Matthew 15: 10-28, page 17
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Sermon
This past week I was in Charleston, South Carolina. My grandmother has been in the hospital there for the past few weeks struggling to fight a rare strain of pneumonia, and my grandfather, wanting to be at her bedside each day, needed me to drive him back and forth from the hospital.
One night I fried him chicken wings, and I was reminded of how differently he eats. He grew up in a swamp, more or less, not that that explains it, but I suppose he grew up not wasting anything. When it came to chicken wings I ate the little drum stick part and the flat part with the two bones. He thought this was wasteful, because he on the other hand, in addition to eating both those parts also scrapes the skin of the pointy piece that makes up the tip of the wing that I didn’t even know was edible.
He’s always been like that. His favorite part of the catfish is the tail fin, and at Thanksgiving or Christmas I remember being called into the kitchen as a 7- or 8-year-old where he’d cut off a piece of fat from the roast: “Here you go boy; don’t tell your mother I gave you this.”
The things that go into his mouth aren’t want I would call clean, nor would I call it healthy, but what comes out of his mouth is often something different – “I can’t tell you how proud we are of you Joe,” he has so often said to me.
Then he said to the disciples, ‘Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart…’
What people eat, what goes in their mouths, is largely informed by culture. Here in Columbia, at least until the close of Sam Hills, there were rooster fries. Bushmen in Africa like nothing better than porcupine skin, and my grandfather grew up eating squirrel. But more than that, culture informs not only what we eat, but who we eat with, who we accept and who we don’t, who are worth associating with and who aren’t. So Christ makes this statement about food, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles,” and follows this statement with its application.
Jesus grew up in a time with its own cultural norms, and by those norms he was told what was good to eat and what wasn’t, but more than that, he was told who he should eat with, who should be accepted, and who was worth associating with. When a woman from a certain region came to him shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon,” Jesus didn’t just think on his own, his response was informed by the cultural norms of his own day – “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
That’s not what we expected Jesus to say, but Jesus wasn’t born into a cultural vacuum. The Canaanite people for generations had been defined by where they lived, how they lived, and what they ate. These people were not just considered to be less than the Israelites, they were so low as to be considered dogs. And Jesus, just as he was taught what was good to eat by his environment, he was also taught who was good. Born into a certain family, he knew who was better and who was worse – who got the pork loin and who got the chittlins. He took in these lessons from culture, but it’s not what lessons you take in that matters, it’s not what you take in, what you eat, or where you grew up, it’s what actions that come out that define who you are.
A lot has changed at airports in the last 10 years, but the only change that I don’t find frustrating is the new Dyson Air Blade you can use to dry your hands in the Nashville Airport bathroom. There’s a lot more to be aggravated by – check-points, lines, always being ready with your boarding pass and drivers license, having to take off your shoes and not being allowed to take normal size shampoo. There’s a lot to get aggravated by, but it’s not the environment that you find yourself in at the airport that defines you – it’s how you react to the environment at the airport.
It amazes me how some supremely kind people will still help others to get baggage on and off the conveyor belts or how veteran flyers will explain to those who don’t know what can go on their carry-on and what can’t. How many people will return valuable objects left behind in airport restaurants, say please, thank you, and excuse me, even if they’re obviously running to catch their flight.
Their response to this new cultural norm of airport security says something about who they are, just as Jesus’ response to cultural norms of discrimination says everything about who he is.
In saying, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” we hear the echo of cultural norms of prejudice and racism, the hold that culture has taken on even the Son of God – but when she says to him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table,” he is invited to speak, not as his culture has taught him to speak, but to speak from his heart. Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
You are all the product of culture. What goes in are standards of not only what you eat, but who you eat with, who you accept and who you don’t, who are worth associating with and who aren’t. However, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
It is not the cultural norms you were born into that define who you are, but whether you live your life never questioning those norms, especially those that discriminate against groups and individuals.
It is not the norms of the household that you grew up in that define who you will be, but it is the choices that you make – to be like them or to be different – that make you who you are.
It is not the words that you heard growing up to describe groups of people, it is not the separation that culture deemed appropriate, it is not the generalizations that you grew up believing were true that determines the future – it is what you do – what you say – that will change the world.
Amen.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
On Your Lips and On Your Heart
Romans 10: 5-15, page 160
Moses write concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.”
But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?
“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart”
(That is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Sermon
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
Before I started seminary I worked for a lawn maintenance company and I would sometimes be working in someone’s lawn, cutting their grass, trimming their hedges, spraying their weeds, and I knew I was being watched as though I weren’t completely trusted with their boxwoods. At the time I was offended, feeling as though I deserved their trust, but there is a lot of wisdom in actually being there rather than assuming you know what is going on.
Assuming that everything is fine, that you’ve given good instructions and that they’ll be carried out isn’t always a good idea.
Bob Duncan, our county historian and long time member of this church told me a story the other day about a man who paid the price for not being there, assuming that everything was fine.
This man’s church, a beautiful old church south of Bigbyville in the Hopewell Community, needed a fresh coat of paint, and the man decided he was just the one to do something about it. There weren’t any other negotiators as shrewd as him, and with painters always out to make an extra buck off the kindness of church folk, this man began interviewing painters.
One rose above the rest – or you might say he bid below the rest – and the man patted himself on the back for such shrewd negotiating and told the painter, “I want you to paint everything below the roof white.”
“Everything?” the painter asked.
“Everything,” the man said, and he assumed his work was done, having given clear directions to the painter, and assured the painter that he was not the kind to be pushed around.
Soon he would be the hero of the congregation the man assumed, without returning to the church to make sure everything was going on as it should.
On Sunday the man came to church. The painter was gone having finished his work, done just what the man had asked, but not what the man assumed the painter would do. The congregation was standing outside the church admiring the new coat of paint - the siding was painted white, the doors were white, and so were the door knobs and even the windows. Everything below the roof had been painted white and that day church was held in a dark room, not as much worshiping as hand wringing and arm crossing.
There is a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
Adam Southern, columnist for the Daily Herald, wrote a story with a similar moral in the paper last week. He decided to take a trip to Atlanta, but rather than ask friends who had actually been there for recommendations about where to go and where to stay he made hotel reservations on-line. The hotel described itself as, “close to attractions and Downtown Atlanta.” Being from Atlanta I want you to know that’s not necessarily good, but that sounded good to Adam, as reading about a place is one thing and actually being there is another.
He pulled into the hotel parking lot at the same time as an ambulance. Not that an ambulance is bad, but the theme of the hotel is what concerned him – there are some hotels that seem inspired by bed and breakfasts, others that posses the flavor of the beach with shaded windows and palm trees – this hotel seemed to possess a prison theme, only lacking razor wire and a gunned parapet.
“Well, looks aren’t everything,” he told himself as he walked across the parking lot, only to be greeted by a man running and screaming to explain the presence of the ambulance, “That was a drive-by they just had!”
He went on into the office; “May I help you?” asked the desk clerk. Immediately Adam replied, “Yes! I would like to cancel my reservations please.”
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there. Sometimes you just have to be there – you can’t assume you know what’s going on, you can’t read about it on the internet. You just have to be there – and the same is true for people – the power of presence is always significant, there being a big difference between being present and not.
The Apostle Paul in this lesson from Romans writes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?”
Paul seems to believe that you know the answer to this question – how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed – that wouldn’t make any sense, now would it? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard – well, you can’t expect them to do that either. What, then, are you to do? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
He can’t be talking about your feet, you might say. He may as well be asking you to walk on water. But we know he asked Peter to do that too, and so we can’t be surprised that he asks you to get on your feet, regardless of how uncomfortable that makes you feel. How else are they going to call on the Lord? How are they going to believe without you?
It’s a clear enough message, I think, but still it’s a great challenge for Presbyterians. There’s an old joke: what do you get if you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on your door but doesn’t know what to say.
Let me say this then - there’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
There is a difference between setting foot in the hospital room to sit by a dying friend not knowing what to say, and assuming there’s no point in going.
There is a difference between getting to know a teacher by seeing her in action, and assuming that education in this country is failing and teachers are the problem.
There is a difference between setting foot in East Columbia and seeing our neighbors face to face, and assuming that there’s nothing we can do to fight crime and poverty in our community.
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there – “How beautiful are the feet then,” Paul writes, “How beautiful are the feet” of those who don’t put their faith in assumptions.
