughter and said, “I kept your bedroom window. I thought that since you climbed in and out of it so often you might like to have it.”
Fathers have a way of holding us accountable and at the same time loving and forgiving us. I sometimes think this, and not the fact of gender, accounts for why Jesus referred to God as “Father.” This unusual way of loving is part of what Paul is talking about this morning.
And Paul is talking about hope in this reading. There are three mentions of the word in the passage.
“…we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God.” And then later, he says, “character produces hope” and that finally, “…hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
We talked a few weeks ago about God’s righteousness being different from ours. God’s righteousness is his faithfulness. He stays with us even when we don’t stay with him. Somebody wrote that human freedom is more about letting us hoist ourselves by our own petards. God wants us to go off and try to make our own future, and then when it all comes crashing down, we come back crying and he says, “So how’s your way working?”
Some of you might remember the TV show, The Twilight Zone. One episode, called “The Button,” told the story of a couple in desperate need of money. A stranger comes to them and offers them a button. He tells them that all they have to do is press the button and someone they don’t know will die and leave them $100,000. Well, they debate the question, how much they need the money, the fact they don’t know the person involved, and so on.
Finally they push the button. The stranger shows up and gives them the $100,000 and asks for the button back. They ask him what he’s going to do with it. He says, “Don’t worry, I’ll give it to someone who doesn’t know you.”
So God’s righteousness is different from ours. We’re on the tit-for-tat, “I’ll rub your back if you rub mine” program. I’ll do right to avoid getting punished and to get the reward. But God’s on the “I’ll be there no matter what” plan. He does right even when the reward is hatred and rejection.
In the same way, God’s glory is different from our idea of glory. My idea is that glory is getting exalted by everyone, being on top, getting praise from all sides, winning the big prize. And I suppose God’s glory ends up being that in the long run. But it doesn’t begin there.
It begins on the cross. It begins in the Christ, crucified and risen. Here’s the mystery from the heavenly places, friends, the mystical truth of Christian faith. God’s glory is his mercy.
God’s glory is that deeply entwined in his great power and superiority and perfection is his decision to forgive and love and bless those who hate, despise and ignore him.
That is God’s glory. Just as God’s righteousness is not our righteousness, so God’s idea of glory is different from ours.
I was talking with Mrs. Miller a few weeks ago about the propensity we humans have to hold grudges. It amazes me how I can nurse and nurture a grudge over a long period of time. There must be some pleasure in it I suppose, or people wouldn’t do it. But in a way, it’s a lot of work for not much payoff. Still, we can summon to mind the wrong that was done and it will awaken our rage afresh and we can rededicate ourselves to our everlasting condemnation of the wrongdoer.
There are a lot of other forms grudges can take. It can just be that one story we remember about somebody, some not-very-flattering story, and whenever that person’s name comes up, we remember that story. We might know a whole lot of stories about that person, but only the most unflattering one comes to mind. Worse, we might make a point of telling it.
I’ve heard a lot of those kinds of stories in this town, boy.
So Mrs. Miller and I were talking about grudges and at some point she sighed and said, “Why can’t we just give up and love everybody?”
It’s what we want to do, but well, everybody else just makes it impossible, don’t they? If you really were to love everybody, you’d not only have to forgive your enemies, but actively bless them and serve them. You’d have to give up on trying to change other people, and try to serve them instead. You’d have to give away what you had to anyone who had need.
And you know, those enemies, well, they deserve our anger, don’t they? It’s not our fault we’re angry. And it would be easy to love those people in our lives that need to change, they just have to change first. It’s not our fault they don’t see the light. And those people who don’t have what they need, well, they can go out and get it just like I do.
And besides, if I don’t fight back, that means the enemy wins.
Of course, God doesn’t stop blessing us when we turn against him. God doesn’t stop loving us even when we refuse to change. God doesn’t stop giving to us even when we are lazy. And God doesn’t fight back, but wins anyway. Christ, who was crucified because he refused to fight back, rose from the dead.
So this simple message is very troubling to the world and the way the world works.
The world doesn’t like God. The world, that is to say, the fallen creation in which we live, governed by greed and fear and brutality, does not like God.
God, however, loves the world.
