Authentic Witness
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 11, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Isaiah 50:4-9a and Mark 8:27-38
Opening Prayer: God of power and compassion, fill us now with your Spirit even as you have mercy on our souls. Speak to us of love. Speak to us of life. Speak to us of the things we can do as authentic witnesses to faith. Amen.
This morning I begin the first of an eight-part sermon series on becoming an authentic Christian. I must confess to beginning this series with a measure of fear and trembling. Any time you try to make specific application of the gospel to everyday life, any time you try to bring it close to home, there is always the danger of upsetting someone.
Some years ago, I am told, a young preacher, fresh out of seminary, landed his first church in a small logging community of the northwest. Everything was going along fine; both the preacher and the people were well-pleased. Then one day, on his Monday morning walk, this young preacher chanced upon a rather unusual and disturbing scene.
Apparently this community floated its logs down to the only mill on the river, and the different logging companies branded the ends of their logs so that the mill could credit their accounts properly. Well as this young preacher was out walking he happened to look across the river and he saw people from his church. He squatted down at a hidden vantage point and witnessed his church members pulling their competitors' logs out of the river, cutting the ends off, and branding them with their own mark. Needless to say, this young preacher was both shocked and disappointed.
The very next Sunday the man stood up and preached a sermon entitled, "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Property." The sermon seemed to go over very well. Everyone told him, as they went out the door, just how much they loved his preaching. "You really moved me preacher." and "Best sermon I ever heard." as they greeted him in the narthex at the end of the service. The next day this young preacher eagerly strolled down to the river only to find it was business as usual. They were still stealing logs.
So the next Sunday the preacher delivered a real pulpit pounder entitled, "Thou Shalt Not Steal." During the sermon the preacher got so excited and so animated that people even shouted out "Amen!" and "Alleluia!" They hadn't done that in years, and it felt good. Afterwards the people again congratulated their fine young preacher. "Fantastic!" the people told him. "Wonderful!" they cried. But on Monday morning he went out to find that the other company's logs were still being swiped by the people in his congregation.
Well, enough was enough! There's only so much a man can take before he's got to act--this time he wasn't going to hold anything back. This time he was going to make sure they understood the implications of the gospel. So the following Sunday he got up and preached a sermon entitled, "Thou Shalt Not Cut the Branded Ends Off Someone Else's Logs." And they ran him out of town!
Now it is certainly my hope that I will fare better than my young preacher friend, since I'm rather enjoying life in Columbus. But I am nervous about several things as we begin to consider the question of authentic Christianity. First, I am nervous about leaving the impression that I think of myself as the standard of excellence, as someone who has got this Christian lifestyle thing all figured out.
But I assure you this is far from my point of view. No one learns more from a good sermon than the one preaching it, and this is an area I have felt led to explore for my own spiritual growth as well as for the growth of this church. When Oprah Winfrey wanted to lose weight, she went on television and told the world how much she wanted to lose, over what period of time, and how she was going to do it. Although she later gained it back (only to lose it again), the point is that her pulpit became a part of her process. Now I don't want to bore you with the intricate details of my personal life, but there is no way to talk about authentic Christianity and not talk somewhat confessionally about the things the Spirit is doing with me.
It is my hope that I can handle this with a bit more tact and grace than either Oprah Winfrey or my young preacher friend. It is also my hope that as I share with you my struggles, the things I have overcome and the things I have yet to hurdle, you will find such points of connection that this series will be both a blessing to you and a source of healing for me in our mutual journey towards wholeness.
I am also nervous about misrepresenting the gospel, throwing everything back onto the old works' righteousness that Jesus did his very best and gave his very life to dismantle and tear down. It's so easy to put the cart before the horse, and Christians are no exception. Preachers have manipulated people for centuries, including one I heard on the radio yesterday, with threats of hell fire and brimstone. This man, and I have no idea who he was, actually said these words, "Unless this country returns to an understanding of God as Creator and Law-Giver, it will discover that God's grace does not last forever."
At which point I said something in my car I would rather not repeat from the pulpit. The essence of the gospel is that "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38f). Not wrong thinking about God as Creator and Law-Giver, and not wrong living as inauthentic Christians. The Jesus who hung on the cross, forgiving them for they "know not what they do" (Luke 23:34a), is the same Jesus who stands at the door and knocks, waiting until you and I let him in.
I have good news for you this morning! Jesus Christ lived and died "not to judge the world but to save the world" (John 12:47) and "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1). The great neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth wrote thousands of pages in theology and Biblical commentary. When he came to this country near the end of his life he was asked, "Can you summarize everything you've learned about the gospel in one sentence." Barth thought for a moment, cleared his throat, and sang out these words, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
That's it. After a lifetime of writing and speaking, one simple verse from a children's song said it all. We don't have to do anything to earn God's love through Christ Jesus our Lord. That's what he came for in the first place. To clear up the nature of God's love and the nature of God's judgment. There is nothing we can do to make God love us any more. And there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less. God simply loves us, just the way we are, through the One who has been enshrined as the Lamb upon the throne. The only question, then, is whether or not we recognize and accept God's love, through Christ Jesus our Lord.
"The difference between the blessed and the cursed," writes Robert Farrar Capon, "is one thing and one thing only: the blessed accept their acceptance and the cursed reject it. To put it in another way, heaven is populated by nothing but forgiven sinners and hell is populated by nothing but forgiven sinners: the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the kósmos, not just the chosen few (John 1:29). The difference between heaven and hell, accordingly, is simply that those in heaven accept their endless forgiveness, while those in hell reject it." (The Parables of Judgment, Eerdmans, 1989).
I hope that nothing I say today, or for the next seven weeks, will obfuscate or hide this most important of spiritual truths. Becoming an authentic Christian is not something we do in order to be saved, it's something we do because we are saved. It's because God loves us that we can apply ourselves to the question of how God would have us live. Any other basis would not only destroy the entire foundation of the Christian faith, it would also prove ultimately frustrating and anxiety provoking.
I just finished preaching a two-part series on the importance and secret of joy. As part of this series I talked about the increasing levels of stress in our society as well as the concomitant increases in stress-related health problems and social maladies. All we need, then, is to come to church only to have the stress piled up a little bit higher. All we need is for the preacher to make matters worse by telling us we're all going to hell if we don't straighten out our lives. Well let's get this out of the way here and now: no one can live a life totally pleasing and acceptable to God, no not one, for we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Why do you think we start our service every week with a prayer of confession? "Do you think we present our sins to a God who doesn't already know about them, or do you think we come to haggle with a God who might possibly be talked into forgiving them? No. It is only to bring them to the light of Jesus and to see clearly that they were forgiven all along. It is only to force ourselves to rejoice over our sin because it has become the occasion for God's grace. It is only to drag ourselves back in out of the dark that never was." (Capon, Ibid.)
Well, enough said. It's time to get to work. But I trust you see my plan. Let's have some fun as we consider the matter of becoming an authentic Christian. Let's laugh at our many half-baked attempts to turn our lives around, to live as God would have us live, even as we yet again hold up the light of Christ in order to be drawn to it as flies in the night. Somehow it would seem we could reach a balance between obsessive works' righteousness on the one side and wanton disregard for all righteousness on the other.
How often have I despaired over the increasingly casual approach of many Christians to their faith. The longing of the psalmist to be found "acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer" (Psalm 19:14) has almost vanished from the hearts of some. We work harder at improving our golf swing or staging a party or maintaining our car than at applying our faith to everyday life. And then we wonder why our churches languish and our society comes apart at the seams.
Let's face it: you can't have it both ways. You can't have thriving churches that fill people week after week with the knowledge of God if you yourself have no commitment to put Christianity above the many things that compete for your time and attention. You can't have safe communities and a prosperous economy if you yourself talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. Although God's love may not be contingent upon our faithful living of Christian lives, our quality of life certainly is. There is a direct connection between our zeal for the Christian faith and the quality of our everyday lives.
I'm not preaching a prosperity gospel here. I'm not saying that if you faithfully apply the teachings of Christ to your lives you will end up rich and famous, with a home the size of Les Wexner's. Anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear can see through such religious, get-rich-quick scams. But I am saying that living out your faith--not just talking about it but actually doing it--has its rewards. High-commitment Christianity is not only the secret to growing churches, it is also the secret to satisfied minds and gratified lives.
What do you think of when you hear the word "authentic?" According to the American Heritage Dictionary it means "conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief; having an undisputed origin; genuine." The word "authentic" makes me think of jewelry. These days you can buy jewelry with huge cubic zirconia stones, right from your television set, and to the untrained eye these stones might pass off for the real thing. But to a real jeweler, they will not bear inspection.
Authentic Christians are people whose lives will bear inspection. Not because they are flawless diamonds. But because they are cubic zirconias who never claim to be anything else. Authentic Christians do not put on airs; they do not get all dressed up on Sunday morning, to sit in the pews or stand in the pulpits, with secrets they can barely afford to whisper to their closest friends.
In the past decade Christianity has suffered from all too much of this. Celebrated Christians, whether in church or society, have fallen from grace one right after the other. No wonder people have been turning in droves to other religions and other spiritualities. Christianity has impaled itself with a lack of authenticity. When people fail to practice what they preach, when they fail to acknowledge the reality of their own lives, they fool no one but themselves. And the people perish.
Isaiah was a prophet who lived through the heights and depths of inauthentic faith. People who cared nothing for God suddenly hoped that God would deliver them from their enemies. But Isaiah refused to cater to such accommodations, compromises, and machinations. Inauthentic faith, reasoned Isaiah, could only spell disaster.
And disaster finally came. Israel was scattered throughout the ancient world, oppressed and broken by ancient dominions, enslaved and exploited by ancient masters. Ironically, it was at this very point that Isaiah returned to the notion of authentic faith with his image of the suffering servant. "I have been given the tongue of a teacher," proclaims the servant, because "I was not rebellious and did not turn backwards. I have set my face like flint; it is the Lord God who helps me." (Isaiah 50:4-9a).
No wonder this servant held the key to Israel's redemption. Finally there was someone, anyone, who could bear inspection. This was no blind guide. This was a teacher who had opened his ear to God. This was a teacher who had remained faithful in the face of great difficulty.
It's no surprise, then, that the early church came to see the suffering servant of Isaiah as a foreshadowing of Jesus himself. Here was the epitome of authentic faith. Someone who didn't just know about God, but who knew God. Someone who spoke with authority, and backed it up with a life worthy of praise. Someone who could heal our own inauthenticities by taking on himself the iniquity of us all.
As Jesus walked with his disciples, he asked them, "Who do people say that I am.?" And they answered him, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others one of the prophets." Then Jesus asked each of them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Well? Who do you say? It is a question that faces us all. This is not a course in comparative religion. This is not an academic exercise. This is about life and death, the things that are important, and how you will live. Those who call me Christ, Jesus warns, will take up their cross and follow me, they will lose their life for my sake, they will give their all in light of the God who would undergo such great suffering to demonstrate holy love. For the next seven weeks we will set our sights on becoming more like Jesus. We will explore some very practical dimensions of our faith, as we journey towards becoming authentic Christians. I hope you will choose to come along. God knows, I need your help. Amen.