Those who do so honor our God, Paul says, for there is no need to bring Christ down from heaven or to descend into the abyss that you might bring Christ up – there is no need to go looking for Christ for God has made the word near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Ours is a God who has drawn near, walked the lonesome valley with you, not looking down from heaven in times of your distress, but coming as near to you to know all your joy and all your pain, taking human form to know you rather than make assumptions about the human condition.
Go and do likewise then. Go to them.
Do not assume that they’ll figure it out on their own – if you do we may as well paint the windows and keep the good news in here and all to ourselves.
Go to them and do not assume that you already know who they are. Do not assume that they already know what you have to bring, and do not worry about what you will say – it’s not the mouth, nor the words, but the feet. For beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.
Amen.
Moses write concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.”
But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?
“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart”
(That is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Sermon
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
Before I started seminary I worked for a lawn maintenance company and I would sometimes be working in someone’s lawn, cutting their grass, trimming their hedges, spraying their weeds, and I knew I was being watched as though I weren’t completely trusted with their boxwoods. At the time I was offended, feeling as though I deserved their trust, but there is a lot of wisdom in actually being there rather than assuming you know what is going on.
Assuming that everything is fine, that you’ve given good instructions and that they’ll be carried out isn’t always a good idea.
Bob Duncan, our county historian and long time member of this church told me a story the other day about a man who paid the price for not being there, assuming that everything was fine.
This man’s church, a beautiful old church south of Bigbyville in the Hopewell Community, needed a fresh coat of paint, and the man decided he was just the one to do something about it. There weren’t any other negotiators as shrewd as him, and with painters always out to make an extra buck off the kindness of church folk, this man began interviewing painters.
One rose above the rest – or you might say he bid below the rest – and the man patted himself on the back for such shrewd negotiating and told the painter, “I want you to paint everything below the roof white.”
“Everything?” the painter asked.
“Everything,” the man said, and he assumed his work was done, having given clear directions to the painter, and assured the painter that he was not the kind to be pushed around.
Soon he would be the hero of the congregation the man assumed, without returning to the church to make sure everything was going on as it should.
On Sunday the man came to church. The painter was gone having finished his work, done just what the man had asked, but not what the man assumed the painter would do. The congregation was standing outside the church admiring the new coat of paint - the siding was painted white, the doors were white, and so were the door knobs and even the windows. Everything below the roof had been painted white and that day church was held in a dark room, not as much worshiping as hand wringing and arm crossing.
There is a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
Adam Southern, columnist for the Daily Herald, wrote a story with a similar moral in the paper last week. He decided to take a trip to Atlanta, but rather than ask friends who had actually been there for recommendations about where to go and where to stay he made hotel reservations on-line. The hotel described itself as, “close to attractions and Downtown Atlanta.” Being from Atlanta I want you to know that’s not necessarily good, but that sounded good to Adam, as reading about a place is one thing and actually being there is another.
He pulled into the hotel parking lot at the same time as an ambulance. Not that an ambulance is bad, but the theme of the hotel is what concerned him – there are some hotels that seem inspired by bed and breakfasts, others that posses the flavor of the beach with shaded windows and palm trees – this hotel seemed to possess a prison theme, only lacking razor wire and a gunned parapet.
“Well, looks aren’t everything,” he told himself as he walked across the parking lot, only to be greeted by a man running and screaming to explain the presence of the ambulance, “That was a drive-by they just had!”
He went on into the office; “May I help you?” asked the desk clerk. Immediately Adam replied, “Yes! I would like to cancel my reservations please.”
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there. Sometimes you just have to be there – you can’t assume you know what’s going on, you can’t read about it on the internet. You just have to be there – and the same is true for people – the power of presence is always significant, there being a big difference between being present and not.
The Apostle Paul in this lesson from Romans writes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?”
Paul seems to believe that you know the answer to this question – how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed – that wouldn’t make any sense, now would it? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard – well, you can’t expect them to do that either. What, then, are you to do? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
He can’t be talking about your feet, you might say. He may as well be asking you to walk on water. But we know he asked Peter to do that too, and so we can’t be surprised that he asks you to get on your feet, regardless of how uncomfortable that makes you feel. How else are they going to call on the Lord? How are they going to believe without you?
It’s a clear enough message, I think, but still it’s a great challenge for Presbyterians. There’s an old joke: what do you get if you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on your door but doesn’t know what to say.
Let me say this then - there’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there.
There is a difference between setting foot in the hospital room to sit by a dying friend not knowing what to say, and assuming there’s no point in going.
There is a difference between getting to know a teacher by seeing her in action, and assuming that education in this country is failing and teachers are the problem.
There is a difference between setting foot in East Columbia and seeing our neighbors face to face, and assuming that there’s nothing we can do to fight crime and poverty in our community.
There’s a difference between actually being there and assuming you know what is going on without being there – “How beautiful are the feet then,” Paul writes, “How beautiful are the feet” of those who don’t put their faith in assumptions.
Those who do so honor our God, Paul says, for there is no need to bring Christ down from heaven or to descend into the abyss that you might bring Christ up – there is no need to go looking for Christ for God has made the word near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Ours is a God who has drawn near, walked the lonesome valley with you, not looking down from heaven in times of your distress, but coming as near to you to know all your joy and all your pain, taking human form to know you rather than make assumptions about the human condition.
Go and do likewise then. Go to them.
Do not assume that they’ll figure it out on their own – if you do we may as well paint the windows and keep the good news in here and all to ourselves.
Go to them and do not assume that you already know who they are. Do not assume that they already know what you have to bring, and do not worry about what you will say – it’s not the mouth, nor the words, but the feet. For beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.
Amen.
Monday, August 1, 2011
My Kindred According to the Flesh
Romans 9: 1-5, page 159
I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Sermon
Last Sunday afternoon, James Fleming, the chair of the pastor nominating committee who interviewed and called me to this church, challenged me with an email titled: “Can you top this?”
The email was a video of a protestant minister praying before a huge crowd at a NASCAR race:
“Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings. You say in all things give thanks. So we want to thank you for all these mighty machines that you have brought before us. Thank you for the Dodges, and the Toyotas, thank you for the Fords, and thank you most of all for Rouch and Yates partnering to give us the power that we see before us tonight. Thank you for GM performance technology and R07 engines, thank you for Sunoco racing fuel, and Goodyear tires that give performance and power to the track. Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking hot wife tonight Lisa, my two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call them, the little “e’s”. Lord I pray you’ll bless the drivers and use them tonight. May they put on a performance worthy of this track. In Jesus name, boogedy, boogedy, boogedy, Amen.”
The titled of Mr. Fleming’s email was, “can you top this?” but I’m pretty sure that if he really thought I could pray a prayer to match that one he never would have been interested in interviewing me to serve this church.
There’s a degree of polish that comes with being a Presbyterian. There’s a certain air, and maybe you, like me, consider yourself to be different from the kind of pastor who would pray a prayer like this one and the kind of crowd who would appreciate it.
I would like to believe that there are miles of difference between the two of us, but when you get right down to it we have a lot more in common than I’d like to admit. We’re both pastors, we’re both protestant pastors for that matter. I assume we share many of the same hopes and aspirations – to live as Christ would have us, to pray for those who face danger, to see and know fully all the blessings that we have to be thankful for. This pastor, Joe Nelms and I, not only share the same vocation and many other similar qualities; we have the same first name.
I’m stuck with him, just as he’s stuck with me, as in a lot of ways our Spiritual Family isn’t any different from the families we were born into. They’re not like your friends, in that you don’t get to pick them. You and I are stuck with Pastor Joe Nelms, though we’re tempted to see ourselves as different, and maybe even better.
The Apostle Paul must have been faced with the same temptation, to believe that he was more enlightened, to believe that he knew more or was closer to God than those Israelites who stayed with the old traditions and failed to see Christ as the Messiah. He must have been tempted to believe that there were miles of difference between where he came from and where he ended up, going from a life in Judaism to a life in Christ. But in our scripture lesson we see a man who doesn’t distance himself from the Israelites, but honors them despite their differences:
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah.”
Rooted then in the faith of his forefathers and foremothers Paul celebrates not only his new life in Christ, but his heritage in the people who gave Christianity a savior.
While Paul sees it this way I doubt his family did. They must have seen him as their great disappointment. There’s no evidence that anyone in his family followed his example, and maybe you can imagine how dinner conversation went when Uncle Paul journeyed back to Jerusalem to visit his brothers and sisters. His grandmother had been explaining his quirks to all her friends – yes, he was such a student of the Torah, yes, he adhered to the letter of the Law, yes, he did go on to persecute Christens…but right now he’s going through some kind of phase you see – but I’m confident his parents are going to be able to talk him back to reality – you know how young people are.