The world doesn’t want God’s love. The world doesn’t want to dissolve differences, erase boundaries, or share equally. And the tit for tat, I’ll rub your back if you rub mine system is excellent for maintaining those boundaries. It’s what people like to call “reality.” But this is a misnomer. We construct our reality. It’s real because we made it.
Somebody said the church exists precisely for the people who won’t go near it. We who are called to this assembly exist to very intentionally proclaim this love from God that the world really would rather not hear about it.
I was reading Fred Craddock’s classic book on preaching, “As One Without Authority.” There’s a sermon on Mark’s Easter story called “And They Said Nothing to Anyone.” It refers to the strange line about the women, filled with fear, running off from the empty tomb and not telling anyone. Of course, as he points out, the literal translation of the Greek in Mark is “they said nothing to nobody.” Let me read:
The most common thing said to me in this church, which is run by volunteers,
people who are good people—they cut down trees, mow the grass, wash the windows, serve, fix the table, decorate, bring flowers—but the one thing I hear most is
this: “Don’t ask me to say anything.” I’ll do anything, but don’t ask me to say
anything. I’ll climb up and change the lightbulb, but don’t ask me to say
anything. Why is it that we can just chatter like magpies, but mention Jesus
Christ and it’s “Don’t ask me to say anything?” I hear an expression a lot these
days—it’s not enough to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk. Well, that’s
nice. The trouble with it is, it’s backwards. It’s not enough to walk the walk.
You’ve got to talk the talk. Because the most difficult and most effective and
most profound thing you’ll ever do for Jesus Christ is to say something. And
when I ask for talkers, no one comes. If I say, “Let’s redo the building,”
everybody comes. This is no criticism of anyone, but an honest recognition that
the fundamental human sacrament is to say something important. And that’s hard
to do.
To say very simply that the crucified Jesus is risen from the dead is to say something very important, and it is to say something the world probably would rather not hear.
Now I want to quickly point out here that preaching condemnation is often taken as being bold and really getting into the gospel. It’s powerful in the world because it’s the world’s way. It’s the devil’s business to condemn, because it cuts people off from one another and from God. Lots of people confuse the devil’s business with God’s business, and of course, that’s just the way the devil likes it.
No, the really dangerous thing to preach is forgiveness. The dangerous thing is to remove the boundaries people erect to create their own peace. And interestingly enough, Paul says that the suffering that comes with giving oneself to this message is precisely the way God shapes us as his children, precisely the way we come to the place of hope.
Our hope is not for our personal fulfillment. We look forward to heaven, yes, but this is not the hope which Paul is teaching us. Our hope, my hope, is for coming to the place where I can show mercy, where, as Mrs. Miller has said, I can really “give up and love everybody.”
Amen.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Third Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008
June 1, 2008
03 Pentecost A 08
Romans 1:16-17 (NRSV) Romans 3:22-28 (NRSV)
Bidding for Salvation
If eternal life were on eBay, what would you bid?
Would you bid your marriage? Was it a good marriage? Were you faithful the whole time? Never had a real argument?
Would you bid your military service? Did you serve with honor? Did you risk yourself for your comrades and your country? Were you wounded, perhaps?
Would you bid your church attendance? Have you been in church every Sunday for most of your life? Been in Bible study? Given a lot of money? Volunteered for everything?
Would you bid your kids? Did well, did they? Great jobs, good money, big achievements? Beautiful grandchildren?
Would you bid your career? Did you do something really meaningful? Get a lot accomplished? Manage a boatload of employees? Built something lasting and useful?
I will celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of my ordination this Thursday. How well I remember my first congregation. I remember riding around the little suburb of Boston and looking at the neat yards and well-kept homes and thinking warmly of the simple honest people there.
I remember too how once I was ordained and was wearing the uniform of the pastor people seemed to change whenever I came around them. There were even jokes. “Hey, Bob, there’s the preacher, better watch your language now!”
And I will never, ever forget how, during that first week after my ordination, a young girl came to my office and told me her father had been abusing her for years. And there were so many more like her. Soon those neat, well-kept homes became almost sinister. I wondered, what sadness and tragedy and pain did they hide?
Marilynne Robinson wrote a novel called Gilead from the point of view of an old preacher. It’s a wonderful book, full of wisdom and insight. At one point, the old preacher writes to his son:
If eternal life were on eBay, what would you bid?