Authentic Worship
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 18, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Habakkuk 2:1-5 and Mark 9:14-29
Opening Prayer: Spirit of truth, enlighten us. Tongues of fire, emblazon us. Word of Christ, agitate us. Wind of God, inspire us. Holy of holies, cleanse us. Well of life, fill us. Make our hearts anew. With thy spirit recreate us, pure and strong and true. Amen.
I must confess to having a rather strange habit. I'm not sure it's a sin, but it may make you wonder a little bit about your pastor. Whenever I'm at the grocery store I like to get in the longest line at the check out counter in order to browse through the magazines and tabloids. That way I can keep up on the latest alien abductions and Hollywood affairs without actually spending any money. I find that once a month is enough to stay fairly current on this sort of thing, but I will seek out the longest line every chance I get.
Last month as I perused these check-out counter diversions, my eye came to rest on the August issue of New Woman magazine. Right next to stories on "How Men Tell When A Woman Wants Sex" and "On-The-Job Nudity: A Must for Movie Stars?" was a story with the intriguing title "Living Passionately: A 10-Page Special About Your Spirituality--How To Nourish It And Turn Your Life Into An Extraordinary Adventure."
Well the cover did its job. I actually bought the magazine. This was no titillating diversion, this was my field, my area of expertise, if you will, and I wanted to take the time to read the whole article and to find out what people were saying. It was at once enlightening and discouraging. Just past the astrology department with Celeste's illuminating forecasts, and the finance department with eight questions to determine your attitudes toward money, appears a department that promises "to nurture your soul" and to help you "gain unshakable self-esteem and joy." Pretty heady promises for a four-page article accompanied by a directory of retreat centers and a readers' survey.
Now don't get me wrong, there's some decent things in here, but there's also some dangerous things. There's absolutely no attempt at discernment; the article treats every tradition and every discipline on par with every other one. We could call this the smorgasbord approach to spirituality. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Whatever happens to look good and appealing at the moment. There's also a noticeable absence of distinctively Christian language and learning. Take question 33 in the readers' survey:
"Which of the following traditions have you drawn on for your personal spiritual needs? (Circle all that apply.)
1.) Native American beliefs and practices, 2.) Goddess worship, 3.) Wicca, 4.) Buddhism, 5.) Nature worship, 6.) Zen, 7.) Transcendental meditation, 8.) Mythology, and 9.) Yoga."
Do you notice anything missing from this list? Perhaps a particularly glaring omission that just kind of jumps out at you? Maybe they just ran out of room, and they would have gotten there eventually, but it strikes me as profoundly disturbing that Christianity didn't even make it into the top nine. This may, of course, say more about the author of the survey or the audience of New Woman magazine than about Christianity. But I wouldn't let Christianity off the hook so easily. The fact is, talk about spirituality abounds at the check-out counter in all kinds of magazines, where Christianity has come to play an increasingly irrelevant and tangential role. Christianity has been reduced to the ritual of Sunday morning worship, leaving other traditions to fill the void of daily disciplines and spiritual devotions.
Life, Time, Newsweek, they've all done specials on America's burgeoning spirituality, and they've all come to about the same conclusion. Bargain shoppers that we are, Americans will look for the best deal and take it wherever we find it. No matter how ridiculous. The Utne Reader recently printed an article on "27 ways to live a spiritual life every day." How about this one. "Picking up a spoon. You have a spoon, a wooden kitchen spoon. Every time you pick it up, remember its connection to the universe." In similar fashion the article suggests that fixing your car, sharing gossip, wandering around, and mixing pancake batter can become profound religious experiences.
The point here is not to discount our ability to see God in every little thing. The point is to confess that the church has failed to position itself as a source of spiritual knowledge in a world starving for spiritual experience and spiritual truth. People turn to the check-out counter rather than to the church to learn about these things.
This turn of events is not only unfortunate for the future of Christianity, it is a tragic betrayal of Christianity's rich spiritual traditions. There is so much depth in the church's 2,000 year history, and we neglect it at great expense. I'm not sure how our faith came to be so identified with Sunday morning worship, but one thing is certain: if the only time you think about the worship of God is at 11:00 on Sunday morning, your worship experience will be less than authentic. Oh you may have a good time, particularly if the music is grand and the sermon memorable, but you will not have actually worshipped God in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23).
That, in the end, should be our goal. Not just to fill this sanctuary week after week with human bodies (although I would rather have them here than anywhere else), but to fill our lives with the worship of God. Then, and only then, will our collective gatherings be found acceptable in God's sight. Then, and only then, will our individual lives be filled with deep magic and profound meaning.
I can think of three traditions, that many of us probably learned as children, and that still mean a lot to me as an adult: grace before meals, bedtime prayers, and praying when we're in trouble. We would all do well to recover at least these simple reminders of the presence of God.
I find that grace before meals is a natural, whether I'm eating alone or with others. The mere act of eating is already an interruption to whatever else has been going on, so why not use it --three times a day, seven days a week--as a cue to slow-down and remember God amidst an otherwise hectic and fast-paced life. This, it seems to me, is no less profound than discovering the karma of the wooden spoon you are using to stir your pancake batter. Bedtime prayers work the same way. You're already going to stop doing whatever it is you've been doing, so why not take an extra minute to pray.
As childlike and as simplistic as grace before meals and bedtime prayers may sound, they have a profound effect on my life. They interrupt my day with constant reminders of who I am and of whom I belong to. They create a rhythm to life that I simply could not live without.
This rhythm of pausing to pray in the midst of a busy life goes at least as far back as Jesus in our Judeo-Christian tradition. Sometimes when I read the gospels I am reminded of a circle dance. In to the middle, with arms raised high, then back to the circle, with hands held nigh. There's a real ebb and flow here. First he's filled with the Spirit, then he retreats to the desert. Next he heals those who were sick or possessed with demons, then he goes to a deserted place to pray. Crowds press in on him from every side, so he goes to walk along to the sea. He feeds thousands of people with five barley loaves and two fish, only to go up on the mountain to pray. Forward and back. In and out. Up and down. Over and over again. That was the pattern of his life, bringing him both power and perspective in the face of danger.
This morning's lesson, from Mark chapter nine, is simply one more case in point. The crowd is gathered around, witnessing a debate between the scribes and the disciples. A man had brought his son to Jesus' disciples for healing from an evil spirit, but they were unable to cast it out and to heal the child. I can just imagine the glint in the eyes of those scribes. Finally they had this fellow Jesus and his band of disciples right where they wanted him: proof positive that this Jesus was not so hot after all. Can't you hear the erudite nature of their argument? "This proves it. Your master's a phony and you're phonies." "We are not, just wait till our master shows up, he'll show you." "Will not." "Will so." "Oh yeah" "Yeah!"
Very sophisticated stuff, until Jesus does indeed show up to silence both the scribes and his disciples. If you ask me, he was more disappointed in his disciples than in his enemies. The disciples had been commissioned and empowered to cast out evil spirits. (Mark 6:6b-13). That was their job. Jesus couldn't do it all by himself, there were simply too many crowds pressing in upon him, and so he appointed the twelve to share the load. Now they couldn't even do that.
"You faithless generation," Jesus moans, "how long must I put up with you?" After healing the boy Jesus went with his disciples into a house where they asked him privately, "Why could we not cast out this evil spirit?" And he said to them, "This kind can come out only through prayer." (Mark 9:28f).
Listen to the wisdom of our master, our rabbi, our teacher, our lord. If you do not pray then you cannot worship God. It is not enough to have the minister pray for you. It is not enough to overhear the gospel. As those who would call ourselves Christian, it is our job to fill our lives with spirit. And nothing does that better than prayer.
Authentic corporate worship begins with disciplined personal prayer. Frankly, I wish I could stand up here and boast of even more discipline than grace before meals, bedtime prayers, and other spontaneous moments. That has never seemed like quite enough. But I am thankful for what I do manage to do. No prayer, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Just because we may not be spiritual giants who spend hours a day in prayer, does not mean that what little we do has no importance in the larger scheme of things. Jesus promised we could move mountains with faith the size of a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20), and he will take even our most feeble attempts at prayer and turn them into something powerful.
Remember, the problem with Jesus' disciples was not that they had not prayed enough. The problem was they had not prayed at all. "This kind can come out only through prayer." I don't know what they had been trying on this boy, perhaps crystals or tarot cards, but they had apparently not tried prayer. Whatever you do, avoid making this same mistake 2,000 years later. Find time to pray.
If you do not know how to pray, then I would suggest you take home this Order of Worship and follow the pattern you find here week after week. It all begins with praise. Adoration. The organ plays. The choir sings. And we raise our voices in joyful celebration of the goodness of God. This is the beginning of authentic worship. And this is the beginning of prayer. Adoration purges the mind and lifts the soul. It helps us to focus not our own problems and needs, but on the glory and holiness of God. Try reading a Psalm of praise if you cannot find the words yourself. Start reading at Psalm 90, and just keep going until you've had your fill.
After praise and adoration, move on to confession. In the privacy of personal prayer, get as specific as possible. Say things like, "Yesterday I choose to hurt Megan with my words; I was cruel, insensitive, and sinful." Or, "Today I failed to keep my word; I told Evan I would get to his soccer game, but I never made it. I lied to my son." Specificity hurts, but its the only way to make confession heal.
Bill Hybels tells the story of a salesman in his congregation who informed him after worship that he did not consider himself a sinner. Bill asked him if he'd been absolutely faithful to his wife. "Well, I travel a lot, you know...." Then he asked about his expense account. "Oh, everybody stretches the truth a bit..." Finally, he questioned his sales techniques. Did he ever exaggerate or overstate a claim? "That's standard in the industry...." "Well," Bill said, "you've just told me you're an adulterer, a cheater, and a liar." The man was appalled. "How could you call me those awful things?" he asked. It hurts to get specific. (Honest to God?, Zondervan, 1990).
But specific confession can turn us around in our tracks and get us back on course. It can flood our lives with the power of God's grace. Just as we move on Sunday morning from confession to assurance of pardon, so we move in prayer from confession to thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is different from, although related to, our opening time of praise. In thanksgiving we get specific about the blessings of God. This is no reading of the hundredth Psalm, this is naming what God has done for you lately. "Lord, yesterday I took my eyes off the road, and the next thing I knew my wheel was up on the curb. I confess my irresponsible driving, and I thank you for keeping me from having an accident or hurting anyone." Remember ten lepers were cleansed, but only one returned to give thanks. There's a difference between feeling grateful and giving thanks. Giving thanks is actually coming to God and saying the words.
Finally, as in our prayers of the people, we ask God for the things we need or that we know others need. Without praise, confession, and thanksgiving, our petitions will often be little more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. They sound reminiscent of that musical parody, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me, a Mercedes Benz. My friends all have Porsches, I must make amends." These aren't real petitions. These are selfish requests that have no chance in heaven of ever being realized. But after preparing our minds with praise, confession, and thanksgiving, our petitions take on a whole new character. They are pure in heart. And they are powerful.
I am absolutely convinced that every single one of us here, myself included, would benefit greatly by making more room in our lives for disciplined personal prayer that includes praise, confession, thanksgiving, and petition. If you can't find time every day, then try every week or every month. Put yourself on a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. Whether in your favorite chair, on your favorite hill, or at your favorite pew, make time to pray. For we will be better persons, and this will be a better church, if prayer is more a part of our lives.