I’m sure that his parents were worried, and that they saw miles of difference between where he was and where they thought he should be. But while it would be understandable for Paul to go and do the same, call attention to the gap of difference between them, Paul calls their attention to what they hold in common and longs for a way to bridge the gap – “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
This way of thinking doesn’t last very long as relations between Christians and Jews deteriorate rapidly – first Christians are kicked out of the synagogues, then ostracized by their families, and soon Christians begin returning the favor, and by the middle ages you have Crusaders who find it appropriate to destroy Jewish settlements in Europe on their way to fight Holy War in the Middle East.
What develops is the kind of mindset that becomes the foundation of the Holocaust – but it didn’t have to be this way.
The Apostle Paul doesn’t call for animosity between Christians and Jews – here he so clearly calls Christians to acknowledge the truth that the foundation of all their belief is with the Israelites, and rather than strike out at them we should longingly look forward to the day when they recognize the coming of their Messiah in Christ.
We’re not so different at all, he seems to be saying, but sometimes our tendency is to call attention to the differences.
Last Friday the Daily Herald quoted late night television host David Letterman: “The NFL lockout is over. All the parties agreed and we have a compromise. It’s too bad the national debt isn’t as important as football.”
It is too bad, but these days the difference between a Democrat and a Republican seems insurmountable – Speaker of the House John Boehner not wanting to have much to do with President Obama, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
It seems today as though there are miles of difference between the two camps, and the more this difference is aggravated the more you and I will suffer.
That’s how it seems to be anyway – that this country stands to gain from a government working together rather than perusing two difference goals, that we have more in common than we have different, and we should be praying for each other rather than fueling division with our rhetoric.
“I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
Paul does not represent the current attitude among politicians in Washington, but may he represent yours.
See commonality when all around you there is focus on division.
Feel the pain of schism, with great sorrow and anguish in your heart.
And while some focus on what they have to gain from attacking opponents and catering to likeminded factions, remember that Paul would cut himself off from Christ for the sake of his people.
Exhibit that same love for those who seem different and you’ll honor the one who makes us all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
Amen.
I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Sermon
Last Sunday afternoon, James Fleming, the chair of the pastor nominating committee who interviewed and called me to this church, challenged me with an email titled: “Can you top this?”
The email was a video of a protestant minister praying before a huge crowd at a NASCAR race:
“Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings. You say in all things give thanks. So we want to thank you for all these mighty machines that you have brought before us. Thank you for the Dodges, and the Toyotas, thank you for the Fords, and thank you most of all for Rouch and Yates partnering to give us the power that we see before us tonight. Thank you for GM performance technology and R07 engines, thank you for Sunoco racing fuel, and Goodyear tires that give performance and power to the track. Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking hot wife tonight Lisa, my two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call them, the little “e’s”. Lord I pray you’ll bless the drivers and use them tonight. May they put on a performance worthy of this track. In Jesus name, boogedy, boogedy, boogedy, Amen.”
The titled of Mr. Fleming’s email was, “can you top this?” but I’m pretty sure that if he really thought I could pray a prayer to match that one he never would have been interested in interviewing me to serve this church.
There’s a degree of polish that comes with being a Presbyterian. There’s a certain air, and maybe you, like me, consider yourself to be different from the kind of pastor who would pray a prayer like this one and the kind of crowd who would appreciate it.
I would like to believe that there are miles of difference between the two of us, but when you get right down to it we have a lot more in common than I’d like to admit. We’re both pastors, we’re both protestant pastors for that matter. I assume we share many of the same hopes and aspirations – to live as Christ would have us, to pray for those who face danger, to see and know fully all the blessings that we have to be thankful for. This pastor, Joe Nelms and I, not only share the same vocation and many other similar qualities; we have the same first name.
I’m stuck with him, just as he’s stuck with me, as in a lot of ways our Spiritual Family isn’t any different from the families we were born into. They’re not like your friends, in that you don’t get to pick them. You and I are stuck with Pastor Joe Nelms, though we’re tempted to see ourselves as different, and maybe even better.
The Apostle Paul must have been faced with the same temptation, to believe that he was more enlightened, to believe that he knew more or was closer to God than those Israelites who stayed with the old traditions and failed to see Christ as the Messiah. He must have been tempted to believe that there were miles of difference between where he came from and where he ended up, going from a life in Judaism to a life in Christ. But in our scripture lesson we see a man who doesn’t distance himself from the Israelites, but honors them despite their differences:
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah.”
Rooted then in the faith of his forefathers and foremothers Paul celebrates not only his new life in Christ, but his heritage in the people who gave Christianity a savior.
While Paul sees it this way I doubt his family did. They must have seen him as their great disappointment. There’s no evidence that anyone in his family followed his example, and maybe you can imagine how dinner conversation went when Uncle Paul journeyed back to Jerusalem to visit his brothers and sisters. His grandmother had been explaining his quirks to all her friends – yes, he was such a student of the Torah, yes, he adhered to the letter of the Law, yes, he did go on to persecute Christens…but right now he’s going through some kind of phase you see – but I’m confident his parents are going to be able to talk him back to reality – you know how young people are.
I’m sure that his parents were worried, and that they saw miles of difference between where he was and where they thought he should be. But while it would be understandable for Paul to go and do the same, call attention to the gap of difference between them, Paul calls their attention to what they hold in common and longs for a way to bridge the gap – “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
This way of thinking doesn’t last very long as relations between Christians and Jews deteriorate rapidly – first Christians are kicked out of the synagogues, then ostracized by their families, and soon Christians begin returning the favor, and by the middle ages you have Crusaders who find it appropriate to destroy Jewish settlements in Europe on their way to fight Holy War in the Middle East.
What develops is the kind of mindset that becomes the foundation of the Holocaust – but it didn’t have to be this way.
The Apostle Paul doesn’t call for animosity between Christians and Jews – here he so clearly calls Christians to acknowledge the truth that the foundation of all their belief is with the Israelites, and rather than strike out at them we should longingly look forward to the day when they recognize the coming of their Messiah in Christ.
We’re not so different at all, he seems to be saying, but sometimes our tendency is to call attention to the differences.
Last Friday the Daily Herald quoted late night television host David Letterman: “The NFL lockout is over. All the parties agreed and we have a compromise. It’s too bad the national debt isn’t as important as football.”
It is too bad, but these days the difference between a Democrat and a Republican seems insurmountable – Speaker of the House John Boehner not wanting to have much to do with President Obama, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
It seems today as though there are miles of difference between the two camps, and the more this difference is aggravated the more you and I will suffer.
That’s how it seems to be anyway – that this country stands to gain from a government working together rather than perusing two difference goals, that we have more in common than we have different, and we should be praying for each other rather than fueling division with our rhetoric.
“I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
Paul does not represent the current attitude among politicians in Washington, but may he represent yours.
See commonality when all around you there is focus on division.
Feel the pain of schism, with great sorrow and anguish in your heart.
And while some focus on what they have to gain from attacking opponents and catering to likeminded factions, remember that Paul would cut himself off from Christ for the sake of his people.
Exhibit that same love for those who seem different and you’ll honor the one who makes us all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
Amen.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
I Am Convinced
Romans 8: 26-39, page 158
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose. For those whom God foreknew God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
And those whom God predestined God also called; and those whom God called God also justified; and those whom God justified God also glorified.
What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
God who did not withhold God’s own son, but gave him up for all of us, will God not with him also give us everything else?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sermon
August 6th is to be a day of prayer, or so hopes Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has called on the president, our nation’s governors, and Texas lawmakers to fill up Houston’s reliant stadium with people who are “Christ-loving and realize that our country has gotten off track.”
Governor Perry has touched a nerve with many Christians in our country who hope that a day of prayer will spur a return to God, a change of heart, and a new direction for our nation and our world.
It must be a hopeless feeling, believing that such a drastic change is necessary – a hopeless feeling that our nation, our representatives, maybe especially our President, no longer seeks to follow the will of God, or at least, no longer represents their religious values.
If a Texas Governor in a nation led by a President who is a Protestant feels a need for this kind of dramatic change, we can scarcely grasp how the congregation Paul addresses must have felt each day living in an empire led by an Emperor who was a Pagan.
Certainly the Emperor of Rome couldn’t have supported the church that Paul addresses in this letter, and certainly the church must have felt cut off from an Empire who pledged allegiance to different gods, followed a different code of ethics, and neither respected nor even recognized the existence of Christianity.