A number of great preachers and thinkers of the church would probably agree that these passages from Romans are the most important verses in the bible. I would say, if you were going to memorize one verse, forget John 3:16, or Psalm 23. Make it Romans 3:28.
This is God’s righteousness. God’s righteousness is not some high standard of personal morality. God’s righteousness is in God’s continuing love and care for people who ignore, reject , mock and even try to kill him.
This is not remotely like human ideas of goodness or righteousness. People think in terms of tit for tat, an eye for an eye, the time for the crime. Humans, each and every one, are therefore enemies of God, not because they do evil things, but because they base their faithfulness to God and to each other on the question, “What have you done for me lately?” or “How have you hurt me lately?”
There is no such thing as good guys and bad guys. There is one good guy and the rest are bad. Even Jesus refused to be called good, saying “No one is good but God alone.”
Now, this consignment to judgment sounds like one of those hellfire and brimstone sermons, doesn’t it? I don’t find it so. Tell you the truth, I find it a relief. If anyone is righteous before God, well then, my hope is lost. But if we are all sinful, if we all fall short, I am still in the game, there is still one possibility left: that God can do for me what I cannot do for myself. What a relief. No one is good but God alone.
And the goodness of God is precisely in his faithfulness. The story of the bible tells us that God remained faithful no matter how we have ignored him, rejected him, spat on him and hated him.
God called Israel to be his servant, and they struggled against their calling, but in the fullness of time, a child was born, not of the flesh but of the Spirit, who finally revealed God’s image in himself. God was revealed to us as a man broken and rejected and yet who nevertheless forgives, the dying man on that cross. But this was not all. Jesus, the Son of Man, accepted the judgment of God and still gave himself in faith, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” and immediately thereafter, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Do you see? The two are mirror images. God remained faithful in spite of our rejection of God and Jesus remained faithful in spite of God’s rejection of humankind. It is therefore only in Christ that we can find this God and receive him into ourselves. This is the only salient truth for us. God is faithful no matter how much we say “no” to him.
So if eternal life were on eBay, how about bidding our sin?
How about bidding our dishonesty? How about bidding our malice and anger and judgment of others? How about bidding our loneliness? How about bidding our lust? How about bidding our racism or sexism or classism? How about raising the bid and adding on our greed? How about bidding our self-righteousness? How about bidding our desire to control others?
How about bidding the truth that is in us, the truth hidden under the well-kept home and the neat yard?
This is what Luther called “the blessed exchange.” We offer our sin, which is precisely our tit-for-tat faithlessness to God and to each other, and Christ takes it all upon himself on the cross, and in exchange he offers us a new righteousness that is not our own. We human creatures do not love our enemies. Are you kidding? We don’t bless those who curse us. You must be out of your mind. This is not human righteousness, but God’s righteousness, the righteousness of a God who loves us, his enemies, and blesses us, who curse him.
So, when we receive this righteousness from him, we become faithful no matter how much he says no to us and we become faithful to other human beings no matter what they do to us. We remain faithful toward God despite his condemnation, and we remain faithful to our enemies despite their hatred, we remain faithful to the sinful despite their sinfulness, we remain faithful to the self-righteous and the judgmental and the deviant and the lazy and the cruel. We don’t give up on God, we don’t give up on each other. We are made new. We are no longer merely human. We have become children of God.
If eternal life were on eBay, we could offer a bid of all the wealth in the world, of all the good deeds of Mother Theresa and Ghandi and Mrs. Miller and St. Francis and every great saint of the past, and Jesus would still say to us, “I do not know you.”
And he would be right, because we would not have truly given him ourselves.
But if we offered our loneliness, our dishonesty, our malice and all the things that spring from our self-centered fear, then God will offer us salvation. God will offer us himself. God will put within us his own faithfulness, the faithfulness that cannot die, the faithfulness that loves all humankind in the face of the worst that humankind can do, a faithfulness that will enable us to do what we cannot do, to love God even in the face of the worst that God can do. This is eternal life. This is salvation. As Charlotte Eliott in that well-beloved hymn:
03 Pentecost A 08
Romans 1:16-17 (NRSV) Romans 3:22-28 (NRSV)
Bidding for Salvation
If eternal life were on eBay, what would you bid?