The prophet Habakkuk, one of twelve minor prophets that constitute the bridge between the Old and New Testaments, makes a profound suggestion for those who would seek to know God. "Write the vision," God tells the prophet, "make it plain. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; if it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."
Many people find it hard to just sit and pray; their minds wander off and they start thinking about everything but God. My uncle claims that he can drift off even while someone is preaching, let alone when nothing is going on at all. For many people, especially extroverts who need to be doing something in order to feel worthwhile, writing down our prayers can be a tremendous step towards authentic worship. Write down that song of praise, write out your confessions, name your blessings, and humbly lay out before God the things you would have God do.
"Write the vision, make it plain." Then take a few moments just to listen to the stillness that follows your outpouring of authentic worship. In that silence you may hear the voice of God. It may come over you as a feeling, or as a certain knowing, or as phrase that could be no other. And in that moment you will draw close to the throne of God. You will no longer be going through the motions. You will worship in spirit and in truth. Fill up a church with people like that, with people who have prepared themselves all week long, and there's no telling what the Lord may do. I, for one, intend to set myself on such a course. Amen.
Authentic Words
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 25, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Esther 4 and Mark 9:38-50
Opening Prayer: Living and Incarnate Word, tarry with us now. Move. Stir. Comfort. Challenge. Transform. Make us people of authentic words. Thank you for your consoling grace and for your troubling spirit. In Christ's name. Amen.
Six days ago I arrived at the office for our weekly staff meeting tired but happy. After a week as a single parent, my wife had returned safely home from visiting her mother in California and we had had a joyful reunion. She arrived at 6:00 on Sunday evening, and we went straight away to our TCBY youth group meeting. Attendance was up from the week before, and the spirit of the group was great. Lots of fun and games, music, and a great video that focused our conversation on the subject of lying.
It had been a full weekend. Sunday morning saw me leading a new member class at 9:00, church school devotions at 9:45, an adult education class at 10:00, and worship at 11:00. Saturday had soccer games and music programs in the morning and a wedding at night. So it went. One thing right after another.
As I pulled into the parking lot for our staff meeting I didn't get my car lined up properly for the parking space. When I got out I noticed that the car was at a funny angle, with one wheel over the yellow line into the next space. I thought to myself, "Now I should get back in, restart the engine, and straighten out my car." But I decided to skip it. It was mostly a matter of laziness, but I reasoned, "This is Monday morning, nobody comes here on Monday morning anyway, and besides I'll be gone in a couple of hours to Rotary. It can wait until then."
What I failed to realize was that we had some meetings scheduled that morning, making this the wrong morning to leave my car parked askew in the parking lot. When I got back to my car at 11:45 I found two cars parked on either side of me and an envelope tucked under my windshield wiper. On the envelope someone had written anonymously, "Why did you park so badly?"
When I first came to this church someone warned me that people were inclined to leave little notes all over the place, for secretaries, janitors, and ministers, about the things they didn't like on Sunday morning. No one ever told me about Monday morning. Now we've been largely spared this fate since my arrival, but one could hardly have asked for better timing on such a note than during the week I was preparing a sermon on authentic words.
"Why did you park so badly?" You know it could have been a lot worse. In Chicago we occasionally had people park in front of our garage, making it impossible for us to either come or go. I used to leave notes for these people too, under their windshield wipers, but they were nowhere near as polite as this. They were irritated, agitated, and hostile notes that did little more than let me blow off steam. They certainly didn't pose any questions that would invite people to think about their actions. Once, when someone blocked me in and made me late for a meeting, I wrote the note with magic marker all over their windows. It could have been a lot worse.
"Why did you park so badly?" You know it could have been a lot better. The person could have signed the note. If I had to guess, I would say that the person who wrote this note knew it was my car. After all my daughter's name is on the license plate, and my trademark mess of papers and coffee cups was in the back seat. But maybe they really didn't want an answer. Maybe they didn't want an apology. Maybe they weren't even mad; perhaps it was just for fun. But without a name I'll never know, and we'll never have the opportunity to experience either reconciliation or forgiveness.
Authentic words are hard to speak. It takes a lot more courage to sign a note like that than to write it anonymously. Leave it anonymous and it just kind of disappears into the background noise of an increasingly hostile and fed-up world. Like the movie where everyone is screaming out their windows, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"
But if you really feel strongly about something, better to leave a note like this than no note at all. It's more dangerous to sublimate and ignore your feelings, to try and stuff them down inside, than to find some way to express them. Speaking the truth in love is the essence of authentic words, and no church can grow into the full measure of its calling unless people learn the secret of doing just that. How do you honor the truth that you know, especially if it may be a hard word to speak and hear, without being rude or destructive? Somehow we've got to figure that out.
One thing is for sure. Groups that develop an ethos of phony civility and sophisticated pleasantries are in worse trouble than groups that leave little notes all over the place. When people feel compelled to be nice all the time we end up with counterfeit, inauthentic relationships. Such decorum may leave us with the appearance of genuine community, but appearances can be deceiving. M. Scott Peck argues that many groups fall into what he calls "pseudocommunity." People think they are being loving, always keeping the peace and not ruffling any feathers, but in order to maintain such a façade, people end up telling little lies or withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings.
"In pseudocommunity," writes Peck, "it is as if every individual member is operating according to the same book of etiquette. The rules of this book are: Don't do or say anything that might offend someone else; if someone does or says anything that offends, annoys, or irritates you, act as if nothing has happened and pretend you are not bothered in the least; and if some form of disagreement should show signs of appearing, change the subject as quickly and smoothly as possible--rules that any good hostess knows." (The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, Simon and Schuster, 1987).
In pseudocommunity people don't put questioning notes under the windshield wiper of their pastor's car. They would rather ignore the truth, and ignore their feelings, than risk a conflict that the preacher might take right into the pulpit on Sunday morning. It always appears easier to overlook and ignore, to accommodate and assimilate, to just walk on by (even it means trampling on a few scruples), than to take the time and make the effort to speak up. Speaking up is full of risks, but in the end there's no other way to live.
Another thing is also for sure. Groups that leave little notes for one another will never build true community until they learn how to sign them. Anonymity takes the risk out of speaking up, and can easily leave a group feeling all beat up without knowing where or how to start doing a thing about it. True community takes hard, courageous work. It requires us to take the risk, and pay the price, of speaking the truth in love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this "the cost of discipleship." I call it authentic words.
Queen Esther had to learn these lessons the hard way. A descendent of the tribe of Benjamin, four generations removed from the time when King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and exiled its inhabitants, Esther started out as a simple Hebrew girl by the name of Hadassah. (Esther 2:7). Her mother and father loved her dearly, but they died while Hadassah was still young, perhaps from the burdens placed upon them by the majority Babylonian culture. It was a hard life, this living in captivity as strangers in a strange land. They didn't have the same rights as their Babylonian counterparts, they didn't have adequate health care or educational opportunities, and they couldn't even worship their own God without fear of reprisal. It was painful to remember how they had gone from warriors and kings, priests and prophets, judges and lawyers, builders and rabbis, shepherds and midwives, fashion models and movie stars, to slaves--one and all--in the twinkling of an eye. On the scale of one of those stress indices, I would say this one was off the charts.
Four generations later the Jews had started to assimilate into their new environment, and Hadassah was no exception. Her cousin and adopted father, Mordecai, urged her to enter the king's harem for she was very fair and beautiful. Only one thing, he warned, do not reveal your people or your kindred. Do not tell anyone that you are a Jew. Things will go better for you if you just try to fit in and roll with the punches. When in Babylon do as the Babylonians do. Better to live a lie, and live, than to speak the truth, and die.
So Hadassah volunteered for the king's army of sexual servants. She was given a new name. She was given a new diet. She was given a new regime of exercise, massage, and beauty treatments. It took a year to whip this poor girl into shape, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfume and cosmetics (Esther 2:12). L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Mary Kay, Fashion Fair, Clinique, and Perscriptives. They had to relax her kinky Hebrew hair, depilate her legs, and find just the right mix of seductive Babylonian powders, shadows, eye liners, and lip glosses.
Finally this woman was fit for a king, and the harem master was proud of the job he had done. Esther had forgotten all about that little girl named Hadassah and had learned how to out Babylonian the Babylonians. She had risen to the top of the harem. She was the crème de la crème. And the king loved Esther more than all the other women, making her queen with great pomp and circumstance, setting the royal crown upon her head at a great banquet, proclaiming her coronation a holiday throughout the land. What more could she hope for? She had made it. She was all set. She was Queen Esther; the apple of the king's eye.
There was only one problem: Queen Esther was living a lie. She may have risen to the top, but only by selling her name, her people, and her body. Taking Mordecai's advice, Esther had gained the world but lost her soul.
When things started to go badly for the Jews, Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes, and went throughout the city with a loud and wailing cry. He sat himself down at the king's gate, sending word of the Jews' predicament to the queen. But Esther turned her back. What could she do? She had no power over the laws of the land. And besides, she was in no danger. She was the king's favorite. She wasn't just some cheap Hebrew trash. She was the queen. So she sent Mordecai her entourage with a change of clothes, hoping that he wouldn't embarrass her any further.
But Mordecai had had enough of their inauthentic words, and he blew the whistle on their little secret, sending back the message. "Do not think that just because you are in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, you and your father's family will certainly perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." (Esther 4:13f).
What chaos these words must have occasioned in the heart of Queen Esther. This was her cousin and adopted father, this was the very man who had raised her from the time she was a little girl, this was the man who had bounced her on his knee and cooed to her the name Hadassah. This was the same man who had counseled her to lie about her race, her people, and her God. This was the same man who had encouraged her to try out for the king's harem in the first place. And now that she had made it to the top, this man was telling her to throw it all away, to come clean, and to go to the king, not with an anonymous note, but as an advocate for her people. Esther was terrified. No one approached the king without an invitation! It was against the law. Let alone to reveal her living lie. She would be risking everything.
Can you feel that swirling, churning feeling of impending chaos? That is exactly how it feels to entertain the notion of actually speaking the truth in love, especially after a long time of surreptitiously living the lie. It's unpredictable. All hell might break loose. One never knows whether one will live or die. The stakes are high. And there are times when it seems as though there will never come a light at the end of the tunnel. But there is no other way to become an authentic Christian. Being nice and polite, submerging our feelings and suppressing the truth, or hiding in the shadows of anonymity, may postpone (but never cancel) our appointment in the tunnel of chaos.
Jesus seemed to enter this tunnel over and over again with his disciples. Perhaps that was the secret of his success. He refused to ignore the issues and back off. He refused to accept his disciples' complacent, half-baked attempts at grasping the truth. Having just failed to heal a young boy by ignoring the power of prayer, the disciples get themselves all worked up over who was the greatest. I'm not sure how their failure could prompt such illusions of grandeur, but it did. And then, as if that wasn't enough, they proudly go and boast to Jesus of how they tried to stop someone who was exercising power in Jesus' name but was not part of their little group.
