Sermon from September 28, 2008

WHAT ALL NOBLE SOULS KNOW

Exodus 17:1-7            Philippians 2:1-13       

           Sermon presented on September 21, 2008

 

My sermon today is about humility.  That’s what the Bible texts for the day teach;  and not just these particular texts, but many others, as well.  The words “humble” and “humility” appear nearly 100 times in the Bible.  Add to these references, other words like “modesty,” “gentleness,” “patience,” and “kindness,” which in many instances are talking about pretty much the same thing, and you can see that humility is a major theme of Scripture and a central teaching of the church.  Augustine, in the 5^th Century, wrote that humility is not merely one of the virtues, but “the foundation of all the other virtues.”  Bonaventure, 900 years later, wrote in the same vein, that humility does not stand alone, but “adorns and accompanies the other virtues.”  Erasmus, writing at the about the same time as Bonaventure, said simply, “Humility is truth,” meaning I think that truth can be apprehended only by those who approach it humbly and are prepared to receive it as an infinite gift.   And Benjamin Franklin wrote:  “Humility makes great people twice honored.”  But my favorite “take” on humility is from John A. Wheeler.  Wheeler was one of the great physicists of the last century.  He taught for many years at Princeton, where he died recently at the age of 96.  In an essay he authored titled “Science, Religion and Meaning,” Wheeler wrote:  “All the noble souls – poets, prophets, physicists, and philosophers – know what it means to be humble.”  Yes, this is what all noble souls know:  the importance of humility.

 

            But you don’t have to be any of these things; you don’t have to be a poet or a prophet, nor a physicist or philosopher, to know the importance of humility.  It’s commonsense.  Why, you see it all around you, everyday.  You see the hurt and harm that’s caused by a lack of humility.  It’s the person who regards self as superior, and so is demeaning and insulting of others.  It’s the fellow who’s dismissive and rude to a waitress, the woman so taken with the importance of her own story that she doesn’t listen to anyone else, the parent who brags about a child pointedly in the presence of those who are having a tough time of it with their children.  It’s the smart-guy who’s condescending toward those who are struggling to understand, the pushy driver who acts as if she’s the only one on the road, the person who keeps another waiting as if that person’s time isn’t valuable and whose inconvenience doesn’t matter.  It’s the arrogance of the one who has all the answers, who lifts him-(her-)self up by putting others down, or who states the obvious with the breathless conceit of one who is saying it for the first time.  It’s Alan Shore.  Do you watch the show Boston Legal?  Alan Shore, played by James Spader, for which he twice has won Emmy Awards, is possibly the most smug, pompous, self-important character in television history.  But even Alan Shore, in an episode last year, turned to his colleague Denny Crane, played by William Shatner, and said:  “Maybe we all need to be a little more humble.”

 

Yes, maybe we all do.  Easier said than done, though; which is why we need God’s good counsel and strengthening spirit, as declared in the Book of Philippians, Chapter 2, verses 1-13.  This passage is divided into three sections:  first, verses 1-4  defines the character of humility, stating its key features; next, verse 5-11 puts forth a poem, the words of a hymn, actually, paying tribute to the humility of Christ himself, after whose example we are to model our lives; and finally, verses 12-13 declare God’s promise to help us become humble, and “to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

 

This passage, which we’ll explore further in a moment, calls to mind a story about a man who asked his rabbi why people couldn’t see the face of God.  With Rosh Hashanah coming tomorrow, Jewish New Year, it’s a good occasion for an ancient Jewish story. 

“Why can’t people see the face of God?” a man asked his rabbi.  “What happened that that they could no longer reach high enough to see God?”

“My son,” the rabbi said, “that’s not the way it is at all.  People cannot see the face of God because there are few who are willing to stoop that low.  Learn to bend, to kneel, to serve rather than be served, and you will be able to see God face-to-face.”

 

That’s the point the Apostle Paul is striving to make in this passage from Philippians, Chapter Two, as we shall discover working our way through its three sections.

 

First:  verses 1-4.  The key may be found in verses 3 and 4:  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,” it is written, “but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

 

This is what all noble souls know:  that life’s greatest fulfillment comes from meeting the needs of others.  Now, we may know of people who put “others first” to a fault, that is, they neglect their own well-being to “help” others, supposedly.  I say “supposedly” because this may not be genuine or healthy discipleship, but a form of insecurity or self-loathing, and insofar as it’s pitched to attract the notice and gain the praise of others, not humble at all.   Recall that Jesus said that when you do good works, don’t draw attention to yourself, but do them quietly, inconspicuously, such that not even your right hand knows what the left hand is doing.  In this way, then, we may realize our highest joy in lowly service.

 

I read a delightful “Letter to the Editor” recently, written in response to an earlier article, about how difficult it is these days to find the “right” person to marry.  How do you know if he or she’s the one for you, for a lifetime?  The letter writer offers words of advice, addressed to women, and it’s interesting how much of this, all of it, really, is about the grace of humility.  She writes:

            Never marry a man who yells at you in front of his friends.

            Never marry a man who notices all of your faults but never notices

                        his own.

            Never marry a man who corrects you in public.

            Never marry man who doesn’t treat his dog nicely.

            Never marry a man who is rude to waiters.

            Never marry a man whose plants are all dead

                        [Wait a minute!  That would eliminate a lot of us!