Would you bid your marriage? Was it a good marriage? Were you faithful the whole time? Never had a real argument?
Would you bid your military service? Did you serve with honor? Did you risk yourself for your comrades and your country? Were you wounded, perhaps?
Would you bid your church attendance? Have you been in church every Sunday for most of your life? Been in Bible study? Given a lot of money? Volunteered for everything?
Would you bid your kids? Did well, did they? Great jobs, good money, big achievements? Beautiful grandchildren?
Would you bid your career? Did you do something really meaningful? Get a lot accomplished? Manage a boatload of employees? Built something lasting and useful?
I will celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of my ordination this Thursday. How well I remember my first congregation. I remember riding around the little suburb of Boston and looking at the neat yards and well-kept homes and thinking warmly of the simple honest people there.
I remember too how once I was ordained and was wearing the uniform of the pastor people seemed to change whenever I came around them. There were even jokes. “Hey, Bob, there’s the preacher, better watch your language now!”
And I will never, ever forget how, during that first week after my ordination, a young girl came to my office and told me her father had been abusing her for years. And there were so many more like her. Soon those neat, well-kept homes became almost sinister. I wondered, what sadness and tragedy and pain did they hide?
Marilynne Robinson wrote a novel called Gilead from the point of view of an old preacher. It’s a wonderful book, full of wisdom and insight. At one point, the old preacher writes to his son:
That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry.The simple truth is there’s a difference between our public actions and images and what we feel deep within ourselves. Many of us hope our actions or at least our refraining from doing wrong will somehow earn our approbation before God. But then inside ourselves, we have doubts, resentments, fears.
People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those
very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things.
There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice
and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to
find it, either.
If eternal life were on eBay, what would you bid?
A number of great preachers and thinkers of the church would probably agree that these passages from Romans are the most important verses in the bible. I would say, if you were going to memorize one verse, forget John 3:16, or Psalm 23. Make it Romans 3:28.
“For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from the works prescribedThe book of Genesis tells us that God was rejected and ignored by humankind, and yet continued to be faithful to them. He was within his rights to destroy the world, and he almost did, but he nevertheless showed mercy to Noah and his family, along with all the creatures of the earth, and then he made a promise that he would never again destroy the earth, despite the fact that humans really hadn’t improved at all.
by the law.”
This is God’s righteousness. God’s righteousness is not some high standard of personal morality. God’s righteousness is in God’s continuing love and care for people who ignore, reject , mock and even try to kill him.
This is not remotely like human ideas of goodness or righteousness. People think in terms of tit for tat, an eye for an eye, the time for the crime. Humans, each and every one, are therefore enemies of God, not because they do evil things, but because they base their faithfulness to God and to each other on the question, “What have you done for me lately?” or “How have you hurt me lately?”
There is no such thing as good guys and bad guys. There is one good guy and the rest are bad. Even Jesus refused to be called good, saying “No one is good but God alone.”
Now, this consignment to judgment sounds like one of those hellfire and brimstone sermons, doesn’t it? I don’t find it so. Tell you the truth, I find it a relief. If anyone is righteous before God, well then, my hope is lost. But if we are all sinful, if we all fall short, I am still in the game, there is still one possibility left: that God can do for me what I cannot do for myself. What a relief. No one is good but God alone.
And the goodness of God is precisely in his faithfulness. The story of the bible tells us that God remained faithful no matter how we have ignored him, rejected him, spat on him and hated him.
God called Israel to be his servant, and they struggled against their calling, but in the fullness of time, a child was born, not of the flesh but of the Spirit, who finally revealed God’s image in himself. God was revealed to us as a man broken and rejected and yet who nevertheless forgives, the dying man on that cross. But this was not all. Jesus, the Son of Man, accepted the judgment of God and still gave himself in faith, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” and immediately thereafter, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Do you see? The two are mirror images. God remained faithful in spite of our rejection of God and Jesus remained faithful in spite of God’s rejection of humankind. It is therefore only in Christ that we can find this God and receive him into ourselves. This is the only salient truth for us. God is faithful no matter how much we say “no” to him.
So if eternal life were on eBay, how about bidding our sin?
How about bidding our dishonesty? How about bidding our malice and anger and judgment of others? How about bidding our loneliness? How about bidding our lust? How about bidding our racism or sexism or classism? How about raising the bid and adding on our greed? How about bidding our self-righteousness? How about bidding our desire to control others?