But Paul doesn’t urge this fledging group to storm the coliseum for a prayer meeting – instead Paul offers this group assurance, that their relationship with God is not contingent upon the empire who rules over them, nor is their relationship with God at all in question.
That must have been hard to believe, as I think it will always be hard to believe – this idea that we need not pray using formal or even beautiful speech, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words”.
So many have lived their lives believing something else entirely – that God is distant, hard to reach, and surely we have fallen too far afield to be heard.
There’s a story about Jim Morrison, the lead singer for the Doors, a rock and roll band who pushed the limits of what was acceptable with their controversial lyrics and scandalous stage persona during the 1960’s. The story goes, Morrison is brought to a place, the Factory, to meet the artist Andy Warhol, who greets Morrison like the returning prodigal son though it’s not clear that they’ve ever met. Warhol gives Morrison a golden telephone, which Warhol picks up and holds out to Morrison saying: "Somebody gave me this telephone... I think it was Edie... yeah it was Edie... and she said I could talk to God with it, but uh... I don't have anything to say... so here... (giving Jim the phone) this is for you... now you can talk to God.”
In some ways, for some people, this is easier to believe – that it must take something magical, something special, to be heard by God, to be noticed by God – and so those who know that they have fallen off track, slipped backwards, and believe they have lost favor can’t believe that communication with the Most High God is as simple as getting down on your knees wherever you are. It must be more complicated than that – there must be a need for a golden telephone – surely God will not hear and be merciful to me, a sinner.
Not realizing that God is ever more ready to hear than we are to speak.
Not believing that if God is for us, surely no one could be against us.
Not daring to trust in the assurance that in all things we are more than conquerors considering the one who has loved us beyond measure.
After all, our world just doesn’t work that way.
Ours is a world of loss and gain – in the workplace, some gain favor with promotions and raises while others lose it. In school the push to succeed is so strong that teachers themselves in Georgia have been found guilty of cheating on standardized tests. And in society those who have made it hardly know where they stand if they don’t know whom they have left out.
In our world of lay-offs, failing math and science scores, and social hierarchy, who could ever believe in a God whose love is not given based on deserving, but whose love is simply poured out in the hope that you will see yourself for who you truly are?
Not according to the opinion of your boss, who saw you as replaceable.
Not according to the standardized test scores, which saw your need for improvement.
Not according to society, who lifted up the Pharisee over and above the thieves, the rogues, the adulterers, or even the tax collector.
For while we must always demand better of ourselves, striving to use our gifts to the fullest of our capacity, we can never forget that in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose. For those whom God foreknew God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
And those whom God predestined God also called; and those whom God called God also justified; and those whom God justified God also glorified.
What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
God who did not withhold God’s own son, but gave him up for all of us, will God not with him also give us everything else?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sermon
August 6th is to be a day of prayer, or so hopes Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has called on the president, our nation’s governors, and Texas lawmakers to fill up Houston’s reliant stadium with people who are “Christ-loving and realize that our country has gotten off track.”
Governor Perry has touched a nerve with many Christians in our country who hope that a day of prayer will spur a return to God, a change of heart, and a new direction for our nation and our world.
It must be a hopeless feeling, believing that such a drastic change is necessary – a hopeless feeling that our nation, our representatives, maybe especially our President, no longer seeks to follow the will of God, or at least, no longer represents their religious values.
If a Texas Governor in a nation led by a President who is a Protestant feels a need for this kind of dramatic change, we can scarcely grasp how the congregation Paul addresses must have felt each day living in an empire led by an Emperor who was a Pagan.
Certainly the Emperor of Rome couldn’t have supported the church that Paul addresses in this letter, and certainly the church must have felt cut off from an Empire who pledged allegiance to different gods, followed a different code of ethics, and neither respected nor even recognized the existence of Christianity.
But Paul doesn’t urge this fledging group to storm the coliseum for a prayer meeting – instead Paul offers this group assurance, that their relationship with God is not contingent upon the empire who rules over them, nor is their relationship with God at all in question.
That must have been hard to believe, as I think it will always be hard to believe – this idea that we need not pray using formal or even beautiful speech, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words”.
So many have lived their lives believing something else entirely – that God is distant, hard to reach, and surely we have fallen too far afield to be heard.
There’s a story about Jim Morrison, the lead singer for the Doors, a rock and roll band who pushed the limits of what was acceptable with their controversial lyrics and scandalous stage persona during the 1960’s. The story goes, Morrison is brought to a place, the Factory, to meet the artist Andy Warhol, who greets Morrison like the returning prodigal son though it’s not clear that they’ve ever met. Warhol gives Morrison a golden telephone, which Warhol picks up and holds out to Morrison saying: "Somebody gave me this telephone... I think it was Edie... yeah it was Edie... and she said I could talk to God with it, but uh... I don't have anything to say... so here... (giving Jim the phone) this is for you... now you can talk to God.”
In some ways, for some people, this is easier to believe – that it must take something magical, something special, to be heard by God, to be noticed by God – and so those who know that they have fallen off track, slipped backwards, and believe they have lost favor can’t believe that communication with the Most High God is as simple as getting down on your knees wherever you are. It must be more complicated than that – there must be a need for a golden telephone – surely God will not hear and be merciful to me, a sinner.
Not realizing that God is ever more ready to hear than we are to speak.
Not believing that if God is for us, surely no one could be against us.
Not daring to trust in the assurance that in all things we are more than conquerors considering the one who has loved us beyond measure.
After all, our world just doesn’t work that way.
Ours is a world of loss and gain – in the workplace, some gain favor with promotions and raises while others lose it. In school the push to succeed is so strong that teachers themselves in Georgia have been found guilty of cheating on standardized tests. And in society those who have made it hardly know where they stand if they don’t know whom they have left out.
In our world of lay-offs, failing math and science scores, and social hierarchy, who could ever believe in a God whose love is not given based on deserving, but whose love is simply poured out in the hope that you will see yourself for who you truly are?
Not according to the opinion of your boss, who saw you as replaceable.
Not according to the standardized test scores, which saw your need for improvement.
Not according to society, who lifted up the Pharisee over and above the thieves, the rogues, the adulterers, or even the tax collector.
For while we must always demand better of ourselves, striving to use our gifts to the fullest of our capacity, we can never forget that in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
Monday, July 18, 2011
It's Coming
Romans 8: 12-25, page 158.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father! It is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from the bondage of decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what one already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Sermon
Almost three weeks ago my wife Sara and I left our two year old daughter Lily at home with her grandmother to go to the hospital – feeling like our lives were about to change forever. There is a difference between two kids and one kid, or so we’d heard, and perfectly happy with our lives as three, Sara and I would often talk about the change to four – how with two kids and two parents you can plan on man on man coverage, but when one of us is gone there are two kids to keep safe and only one parent to do it. How on earth would one of us ever make it to and from the grocery store, how would one of us feed them both lunch, how would one of us console them both if they both needed arms to hold them?
But then there wasn’t much of a point to this speculation – it was too late for that – you get to a certain point and there is no going back – the baby is coming.
The baby is coming – that’s true no matter who you are or what age you live in – at a certain point the mother realizes that there is only one way this baby is coming out.
That was certainly true in Paul’s day, though childbirth was something different from what those of us with access to modern medical care experience in the sense that the process back then was more painful, less public, and carried with it a much greater risk.
Sara and our new daughter Cecelia benefited from the care of a doctor who has delivered half of the city of Columbia and a nationally ranked hospital where mothers have access to sanitary conditions, epidurals, even television and popsicles. We benefited from a system of health care unavailable to everyone, but certainly unimaginable compared to conditions in the Roman Empire.
In the ancient world, where we can assume that in Rome, as in all ancient cultures and still many cultures today, the rate of infant mortality was high, as was the chance of a mother dying in labor.
But some things never change and Paul’s words still ring true, I assume they resonate with every mother of every time and place: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
We can assume that the women in his congregation would have known exactly what he was talking about, that childbirth is a time of groaning – but something new is coming and for the mother, there’s no going back to how it was before.
However, for the father, that may not be true, especially considering the accepted practice in Ancient Roman society of exposure, as the choice to raise a child lay not in the hands of the mother, but in the hands of the father who would examine the newborn and choose whether to raise it or leave it to die, often on the street. The Romans thought it was strange that some nations subsumed by their empire would raise all healthy children, that Egyptians, Germans, and Jews exposed none of their children but raised them all.
As they struggled for hours, risking their own lives and the life of that child who would be born, they had with them also a great worry – that all this work, all this pain, could be for nothing should the father choose not to raise this child.