I suppose Jesus could have just left that one alone. I suppose he could have outwardly kept the peace even as he inwardly did a slow burn. I suppose he could have refused to go into the tunnel of chaos. But Jesus had more integrity than that, and he laid them out in no uncertain terms. "Do not stop him; for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you it would be better to cut off your hand or your foot or to tear out your eyes than to cause someone who is doing a deed of power in my name to stumble and fall. Would that you had salt in yourselves and peace with one another!" (Mark 9:38-50, paraphrased)
Therein lies the challenge to anyone who would speak authentic words. Speaking the truth--that's the salt. Speaking the truth in love--that's the peace. How do you both at the same time? That's the trick.
I would suggest that we learn a few lessons from my experience Monday morning. First, write the note. If you have something to say, say it. Don't just ignore your true feelings. Even if it takes extra effort, even if you have to go back to your car to get the paper or pen, do it. Even if you have to arrange a special audience to talk it through with someone, do it. Even if that involves great personal risk, like the approach of Queen Esther to the king, do it. Even if there's no guarantee that the person or group will be receptive to your comments, do it. There is no other way to true community. What may seem, at first, to bring unbearable chaos will, in the end, produce incredible joy.
Second, whenever and wherever possible, ask questions. Don't just make accusations. Before you write or speak, pause for a moment of prayer, remembering how much God loves you, faults and all, and ask God for a word that can be heard. Accusations inevitably put people into defensive postures from which little change is possible. Questions, on the other hand, open people up to consider the truth they may well have been ignoring. Questions even open up the heart of the questioner to the transforming power of authentic words. For the things we require of others will one day be required of us.
Third, sign the note. Take the plunge. Don't just vent your spleen, don't just stir the pot, but rather aim to work a miracle. Real change is possible, but only when we make ourselves vulnerable. Authentic words require as much truth-hearing as they require truth-telling. And if you do not want to engage in a transformational process that may touch you as much as it does the person to whom you have something to say, then perhaps you shouldn't say anything at all.
Authentic words are not easy to speak. They always involve risk, sometimes more and sometimes less. But they are the most important words we can speak if we hope to build true community, whether in our church, at home, at work, or among our friends. I know from experience that authentic words, especially hard ones to hear, can be the most healing words of all. It takes courage. It takes guts. But there's no other way to become an authentic Christian. Amen.
Authentic Warmth
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 2, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Genesis 2:18-24 and Mark 10:2-16
You won't believe this but once again, when I came out to my car on Monday morning to leave for Rotary, I found a note, written on the back of an envelope, tucked under my windshield wiper. "Bob, Great sermon! Much improved parking." And, yes, this time the note was signed, "Mark Kriynovich." It's nice to know that people really listen to these sermons. Let us pray.
Opening Prayer: O God, we praise you for the gift of human relationship. We praise you for spouses and partners, and ask you to teach us to love. We praise you for children and parents, and ask you to teach us to give. We praise you for churches and communities, and ask you to teach us to serve. Speak to us now, through the Spirit of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Yesterday's Northwestern / OSU football game brought back fond memories. Not only because other than going to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs lose, there's nothing like going to Dyche Stadium to watch the Wildcats lose, but more because it was, twenty years ago last week, on the campus of Northwestern University, that I first met the person of my dreams.
It was Sunday morning, the 22nd of September, 1974, and we were both in worship at Alice Millar Chapel, a gothic sanctuary, not unlike this one, with a fantastic organ in the gallery. Half-way through the service a friend of mine sat down after the third verse of a four-verse hymn, squashing the fingers of the person behind him, whose hand was on the back of his pew. Mike felt so embarrassed that he apologized profusely and took her around after worship to introduce her to his friends.
The woman had been on campus for only three days, and went to church that Sunday morning because her small little Presbyterian church in Concord, California had been so important to her throughout junior-high and high-school. In the narthex of Alice Millar Chapel, Mike Weidemann introduced me to Megan Moran and it didn't take long for the heavens to open and the trumpets to blow.
Megan needed to buy pencils and school supplies, and as someone who had already been around campus for a couple of years, "older and wiser" (of course), I knew just the place. I also knew that this person had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They were bright blue and filled with life. She had a wonderful smile as well as an outgoing and vivacious spirit. As we walked to Hoos Drug store, I told her about the University Christian Ministry meeting that evening and she promised to come. Sure enough she was there, giving us another opportunity to talk.
Three days later we ran into each other again, at the student union, quite unexpectedly. She was on a tour of the campus as part of her orientation week, and I just happened to be there. Megan remembers that she had been feeling kind of unsettled, and seeing me made her realize that she had been feeling lonely. I was the closest thing to a familiar face, and it was more than welcome. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and made plans to go to a Tech movie on Friday night. By the end of the week--only five days after we met--our hearts were starting to beat with the pulse of young love. If ever there was two people head-over-heels in love, with that warm, soggy feeling around their gizzards, it was the two of us. We were smitten with passion, and with a sense that God was calling us together for a reason.
Although I wouldn't want to carry this too far, the story of Bob and Megan--and of just about any couple in this room--is not all that different from this morning's Old Testament story of Adam and Eve. In the Old Testament story we again find someone feeling unsettled with loneliness, only this time it's the man. Not even God was enough to keep him company. So God created a garden filled with beautiful trees and abundant fruit, the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He put the man in the midst of the garden to till it and keep it. But the man was not happy.
And so the Lord God formed the animals of the field and the birds of the air, giving the man the job of naming them all. It was a busy time, thinking up all those names. Cats and dogs were easy. But a few thousand species later, well, that's how we ended up with aardvarks and zyzzyvas. Scripture tell us the man was busy, but he was also lonely. And so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come upon the man, and taking from him a rib, God created woman.
As soon as Adam saw the woman, there went those fireworks again. "At last!" the man exclaimed, "this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." This was no scientific discovery of a creature in the same Kingdom - Phylum - Class - Order - Family - Genus - and Species. This was the discovery of someone he had longed for, hoped for, and dreamed about. This was the discovery of someone he could connect with, grow with, and sing about. This was the discovery of someone he could join with as one -- one body, one flesh, one new creation. Someone who would make him complete, whole, and happy. Someone with whom he would be no longer lonely.
Such ecstasy is how romantic love always starts, with varying degrees of intensity depending upon the unconscious fit between the two people. It quickly seems as though we've always known one another, and moves to where we can hardly imagine living without one another. One year after Megan and I met, we were standing in a creek near Cumberland Gap, Kentucky, when we decided to get married. That was no small decision for a woman who had graduated from high-school telling all her friends she would never marry before the age of thirty. As it turned out, she didn't even make it to the age of twenty. Things were just too perfect, or so we imagined, and we saw no reason to keep on looking.
A few weeks later I dropped Megan off at the airport for the start of perhaps several years apart while I was at Yale Divinity School and she was still at Northwestern University. The prospect of that long-distance relationship was just too much to bear, and I found myself crying all the way home. Somehow I got tied up in bumper-to-bumper traffic, following a county fair. There were flares in the road, and police were directing traffic with flashlights. In my distraught emotional state, the detours and lights were all too confusing. A policeman came over to my car and I rolled down my window. He told me to get moving, that way. It was all I could do to bring myself to nod, at which point I burst out in a blubbering mess of tears and sobs. It was so embarrassing. He didn't know what to say, and I just drove away.
Love will do that to you, particularly during the courtship phase of a relationship. The other person becomes idealized as the culmination of all our hopes and dreams. We feel warm all over; life takes on new meaning; and we fear that we cannot survive a significant separation from someone who makes us feel so good.
Harville Hendrix in his New York Times bestseller, Getting The Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, (HarperPerennial, 1988) posits a simple but sagacious explanation for this phenomenon. Each of us emerges from childhood with a measure of brokenness, some more and others less. No one is spared entirely. Although we may not realize it on a conscious level, Hendrix argues that in looking for a partner we are searching for a person who can help us to heal life's hurts. Even people with horrendous childhoods, who may consciously set out to find someone totally different from their drunken father or their abusive mother, will end up being attracted only to those people who occasion for them some of the same conflicts they felt with the caretakers in their family of origin. On an unconscious level each of us walks around with an image of what this person will be like, and our unconscious mind acts almost like radar to help us sift through the thousands of people we meet to find those precious few who have just the right mix of our caretakers' positive and negative traits.
In other words, the people we settle down with are people with whom we can re-create the conditions of our upbringing, in order to correct them. Coming out of childhood, most of us received enough nurturing to survive, but not enough to feel satisfied. And so we fall in love with people who can help us return to our original frustration in order to help us resolve our unfinished business. It's almost like returning to the scene of a crime, only this time with plans to it right.
Ironically, the purpose of ecstatic, romantic love is to hide all of these things from us. Few people would consciously set out to marry or partner with someone exactly like their mother or father or other early childhood caretakers. We all think we can do at least a little better. But ecstatic, romantic love is blind. And that's the way it's supposed to be! Otherwise no one would ever settle down with anyone, and we would all miss out on the most significant opportunity for personal and spiritual growth that life affords: the opportunity to develop authentic warmth with the person of our dreams.
Psychopharmacologists tell us that during the attraction phase of a relationship our bodies are flooded with natural hormones and chemicals that create a drug-induced sense of euphoria and well-being. The brain releases dopamine and norepinephrine, two neurotransmitters that help contribute to a rosy outlook on life, a rapid pulse, increased energy, and a sense of heightened perception. The brain also increases its production of endorphins and enkephalins, two natural narcotics that enhance a person's sense of security and comfort. There are even increased levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which may account for the mystical experience of oneness that lovers undergo (Hendrix).
No wonder falling in love feels so much like authentic warmth: we're high on drugs designed to make us feel that way, and people will do all kinds of wild and crazy things because of them. They will leave work early to buy flowers and surprise the object of their affection. They will stay up all night talking about nothing. They will spend hundreds of dollars on phone bills. And they will leave relationships of three decades if someone comes along who floods their system all over again.
Enter the counsel of Jesus. I would imagine that the New Testament passage Carolyn read this morning made at least a few of us squirm. I know it did me. "If a man divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery against her; and if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mark 10:11f). Those are strong words. No caveats. No exceptions. Just a clear affirmation that marriage is meant to last forever. "For this reason," Jesus quotes from Genesis chapter 2, "a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mark 10:7-9).
This doesn't sit very well with modern, conventional wisdom that has enshrined serial monogamy -- one at a time -- as the apex of decency and morality. It didn't even sit very well with Matthew and Paul. Within decades of Jesus' death and resurrection, Matthew was already making an exception in the case of adultery (Matthew 19:9) while Paul was making an exception in the case of mixed marriages between Christians and pagans (1 Corinthians 7:15). And I can think of a number of others. But Jesus wasn't concerned about the practicalities of his teaching. He just knew that divorce had degenerated into an arbitrary and oppressive practice, particularly for women, and that it was short-circuiting God's original design in the creation of men and women. It was an escape hatch, being used by men, to indulge in lives of self-deception and convenience. It was cutting short not just a relationship, but the best opportunity we have for personal and spiritual growth.
Perhaps Jesus wanted to close the exits on long-term relationships because he knew there was no other way for two people to make real progress towards authentic warmth. As long as we feel free to bail out at a moment's notice, we have little incentive to do the hard work of healing our souls. Remember, romantic love is designed to get us into relationships, through a chemically induced feeling of euphoria, that will confront us with the very issues we need to deal with. It's all arranged on an unconscious level. Our spirit knows what we need to be made whole, to restore our interconnectedness and interdependency with each other, as well as our original union with God, and so it hooks us up with someone who can help us do just that.