                         How did that get in there?  Let’s skip that one!]

            Never marry a man who doesn’t give you lovely and romantic

                        gifts for your birthday and Valentine’s Day.

(New York Times, 7/9/2008)

 

These words of advice may sound folksy more than profound, but in truth they point in the most practical way to the truth of this Word of God:  “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” 

 

Here’s another instance, an essay that goes like this:

            After lunch one recent weekend, four of us stopped for lunch

            at a neighborhood restaurant.  It was busy and bustling, but the

            staff knows us, so we found a good table right in the middle.

            As we were enjoying ourselves, the friend on my right and I

            noticed a man who had taken great care to make his tattered

            clothes look spiffy.  He had finished his meal and was searching

            one pocket after another for enough dollar bills to pay for his

            lunch.  He was becoming increasingly frantic as he seemed to

            realize that he did not have enough money to cover the check.

            My friend got up quietly, as if going to the restroom, and in

            passing the man’s table, leaned down, pretending to find a

            $10 bill on the floor.  It was done so naturally that when my

            friend offered the bill to the distracted man, the man’s whole

            body language changed.  He said:  “Thank you, thank you.

            I was sure I had that bill.”  He was beaming.  My friend smiled

            warmly and walked away.  I’ve been thinking of this ever

            since.  My friend did a great kindness, not because of the $10

            gift, but because the man was treated with gentleness, caring

            and respect, and not given charity. (New York Times, 12/30/02, p. A17)

 

This essay puts forth the key elements of humility:  being attentive to the needs of another, putting the other person’s interests before one’s own, responding to the needs without drawing attention to self, and respecting the integrity of the other.

 

            The question is:  how do we nurture such a humble heart?  Let’s turn to the next section of Philippians, Chapter Two, verses 5-11, which teaches that the way to a humble heart is look to Jesus.  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” it is written, verse 5. 

 

There follows then words of an early Christian hymn.  (It’s true [isn’t it?] that our beliefs are often shaped more by the hymns we sing in church than by the sermons we hear.)   These verses are a sublime lyric witnessing to Christ’s humility:  that “though he was in the form of God . . . he emptied himself . . . taking the form of a servant . . . in human likeness . . . He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”

 

Without looking closely at any particular passage, just begin calling to mind all the stories from the Bible which highlight the humility of Jesus, from his humble birth in Bethlehem’s manger, to his post-resurrection appearance to his disciples on the shore,  barbequing fish over a charcoal fire to serve them.  Between this humble beginning and humble end, we catch glimpses of Jesus noticing and honoring the least and lowliest of others, washing the feet of disciples, and replying to critics and enemies in simple terms rather than engaging them in battles of wits that he would surely win.  We may call to mind the Last Supper, when he told the disciples that of all the various ways they might choose to remember him after he’s gone, the way he most wanted to be remembered is as one who serves.  He humbled himself to the point of death for the sake of all.

 

I saw a brochure recently for a management training event where participants will be taught how to be more humble, because humility is in many ways good for business.  “Humility is not taught in most management courses,” blares the promotional piece, but “for people at the top . . . it is the essence of leadership.”  Come to the workshop and learn how to do it.  Well, this may be a good and useful workshop.  And I don’t think anyone would dispute that a healthy dose of humility in high places might have spared America a lot of the turmoil we’re going-through at the moment.  And yet, I was thinking as I read the brochure:  learn how to do it (?), how to do humility (?).  Here’s the surest way to nurture and sustain humility:  “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

 

Finally, then, there comes this promise of God’s help in acquiring and sustaining  the humility that pleases him.  Verse 13:  “It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

 

We heard today, from the Old Testament, the story of Moses, leading the exodus- people across the desert.  They’re bitter, impatient, feeling angry, blaming him.  He’s frustrated, fatigued, feeling put-upon and doomed.  He cries out to God for help.  And God helps.  Not only does God help in this present moment, but promises to be present and to lead the way into the future.

 

Moses was a noble soul.  And what all noble souls know is this:  that humility is that most important and exquisite of virtues, for it alone equips the soul to seek knowledge and truth, to receive help and support, to cherish and respect other people and to look after their interests.  And it is humility that enables us, when this earthly life is over, to let go of our cares, our desires and our imaginings, and to pass out of this world to the Father, and to the comfort of his Word that “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12). 

 

Sermon from September 21, 2008

                                                             MAKING EACH DAY COUNT

              Exodus 16:1-18                       Matthew 6:25-34

                   Sermon presented on September 21, 2008

 

We’re burdened with many frustrations in life, and so we keep trying to change our lives in various ways, hoping to capture greater joy, purpose and fulfillment.  But we know in our hearts that a key to the victorious life is making each day count, embracing the moment without undue concern either for the regrets of the past or the uncertainties of the future.  Emerson wrote:  “A day is a sound and solid good . . . I should relish every hour and what it brings me.”  This is true for me.  How about for you?  If you think about your own life, imagine how simpler and more satisfying it would be – and, as we shall see, more faithful it would be, as well – if you were able to be free of yesterday,  untroubled about tomorrow, and engaged in today.

 

            Patti Greenwood, who reflects wisely about spiritual things, offers this insight.  She writes:

                        When we were babies no one had to teach us how to live

                        in the moment.  There were toes to discover and sunbeams

                        to play with.  Only the present existed.  Then we grew-up

                        and many of us forgot to stay fully present.