As Paul elevates this image of the mother, using it as a divine image to explain the pain felt by all people, all of creation, we can assume that he not only sought to give an adequate metaphor for the new Kingdom that is coming, but sought to challenge the patriarchal assumptions of Ancient Rome – that the choice or decision made by a father was not akin to the divine working of God in creation, but the delivery of a new child by a mother, this glorious and unavoidable act was.
He lifts up an act – a new creation that is coming regardless of your waning state of mind, your back sliding, your fear, to make a point about our world – the Kingdom is coming – and there’s just as much a chance of stopping it as stopping a child from being born in the heat of labor.
I remember too well the night our oldest daughter Lily was born. After hours and hours of labor my wife Sara faced an emergency c-section. It was a big change from our expected birth plan, but more than that, it was an emergency c-section, and as they wheeled her out of the delivery room to take her to surgery I was left wondering whether the birth of my daughter might mean the death of my wife. My wife summoned tremendous strength and courage that night to face that pain and uncertainty, but there was no going back.
I, like many, will never have the privilege of giving birth, but as we all live in the midst of a changing world that we don’t always like and rarely understand we are invited to see the truth – that the Kingdom is coming and there’s no one can stop it.
While we don’t always like to look ourselves in the mirror.
While we don’t always like to remember our regrets - who we’ve known, who we’ve been hurt by and who we’ve hurt.
While we would save ourselves from dwelling too long on our greatest mistakes, fearing that they will define us over and above our greatest success.
While often, when we consider all of who we are, it’s hard to believe that we are truly worthy of love and acceptance, especially the love and acceptance of God.
While it seems as though sin and bad decisions will define us, Paul does not understand our relationship with God to be one where we are worthy of God’s love, but one where we are adopted by God’s grace whether we choose to follow or not.
And Paul does not understand creation as though all of creation’s redemption were a matter of choice, as Paul does not portray creation as a Roman father who makes a decision to choose or not choose a newborn child, but as an expectant mother, giving birth to the new creation whether she chooses to or not.
We are used to choice and we are used to our choices defining who we are. But the choice between obedience and disobedience does not paint the picture of creation in Romans. Paul does not liken the pain creation suffers to a Roman father who faces a choice, but a “creation” who like a pregnant mother, “waits in eager expectation” for the joy that is to come.
From this perspective Paul writes, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” that the Kingdom is coming – whether we choose it or not.
It is God who governs our existence, and it is hope and not disappointment that defines who we are as the people of God.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” and as we feel the pain of this childbirth what do we expect?
Out of sadness, regret, depression, disappointment you may expect the worse and come to believe that our whole society is going down and, likewise, when you look down deep at who you are and who you’ve been you may reach the conclusion that you are sure to go down with it. But who are you but a child of the God who calls you son, who calls you daughter, and if you are God’s children, then you are also heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – and if, in fact, you suffer with him, you suffer so that you may also be glorified with him – so you do not suffer pessimistically, but while trusting that all pain and discomfort are like birth pains – you suffer knowing that all groans lead the way to new life.
You see, you are the children of God, and so you encounter mistakes, not as lost opportunities, not as wrong turns that have lead off course, but as a part of an unavoidable process God is working in you and in the world.
You are the children of God, and so you must see yourself, not in disappointed judgment, but as a hopeful air of the God who has already chosen you as God’s own.
You are the children of God, who like an expectant mother know that your present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you, because you have a reason to hope.
Amen.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father! It is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from the bondage of decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what one already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Sermon
Almost three weeks ago my wife Sara and I left our two year old daughter Lily at home with her grandmother to go to the hospital – feeling like our lives were about to change forever. There is a difference between two kids and one kid, or so we’d heard, and perfectly happy with our lives as three, Sara and I would often talk about the change to four – how with two kids and two parents you can plan on man on man coverage, but when one of us is gone there are two kids to keep safe and only one parent to do it. How on earth would one of us ever make it to and from the grocery store, how would one of us feed them both lunch, how would one of us console them both if they both needed arms to hold them?
But then there wasn’t much of a point to this speculation – it was too late for that – you get to a certain point and there is no going back – the baby is coming.
The baby is coming – that’s true no matter who you are or what age you live in – at a certain point the mother realizes that there is only one way this baby is coming out.
That was certainly true in Paul’s day, though childbirth was something different from what those of us with access to modern medical care experience in the sense that the process back then was more painful, less public, and carried with it a much greater risk.
Sara and our new daughter Cecelia benefited from the care of a doctor who has delivered half of the city of Columbia and a nationally ranked hospital where mothers have access to sanitary conditions, epidurals, even television and popsicles. We benefited from a system of health care unavailable to everyone, but certainly unimaginable compared to conditions in the Roman Empire.
In the ancient world, where we can assume that in Rome, as in all ancient cultures and still many cultures today, the rate of infant mortality was high, as was the chance of a mother dying in labor.
But some things never change and Paul’s words still ring true, I assume they resonate with every mother of every time and place: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
We can assume that the women in his congregation would have known exactly what he was talking about, that childbirth is a time of groaning – but something new is coming and for the mother, there’s no going back to how it was before.
However, for the father, that may not be true, especially considering the accepted practice in Ancient Roman society of exposure, as the choice to raise a child lay not in the hands of the mother, but in the hands of the father who would examine the newborn and choose whether to raise it or leave it to die, often on the street. The Romans thought it was strange that some nations subsumed by their empire would raise all healthy children, that Egyptians, Germans, and Jews exposed none of their children but raised them all.
As they struggled for hours, risking their own lives and the life of that child who would be born, they had with them also a great worry – that all this work, all this pain, could be for nothing should the father choose not to raise this child.
As Paul elevates this image of the mother, using it as a divine image to explain the pain felt by all people, all of creation, we can assume that he not only sought to give an adequate metaphor for the new Kingdom that is coming, but sought to challenge the patriarchal assumptions of Ancient Rome – that the choice or decision made by a father was not akin to the divine working of God in creation, but the delivery of a new child by a mother, this glorious and unavoidable act was.
He lifts up an act – a new creation that is coming regardless of your waning state of mind, your back sliding, your fear, to make a point about our world – the Kingdom is coming – and there’s just as much a chance of stopping it as stopping a child from being born in the heat of labor.
I remember too well the night our oldest daughter Lily was born. After hours and hours of labor my wife Sara faced an emergency c-section. It was a big change from our expected birth plan, but more than that, it was an emergency c-section, and as they wheeled her out of the delivery room to take her to surgery I was left wondering whether the birth of my daughter might mean the death of my wife. My wife summoned tremendous strength and courage that night to face that pain and uncertainty, but there was no going back.
I, like many, will never have the privilege of giving birth, but as we all live in the midst of a changing world that we don’t always like and rarely understand we are invited to see the truth – that the Kingdom is coming and there’s no one can stop it.
While we don’t always like to look ourselves in the mirror.
While we don’t always like to remember our regrets - who we’ve known, who we’ve been hurt by and who we’ve hurt.
While we would save ourselves from dwelling too long on our greatest mistakes, fearing that they will define us over and above our greatest success.
While often, when we consider all of who we are, it’s hard to believe that we are truly worthy of love and acceptance, especially the love and acceptance of God.
While it seems as though sin and bad decisions will define us, Paul does not understand our relationship with God to be one where we are worthy of God’s love, but one where we are adopted by God’s grace whether we choose to follow or not.
And Paul does not understand creation as though all of creation’s redemption were a matter of choice, as Paul does not portray creation as a Roman father who makes a decision to choose or not choose a newborn child, but as an expectant mother, giving birth to the new creation whether she chooses to or not.
We are used to choice and we are used to our choices defining who we are. But the choice between obedience and disobedience does not paint the picture of creation in Romans. Paul does not liken the pain creation suffers to a Roman father who faces a choice, but a “creation” who like a pregnant mother, “waits in eager expectation” for the joy that is to come.
From this perspective Paul writes, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” that the Kingdom is coming – whether we choose it or not.
It is God who governs our existence, and it is hope and not disappointment that defines who we are as the people of God.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” and as we feel the pain of this childbirth what do we expect?
Out of sadness, regret, depression, disappointment you may expect the worse and come to believe that our whole society is going down and, likewise, when you look down deep at who you are and who you’ve been you may reach the conclusion that you are sure to go down with it. But who are you but a child of the God who calls you son, who calls you daughter, and if you are God’s children, then you are also heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – and if, in fact, you suffer with him, you suffer so that you may also be glorified with him – so you do not suffer pessimistically, but while trusting that all pain and discomfort are like birth pains – you suffer knowing that all groans lead the way to new life.