Every long-term relationship has the potential for authentic warmth if it works through rather than walks away from the disillusionment that will inevitably come. No one is spared completely, although for some it will be more intense than for others. Every time we walk away from a relationship we have to start all over with someone else. And it can take years, even decades, before we come face to face once again with the emptiness of our own souls.
Megan and I were able to avoid this predictable crisis for about the first twelve years of our marriage. We used to pride ourselves on having such a wonderful relationship, so different from anything we saw in either of our homes growing up. Other than a few minor difficulties, we were the most happily married couple we knew. We had, it seemed to us, beaten the odds.
But our illusions came tumbling down as Megan started to deal with some difficult childhood issues. All of a sudden things we had taken for granted were no longer tolerable, and patterns we had long established were no longer working. There were times when frustrations boiled over and understandings failed us. We even identified eerie ways in which we each did things that awakened for the other strong memories of early childhood pain. These parallels were not, at first, obvious; but they were, in the end, undeniable.
It took us a good five years, with more than a little thrashing around, but we learned some things about authentic warmth. For one thing, we learned that developing authentic warmth is hard work, and, at least for us, it took some pain to get to where we wanted to go. I would be suspicious of people who claim they know a shortcut to authentic warmth. And I would be leary of people who claim no pain. They can be dangerous. Wholeness comes only by staying with and working through the pain, not by dodging or denying it. If your relationship is filled with that pain right now, take heart: you may be on the way to authentic warmth, and there are more resources today to support you on that journey than ever before.
Believe me when I say it's a journey worth taking. Megan and I may not have as many natural drugs coursing through our veins as when we first met, twenty years ago, but there's a lot more freedom to our relationship, a lot more safety, and a lot more fulfillment. We've learned to delight in one another's uniquenesses, to give and receive love in ways that make us both feel loved, and to keep the flames of our affections burning bright. Psalm 8 marvels at a Sovereign God, creator of the moon and the stars, who would make mere mortals the work of God's fingers. Would that we might see each other as such treasures! Becoming conscious of our partner, and of all the people in our lives, as the work of God's fingers is the key to authentic warmth. They are not ours to manipulate or control; but to celebrate and support.
Then, and only then, will we stop struggling over power and start serving out of love. Then, and only then, will we stop worrying about getting our needs met and start working on getting our partner's needs met. Then, and only then, will we stop orchestrating situations for failure and start communicating salutations for success. Then, and only then, will we stop looking for the perfect partner and start transforming ourselves through a combination of commitment, discipline, courage, and hard work. Authentic warmth is not beyond our grasp. It is, rather, what God intends for us all. Amen.
Authentic Wailing
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 9, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Amos 5:6-7, 10-17 and Mark 10:17-31
Opening Prayer: O God, we have come to this place wanting to hear your word. Some of us know more about your absence than your presence, and we need reassurance. Speak to us now some words of grace. Do not hide your face from us. Hold us and make us well. Amen.
I would imagine that most of us, given the opportunity and encouragement, could find something to wail about right now.
One may be awaiting the results of a biopsy or blood test, while another may have just received the bad news. Without any real warning, life takes a nose dive. We are given choices, none of them good. The resulting pain and disfigurement, from both treatment and disease, leave us with an increasingly tenuous and unrecognizable sense of self.
Another may be teetering on the brink of, while still others may have succumbed to, debilitating anxiety. It had always been there, but it stayed around the edges, until one day the dam broke. Months of intense therapy uncovered the horror of childhood sexual abuse. In a complex and desperate attempt to protect itself, the mind had covered up the truth for years. But now the charade is over and the pain is too much to bear.
Another may be struggling with a child, or a spouse, or a partner, or a parent, or a friend whose choices are at once incomprehensible and overwhelming. The world that had seemed so safe and predictable has suddenly become dangerous and precarious. You want to just shake some sense into them, but they're a little too big, and it's a little too late, for that.
Still others may have just lost their job, the victims of corporate downsizing. Thirty years with the company, ten years from retirement, without any negative performance evaluations, but the word comes down from the top. After three hours of walking one still feels numb, not only by the betrayal but also by the prospect of starting over at age fifty-five.
And then there are those who simply can't stop eating. Diet and exercise programs work for a while, but always end in defeat. From childhood on food has been a comfort and a way of coping with anxiety and stress. Through counseling, a connection is finally made between one's compulsive eating habits and the emotional abuse one suffered at the hands of a harsh and insensitive parent.
The litany of woes goes on and on and on, because life is painful. It is filled with necessary losses, until we come to the greatest loss of all, death. No one is exempt. And just because things are OK right now does not mean that things were OK yesterday, or will be OK tomorrow. Change is inevitable, and with every change there is both a giving up and a taking on. It is all part of the ebb and flow of life.
Unfortunately, too many people only make things worse by running away from their pain rather than dealing with their pain in healthy and honest ways.
One approach to life is toughing it out. Life is painful, so why complain? Don't let it get to you. And whatever you do, don't let on to anyone else. Maintain decorum at all costs. Some people manage to make it all the way through life that way. Unfortunately, there's little room for laughter when you're always biting your tongue. (If you don't believe me, try it some time.) These people seem to have faces with permanent composure. Leaving little room for pain, there's also little room for joy. Discipline is their modus operandi.
Another approach is praising it out. Life is painful, so praise the Lord anyway! Your wife died? Don't cry! She's in a better place now. Rejoice and give thanks. Your husband was unfaithful? Don't worry! God can use all things for good. Just pray and keep up your spirits at all costs. Unfortunately, there's little room for truth when you always have to be happy. These people seem to have faces with permanent smiles. Leaving only room for joy, there's also little room for wholeness. Denial is their modus operandi.
A third approach is crying it out. Life is painful, so why pretend? Own your anger. Explore your violated emotions. Plumb the depths of your heartbreak. Come to grips with how unfair life is and how cruelly you've been treated. Unfortunately, there's little room for God when you only focus on the pain. These people seem to have faces with permanent tears. Leaving only room for pain, there's also little room for healing. Depression is their modus operandi.
A fourth approach is drugging it out. Life is painful, so why suffer? Have a drink. Or two. Or three. Have a smoke or a sniff or a shot or a swallow. Take whatever helps you to forget your problems and to remember your misery no more. Unfortunately, there's little room for anything else once drugs get their foot in the door. These people seem to have faces with permanent dazes. Leaving little room for reality, there's also little room for life. Drugs are their modus operandi.
As common as they may be, these approaches -- discipline, denial, depression, and drugs -- will not enable us to become authentic Christians. They may work for high society, or cultic religions, or therapy groups, or popular culture, but they will not result in the healing of our souls or of our society.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1) This morning's Psalm starts us down the road to understanding the truth about authentic wailing. Jesus himself cried out these words while hanging on the cross to die. (Mark 15:34) There was no attempt here to maintain composure or to praise the Lord anyway or to deaden the pain with drugs. But there was also no wallowing. Even as Psalm 22 offsets the pain with recollections of God's goodness (vss. 4, 9, 25f), so does Jesus move from wailing (Matthew 27:46) to forgiveness (Luke 23:34) to acceptance (Luke 23:46). Authentic wailing engages us in this movement towards wholeness.
Amos, a shepherd in the southern kingdom of Judah, became part of this movement when he heard the word of the Lord concerning the cries of the people in Israel. In a scene strongly reminiscent of God's call to Moses, Amos leaves his post in the desert to confront the king. Only this time the king was no Egyptian Pharaoh; this time the king was Jeroboam II, ruler of the ten northern tribes called Israel. Amos was out of his element. He was not trained as a prophet and he was not paid to speak the words kings like to hear. The only thing Amos had going for him was the fact that God had commissioned him and had promised to roar from Zion.
"Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain; because you afflict the righteous, take bribes, and push aside the needy in the gate; because you turn justice to wormwood and bring righteousness to the ground; you shall build houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you shall plant pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine." (Amos 5:11-12)
God hears the wailing cries of people. It took the wailing of the enslaved peoples of Egypt to stir up God to set them free. It took the wailing of the oppressed peoples of Israel to stir up God to roll down justice. And it has taken the wailing of many a people since to make straight the crooked paths of life. In this century alone, the civil rights movement of this country and the independence movement of India are two such cases. It takes more than fairness to set things right; it takes the urgency that comes with aching for justice.
I don't know what else would have gotten Amos to leave his sheep and risk his life for the sake of people other than his own. It would be like a Mexican farmer coming to this country with a message for President Clinton. If he got past the border guards and slipped by White House security he would still only be a nod away from imprisonment or worse. But Amos was on a mission from God. He could feel the monstrosity of inequality and identify with the cries of hurting people. And so he went, from Judah to Israel, to confront the king.
How I wish more of us would learn to wail like Amos. It's not enough to be fair and decent. It's not enough to be prim and proper. There must be a burning in our souls when we read of hunger and homelessness. There must be a tearing in our hearts when we hear of racism or sexism. There must be a throbbing in our veins when we come up against abuse and victimization. "In a sea of hardship and social ills," writes William Sloane Coffin, "churches have no business being withdrawn islands of piety. If we Christians can't get our social gospel back on track and implement it nonviolently, others will surely attempt it violently, and our failure will be the cause of it." (A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993)
As a church that makes some unique claims on the social gospel, we would do well to heed Coffin's words. But this will happen only if we move beyond a liberal understanding of fairness to a radical hearing of those plaintive cries. "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Seek good and not evil, that you may live. Hate evil and love good, that the Lord may be gracious unto you. Otherwise the Lord shall pass through the midst of you and you shall be the ones who are wailing in the squares and crying out in the streets, 'Alas! alas!'" (Amos 5:24, 14-17, paraphrased).
It's Jesus all over again. Jesus talking to his astonished disciples about the hazards of wealth and power and success. Jesus talking about camels and needles and entering the reign of God. Jesus turning the tables on who will be first and who will be last, on who will be wailing and who will be rejoicing. God is not fooled by solemn assemblies and formal proclamations! The wailing of God's people shall not, will not, and can not be silenced. It is the way of God.
Take our rich, young friend -- a yuppie if there ever was one -- with places to go and things to do. He dashes up to Jesus, Mark tells us, before setting out on a journey with a quick question. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Kind of an odd question, if you ask me, upon which to start a journey, but Jesus never blinks an eye. "You know the commandments: don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't defraud, honor your father and mother." "But teacher," he responds confidently, "I have kept all these since my youth."
Wrong answer. Jesus threw the law in this man's face with the hope he would start wailing, if not in agony, then at least in laughter. "Of course!" Jesus hoped he would say. "I haven't even kept all those things well. I have been trying to win my salvation through the court of successful living -- Jew of the Jews, Hebrew of the Hebrews -- but I've come up short. I've tried discipline, denial, depression, and drugs but they haven't worked. Taking my stand on the law has left me condemned by the law. So why would I want one more thing to do to inherit eternal life. It would just make matters worse." Wail, wail. Cry, cry.