 

            It’s true, isn’t it?  Many of us forget how to stay fully present in the present.  Obviously, the past is important.  It’s important for understanding ourselves and others, and the world we live in.  And, of course, the future matters, too, for we need to know where we’re going in life, in order to anticipate and plan for it.  Thank God for the gifts of memory and hope.  But it’s also of first importance that we not forget to “stay fully present,” and to “relish every hour and what it brings.”

 

            I like the poem “Welcome Morning, by Anne Sexton.  It goes like this:

                        There is joy

                        in all.

                        in the hair I brush each morning,

                        in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

                        that I rub my body with each morning,

                        in the chapel of eggs I cook

                        each morning,

                        in the outcry from my kettle

                        that heats my coffee

                        each morning,

                        in the spoon and the chair

                        that cry “hello there, Anne:

                        each morning,

                        in the godhead of the table

                        that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

                        each morning . . .

                        and I mean,

                        though often forget,

                        to give thanks,

                        to faint down by the kitchen table

                        in a prayer of rejoicing

                        as the holy birds at the kitchen window

                        peck into their marriage of seeds.

                        So while I think of it,

                        let me paint a thank-you on my palm

                        for this God, this laughter of the morning

                        lest it go unspoken.

                        The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,

                        dies young.        (in The Awful Rowing Toward God, 1975)

 

            Perhaps it’s a little “much” to be expected to wake-up each morning joyfully praising God for His wondrous love disguised in the daily commonplaces of household routine.  People are wired differently.  There are “morning people,” and then there are “not-morning people.”  I’m not a “morning” person.  My philosophy is that the early bird may get the worm, but it’s the second mouse who gets the cheese.  If you’re not a “morning person” then you’re probably not inclined to rise and shine with praise on your mind. 

 

            On the other hand, the ability to embrace each day with gratitude and gladness is at the heart of Christianity, and ought to transcend mere temperament.  It’s inscribed in the Lord’s Prayer.  “Give us this day our daily bread,” we’re taught to pray.   The follower of Jesus Christ doesn’t ask for advance supplies.  Each day is itself a blessing, and God infuses each day with blessings that reflect his steadfast love.  Behind the petition for “daily bread” lie profound Biblical ideas about making each day count.   For “bread” here includes everything we really need to sustain a life of daily discipleship.  In praying for “daily bread” we’re also asking God for other kinds of nourishment and strength which daily life requires:  for faith to believe, when to doubt or disbelieve would be the easier way; for a forgiving spirit; for wisdom to deal creatively with differences; for courage and perseverance in doing good; for patience, kindness and peace at the center of our being.  All these are forms of heavenly nourishment which we pray to receive, not once, to carry us through a lifetime, but day-by-day, in measure adequate for that day.

 

            This theme is declared, as well, in Jesus’ teachings about worry.  “Do not worry about your life,” he counsels.  He illustrates this central teaching by discussing the basic provisions of food and clothing.  Birds of the air and flowers in the field (“lilies of the field,” he says) live far more precarious existences than humans do, yet God lavishes loving concern on them.  How much more can we trust God to provide for us.  Jesus brings this teaching to a climax with the line:  “So do not worry about tomorrow.”  Live for today, trusting God day-by-day.

 

            Critiques of this teaching that may be raised, of course, if we fail to interpret it rightly.  For example:  this current economic crisis that has convulsed the country in recent days, is this not the result of people acting too much in the present, living for the moment, making short-term decisions without adequate regard for the long-term consequences?  Maybe we’d have been better off if people had worried about tomorrow.  And when we see reports of people being rescued by heroic police and military teams after a hurricane, because they’d refused to evacuate, we might think again that planning for tomorrow is a good thing, after all.  And, of course, it is.  There are Jesus’ own parables about the fellow who began to build a tower without reckoning the cost, and of the foolish man who built his house upon the sand.  Scripture teaches that the self is related to its past and co-creator of its future, so the person of good faith must be engaged constantly in making sense of yesterday and in anticipating tomorrow.  “Making each day count” doesn’t mean discounting any of that, which is common sense.  It does mean counting on the extraordinary promise of God to be present day-by-day.  Let neither unresolved issues from yesterday, nor uncertain prospects for tomorrow, rob us of the grace and gladness we know from experiencing God-with-us today.

 

            It’s been said:  “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift.  That’s why it’s called the present.”

 

            With this excellent idea in mind, let’s take a look at the Old Testament passage before us, from the Book of Exodus, chapter 16.   Verses 1-18 relate the story of God’s great gift of daily bread, manna from heaven. 

 

Having escaped Egypt, the Israelites found themselves in the desert.  This whole exodus experience was turning-out to be more difficult and less exciting than they’d imagined.  The journey was long and tedious.  It was hot by day and cold at night.  Supplies were short.  Tempers were flaring.  As Clark Griswold complains in the movie Vacation, while trudging through blistering heat in search of gas:  “We passed a gas station every 10 yards for 1000 miles, but you really need one, you end up walking.  Is this any way to run a desert?”  People turned their anger on these leaders, Moses and Aaron, blaming them.     