You see, you are the children of God, and so you encounter mistakes, not as lost opportunities, not as wrong turns that have lead off course, but as a part of an unavoidable process God is working in you and in the world.
You are the children of God, and so you must see yourself, not in disappointed judgment, but as a hopeful air of the God who has already chosen you as God’s own.
You are the children of God, who like an expectant mother know that your present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you, because you have a reason to hope.
Amen.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Sower's Lesson
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23, page 13
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thrones grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!
Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
Sermon
It is convenient that I already had two sermons written for this month – one that corresponds with this week’s assigned readings, another that corresponds with next—because months ago I recorded sermons on Day 1, a nationally syndicated radio show that broadcasts sermons according to the lectionary.
So the two Sundays following my second daughter’s birth, theoretically, I wouldn’t need to scramble to piece together sermons for Sunday--I wrote them already.
But the problem is, I wrote these two sermons to address a church that struggles to remain relevant in a changing world. And this morning I preach to you, a church that is powerfully relevant. Months ago, I wrote two sermons to address a church that has seen diminishing membership and today I preach to you, a church that is growing. And I wrote two sermons to address a church that is less and less able to meet the needs of young people, but today I preach to you, a church who is blessed with young families and more children than we know what to do with.
In other words, I wrote a sermon months ago that corresponds with today’s assigned scripture lessons, but I can’t preach that exact sermon because the church I addressed then isn’t the church I address now.
If you listened to my sermon this morning on the radio or read or listened to it on the Day 1 website then you know I began my sermon with this introduction, “In this passage Jesus is having a problem that I would love to have – that when I preach on Sunday morning the crowds would be so great that I would have to sit out on a boat to avoid being consumed by the growing congregation on the shore.”
I can’t say that we have this problem exactly, but unlike so many in our denomination, we are growing, and we do struggle with space – where to put all our Sunday School classes, where we should put our youth group so that they’ll have room to grow, what can we change in our building to meet the needs of our growing congregation. What changes should we make so that we can continue to grow?
We want to do things, to make changes to ensure that we will nurture the families that we have while attracting new ones. We want to build things that will attract more people, offer programs that people of all ages will be interested in; we want things that we can do to assure that we’ll continue to be a relevant and vital part of this community.
But Jesus doesn’t really help us in that regard, because his advice doesn’t have all that much to do with those things that we can control.
In this parable we hear about a sower who has gone out to sow seed. The sower seems careless, sowing seed along the path where birds would eat it up, on rocky places where the plants would sprout quickly, but with shallow roots that the sun would scorch, other seed scattered among thorns that would out grow the plants and choke them out – seed going all these places besides its intended destination, among the good soil.
This parable describes a farmer, but surely not a farmer who knows what he’s doing. There is no mention of plowing the field, irrigating or fertilizing it. The farmer carelessly sows seed without thinking much about the maximum yield of his field, depending on a miracle for any kind of harvest at all.
Now I thought that this farmer was a whole lot different from modern farmers, but then I talked to Campbell Ridley.
I thought that modern farmers didn’t depend on miracles. And while they do plan ahead, plowing, irrigating, fertilizing, and sowing seed with expensive equipment rather than throwing it out haphazardly, according to Campbell Ridley, a good crop costs just as much as a bad one, and your crop at the end of the year, whether it makes you look like a good farmer or a great farmer fully depends not on what you can do, but on the weather which is out of your control.
Jesus admires the farmer who makes this truth so easy to see. The farmer in the parable doesn’t try to control much of anything, and he interprets his parable far away from the crowds so that only the disciples hear; the disciples, who, in a way, are like sowers, sowing the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
To them, those who would soon be entrusted with spreading the Gospel to all the earth, Jesus offers a parable about a farmer who sows seed and so obviously leaves the rest up to God.
This is the thing about churches: when you get right down to it, a whole lot depends not on who has the best building, the best programs, and which has the best preacher. Churches grow because of a whole bunch of factors that are out of our control.
The church I grew up in grew dramatically, and a bunch of people, myself included, contributed all that growth to our dynamic preacher. He took me out to lunch not long after I graduated seminary and he told a different story – one where the church that he served grew because the city the church served grew, and though he and the church did their job of casting out seed, the harvest was plentiful because of many factors that were completely out of their control saying something like: “Marietta was growing Joe. All I had to do was to keep the doors open and not screw up.”
We Christians today do our best to control everything that we can. We want to maximize the soil’s fertility, adding in Miracle Grow, watering on a schedule, doing our best not to leave too much of the process up to chance or up to God.
When we seem to be successful, the temptation is to take the credit for a job well done; and when we seem to struggle, we assume we have done something wrong, we haven’t planned enough. We want to maximize our yields, minimize our waste, and with the opportunity to control more and more, to know more and more, we run the risk of forgetting that ours is a vital, but ultimately small part of the great miracle God has been doing in our world since the dawn of creation.
We are the sowers of the seed, but we are not the Lord of the Harvest. Our seed must be sown or there will never be a crop, but by no means is the harvest all up to us. We must sow the seeds, but we must also trust that what will grow will grow, and what doesn’t is out of our control.
And here is the message to you - our world is changing, and I, like many of you, would like some plan for what to do about it.
I worry about the world we are living in – what according to too many Christians is a culture of drugs and greed, filling young men and women with apathy, cynicism – eating up seeds of hope and truth like birds to seeds sown along the path.
I worry about the soil – that too many in our communities are unresponsive to the Gospel, as hardened to church as the rocky places that have no use for seeds of faith.
I worry about the shallow faith of others who have not left the Church but have left the churches they grew up in to attend churches with less structure and more casual preaching offering moral lessons at best and a gospel of prosperity at worst. I worry about what will come of, what seems to me, a shallow faith or the lonely faith of those who are spiritual but not religious who assume they don’t need the church at all. When the sun comes up will their belief be scorched and wither into nothing?
I worry about the thorns of our world – knowing what forces will take over to strangle humanity should the faithful fade away. A world left to ambition, the reckless pursuit of wealth with no regard for the common good – surely without the Church too many would be left to the thorns that grow up and choke, first the poor, the oppressed, then us all.
But Jesus doesn’t call our attention to the seed that is lost.
“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
Jesus entrusted 12 people with the future of the church, 12 people who launched a campaign that changed the whole world and while we are the exception to the typical mainline church, growing, flourishing, witnessing to the truth in what we say and what we do – there will be no crop without casting seed, and no one will experience the gift that this church is if you don’t invite them here.
More and more, either having experienced rejection or just fearing it, we are reluctant to reach out to people in love though we so desperately want to – as though our hands are cold despite our warm hearts. We are reluctant to reach out in love, to cast seeds of hope, to invite friends to take part in the gift that we all receive because of this community of faith.
We are reluctant, as though we already knew how our offer would be received – though the only thing that guarantees the rejection of what we have to offer is keeping the seed in our hand, never casting it out into the world.
The parable of the sower demands that you sow seed.
Don’t complicate matters any more than that – just sow seeds of love – and leave the rest up to God.
Amen.
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thrones grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!
Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
Sermon
It is convenient that I already had two sermons written for this month – one that corresponds with this week’s assigned readings, another that corresponds with next—because months ago I recorded sermons on Day 1, a nationally syndicated radio show that broadcasts sermons according to the lectionary.
So the two Sundays following my second daughter’s birth, theoretically, I wouldn’t need to scramble to piece together sermons for Sunday--I wrote them already.
But the problem is, I wrote these two sermons to address a church that struggles to remain relevant in a changing world. And this morning I preach to you, a church that is powerfully relevant. Months ago, I wrote two sermons to address a church that has seen diminishing membership and today I preach to you, a church that is growing. And I wrote two sermons to address a church that is less and less able to meet the needs of young people, but today I preach to you, a church who is blessed with young families and more children than we know what to do with.
In other words, I wrote a sermon months ago that corresponds with today’s assigned scripture lessons, but I can’t preach that exact sermon because the church I addressed then isn’t the church I address now.
If you listened to my sermon this morning on the radio or read or listened to it on the Day 1 website then you know I began my sermon with this introduction, “In this passage Jesus is having a problem that I would love to have – that when I preach on Sunday morning the crowds would be so great that I would have to sit out on a boat to avoid being consumed by the growing congregation on the shore.”