But the gambit doesn't work. The young man can't even conceive of throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, wailing over his miserable excuse for a life. Such groveling was for women caught in the act of adultery or children possessed by demons, not for successful young urban professionals such as himself. And so he puffs himself up in all his pride, as though to say, "Oh teacher, I've done all those things perfectly since I was a kid. Why don't you give me a really hard, grown-up assignment? Why don't you give me something I can sink my teeth into and really prove my devotion to God?"
And Jesus looks at him, Mark says, and loves him. He shakes his head and shuffles his feet. "You poor, amiable sap, he thinks to himself. I like you a lot, Harry. More than you'll ever know. But it doesn't work that way. You try to save your life like that, you'll only lose it. You have to lose, l-o-s-e, lose your life to save it. Still I'll give you a shot at what I mean, just to prove I love you."
"And so, with consummate understatement, Jesus gently breaks the Good News to him. 'You only have to do one simple little thing, Harry: sell everything you have and give it to the poor. That will take care of getting your treasury of merits off your back. Then come and follow me into my death.' And at that saying, scripture tells us, the rich young man got very gloomy in the face and went off in a deep depression because 'he had great possessions' -- because, that is, he just couldn't bear the thought of being a loser." (Robert Farrar Capon, The Parable of Judgment, Eerdmans, 1989)
It's Amos all over again. Amos talking to the king of Israel. Jesus talking to the rich, young man. The Spirit talking to us today. Authentic wailing is the key to our salvation. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1) Can you not hear that cry echoing down through the corridors of time? There is no other way to inherit eternal life. Discipline will not do it. Denial and depression will not do it. Drugs will not do it. Procrastination and pretension will not do it. Only the cross of Christ will do it, with all that it implies about the inevitability of suffering and death as well as the ultimate triumph of resurrection and life.
Carl Jung once said that "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Princeton University Press, 1973). Stuff it, avoid it, ignore it, forget it, or dope it and we're headed for trouble. We're headed for a life out of balance. We're headed for an illness in our souls and in our minds. There is simply no easy way out. But there is healing for those who persevere.
From wailing to forgiveness to acceptance. That is the movement we seek as authentic Christians. Lament loss. Grieve over death and separation. Rail against tyranny and inequity. Feel the disappointment of life. Wail when you're alone, or with a loved one, or with your friends, or with an experienced counselor. But don't stop there. Put your heartaches into the overall context of the ongoing activity of God in the world, in your life, and in eternity. Then focus on the praiseworthy portion of the situation so you can rejoice as well as weep.
That is the essence of authentic wailing. It does not rejoice in wrong doing. It does not celebrate death, loss, injury, trial, failure, or defeat. But neither does it deny them. "As hard as it is to give up our Norman Rockwell picture of life, authentic wailing starts with an honest look at reality. Reality is that our parents were imperfect and behaved in ways that brought us pain. Reality is that miscarriages cause grief. Reality is that wayward teenagers can rip a parent's heart out. Reality is that losing a job can create feelings of fear and anxiety. Reality is that sexual abuse causes devastation. Reality is that there is heartache in this world, and sometimes you and I are caught in the middle of it." (Bill Hybels, Honest to God?, Zondervan, 1990)
But reality is also that pouring out our pain to God will start us on the journey from woundedness to wholeness. Pouring out our pain to other people is no less important along the way. Sometimes a friend or a loved one will have adequate words and depth of spirit to walk with us through our pain. Other times, when the pain is particularly profound, it will take a therapist or counselor to bring to bear on our pain the necessary blend of spiritual and psychological perspectives. Then, and only then, will our wailing turn to rejoicing. Then, and only then, will we bask in the power of the resurrection. Then, and only then, will we fall at the feet of the Jesus rather than turn away in despair. Amen.
Authentic Work
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 16, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Isaiah 53:4-12 and Mark 10:35-45
Opening Prayer: Holy Spirit, we come to worship you and be transformed through the power of your word. Comfort our afflictions and afflict our comfortabilities. Do your work among us, that we might be set free to work for you. In Christ' name I pray, Amen.
I once worked with a man I consider a saint. His name was Eddie Peoples and he was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. As a child Eddie had neither the training nor the attention to learn how to read or write. And he went through life as the legal ward of various family members. When one died another took over, happy to start collecting the disability checks that would come every month on Eddie's behalf.
Life was a challenge for Eddie. Things that many of us take for granted, Eddie would find intimidating. A letter would come in the mail and he would ask me to explain it to him, worrying all the time that he had done something wrong. Eddie was easy to manipulate and abuse, as women with selfish designs were quick to learn. He had a good heart and would often mistake a little attention for genuine caring and authentic warmth. But it never worked out. They were only interested in his money, and whatever else they could get from him, before they broke his heart.
Within months of my arrival at the Good News Church in Chicago, Eddie started to come around. First he came on Sunday morning, for worship, and for the next fourteen years he never missed a Sunday (unless he was sick or out of town). Then he started to come Monday through Saturday, offering to help wherever and however he could. Eddie was small and thin, with a little scraggly goatee. Every year on his birthday he'd say he guessed he was about forty-six. But we never knew for sure.
Eddie wasn't real strong, but he could work as hard as anyone. Put him in a chair, and he would nod off in a matter of minutes. Give him a job to do, and he would get it done no matter how difficult, how dirty, or how long it might take. Eddie would just keep on working.
Over time Eddie became the custodian at the Good News Church. He had every key to every door and every lock. There was nothing I would not have trusted to Eddie Peoples. He arrived at the church every morning between 5:30 and 6:30. His first job was to cut up enough vegetables and salad greens to feed two hundred people that night. Then he started his cleaning. He would do laundry, mop floors, set up and take down tables, wash windows, and vacuum carpets. He would go home for a two-hour lunch and then return to keep an eye on things and help with the nightly meal program. About 9:30 or 10:00 at night Eddie would walk home, having put in another long day.
A few years ago, after a funeral for a mutual friend, Eddie came up to me and said, "Pastor Bob, did I ever tell you what brought me here and why I've worked like this for all these years?" I said, "No." And he said, "Well, soon after I started coming to this church I had a dream. In this dream I was in the middle of a lake and I was drowning, because I don't know how to swim. But I looked up and I saw you and Megan on the shore. And you were calling to me, saying, 'Come here, Eddie, come here. You can do it. Don't look down. Keep your eyes on us. Come on, you can do it.' And somehow I managed to get myself all the way into shore. When I woke up I knew that God was telling me to come to this church and to work with you. Otherwise I might drown. Otherwise I might never make it to shore."
All of a sudden it made sense. All of a sudden it came into focus. No wonder Eddie worked so hard, for such long hours, with no real pay. Eddie had discovered the secret of authentic work! He wasn't just putting in his time, punching the clock, waiting for the whistle to blow. He was there for a reason far larger than anyone ever suspected, although everyone who ever met Eddie could tell there was something different about the man. Eddie, you see, was on a mission from God.
How many people get up day after day, going about their business, without any sense of how it all fits into the larger scheme of things? God is completely outside of the equation. And we've come up with all manner of euphemisms to illustrate the problem. The daily grind. The rat race. 9 to 5. All of them subtle complaints about work, as somehow less fulfilling and less pleasurable than other facets of our lives.
Not so for Eddie Peoples. His jobs were never glorious, and they were often back-breaking, but he knew that God had put him there for a reason. He set out to do the best job he could. He wasn't just sweeping floors and cutting vegetables, he was working out his own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12f) Work was not a distraction; work was part and parcel of God's plan. And I believe those fourteen years in Chicago were some of the best years of Eddie's life. He may not have made much money, and he never stood to give a testimony on Sunday morning, but his life spoke volumes to all who knew him.
Authentic work begins when we reach the point of realizing that we do what we do not just to make a living, but to make a life. Have you found a way to do this with your job? It's not impossible, regardless of what you do, but there's got to be a fit between the job and your personality. Otherwise you will forever chafe under the work's inevitable pressures and problems.
Eddie's joy as church custodian reflected a marvelous fit between tasks and skills, between responsibilities and abilities, between projects and interests. And it was a fit that neither he nor Social Security ever thought he would find. Eddie was illiterate and not very quick. But once we put a broom and a ring full of keys into his hands, the man blossomed with joy. His life was filled with a richness that had nothing to do with money.
If you are not feeling particularly happy with your work, it may be due to the lack of such a fit. That is one of the first things to examine. Are you doing the things that make you happy and fill you with energy, or are you a square peg in a round hole? Are you an extrovert in an introvert's job, or an introvert in an extrovert's job? Take a relational, competitive, high-energy salesman and make him the assistant librarian in the township library. What do you think would happen to this man's job satisfaction level? I think he would last about two weeks -- even if the job offered incredible pay and unbelievable perks. It wouldn't meet his need for action, competition, and variety. It wouldn't be in sync with his motivated abilities.
The same thing would happen if we had tried to make Eddie the guest host on Saturday Night Live. I'm sure we could never have even gotten him on the stage, but if we had it would have been an unmitigated disaster. He would have hated every minute of it. Authentic work is not a matter of how much money you make or how much time you put in. It's a matter of finding a job that connects with your basic instincts and motivated abilities. It's a matter of doing things that "turn your crank" and "ring your bell."
Unfortunately, all too many of us find little joy in our work. We see Ed McMahon on television with a $10 million sweepstakes winner, or we read about a multi-million dollar lottery winner, and we think to ourselves, "Wouldn't that be the life! We would never have to work again. We could just spend the rest of our days sipping exotic drinks on a palm-lined Caribbean beach." But this Hollywood lifestyle of the rich and famous belies the fact that meaningful, satisfying work is one of the most basic and fundamental of human needs. No one can simply play all day for the rest of their lives and be fulfilled. Everyone must do work, whether paid or unpaid, that is consistent with their God-given abilities, talents, and interests.
That, in the end, is the difference between those who can hardly wait to get to work and those who can hardly wait to leave. When the fit is there, we can feel God's pleasure as we work. Two people may have the exact same job in the exact same office, but their experiences may be as different as day and night. One brings a spirit of vitality and enthusiasm with them when they walk in the door, while the other brings a spirit of dissatisfaction. And those same spirits spill over into every other aspect of life. When a fit is found between a person's motivated abilities and his or her work, there will be a noticeable difference in how they serve.
Isaiah talked about this difference some 500 years before the Common Era. Carried off into Babylonian exile, the people were looking for a word that would make sense of their sufferings and shame. They had hoped for a mighty Deliverer, a powerful Messiah, but instead they found only persecution and pain. Then Isaiah heard a word from the Lord about redemptive suffering. And that word made all the difference. Not that the persecution stopped or the pain went away, but suddenly it was embraced from a whole new vantage point. Suddenly it made sense. Suddenly it was taken on willingly, rather than begrudgingly, with purpose, rather than with protest.
"Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. Out of his anguish he shall see light; and he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4f, 11f).
The writers of the New Testament, as you can imagine, found in this image of a suffering servant a powerful and transformational story of someone who found the secret of authentic work even when that work was an ignominious death upon the cross. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth the New Testament church not only found the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, they also found the key to Christian industry.