 

But then the promise of God came to them and was fulfilled through them.  God provided the peoples’ needs, one day at a time.  Each day God provided food adequate for the day. 

 

In the evening quails came up.  This species of quail was a small, mottled brown game bird, about seven inches long.  They were migratory birds, crossing the Sinai Peninsula, so the appearance of quails wasn’t anything special.   But the provision each day of precisely the right number of quails, at precisely the right location, was a miraculous witness to God’s gracious provision. 

 

And each morning there was “a layer of dew around the camp.”  When the dew lifted a fine, flaky substance was left behind, manna from heaven, “the bread that the Lord gave them to eat.”  When the Israelites gathered it each day, there was provision enough for each day.  As each gathered as much as each needed there was neither excess nor shortage.

 

Dr. Bernhard Anderson, the renown Old Testament scholar with whom I was privileged to study at Princeton, wrote of this passage, that “some modern readers might say that these occurrences [of the quails and the manna] showed how ‘lucky’ the Hebrews were.  In Israel’s faith, however, these were signs of the Lord’s daily guidance.”  In our faith, as well, God’s providential goodness is cause to “relish every hour and what it brings.”

 

I’d like to close by offering a few practical suggestions for making each day count.

 

First:  pray constantly for the Spirit’s help in staying focused on the present.  Because we’re by nature a brooding people, our minds, left on their own, keep mulling-over the past.  And because we’re by nature an anxious people, our minds, left on their  own, keep worrying about the future.  We need God’s help to keep our minds in the present.  Gregory of Nyssa, a 4^th-Century Church Father, wrote:  “The life in which we ought to be interested is daily life . . . Our Lord tells us to pray for today, and so he prevents us from tormenting ourselves about [yesterday and] tomorrow.” 

 

Second:  focus on what’s right in front of you – the person, the problem, the possibility, the passion, the pleasure, the pain, the program, the purpose, the present.   16^th-Century French essayist Montaigne wrote:  “Rejoice in the things that are present.  All else is beyond thee.”

 

Third:  pretend to see things as though you’re seeing them for the first time.  This is a defining feature of the faithful life, how we see things.  “From now on we regard no one from a human point of view,” it is written, 2 Corinthians 5:16.  The human point of view is a cynical and weary one.  We become indifferent to the very things that at first seemed to us astonishing.  We shrug where we once rejoiced.  We take the beautiful, the good and the true for granted.  The sense of wonder gets squeezed out of us.  But it’s utterly miraculous that God gives us the gift of each day, and fills each day with excellent purposes, amazing people, startling loveliness, healing for our hurts, comfort for our sorrows, and grace that refreshes like spring rain when the burden of our sin is more than we can bear.  And then there’s the most mind-boggling thing of all:  the assurance that when our earthly days are ended, there remains the promise of God in Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, in life or in death.  If only we would embrace these truths each day, and be embraced by them, as though for the first time, then our lives would be no mere succession of countless days, but each day would count as worthy and wonderful, pleasing to God and helpful to others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon from September 14, 2008

                     A GENEROUS AND FORGIVING HEART

                      Exodus 14:19-31                 Matthew 18:21-35

                          Sermon presented on September 14, 2008

 

The passage before us today is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.   The theme of the sermon is suggested by Arland J. Hultgren, of Luther Seminary.  In his book on the parables, Hultgren writes that the central teaching of this parable, The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, is this: “to live well means to live with a generous and forgiving heart.”  What do you think of that?  It’s true, isn’t it?  To hold-on to grudges and grievances, to nurse old hurts and wounds, to plan and imagine revenge (sweet revenge) . . . these things meet some needs we have, frankly, and may even provide satisfaction of a sort.  But not really.  Not really, and not long term.  Even apart from the teaching of scripture, experience and intuition teach us that “to live well” – really well, untroubled, purposeful, and at peace – “to live well means to live with a generous and forgiving heart.”

 

            But, as happens so many times in with the teachings of Jesus, there’s a disconnect between theory and practice.  We know what the Lord requires of us.  But to do it, to put it into practice, to live the life of discipleship . . . well, that’s harder, isn’t it?

 

            Poet Charles Smoot writes:

                        Jesus said to turn the other cheek

                        He also said to forgive 7 times 70

                        Easy for Him to say

                        He was God

                        Or at least the son of God

                        How do I get to the place

                        Where I forgive those

                        Who disrespect me and malign me

                        Those who could care less about my feelings

                        Yet I still care about theirs

                        Why is forgiveness so hard

                        Why does it take so much out of you

                        Why is it easier to hold a grudge

                        Rather than to let it go

                        Am I doing something wrong

 

            With these verses the poet frames the text, the tension and the trouble of Jesus’ teaching here. 

 

The text is Jesus’ counsel to forgive lavishly, inexhaustibly, without limits.   Jesus makes this point initially in his command to forgive “seventy seven times,” or “seven times seventy,” as some translations have it, in either case, beyond the ability to keep track.  Jesus then illustrated this point by telling the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. 

 

The tension this text arouses is caused by our honest awareness that we’re not living-up to this holy counsel.  Whether we’re unable or unwilling, or some combination of these, isn’t the point.  The point is that scripture puts the standard high, and we’re not achieving it.

 

And this leads to what’s most troubling:  our feelings of failure and frustration, expressed in the poem’s plaintive cry, “Am I doing something wrong?”