I can’t say that we have this problem exactly, but unlike so many in our denomination, we are growing, and we do struggle with space – where to put all our Sunday School classes, where we should put our youth group so that they’ll have room to grow, what can we change in our building to meet the needs of our growing congregation. What changes should we make so that we can continue to grow?
We want to do things, to make changes to ensure that we will nurture the families that we have while attracting new ones. We want to build things that will attract more people, offer programs that people of all ages will be interested in; we want things that we can do to assure that we’ll continue to be a relevant and vital part of this community.
But Jesus doesn’t really help us in that regard, because his advice doesn’t have all that much to do with those things that we can control.
In this parable we hear about a sower who has gone out to sow seed. The sower seems careless, sowing seed along the path where birds would eat it up, on rocky places where the plants would sprout quickly, but with shallow roots that the sun would scorch, other seed scattered among thorns that would out grow the plants and choke them out – seed going all these places besides its intended destination, among the good soil.
This parable describes a farmer, but surely not a farmer who knows what he’s doing. There is no mention of plowing the field, irrigating or fertilizing it. The farmer carelessly sows seed without thinking much about the maximum yield of his field, depending on a miracle for any kind of harvest at all.
Now I thought that this farmer was a whole lot different from modern farmers, but then I talked to Campbell Ridley.
I thought that modern farmers didn’t depend on miracles. And while they do plan ahead, plowing, irrigating, fertilizing, and sowing seed with expensive equipment rather than throwing it out haphazardly, according to Campbell Ridley, a good crop costs just as much as a bad one, and your crop at the end of the year, whether it makes you look like a good farmer or a great farmer fully depends not on what you can do, but on the weather which is out of your control.
Jesus admires the farmer who makes this truth so easy to see. The farmer in the parable doesn’t try to control much of anything, and he interprets his parable far away from the crowds so that only the disciples hear; the disciples, who, in a way, are like sowers, sowing the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
To them, those who would soon be entrusted with spreading the Gospel to all the earth, Jesus offers a parable about a farmer who sows seed and so obviously leaves the rest up to God.
This is the thing about churches: when you get right down to it, a whole lot depends not on who has the best building, the best programs, and which has the best preacher. Churches grow because of a whole bunch of factors that are out of our control.
The church I grew up in grew dramatically, and a bunch of people, myself included, contributed all that growth to our dynamic preacher. He took me out to lunch not long after I graduated seminary and he told a different story – one where the church that he served grew because the city the church served grew, and though he and the church did their job of casting out seed, the harvest was plentiful because of many factors that were completely out of their control saying something like: “Marietta was growing Joe. All I had to do was to keep the doors open and not screw up.”
We Christians today do our best to control everything that we can. We want to maximize the soil’s fertility, adding in Miracle Grow, watering on a schedule, doing our best not to leave too much of the process up to chance or up to God.
When we seem to be successful, the temptation is to take the credit for a job well done; and when we seem to struggle, we assume we have done something wrong, we haven’t planned enough. We want to maximize our yields, minimize our waste, and with the opportunity to control more and more, to know more and more, we run the risk of forgetting that ours is a vital, but ultimately small part of the great miracle God has been doing in our world since the dawn of creation.
We are the sowers of the seed, but we are not the Lord of the Harvest. Our seed must be sown or there will never be a crop, but by no means is the harvest all up to us. We must sow the seeds, but we must also trust that what will grow will grow, and what doesn’t is out of our control.
And here is the message to you - our world is changing, and I, like many of you, would like some plan for what to do about it.
I worry about the world we are living in – what according to too many Christians is a culture of drugs and greed, filling young men and women with apathy, cynicism – eating up seeds of hope and truth like birds to seeds sown along the path.
I worry about the soil – that too many in our communities are unresponsive to the Gospel, as hardened to church as the rocky places that have no use for seeds of faith.
I worry about the shallow faith of others who have not left the Church but have left the churches they grew up in to attend churches with less structure and more casual preaching offering moral lessons at best and a gospel of prosperity at worst. I worry about what will come of, what seems to me, a shallow faith or the lonely faith of those who are spiritual but not religious who assume they don’t need the church at all. When the sun comes up will their belief be scorched and wither into nothing?
I worry about the thorns of our world – knowing what forces will take over to strangle humanity should the faithful fade away. A world left to ambition, the reckless pursuit of wealth with no regard for the common good – surely without the Church too many would be left to the thorns that grow up and choke, first the poor, the oppressed, then us all.
But Jesus doesn’t call our attention to the seed that is lost.
“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
Jesus entrusted 12 people with the future of the church, 12 people who launched a campaign that changed the whole world and while we are the exception to the typical mainline church, growing, flourishing, witnessing to the truth in what we say and what we do – there will be no crop without casting seed, and no one will experience the gift that this church is if you don’t invite them here.
More and more, either having experienced rejection or just fearing it, we are reluctant to reach out to people in love though we so desperately want to – as though our hands are cold despite our warm hearts. We are reluctant to reach out in love, to cast seeds of hope, to invite friends to take part in the gift that we all receive because of this community of faith.
We are reluctant, as though we already knew how our offer would be received – though the only thing that guarantees the rejection of what we have to offer is keeping the seed in our hand, never casting it out into the world.
The parable of the sower demands that you sow seed.
Don’t complicate matters any more than that – just sow seeds of love – and leave the rest up to God.
Amen.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
I do not do what I want
Romans 7: 15-25a, page 157
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 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. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Sermon
What could be better than welcoming a new baby girl into the world; a little girl who will have the chance to be a part of this church, grow up in this town, be surrounded by kind and loving people who will help my wife and me raise her to make wise decisions, knowing who she is and how special she is in the eyes of God.
But at the same time, the thought of raising a baby girl in our world is terrifying. Life in our world today means steering clear of so much that’s negative, so much pressure, so much stress, so much that’s violent – and it’s not clear whether society will help us keep our children safe or put them in harm’s way.
This week it has seemed as though the world we live in is governed by a combination of self-determination and litigation from on high, or, as the Apostle Paul would put it, we have freedom on one hand and the law on the other.
On Monday the Supreme Court “struck down California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to minors,” putting an end to restrictions that have kept children from playing video games that involve shooting people, and has called forth a storm of concerned parents who defended the law first signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Then Tuesday came and the government attempted to protect children by approving tough new federal rules on baby crib safety that effectively bans the sale of used cribs.
It’s a mixed bag – while in one instance our society gave children freedom to decide what games to play ruling in favor of self-determination, the next day new legislation was enacted to protect children and at retail outlets, online sites, including eBay and Craigslist, even yard sales in the US, those who would try to sell a used crib to new parents face fines up to $100,000.
This past week, the week of my new baby girl’s birth, has been a mixture of legislation or law that attempts to protect on the one hand, and on the other values her freedom of speech over protecting her from violent video games.
Now parents and not the law stand in the way of kids and their violent video games, and the law and not parents will protect children from dangerous cribs.
Here is the struggle, then, for parents and every other resident of our society – we must, in some instances, decide for ourselves because we have been given the freedom to choose between what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, we must depend on ourselves to keep sin at bay with the freedom to choose for ourselves – while at the same time abiding by laws that attempt to do those very things for us, deciding for us what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, keeping sin at bay by outlawing those things that would do us harm.
I worry, then, about our moral compass. Certainly the moral compass that seems to be at work in the two instances I have mentioned has little to do with right and wrong or protecting our children and much to do with commerce, removing restrictions that would limit purchasing while adding restrictions that would increase the need for purchasing. Therein we see the limit of the law – the purpose of Government is not always to protect us, we cannot depend upon the law to always keep us from hurting ourselves or doing wrong, and so often we find ourselves left to our own devices.
Some would say that’s exactly how it should be. Why should the government decide for us, making decisions that we can make ourselves? But I believe we give ourselves more credit than we should in this regard, and here in our scripture lesson the Apostle Paul issues a warning, not at all confident that he can win over temptation by virtue of his own merit: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Freedom, for the Apostle Paul, is on the one hand, exactly what he wants. It is freedom from the Law that Christ brings – freedom to live according to the standards of the Golden Rule over the standards written down by Moses and his descendants. But freedom brings with it the opportunity to choose poorly, because freedom leaves decisions up to his own flesh and when left up to his own flesh too often, he does the very thing that he hates.
Here Paul takes seriously sin, its ability to control what we do, and the precarious position we all find ourselves in every day by living in a society where morality is not legislated, unless your heart desires a used crib at a neighborhood yard sale.