Poor James and John. They thought the key was climbing up the ladder. "Grant us to sit," they ask Jesus, "one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." (Mark 10:37). How often we Christians have gotten sidetracked by the lure of success! We find the right job, that fits our motivated abilities like a glove, but then we forget all about the fact that God has put us there for a reason larger than the job itself. And we become little different than the world around us. We become no less ruthless and no more compassionate. We become no less driven and no more balanced. We become no less impatient and no more understanding.
I know plenty of Christian workaholics who are in the right job for all the wrong reasons. Success has become for them a drug that fills them not with God's pleasure but with their own. They seek their worth in the accolades of other people, forgetting all about the servant-king to whom they sing praises on Sunday morning. But "it shall not be so among you!" Jesus warns. "Do not seek to lord your authority over others like tyrants; instead whoever wishes to be great with you must be among you as one who serves. For the Son of All came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42-45).
The key to Christian industry, you see, is climbing down the ladder. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," writes the apostle Paul, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." (Philippians 2:5-7). It's not enough to have a job that connects with your motivated abilities. You must also bring to that job a Christ-like spirit of servant leadership. If you serve only for yourself you will end up with no less emptiness and no more satisfaction than someone who's stuck in the wrong job altogether. Put together the right job with the right spirit, and you will be fulfilled. That is the way God made us. To work in different fields of interest with the hearts of humble servants. When we are where God wants us to be, no job is too low, and no problem too discouraging, for us to tackle.
I remember when a friend started his new job as director of a not-for-profit housing corporation. It was right up his alley, and he would go to work everyday with a list of all the things he wanted to get done. He would write the list down, intending to cross them off as the day went on. But day after day things would come up that kept him from getting his list taken care of. It was always something, or someone, with a crisis or a question or an opportunity.
With every passing day, Joe got more and more frustrated by all of these interruptions. "These problems are getting in the way of my job," Joe used to complain, until one day a new thought occurred to him that made all the difference: "These problems are not getting in the way of my job; these problems are my job!" All of a sudden Joe took on his job with a new spirit of joy. Nothing had changed. The problems still flew at him just as fast and just as furious. But Joe had changed. He had been given the heart of a servant.
A person with a servant's heart does not resent the situations that come their way. They know servanthood was never meant to be easy. Servants expect problems; after all, that's what they're there for. And good servants learn how to respond to those problems with grace.
The challenge, of course, is to get our brains wrapped around the idea that we are called to be servants in the first place. People don't like to be servants. People hire servants to do the jobs that they don't want to do. And then along comes Jesus telling us that unless we become like servants and slaves and little children, we cannot enter the Reign of God.
This ethic of Christian servanthood flies directly in the face of a marketplace mentality. The marketplace centers solely on the bottom line: profits, quotas, sales reports, balance sheets, budgets, and competition. The goal is to pump out more work in less time with lower costs. In an environment like that, people become the lowest priority.
But people can never be the lowest priority for Christians engaged in authentic work. As servants of a living Lord, not just on Sunday morning but all week long, people can never stop being our highest priority. How we work. How we listen. How we respond to problems. How we make decisions. All these are constantly on display, leaving people to form an opinion not just about us, but about the spirit that motivates us. Each of us is a living witness to the truth of the gospel.
If Christians are just like everybody else, with the same bottom line, then we have sacrificed our souls on the altar of success. But if we remember who we are there will be something different about the way we carry ourselves and conduct business. We will be known as people who care. We will help our co-workers to get the job done. And we will be more concerned about the success of the team than the aggrandizement of the individual. When we make mistakes, and we will, we will be the first to admit them and offer honest apologies. When others make mistakes we will respond with the grace of one who has known forgiveness. For we will be among others as those who serve, keeping our eyes on the prize of eternal life.
The wrong job for the wrong reason -- that's a formula for disaster. The right job for the right reason -- that's the combination for authentic work. Amen.
Authentic Weight
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 23, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Mark 10:46-52
Opening Prayer: Transforming Power, who could reach out and make the blind see and the lame walk, reach out now to us. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Give us legs to dance and arms to embrace. Fill us with the power of your word, that we might be set free. Amen.
OK, I want to get this part out of the way as soon as possible. When I was 20 years old, I was ten pounds over my ideal body weight. Since that time I have gained approximately one pound per year, making me now thirty pounds over my ideal body weight. At this rate I will weigh 300 pounds by the time I reach the age of 120. So there, in one fell swoop I have confessed my sins and created a math-word problem that will keep our sixth-graders occupied for at least a few minutes as they calculate my age, my weight, and exactly how much I should weigh, authentic weight, according to the charts.
What they won't be able to figure out, however, is why I'm thirty pounds overweight and what I'm going to do about it. It's a slippery problem that I've been trying to get a handle on for years. The same goes for flossing my teeth. I go to the dentist and hear all about it. I shake my head and nod. I get another lesson on how it's supposed to be done. And for a few days I'm pretty good. But then I start missing days, and then missing weeks, until my next dental appointment rolls around. At which point the process starts all over again.
It wasn't so difficult with my dog. My wife came home from the vet with the news that Puffin had to lose weight. And so we cut her down from two meals of dry dog food a day to one meal a day. Just like that. Cold turkey. No warning. No waiting. We didn't even ask her permission. We just did it. It was all so simple. And guess what? In no time at all she lost weight proving, once again, that there is a direct connection between how much food goes in the mouth and how much weight goes on the body.
Somehow that connection hasn't meant very much to me over the past twenty years. I have merrily rolled along, through two sizes of suits, with an air of invulnerability. All this talk about diet and exercise and stress and taking good care of yourself applied to other people, not to me. I still put anything in my mouth, anytime I want, anywhere I want. And I want it a lot. When I'm happy I like to go out to eat, or have an ice cream, to celebrate. When I'm sad I like to go out to eat, or have an ice cream, to pick up my spirits. And when I'm nervous, food is the balm I seek to feel better. That's when I go on what Megan calls my "seefood" diet. I see food, and I eat it.
Six months ago my illusion of invulnerability came crashing down with the results of my last physical exam. My new doctor started talking cholesterol. My cholesterol levels, he explained, are not what they should be, putting me at an increased risk for arterial sclerosis and heart disease. He recommended that I decrease my input of fat and increase my output of exercise. Then come back, he told me, and we'll test you again. With a little effort on your part, you should be able to take care of this without medication.
Medication. No doctor has ever used that word before, and I naturally thought about getting a second opinion. A man I once knew in Kentucky once told me about a doctor who pronounced, after his annual physical, "Edsel, I don't want you to do nary another bit of work for all the rest of your born days." Edsel thought for a moment and said, "Now there's a doctor you can trust."
But I'm afraid I can't get away with that. The fact is my eating and exercise habits leave a lot to be desired. Unfortunately I'm not alone. The United States loses nearly one million people a year to food-related diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Less than one in four Americans can be considered normal in regard to weight. And the number who engage in the recommended amount of weekly aerobic exercise stands even lower. As documented by study after study, Americans are fatter and more out of shape today than ever before.
The fact is we have a crisis of epidemic proportions. And the longer it goes on, the worse it becomes, robbing us not only of our physical health but of our self-esteem as well. Every time one of us tries to lose weight, or stop smoking, or start an exercise routine, or eliminate caffeine, or stop drinking, or stop using drugs -- only to fall off the wagon again -- we suffer another chink in our psychological armor. The guilt and shame we feel over our failure to control ourselves can result in our being too fearful, too cynical, or too discouraged to try again. It becomes a vicious self-destructive cycle of immobilization that can only be broken by the unmitigated, unwarranted, unlimited love of God.
One of the greatest testimonies to the inspiration of scripture is its revelation of a God who cares for people with physical challenges. Thousands of years before it was politically correct, at a time when physical disabilities were taken as a sign of God's judgment and the handicapped were shunned rather than welcomed, a new word was heard among the people called Israel.
"You shall not revile the deaf," Moses wrote in the law, "or put a stumbling block in the way of the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:14). It was a truth picked up again and again by the prophets, and it became a defining theme for the One we call Savior and Lord. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," Jesus proclaims, quoting from the prophet Isaiah, "and has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind." (Luke 4:18, Isaiah 61:1). This was no arrogant exaltation of the sleek and the svelte. This was a God who had time and concern and compassion for all God's children, be they short or tall, black or white, fit or fat, quick or dead. This was a God who could look every single one of us in the eye and say, without reservation or hesitation, you matter.
You matter to me. Everything about you matters to me. Your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength. It all matters to me. Because I am like a Parent to you, and you are like my children. It doesn't matter what your problems are, I still love you. You can wander off and eat yourself silly, you can squander every good gift on loose and riotous living, but when you finally come to your senses I'll be standing there, with open arms, like a Father who loves his children.(Luke 15:11-32) You can refuse to listen to the prophets and those who are sent to you, you can even kill my only Son, but when you finally see the light I will gather you up like a Mother who gathers her children into her arms. (Luke 13:31-35).
That is a God I can worship. That is a God who brings people home, not just the beautiful people, but all the people. "See," proclaims the prophet Jeremiah, "I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together: a great company, they shall return here." (Jeremiah 31:8). We can hardly begin to imagine how revolutionary this was 2,600 years ago. Unheard of. Unthinkable. Impractical. Impossible. The word of God spoken to break that vicious, self-destructive cycle.
Enter Jesus of Nazareth, the Great Physician, the Healer, the Teacher. Did you ever notice how many of Jesus' healings are set in the context of social disapproval? Little children would come up to him, and the disciples would push them away. Don't bother the Teacher, he's got bigger fish to fry. But Jesus would silence his disciples and call the little children to him. Women would come up, just to touch his cloak, and Jesus would actually teach them, in public, about the mysteries of God. The deaf, the dumb, the lame, the crippled, the short, the fat, and the ugly. They were all friends of Jesus and that friendship brought with it a healing touch.
Take this morning's story about blind Bartimaeus. What a precious nugget from the book of life. As Jesus was leaving Jericho to go to Jerusalem, as Jesus was on the way to his own death and disfigurement at the hands of those who never could figure out what he was all about, he passes a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road. When Bartimaeus hears it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by, he calls out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And the people react. "Hush up, you idiot! This is Jesus the Mighty King, the Redeemer of Israel. He's on his way to Jerusalem to throw out the Romans. He'll be crowned in glory. He hasn't got time for the likes of you!"
But Bartimaeus was not deterred. "Jesus, Son of David," he cried out even louder, "have mercy on me!"
When was the last time that you cried out, loudly, with people all around, for the help of God? When was the last time that you wanted healing so badly that you didn't care who knew or what people thought of you? For me it was eight years ago, when I stepped on the scale and saw a number I had never seen before in my life. All of a sudden I was done making jokes about donuts and between meal snacks. Something snapped inside, my defenses went down, and my casual remarks about wanting to lose weight were transformed into heartfelt cries. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
The healing begins the moment you call out to God for help. Bartimaeus would never have received his eyesight if he hadn't wanted it enough to cry out, in a loud voice, above the crowds, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." And we will never lose weight until we want it that badly as well. We will never start exercising, stop smoking, eliminate caffeine, stop drinking, get off drugs, or start doing any of the other things that we know are good for us until we dare in all sincerity to approach God with our need.
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." That's the second step. Crying out loudly is not, in and of itself, enough. We must cry out loudly with an acknowledgement of our need. A confession. A humble plea. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that save a wretch like me. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me."