 

That’s neither a holy nor a healthy way to feel or to be, however.  How can we rise up-and-out of failure and frustration, to the joy and peace which Christ promises? 

 

 Before turning our attention to the distinctive Biblical teaching on forgiveness, let’s begin by acknowledging that forgiveness is neither a novel nor a uniquely Christian concept.  Everyone seems to agree that forgiveness is a good idea.  It’s a kind of common wisdom, universally shared.  All the world’s great religions teach it.  And worldviews that aren’t particularly “religious” in any traditional sense value forgiveness, as well.  Dr. Fahri Karakas, a researcher and teacher at the Management School at McGill University in Montreal, has identified a few core ideas which all the world’s cultures seem to have in-common.  Among them is forgiveness.  He writes that “forgiveness” is among the “time-honored, life-affirming and unifying values . . . [which form the] inner governance systems which allow individual and their organizations to stay virtuous and right in turbulent times.”  Good enough.

 

But why, then, is forgiveness more honored theory than practiced in reality?    Well, it’s more complicated that mere lack of will.   We humans actually are hard-wired for revenge more than mercy.   Anthropologists have long argued that retaliatory acts do have the effect of keeping people in line, and reflect a deeply-rooted sense of justice.  It’s said “revenge is sweet.”  Well, it is sweet, literally.  Using brain wave technology, neuroscientists have found that the part of the brain activated by thoughts of revenge is the same that controls hunger.  “People express it for the same reason they eat chocolate,” says Dr.Brad Bushmann, at the University of Michigan, who has conducted studies on this subject (New York Times, July 27, 2004, p. F1).   Yes, revenge is sweet!

 

So, it takes more than merely putting it “out there” as a good idea to nurture the actual practice of forgiveness.  It requires the strongest possible motivation to arouse and sustain mercy.  And this is precisely what the Word of God provides – the strongest possible motivation — by linking a generous and forgiving human heart with the generous and forgiving heart of God.  That’s the great teaching of scripture:  that forgiveness received is the basis for forgiveness given.   In the sublime opening statement of the Heidelberg Catechism – and for those of you raised in the CRC, these words are in the DNA (right?) – it’s because we are assured of God’s mercy toward us, that we are motivated and made “wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”  Forgiveness received is the basis for forgiveness given.

 

The Old Testament text, from the Book of Exodus, Chapter 14, is the story of God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea, or the so-called Sea of Reeds.  This story is filled with so many stirring and important narrative details that it seems unjust to talk about it only briefly today.  It certainly warrants a sermon of its own, or a month of sermons.  But for our purposes today, it’s enough to say that this story demonstrates with dramatic power the amazing experience of God’s deliverance.  The people escaping Egypt were hardly “a people” at all, in any traditional sense of the word.  They were a ragtag group of refugees — disordered, terrified.   As they approached the sea, Egyptian chariots closing-in from behind, panic must have set in.  There was no turning back. That was the way of certain death.  The only way was forward.  But ahead of them loomed the sea.  Hopelessness behind them, helplessness in front of them, there was nothing they could do by their own strength or wits to save the day.  The time for organizational skill and strategic planning was gone.  All was lost.

 

But then the miraculous happened.  God saved them.  Who could have imagined such a thing?

 

Nine year old Joey was asked by his mother what he’d learned in Sunday School.

“Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely.  Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements.  They sent bombers to blow-up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.”

“Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?” his mother asked.

“Well, no, Mom.  But if I told it they way the teacher did, you’d never believe it!”

 

Who’d ever believe it?  Who’d a “thunk” it, that when all human resources are exhausted and hope is gone, God saves?  And those who walked through the waters that day, on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left, emerged from the experience wholly transformed by it.  Their understanding of who God is, and who they are, was redefined forever.  Those to whom mercy has been shown must in turn be merciful.

 

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant tells very much the same story (doesn’t it?).  You know how it goes.  It’s a play in three acts. 

 

Act One features a king and a servant.  The servant owes the king an enormous amount of money.  Estimates in modern currency range from several million to one trillion dollars; the point being that the servant’s debt is so incalculably large that there’s no way the servant could ever repay the debt or “work it off.”  Acceding to the servant’s pleas for mercy, the king cancels the debt.  That’s the first act of the parable.

 

Act Two features the servant whose debt has been forgiven, and a servant of his.  The second servant owes him a small amount of money.  Again, estimates in modern currency vary, from a few dollars to about three months’ wages; the point here being that this is a debt that could be worked-off and repaid, given the slightest accommodation.  But the first servant, the one whose enormous debt has been canceled by the king, chokes his fellow servant and demands repayment.  Onlookers are outraged, and report the matter to the king.

 

            In Act Three the two original characters appear back on stage.  The king is furious that his extravagant mercy hasn’t caused the servant to be merciful.  “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” he asks.  Whether the servant has no answer to this question, or any answer he might come-up-with isn’t of interest to the king, isn’t clear.  The king condemns him to prison until the original debt can be paid; and since, as we have seen, that’s an impossibility, the king in effect condemns the ungrateful servant to eternal punishment.