How about bidding the truth that is in us, the truth hidden under the well-kept home and the neat yard?
This is what Luther called “the blessed exchange.” We offer our sin, which is precisely our tit-for-tat faithlessness to God and to each other, and Christ takes it all upon himself on the cross, and in exchange he offers us a new righteousness that is not our own. We human creatures do not love our enemies. Are you kidding? We don’t bless those who curse us. You must be out of your mind. This is not human righteousness, but God’s righteousness, the righteousness of a God who loves us, his enemies, and blesses us, who curse him.
So, when we receive this righteousness from him, we become faithful no matter how much he says no to us and we become faithful to other human beings no matter what they do to us. We remain faithful toward God despite his condemnation, and we remain faithful to our enemies despite their hatred, we remain faithful to the sinful despite their sinfulness, we remain faithful to the self-righteous and the judgmental and the deviant and the lazy and the cruel. We don’t give up on God, we don’t give up on each other. We are made new. We are no longer merely human. We have become children of God.
If eternal life were on eBay, we could offer a bid of all the wealth in the world, of all the good deeds of Mother Theresa and Ghandi and Mrs. Miller and St. Francis and every great saint of the past, and Jesus would still say to us, “I do not know you.”
And he would be right, because we would not have truly given him ourselves.
But if we offered our loneliness, our dishonesty, our malice and all the things that spring from our self-centered fear, then God will offer us salvation. God will offer us himself. God will put within us his own faithfulness, the faithfulness that cannot die, the faithfulness that loves all humankind in the face of the worst that humankind can do, a faithfulness that will enable us to do what we cannot do, to love God even in the face of the worst that God can do. This is eternal life. This is salvation. As Charlotte Eliott in that well-beloved hymn:
Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightingsAmen.
and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Second Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008
May 25, 2008
Matt 6:24-34 (NRSV)
The Paradox
Have you gotten the email, one of those “forwards” entitled “the Paradox of our Time?”
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.”
Does anyone remember who it was attributed to? Well, whether you do or not, we’ll get to that at the end.
It’s a great thought, though, isn’t it? And it would seem to fit our passage so well. We’re so caught up chasing the almighty dollar, when we should be more focused on each other. End of sermon, everyone go home.
Our passage this morning is the last part of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew. Great crowds had come out to avail themselves of Jesus’ healing power, and while they were at it, they stopped and gave his message a listen as well. Jesus was addressing his fellow Jews, fellow believers in God and practitioners of the Jewish religion. And his message was not about how to live or that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, but that God was actually coming into the world, and things were going to drastically change, and he was asking his fellow believers to get ready.
No, I am not a reader of the Left Behind series, though I probably should read it just so I know what kind of nonsense is being perpetrated out there. No, I don’t have any fundamentalist beliefs about plagues and battles and the anti-Christ.
But I do believe that our religion is not as much about going to heaven, as it is about heaven coming here.
Jesus came to announce to believers that God is coming to inhabit his people in the same way he came to inhabit his temple in the days of David. He is coming to light us up, to transform us completely, from the inside out.
It’s important to put this teaching in that perspective, because we too quickly domesticate this passage into a “don’t worry, be happy,” kind of message, and it isn’t that at all. It also isn’t really a condemnation of money or wealth. It is a call to the people who want to follow Christ, a call to people who feel within themselves the importance of the kingdom of God.
Jesus used the metaphor of salt. The people of God are to the world as salt is to a meal. The world tastes bad and it is spoiling. The people of God are the salt put into the meal to preserve it and to make it taste good.
Jesus is telling us that we, the priestly nation of God, are really here to flavor the world. Do you know what I’m saying? We aren’t here to force anything, to conquer anyone, to overthrow anybody. No, we are meant to season the world. The world taste bad. We’re here to make it taste a little better.
But if we don’t bear within ourselves the saltiness, why then, we don’t flavor anything. We taste just like everything else.
