Seeking What Is Above, Tied to What Is Below

Scripture Lessons: Hosea 11: 1-11 and Colossians 3: 1-11 Preached on August 4, 2019 Sermon title: Seeking What Is Above, Tied to What Is Below I recently had lunch with two great leaders in our church, Mary Margaret and Clem Doyle. Over the course of lunch, in addition to just catching up and enjoying time together, Clem wanted to know what obstacles I thought we might need to overcome as a church in the next few years. What is standing in the way of our progress? This was a question I wasn’t really prepared to answer. So, I’ve been thinking about it and talking about ever since. Buck Buchanon said it best. That the great and obvious obstacle standing in the way of growth, evangelism, and the spread of the Gospel here at First Presbyterian Church are the two front doors. Most every church has doors like ours. Nice doors that swing right open. Ours even have someone like Harry Vaughn with a smiling face who will open the doors for you. Still, there are a lot of people out in the world who are afraid to go through them. Now why is that? I believe it’s right there in Colossians: being a Christian demands that we change. There are habits we’ve grown used to that we must leave behind. A requirement of the Christian life is that we don’t stay the same as we’ve always been, so Paul charges us in our Second Scripture Lesson: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth… Put to death, whatever in your is earthly.” Christians have to be different. We have to change, and change is hard, so not everyone is just going to walk through those doors. Grace abounds and new life is here, but change is required and change is hard. It’s hard for all of us. And I want to do it well. I am a pastor after all. But more than that, I want to be a Christian, and I know that our religion calls me to a different standard of behavior modeled on the life of Christ. Now what does that look like? His first miracle in the Gospel of John took place at a party. When the wine ran out, his mother called on him to do something about it. You remember what he did. He didn’t take this opportunity to preach. He didn’t scold anyone. He told some people to fill up the great empty vats with water, and he turned the water into wine. We have to remember that image as we read our Second Scripture Lesson, for when Paul talks about the difference between seeking the things that are above and not on things that are on earth, what he’s really talking about is the difference between being selfish and being mindful of the needs of others. He’s not talking about being antisocial, but how we can be a loving part of the party. We not called to be more judgmental or self-righteous, but kinder and more charitable. When we consider what it means to be earthly, we must keep in mind the way of life that Jesus modeled and compare it to the way of the religious authorities whom he opposed, for while Jesus never left the wedding party, still today there are still plenty of Christians who will tell you that to follow Jesus we must leave having fun behind. Think about Miss Watson in Huckleberry Finn. Miss Watson was telling him about heaven. How he must stop being so bad so when he dies he can go to the good place, which she described as a place where “all a body would have to do was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.” Hearing that, Huck didn’t think much of it. To make matters worse, he asked Miss Watson if she thought his friend Tom Sawyer would go there. When she said, “not by a considerable sight” Huck was glad to go to the bad place, where there might be more exciting things to do, and at least he’d have a friend. Plenty of people think like Huckleberry Finn. When they hear what they have to give up, they don’t want to change. Then, the doors of our churches become obstacles that the likes of Huckleberry Finn don’t want to go through, and who can blame them? I don’t want to play the harp with old Miss Watson either. Later in the book it becomes even more challenging for Huck. Later comes the moment in Huckleberry Finn where he makes this very important choice. He’s run away with Miss Watson’s slave, Jim. The heavy weight of stealing, what Huck and so many others believed was her property, weighs heavy on his shoulders. In an attempt to do what was right, he got a piece of paper and a pencil “all glad and excited” to tell her that a Mr. Phelps has [Jim] and will give him up for a reward if she’ll just send it. After writing this he said, “I felt good and all washed clean of sin.” He thinks he’s finally set his mind on what is heavenly. But, then, he doesn’t send it straight off, but lays the paper down and sits there thinking. Mark Twain writes that “he got to thinking over their trip down the river. He could see Jim before him all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms; they were a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing.” So, after considerable thought, finally Huck said, “all right, then, I’ll go to hell” and tore up the letter. We get confused this way sometimes too. What is it that we must give up? What does it mean to be earthly? What does it look like to seek the things that are above? Only, consider how right-side up Huckleberry Finn had it when he thought he was doing it all up-side down. The Gospel does call us to a new way of life. The Gospel does call us to change, but in reading this passage from Colossians, recognize that the way of life that we are called to is being able to see that Christ is all and in all, even in those society has called property or worse. That’s what it means to leave behind what is earthly. That’s what it means to set our minds on things that are above. For down here on the earth we are so often blind to the humanity of our neighbors. When Paul writes, “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed,” Know that being earthly means gratifying our desires at another’s expense. Being earthly means cheating our neighbor as though money were more important than people. Being earthly means using faith to justify slavery or so many other abominations. Being earthly is being foolish with our words. Saying things like, “I wish they’d just go back where they came from.” This phrase and so many like it that we hear more and more these days, keep us tethered to the earth and trapped in the past. It’s not just that our words can hurt or be used to demean and devalue and disempower. It’s that it’s not where we’re from that matters but where we’re going. We Christians must speak using the language of heaven. Our words must reflect the values of that place where, according to our Second Scripture Lesson, there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free. We are called to see, not only the humanity of our neighbor, but the Christ who dwells within him. I could see how important it is to live that way as I was checking out at the Kroger last Friday. It was a hot day. You remember. So, when I was at the Kroger at about 5:00, the woman in front of me had taken off her wig while shopping and put it with her produce in the cart. The reason I know that is because the cashier bagged all this woman’s groceries, then got to the wig and said, “Mam, you forget your hair.” This was at the busy time of the day in the grocery store. Everyone was in there, and when that’s the case it’s easy to be rude to the cashier. It’s easy to forget that Christ dwells within her, but we have to slow down, look her in the eye, value her as person regardless of her station, race, or citizenship status, because we never know, she might be the one to hand us back our hair. “Christ is all and in all” proclaims our Second Scripture Lesson. Remember that and know that how we treat the cashier matters more than whether or not we have beer in our shopping cart. How we treat each other determines whether we are trapped in the prison of selfishness or on our way to the Kingdom of Heaven. I wish the 21-year-old gunman who walked into a Walmart yesterday in El Paso, Texas, killing 20 people wounding 26 others had thought about that. He didn’t. He didn’t understand that what we have done to the least of these, we have done to Him. Consider the One Whom we serve, for though He had every right to rub shoulders with Kings and Queens, instead he washed his disciples’ feet. While he could have come to judge the world, instead he came to save it. He ate with sinners, tax collectors, and all God’s children we fail to see as precious. And He still does. The table is before us. All that is required is that you leave what is earthly behind, and step towards the Kingdom of Heaven. That you give up on status, for here, all are one. That you give up on self-righteousness, for here, all is grace. When we all choose to live this way, the doors of our churches become no obstacle, for the grace we receive here is what all people long for. Amen.