 

            What’s needed is a generous and forgiving heart.  That question, which the king puts to his servant in the final act of the parable – “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” – is a question that comes to us still, or ought to, everyday.  We forgive, not because such is the wisdom of the ages, though it is.  We forgive, not because it seems like an especially good and useful idea, though it does.  We forgive because God has placed us on dry land when the storms of life have threatened to engulf us.  We forgive because God has canceled our wrongs, which are many, and given us – and each day gives us anew – all good graces and tender mercies. 

 

            In the rules he wrote for monastic life-together in the early 17^th Century, St. Vincent DePaul counseled members of the community “to be extra careful to avoid retaliation” when slander or harm is inflicted; and, more than that, to “even praise and bless God, and joyfully thank him for the opportunity” this situation presents to show toward others some small measure of the great mercy each has received from God through Jesus Christ.  It may be a stretch to see things quite this way.  But then again, the spirit of God has power to stretch us, and to renew, and to transform these stone-cold old hearts of ours’ into generous and forgiving hearts that beat as one with God’s own heart at the center of the universe.

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon – September 7, 2008

  A COMMUNITY OF THOSE WHO TRULY LIVE

           UNDER GOD’S FORGIVING MERCY

   Matthew 18:15-20

          Sermon presented on September 7, 2008

 

A preacher may be tempted, on this first Sunday people are back in church after summer, to strive to say something impressive and profound – to set a theme or tone for the new year, say, or to call the congregation’s attention to some new vision or venture.  I’ll resist that temptation to overreach.  Billy Graham tells of a time, during the early years of his ministry, when he was preparing to lead a crusade in a town in South Carolina.  He needed to mail a letter.  He asked a little boy on the main street the way to the post office.  After the boy had given him directions, the irrepressible evangelist said:  “Thank you, young man, and if you come to Central Baptist Church tonight, I’ll tell you how to get to heaven.”  The boy replied:  “No thanks.  You don’t even know how to get to the post office.  How can you know the way to heaven?”  Humility’s a useful thing for a preacher! 

 

And so I invite you to join me in looking humbly together at the Lectionary text for today — Matthew, Chapter 18, verses 15-20.  This text concerns sin in the church, and how the church ought to deal with someone living in unrepentant disobedience to God’s Word. 

 

These verses may be troubling to us, when we hear them for the first time.   They’re so troubling that when the Lectionary brings them our way we may be inclined to skip-over them, as though they’re not even there.  Our resistance to this passage is understandable.   We don’t want to interfere in other peoples’ lives, especially not in any fault-finding or disapproving way.  No one wants to be known as a buttinsky, that great Yiddish word for a meddler who butts-in and gives unwanted advice.   Some of you may even have painful personal experiences, or unhappy memories, of people in church acting self-righteous and un-Christ-like in their treatment of others.  Isn’t it wiser to just mind one’s own business?  Well, yes, it’s certainly wiser to mind one’s own business than it is to be smug or sanctimonious.  But that’s not the aim of this teaching.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that the sole aim here, in these verses, Matthew 18:15-20, “the sole aim . . .is to build a community of those who truly live under God’s forgiving mercy.”

 

As we think together about these verses, let’s keep our focus on this overall and most excellent aim, “to build a community of those who truly live under God’s forgiving mercy.”  Let’s not get bogged down in the specific strategies and actions commended here, some of which are not appropriate or useful in the modern church setting.  What is appropriate and useful, and of first importance, is the assumption of forgiving mercy which suffuses the entire passage.

 

There are several aspects of forgiving mercy mentioned in this passage.

 

First of all:  when a member of the Christian community chooses to persist in a life of egregious sin, such that it undermines the integrity of the church’s witness and invites public ridicule, efforts shall be made to “win the person over,” it is written.  Isn’t this a wonderful phrase?  To “win over” denotes a process of persuasion rather than coercion, encouragement rather than compulsion, grace rather than guilt.  It suggests appealing to the angels in a person’s nature, not the demons, building-up, not tearing-down, working toward rehabilitation, not retribution.  These are the Christ-like practices that ought to characterize all relationships in the church.

 

Let’s consider another kind of forgiving mercy that’s commended here:  there must be careful and caring self-control in all matters pertaining to questioning or challenging a person’s wrong-doing.  Confidentiality is to be honored rigorously.  Ideally, it’s one-on-one.  If that fails, two or three trusted others may be invited to join the conversation, for “where two or three come together in” Christ’s name, there he is, with them.  Perhaps more faithful souls will need to be involved later, as well.  But notice the all-too-common practices that are explicitly forbidden by this teaching.  There’s no back-biting allowed, no one person talking to another about a third, no idle chitchat or passing-along rumors, none of that.   

 

The website TheologyWebCampus has a forum devoted exclusively to gossip in the church.  You’d like to think there’s not enough of it to warrant a forum, but sadly it’s a place of lively discussion.  One person recently wrote:

            Anyone else get the feeling that church is becoming as

            much a place to go to and talk trash about other people

            behind their backs as it is a place of worship?   I see it

            in virtually every church I’ve been to.  Even my very

            pious grandmother does it and doesn’t even realize it.

 

Contrast this person’s experience with the Biblical counsel before us today, concerning the disciplined, orderly ways that grievances ought to be managed.   And what excellent counsel it is, not only because it’s Christ-like, but because such qualities of respect, decency and sensitivity fortify any institutional life.  This ought to be natural for a community whose life is lived beneath God’s forgiving mercy.