And so the sermon on the mount is about that flavor, that saltiness that we are called to have and be, and it basically is about not being anything like the world at all. While the world is caught up with the fine gradations of the law that everyone is trying to figure out a way to get over, we are to be people who want only to do God’s will. In a world of murderers, we are not supposed to even get angry. In a world of adulterers, we aren’t even supposed to feel lust. In a world of hypocrites, we are supposed to have perfectly pure motives. In a world that only gives lip service to God, we are to be his true servants. In a world full of people struggling for resources, we are to trust God for all our needs.
This is our saltiness, our flavor, and without it, we are nothing.
The saltiness Jesus is speaking about is our motives and not our deeds. We like to point to our deeds, because they are clearly visible, even if only to ourselves, and they are easily done even when our motives are cloudy. But isn’t it the difference usually perceptible? Don’t you think you can tell? It’s only when someone’s motives change that they really light up.
When it comes to wealth, Jesus is not telling us that wealth is bad. He is not telling us that being wealthy is evil. He is acknowledging that money talks and the rest walks. It is of tremendous importance. Whenever someone says to me, “Money’s not important to me,” I always respond, “Well then give me all of yours.”
Money is important. It’s terribly important. We may be discovering now that it’s more important even than guns and armies. It may be a nation can conquer the world with nothing but money. Our economy right now is going through a bumpy ride and it’s pretty scary. I would think for retired folks with limited means it’s particularly scary. And how can we say to people in Myanmar, “don’t worry about it?” We can’t say that.
This is not what Jesus is teaching. He is teaching you and me about how we are to be different from the world. While the world, quite normally and appropriately, desperately fears for its well-being, part of our saltiness in the world will be our fearless dependence on God’s care.
If this looks impossible, well, it is. God’s own being is the saltiness in the salt of God’s people. Money is desperately important to everyone on earth precisely because it is important. To be released from such a need is something only our heavenly Father can do, and he does it by sending his own Spirit to dwell in us.
To me, as a follower of Jesus, I look back over my life and see how I have always longed to serve him. I have always been ill at ease with the ways of the world and they have never worked for me. In fact, I felt myself trapped and bound and imprisoned, I felt like I couldn’t be who I really was meant to be.
The great joy of my life is to find that there is nothing wrong with me after all. I am meant to be different from the world around me. To be unconcerned about my wealth or property is abnormal for citizens of the world, but for me it is who I really am.
Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The opposite of rich is not poor but free.”
That email sermon was attributed to George Carlin with a little parenthetical remark that he wrote it after his wife died. Well it’s true that Carlin’s wife died, but he denied writing the passage, calling it a sappy piece of— well you know George Carlin. It was also attributed to a student who had witnessed Columbine. This also is not true.
It was actually written by a pastor whom I will not name, of a very conservative independent mega-church that I will also not name. The congregation’s website declares the inerrancy of scripture and that the bible forbids female leadership. This pastor eventually resigned over allegations he had sexually molested a number of male church members, allegations that were eventually confirmed.
So here’s my addendum to this poor pastor’s irrefutably good sermon: The paradox of our time in the church is that we have great certainty but no faith, lots of bibles but few readers, lots of fire but little light, impressive deeds but doubtful motives, huge churches led by small people.
And didn’t Jesus give us the most important paradox of all?
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
—Matt 5:3-12 (NRSV)
Amen.
Matt 6:24-34 (NRSV)
The Paradox
Have you gotten the email, one of those “forwards” entitled “the Paradox of our Time?”
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.”
Does anyone remember who it was attributed to? Well, whether you do or not, we’ll get to that at the end.
It’s a great thought, though, isn’t it? And it would seem to fit our passage so well. We’re so caught up chasing the almighty dollar, when we should be more focused on each other. End of sermon, everyone go home.
Our passage this morning is the last part of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew. Great crowds had come out to avail themselves of Jesus’ healing power, and while they were at it, they stopped and gave his message a listen as well. Jesus was addressing his fellow Jews, fellow believers in God and practitioners of the Jewish religion. And his message was not about how to live or that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, but that God was actually coming into the world, and things were going to drastically change, and he was asking his fellow believers to get ready.
No, I am not a reader of the Left Behind series, though I probably should read it just so I know what kind of nonsense is being perpetrated out there. No, I don’t have any fundamentalist beliefs about plagues and battles and the anti-Christ.
But I do believe that our religion is not as much about going to heaven, as it is about heaven coming here.
Jesus came to announce to believers that God is coming to inhabit his people in the same way he came to inhabit his temple in the days of David. He is coming to light us up, to transform us completely, from the inside out.