We must be wary of the Law, according to Paul, who says that only “if I do what I do not want, would I agree that the law is good.” Believing that abiding by rules can save us is a delusion, but at the same time we must be wary of this world when law or societal pressure does little to keep us in line lest we set loose that part of ourselves that drives us to sin.
Paul writes that “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,” and so he worries over freedom, for freedom may well set loose that part of ourselves that needs the limit of the law.
Without standards of Sabbath that tell us to rest, we find ourselves pressured to do more than we have time in the day to do, a way of living that leads to seeing a traffic accident as an inconvenience and not a tragedy.
Likewise, there are parts of ourselves that push away Biblical mandates for head coverings and restrictions on what we can wear, and so defining the limits of fashion is left up to magazines, standards of beauty set to standards unattainable, and we are left looking in the mirror for flaws and not wonder at God’s good creation.
And rather than have our income limited by tithing, knowing that it is not the Law but Christ who brings salvation, that part of ourselves that is constantly stimulated by the brainwashing of a consumer culture is set free to spend, though this part of ourselves always wants more and refuses to be satisfied.
We must be careful then. Because “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The Apostle Paul finds himself caught between the need for freedom and the need to limit our capacity for sin through the law, and with no way to choose between the two – freedom on the one hand and the law on the other, Paul calls us to a third option: the Cross.
There are plenty who believe that Paul simply replaces the Old Law with the New. And they live out their religion in the freedom of eating shrimp in the face of Old Testament prohibitions, while refusing women’s right to leadership, saying that Christ came and replaced the Old Law and brought a new one.
But that’s not what Paul is saying here. The Law, while it serves a purpose in limiting our actions, cannot be the means of our salvation because it isn’t enough. Nor does it honor the message of the Cross, because laws shape human behavior according to fear – fear of punishment, of the denial of attention, of removing favor. Under the law, God loves those who follow the commandments, but in the cross we see that God simply loves, even when that love means laying down God’s very life for you.
Without the law to help you make the right decisions, without the law to keep you from hurting yourself, without the law to protect your children, you may well worry about human behavior and the horrors that are sure ensue from such freedom.
But the greatest acts of humanity are not motivated by the fear of punishment or retribution; our greatest acts are motivated by love.
In Christ we know that those often-quoted words are true, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.”
And so we know that it is because a mother so loved her children, not because there was a law against it, that she kept violent video games out of the house.
It is because a father so loved his daughter, not because the Federal Government told him to, that he made sure the crib she goes to sleep in is safe.
And it is because love, the love of God found in Christ Jesus, made a difference in Paul’s life that he came to change his ways, turn from persecuting Christians to live a life as a great champion of the church. Not because the law of the land or the law of scripture told him to. It was because of love. It was love who rescued you from your body of death, because of love.
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Amen.
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 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. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Sermon
What could be better than welcoming a new baby girl into the world; a little girl who will have the chance to be a part of this church, grow up in this town, be surrounded by kind and loving people who will help my wife and me raise her to make wise decisions, knowing who she is and how special she is in the eyes of God.
But at the same time, the thought of raising a baby girl in our world is terrifying. Life in our world today means steering clear of so much that’s negative, so much pressure, so much stress, so much that’s violent – and it’s not clear whether society will help us keep our children safe or put them in harm’s way.
This week it has seemed as though the world we live in is governed by a combination of self-determination and litigation from on high, or, as the Apostle Paul would put it, we have freedom on one hand and the law on the other.
On Monday the Supreme Court “struck down California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to minors,” putting an end to restrictions that have kept children from playing video games that involve shooting people, and has called forth a storm of concerned parents who defended the law first signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Then Tuesday came and the government attempted to protect children by approving tough new federal rules on baby crib safety that effectively bans the sale of used cribs.
It’s a mixed bag – while in one instance our society gave children freedom to decide what games to play ruling in favor of self-determination, the next day new legislation was enacted to protect children and at retail outlets, online sites, including eBay and Craigslist, even yard sales in the US, those who would try to sell a used crib to new parents face fines up to $100,000.
This past week, the week of my new baby girl’s birth, has been a mixture of legislation or law that attempts to protect on the one hand, and on the other values her freedom of speech over protecting her from violent video games.
Now parents and not the law stand in the way of kids and their violent video games, and the law and not parents will protect children from dangerous cribs.
Here is the struggle, then, for parents and every other resident of our society – we must, in some instances, decide for ourselves because we have been given the freedom to choose between what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, we must depend on ourselves to keep sin at bay with the freedom to choose for ourselves – while at the same time abiding by laws that attempt to do those very things for us, deciding for us what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, keeping sin at bay by outlawing those things that would do us harm.
I worry, then, about our moral compass. Certainly the moral compass that seems to be at work in the two instances I have mentioned has little to do with right and wrong or protecting our children and much to do with commerce, removing restrictions that would limit purchasing while adding restrictions that would increase the need for purchasing. Therein we see the limit of the law – the purpose of Government is not always to protect us, we cannot depend upon the law to always keep us from hurting ourselves or doing wrong, and so often we find ourselves left to our own devices.
Some would say that’s exactly how it should be. Why should the government decide for us, making decisions that we can make ourselves? But I believe we give ourselves more credit than we should in this regard, and here in our scripture lesson the Apostle Paul issues a warning, not at all confident that he can win over temptation by virtue of his own merit: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Freedom, for the Apostle Paul, is on the one hand, exactly what he wants. It is freedom from the Law that Christ brings – freedom to live according to the standards of the Golden Rule over the standards written down by Moses and his descendants. But freedom brings with it the opportunity to choose poorly, because freedom leaves decisions up to his own flesh and when left up to his own flesh too often, he does the very thing that he hates.
Here Paul takes seriously sin, its ability to control what we do, and the precarious position we all find ourselves in every day by living in a society where morality is not legislated, unless your heart desires a used crib at a neighborhood yard sale.
We must be wary of the Law, according to Paul, who says that only “if I do what I do not want, would I agree that the law is good.” Believing that abiding by rules can save us is a delusion, but at the same time we must be wary of this world when law or societal pressure does little to keep us in line lest we set loose that part of ourselves that drives us to sin.
Paul writes that “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,” and so he worries over freedom, for freedom may well set loose that part of ourselves that needs the limit of the law.
Without standards of Sabbath that tell us to rest, we find ourselves pressured to do more than we have time in the day to do, a way of living that leads to seeing a traffic accident as an inconvenience and not a tragedy.
Likewise, there are parts of ourselves that push away Biblical mandates for head coverings and restrictions on what we can wear, and so defining the limits of fashion is left up to magazines, standards of beauty set to standards unattainable, and we are left looking in the mirror for flaws and not wonder at God’s good creation.
And rather than have our income limited by tithing, knowing that it is not the Law but Christ who brings salvation, that part of ourselves that is constantly stimulated by the brainwashing of a consumer culture is set free to spend, though this part of ourselves always wants more and refuses to be satisfied.
We must be careful then. Because “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The Apostle Paul finds himself caught between the need for freedom and the need to limit our capacity for sin through the law, and with no way to choose between the two – freedom on the one hand and the law on the other, Paul calls us to a third option: the Cross.
There are plenty who believe that Paul simply replaces the Old Law with the New. And they live out their religion in the freedom of eating shrimp in the face of Old Testament prohibitions, while refusing women’s right to leadership, saying that Christ came and replaced the Old Law and brought a new one.
But that’s not what Paul is saying here. The Law, while it serves a purpose in limiting our actions, cannot be the means of our salvation because it isn’t enough. Nor does it honor the message of the Cross, because laws shape human behavior according to fear – fear of punishment, of the denial of attention, of removing favor. Under the law, God loves those who follow the commandments, but in the cross we see that God simply loves, even when that love means laying down God’s very life for you.
Without the law to help you make the right decisions, without the law to keep you from hurting yourself, without the law to protect your children, you may well worry about human behavior and the horrors that are sure ensue from such freedom.
But the greatest acts of humanity are not motivated by the fear of punishment or retribution; our greatest acts are motivated by love.
In Christ we know that those often-quoted words are true, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.”
And so we know that it is because a mother so loved her children, not because there was a law against it, that she kept violent video games out of the house.
It is because a father so loved his daughter, not because the Federal Government told him to, that he made sure the crib she goes to sleep in is safe.
And it is because love, the love of God found in Christ Jesus, made a difference in Paul’s life that he came to change his ways, turn from persecuting Christians to live a life as a great champion of the church. Not because the law of the land or the law of scripture told him to. It was because of love. It was love who rescued you from your body of death, because of love.
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Amen.
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