 

These cautionary notes, urging exceptional care in regard attitude and approach, as important as they are, yet should not be read as an excuse for the church to do nothing at all about those whose actions undermine the integrity of the Gospel.  “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” Jesus said.  This doesn’t mean, of course, that God takes his cues from the church.  God’s eternal decrees are not affected by what we say or do here.  It does mean, though, that our God in heaven is already honored or disgraced by the life of the church, whether it is honorable or disgraceful.  Theologian Karl Barth wrote:  “By [the church’s] work God Himself is either glorified or compromised and shamed.  [And, Barth continues] God Himself rejoices or weeps over what [the church] does or fails to do.”  In these ways, then, there’s an important connection between heaven and earth, and the church on earth is charged to be as heavenly as any flawed institution can be.

 

What shall we say, then, about the person who may be compelled to leave the church?  “Treat them as you would a pagan or tax collector,” Jesus said.  This may sound hard and harsh, as though to say:  “Go away!  Get lost!  Be done with you!”  But this cannot be the correct reading.  How could Jesus possibly have meant that, since he himself spent so much time showing forgiving mercy to pagans and tax-collectors?  New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg, of Denver Seminary, writes:  “In light of Jesus’ consistent compassion for pagans and tax collectors, surely he must also want Christians individually to continue to reach out to these people and call them to repentance.”  Those who have rejected the faith of the church must not be given leadership roles in the church, of course, and in this sense they are excluded from full participation.  But we must never disregard any soul for whom Christ suffered and died.  The church is at its finest when reaching-out, finding the lost, restoring the wayward, and winning back those whose lives have fallen out of harmony with the Gospel.  Heaven’s greatest joy is over one sinner who repents, Jesus said.

 

Some years ago I was at a Presbyterian mission hospital in East Africa.  The chaplain asked me to see some patients for him that morning, because he’d been summoned to a special meeting involving a few members of the hospital’s ethics committee.  Now, I’m interested in these things.  I studied at, and earned a certificate from, the Kennedy Institute of Biomedical Ethics at Georgetown, and I’ve done some other things in the field, including serving on hospital ethics committees.  These committees deal mostly with beginning and end-of-life decisions, treatment plans, research protocols, and sometimes with conflict-of-interest issues related to the hospital and health care providers.   So I asked the chaplain at the mission hospital, what’s the purpose of this special meeting?   I was wholly unprepared for the answer.  He said:  “Well, one of our doctors was seen having dinner at a restaurant with a woman other than his wife, and they were drinking wine.”  That was the ethical crisis they were meeting to address.   Now, I do not hold-up this model as an ideal.  There are important cultural differences.  In our culture there are many reasons why adults of different genders might have dinner together.   And there is no prohibition against alcohol use among Presbyterians here as there is in African churches.  So, I tell this story, not with the charge, “go and do likewise.”  For us, that would come under the category of being a buttinsky.  I tell the story because it does speak powerfully (I think) to the idea underlying it:  that how we conduct ourselves in daily life makes all the difference to the community of faith, or ought to.  To that hospital and the churches that support it, the doctor’s actions were scandalous, bringing insult and injury to the Gospel.  So a small group of faithful souls were meeting with him, privately, quietly, with the purpose of winning him over, encouraging and praying him back to holiness.  That his particular actions in his cultural context would not be considered scandalous to us doesn’t mean we’re without our own means of disgracing Christ in our time and place.  Nor does it release us from the central teaching of scripture underlying it: that the faithful church includes networks of accountability, by which people call, encourage, challenge and support one another in their Christian lives. 

 

            This is what the passage before us today is all about.  How do we build and sustain a faith-community that’s free of rancor, self-righteousness, pettiness and pride, but is shaped instead around God’s steadfast love, and lived beneath God’s forgiving mercy?  

 

            There’s a grand old prayer of the Church of Scotland, which goes:  “Enlighten our minds, rectify our desires, and correct our wanderings, so that, guided by your grace, we may be preserved from making shipwreck of faith, and at length be landed safe in the haven of eternal rest.”  Let this be our prayer today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon from August 31, 2008

                                 CAN YOU REALLY TEACH GRACE AND HUMILITY?

            I Corinthians 10:31-11:1

             Sermon presented August 31, 2008

 

 

The text for this morning’s sermon is I Corinthians, Chapter 11, verse 1:  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  And the theme of the sermon is this question:  “Can You Really Teach Grace and Humility?”

 

            Well, what do you think?  Can you?  This question was posed by a reporter to the new CEO of a major hotel chain, in the Business section of last Saturday’s New York Times (8/23/2008, p. B2).    The executive was saying that his strategy to turn-around his sluggish company is to provide more gracious and humble “emotional connections” between guests and staff.  But “can you really teach grace and humility?” the reporter asked.  Good question, that.   And the CEO answered this way; he said:  “The teaching starts with modeling.  We show staff the kind of kindness, support and respect we hope they [will] show guests.”  In other words:  yes, grace and humility can be taught, but not from a book or lecture.  These virtues are transmitted and re-enforced by example.