It’s important to put this teaching in that perspective, because we too quickly domesticate this passage into a “don’t worry, be happy,” kind of message, and it isn’t that at all. It also isn’t really a condemnation of money or wealth. It is a call to the people who want to follow Christ, a call to people who feel within themselves the importance of the kingdom of God.
Jesus used the metaphor of salt. The people of God are to the world as salt is to a meal. The world tastes bad and it is spoiling. The people of God are the salt put into the meal to preserve it and to make it taste good.
Jesus is telling us that we, the priestly nation of God, are really here to flavor the world. Do you know what I’m saying? We aren’t here to force anything, to conquer anyone, to overthrow anybody. No, we are meant to season the world. The world taste bad. We’re here to make it taste a little better.
But if we don’t bear within ourselves the saltiness, why then, we don’t flavor anything. We taste just like everything else.
And so the sermon on the mount is about that flavor, that saltiness that we are called to have and be, and it basically is about not being anything like the world at all. While the world is caught up with the fine gradations of the law that everyone is trying to figure out a way to get over, we are to be people who want only to do God’s will. In a world of murderers, we are not supposed to even get angry. In a world of adulterers, we aren’t even supposed to feel lust. In a world of hypocrites, we are supposed to have perfectly pure motives. In a world that only gives lip service to God, we are to be his true servants. In a world full of people struggling for resources, we are to trust God for all our needs.
This is our saltiness, our flavor, and without it, we are nothing.
The saltiness Jesus is speaking about is our motives and not our deeds. We like to point to our deeds, because they are clearly visible, even if only to ourselves, and they are easily done even when our motives are cloudy. But isn’t it the difference usually perceptible? Don’t you think you can tell? It’s only when someone’s motives change that they really light up.
When it comes to wealth, Jesus is not telling us that wealth is bad. He is not telling us that being wealthy is evil. He is acknowledging that money talks and the rest walks. It is of tremendous importance. Whenever someone says to me, “Money’s not important to me,” I always respond, “Well then give me all of yours.”
Money is important. It’s terribly important. We may be discovering now that it’s more important even than guns and armies. It may be a nation can conquer the world with nothing but money. Our economy right now is going through a bumpy ride and it’s pretty scary. I would think for retired folks with limited means it’s particularly scary. And how can we say to people in Myanmar, “don’t worry about it?” We can’t say that.
This is not what Jesus is teaching. He is teaching you and me about how we are to be different from the world. While the world, quite normally and appropriately, desperately fears for its well-being, part of our saltiness in the world will be our fearless dependence on God’s care.
If this looks impossible, well, it is. God’s own being is the saltiness in the salt of God’s people. Money is desperately important to everyone on earth precisely because it is important. To be released from such a need is something only our heavenly Father can do, and he does it by sending his own Spirit to dwell in us.
To me, as a follower of Jesus, I look back over my life and see how I have always longed to serve him. I have always been ill at ease with the ways of the world and they have never worked for me. In fact, I felt myself trapped and bound and imprisoned, I felt like I couldn’t be who I really was meant to be.
The great joy of my life is to find that there is nothing wrong with me after all. I am meant to be different from the world around me. To be unconcerned about my wealth or property is abnormal for citizens of the world, but for me it is who I really am.
Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The opposite of rich is not poor but free.”
That email sermon was attributed to George Carlin with a little parenthetical remark that he wrote it after his wife died. Well it’s true that Carlin’s wife died, but he denied writing the passage, calling it a sappy piece of— well you know George Carlin. It was also attributed to a student who had witnessed Columbine. This also is not true.
It was actually written by a pastor whom I will not name, of a very conservative independent mega-church that I will also not name. The congregation’s website declares the inerrancy of scripture and that the bible forbids female leadership. This pastor eventually resigned over allegations he had sexually molested a number of male church members, allegations that were eventually confirmed.
So here’s my addendum to this poor pastor’s irrefutably good sermon: The paradox of our time in the church is that we have great certainty but no faith, lots of bibles but few readers, lots of fire but little light, impressive deeds but doubtful motives, huge churches led by small people.
And didn’t Jesus give us the most important paradox of all?
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
—Matt 5:3-12 (NRSV)
Amen.
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