 

            This is not a new or novel insight, of course, but ancient and time-tested.   The Greek story-teller Aesop, who lived 600 years before Jesus, wrote:  “Example is the best precept.”  Epictetus, from the First Century AD, proposed that the key to a worthy and purposeful life is to “imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private and in public.”  And Albert Einstein, who was smart in complicated subjects many of us cannot understand, was also wise in simple things.  He said:  “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another.  It is the only means.”  So, it’s common wisdom that human models are more compelling and convincing than human instructions or commands.

 

            But this common wisdom takes particular shape and strength in Biblical faith.   Our God is a god “who shows steadfast love,” declares Psalm 59, verse 17.  And Scripture teaches that God shows his love most fully in Jesus Christ.  It is written:  “This is how God showed his love among us:  he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (I John 4:9).  Jesus Christ is a most perfect representation of God, so that in him, we see what God is like.  And Jesus Christ is a most perfect model of the God-shaped life, so that in him we see God’s pattern for living.  The Christian is gracious and humble, not because such is the wisdom of the ages (though it is), nor because it may seem like a good idea (though it may), nor even because the Bible commends it (though it does), but because in Jesus Christ we actually see grace and humility in human flesh and form. 

 

            These ideas are succinctly expressed in the verse before us today:  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  The first purpose of the Christian life is to imitate Christ.  The second purpose, then, is to so shine with such Christ-likeness that others will imitate us.  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

 

            To imitate Christ is an awesome project, impossible even.  Because Christ is perfect, and we are imperfect, the correspondence between our lives and his must be flawed.  Among the classics of spirituality is a 15^th-Century work titled The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis.  In just over 100 brief chapters this work proposes various ways to imitate “the life and habits” of Christ.  It’s a masterpiece of spiritual discernment and direction.  Toward the end of the book, however, the writer confesses that no one will be able to pattern their lives after the perfect example of Christ.  One cannot help but feel  “depressed, tempted, defiled and troubled,” he writes, to consider how far short we fall of the grace and humility of Christ.  But God’s mercy is greater than our human weakness.  And the model of Christ is ever before us, to imitate more-and-more faithfully as we grow more-and-more into the likeness of the Master.

 

When we’re feeling tempted and tested, and unable to withstand the pull of sin, we look to the model of Jesus, in the wilderness for 40 days, resisting the enticements of the devil.  When we’re feeling impatient and irritable, stressed and distressed, we look to the model of Jesus, patiently attending to each person who came his way.  When we’re feeling proud and self-important, we look to the model of Jesus, kneeling to wash his disciples’ feet.  When we’re feeling overwhelmed by the world’s sufferings, and withdrawing more-and-more into ourselves and our own concerns, we look to the model of Jesus, reaching-out to the poor, the sick, the outcast and others on the edges and margins.   When we’re feeling put-upon and sorry for ourselves, we look to the model of Jesus, who endured betrayal, pain and death on the cross. 

 

Those who follow, love and serve Jesus Christ, however imperfectly, are used by Christ, then, to model his grace and humility to others.  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”   Jesus said:  “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  And it is also written:  “In everything set an example by doing what is good” (Titus 2:7).

 

            Hall of Fame baseball player Cal Ripken Jr. tells the story of a time, early in his career, when he was angry about a called third strike.  He threw down the bat, kicked the dirt, and yelled at the umpire, who immediately ejected him from the game.  A few days later he received a letter from a father who said he’d saved money to the take his family to Baltimore, just to see Ripken play, because he was his son’s favorite player.   After Ripken got thrown-out in the first inning, “my little boy cried the whole game,” the man wrote.  Ripken says that he vowed then to act better, knowing that people are watching.  He wasn’t perfect, but close.  He was thrown-out only one other time in his 3000-game career  (USA Today, 7/30/2007, p. C6).

 

We set examples, for better or worse, and whether we want to or not.  In a culture where fewer-and-fewer people relate to church, those of us who continue in the faith are becoming exceptions rather than the norm.  When people look at us, what do they see?  Do they merely see weary souls who can’t seem to break old habits and get with modern times?  Or do they see instead a vital and vibrant quality of life, shaped by humility and grace, suffused with hope, and devoted to worthy purposes that will outlast it?    When

we act no differently than those without faith, then we become examples of faith’s irrelevance and uselessness.   But when we are humble and gracious, generous in substance and spirit, patient, kind, and accepting of others, then we model the love of God in Jesus Christ, and transmit power to become more Christ-like.

 

Julia Kasdoef is an excellent young poet.  One of my favorites of Kasdoef’s poems is titled “What I Learned from My Mother.”  Here she lifts-up the idea that grace and humility are taught and learned, by example.           

                        I learned from my mother how to love

                        the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

                        in case you have to rush to the hospital

                        with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

                        still stuck to the buds.  I learned to save jars

                        large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

                        grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

                        and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

                        and flick out the seeds with a knife point.

                        I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know

                        the deceased, to press the moist hands

                        of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
                        sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

                        I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

                        what anyone will remember is that we came.

                        I learned to believe I had the power to ease

                        awful pains materially like an angel.

                        Like a doctor, I learned to create

                        from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

                        you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

                        To every house you enter, you must offer

                        healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

                        the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

(Good Poems, ed. by Garrison Keillor.  Penguin Books, 2002, p. 156)

           

            “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” scripture teaches.  Christianity ceases being a mere abstract religion, becoming instead the source of limitless power and irrepressible joy, when we discover this truth for ourselves, and act upon it.