Here was a man who knew he needed help, and wasn't afraid to admit it. When the doctor started talking about medication to control my cholesterol it was a blow to my ego that I'm still not sure I've dealt with entirely. I sometimes think that perhaps the test results were mistaken. I feel fine, I have a lot of energy, so what's the problem? So what if I'm 30 pounds over weight, at least it's not 100 pounds.
Psychologists have a name for that line of reasoning. It's called denial. And it's probably the same reasoning my overweight, cigar-smoking, hard-drinking paternal grandfather had going when he died of a stroke in 1937 at the age of 55. But denial will never lead to healing. Only the honest confession of our problems, and the honest appeal to God for wellness.
Hearing Bartimaeus' cry, Jesus stopped in his tracks and stood still. Confounding the crowds once again, Jesus calls Bartimaeus to him, asking the exact same question that he asked last week to James and John, the sons of Zebedee. "What do you want me to do for you?" Do you remember how James and John answered? "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory."
Aaargh! His own disciples, and they still didn't get it. Position. Power. Fame. Fortune. All the wrong things for all the wrong reasons, as though Jesus had nothing better to do than to set up another penny ante hierarchy such as you can find anywhere else on the face to the earth. Not so with Bartimaeus. The man may have been blind, but he and the little children were the only ones who saw even part of the gospel in the entire tenth chapter of Mark.
"What do you want me to do for you?" "Rabbi, make me see again."
Third step. Cry out loudly, acknowledge your need, and dare to change. The other day I had someone approach me in the parking lot for money. "You're not going to believe this," he started out, "but my truck broke down a few blocks away and I need $9 to get it fixed. I have $11 here," pulling some bills out of his pocket, "and I need $9 more to take care of the problem." "Actually, I do believe this," I responded, "because the police just came by telling me that someone they were looking for was going around asking for money with a story about a broken-down truck." The man ran off to the north. He wasn't ready to make a change.
You know, that could have been blind Bartimaeus. He was a blind beggar. And given that everyone knew his name, he must have been pretty good. He had his cup. He had his spot. He had his schedule. He had his shtick. And he decided to risk it all while standing face to face with Jesus. "Rabbi, make me see again."
Eight years ago, after crying out for help, I lost twenty-two pounds and reached my ideal body weight by going with a friend to a weight-loss program sponsored by my health insurance company. It was quite an experience, having never been at my ideal body weight for my entire life. And although it felt great to have people comment on how good I looked, there were changes I never got used to. Throwing food away, rather than cleaning my own and everyone else's plate, just rubbed against my grain. What about all those starving children in China? And snacking, as a kind of comfort, was simply too much to lose.
Bartimaeus could have chosen to remain blind. He could have run north out of our parking lot. But instead he decided to make a change. "'Rabbi, make me see again.' And Jesus said to Bartimaeus, 'Go; your faith has made you well.' Immediately he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way." (Mark 10:52).
That's the fourth step, and it's the part I forgot. It isn't enough just to cry out loudly, to acknowledge your need, and to risk a change. You then have to follow Jesus on the way. You have to build in some ongoing accountability and support. Bartimaeus did that. He joined with the disciples and crowd who were going to Jerusalem becoming part of that fledgling faith. He took his new pair of eyes into the great company of God's faithful people, that he might never forget the transforming power of God.
You know, as long as I was going to those classes, weighing in with my friend, and thinking week after week about the food I was eating, I was all right. I had accountability and support and discipline to go along with my heartfelt desire to take care of this body that Paul calls "the temple of the Holy Spirit." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). But once I tried to go it alone I lost my determination, ending up even more overweight than before.
And that should be a lesson for us all. Authentic Christianity is not just about spiritual things or ethical things or relational things. It's also about personal things. It's about lifestyle. It's about how we take care of our bodies, that they might be presented, as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. (Romans 12:1). The good news is that God loves us, just the way we are, with all our warts and weaknesses. But God doesn't just love us and leave us. Crying out to God, acknowledging our need, daring to change, and building in support and accountability. These are the things that make for authentic weight. These are the things that make for healing. These are the things that make for victory over sin and death. (1 Corinthians 15:42-57).
Authentic Wealth
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 30, 1994
Memory Verse: "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice." (James 1:22)
Today's Texts: Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and Mark 12:28-34
Opening Prayer: God, we thank you for your incredible patience and love. We hear your word, but we do not always translate that word into faith and action. Still you tarry with us, speaking over and over again those wonderful words of life. Tarry with us now. Speak to us now. Infuse us now with your grace. Amen.
It's hard for me to believe that one year ago today I climbed the steps of this pulpit for the first time as your Senior Minister. On the one hand, so much has happened and Columbus feels so much like home that it seems as though it could hardly have been only one year. What good friends you've been to me and to my family! On the other hand, it's been so enjoyable and there's still so much to learn that it seems like only yesterday. Time sure does fly when you're having fun.
I hope you've gotten as much out of the past twelve months as I have. Last year the title of my sermon on this Sunday was "We Are Blessed." Today I know more about that claim than I did twelve months ago. God is truly alive and well here at First Church, and I feel privileged to share the experience with you. I would thank you again for giving me the opportunity to serve and for hanging in there with me through the many ups and downs, the many twists and turns of the past year. I'm sure it has been as challenging for you as it has been for me to keep up with it all, and I am grateful for your patience, your wisdom, your leadership, and you support.
Even as today represents the end of my first year of service, today also represents the end of my eight-part sermon series on becoming an authentic Christian. Throughout this series I have hearkened repeatedly back to the basic affirmation of the Christian faith; namely, that there is nothing we can do to make God love us any more (and nothing we can do to make God love us any less). God simply loves us, right where we are, just the way we are, through the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Authentic Christianity is therefore something we practice not in order to be saved, but because we are saved.
Because God loves us through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, we are set free, once and for all, to live as those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:10-14). We can dare to approach the things of God, even the difficult things, with a playful spirit and a willing heart. We can try, and fail, without fear of reprisal. We can hope, against hope, that the things we believe may one day manifest themselves fully in the lives of God's people.
Today we come to the matter of money. Having talked about integrity, spirituality, honesty, love, pain, industry, and health we come finally to a subject that simply cannot be ignored in any discussion about authentic Christianity. Indeed, given how much time the Bible spends on the matter of money, it may be the most important subject of all. Do you remember three weeks ago when we read the story of Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler? "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," Jesus admonished his disciples, "than for someone who is rich to enter the reign of God." (Mark 10:25).
Time after time the Bible raises questions about the relationship between wealth and authentic Christianity. "No slave can serve two masters," Jesus muses, "for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth." (Luke 16:13). Paul was just as plain in his counsel to Timothy. "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains." (1 Timothy 6:10).
Now those are strong words, and they have relevance to each and every one of us in this room. The fact is, as our soldiers in Port au Prince have discovered, by the world's standards there's not a poor person in this country. Poverty in America, by comparison to much of the world, is hardly poverty at all. We have developed so many safety nets, that even the most destitute of individuals in America is better off than a large percentage of the world's population. In the grand scheme of things we live with varying degrees of wealth, leaving scripture to confront each of us with those challenging and disquieting words.
"It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter the reign of God." That's not as impossible as it sounds. "The eye of a needle" was the nickname for the smallest of the temple gates, and to get through that gate a camel would have had to bend its neck and get down on its knees in order to crawl and squeeze its way through. Now that's some trick. It's not easy to get a camel to do that. Either its master needs to work with it for a long time or there has to be something the camel really wants (like food or water) on the other side. It's unlikely. It's unnatural. But it's not impossible. It just requires a degree of training and trusting and wanting that camels do not often muster.
So too for wealthy people like you and me who want to enter the reign of God. If we are going to bend our necks and get down on our knees, if we ever hope to squeeze in through the narrow door, then we will need at least as much training as those stubborn camels. For we are trying to learn something even more profound and even more difficult than a circus act; we are trying to pull the rug out from under what Robert Farrar Capon calls "the religion of money."
Allow me to illustrate the hold this religion has upon us all. If I take a piece of paper and tear it up right before your eyes it would hardly occasion any concern or consternation whatsoever (unless, of course, it was the fourth page of today's sermon leaving me to one again ramble around, picking up the pieces from memory). But what happens if I pull out a twenty-dollar bill and start tearing it up? My guess is that you're starting to feel pretty uncomfortable right about now. I know I am. You probably figure this isn't real money, because no one could be so stupid. Who would commit such an unforgivable act, let alone from the pulpit right before the start of the church's annual stewardship campaign?
But upon learning that I have, indeed, torn up a real twenty-dollar bill, right in front of your eyes, the protests will start flying fast and furious. "What a waste! That could have been put to good use." or "You could have saved that for a rainy day! or "How could you do such a thing in a world full of hungry people?" or "Don't you know it's a Federal offense to destroy or deface money."
I'm sure there are countless other objections. But consider, if you will, where all of these objections come from. I have just torn up two pieces of paper. The first piece you didn't give a hoot about. Why? Because it was mine and I could do with it as I pleased. But the second piece may have started a few of you thinking about leaving the room and calling in the Federal marshals, the temple police for the religion of money. Money, you see, doesn't belong to me. It says right across the top who it belongs to: Federal Reserve Note, The United States of America. It undergirds the fabric of society. It is legal tender for all debts, public and private. Tear it up and you demonstrate a wanton disregard for the things that make the world go 'round. Tear it up, as though it doesn't really matter, and you threaten the very essence of life as we know it. Tear it up and you commit blasphemy against the principal sacrament of a market economy. (Robert Farrar Capon, Health, Money, and Love & Why We Don't Enjoy Them, Eerdmans, 1990).
But tearing up our wealth is exactly what Jesus calls us to do, if not literally then at least figuratively. Those who are lovers of money, Jesus warns, will never enter the reign of God. Consider the contrast between today's Old and New Testament lessons, printed on pages two and four of the order. They both work with the same idea, but Jesus is the one who makes a clean break from the religion of money.
Let's start with Moses. Having just come down from the mountain of God with the ten commandments, and having just been appointed as the mediator of God's will, Moses proceeds to summarize everything he's been trying to teach the Israelites with those famous and wonderful words. "The Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:4f). So far so good. Moses was on a roll. Too bad he didn't stop right there. Too bad he didn't add love your neighbor as yourself. Instead, Moses argues enticingly, "(do this) so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey." (Deuteronomy 6:3)
Do you see the connection? Obey God and prosper. That was the formula. That was the deal. That's the religion of money. Having been to the mountain top where he saw God face to face, Moses no sooner comes down than he plunges people into 4,000 years of misguided direction. And to this very day we contend with preachers who fleece their flock with promises of prosperity in exchange for faithfulness and a small donation of twenty-five dollars or more.
But it doesn't work that way. Job knew it didn't work that way. And Jesus knew it didn't work that way. When one of the scribes asked Jesus to name the first commandment of them all, Jesus answered, "The first is this, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' And the second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31). After that, we are told, no one dared to ask him any question.
Small wonder. Jesus had just torn up a twenty-dollar bill. Jesus had just shredded the religion of money. Jesus had just torn down the temple with his insistence on undivided devotion to God, not because of what we're going to get back, but because of what we're going to give. Love the Lord, and love your neighbor as yourself. No ifs, ands, or buts. No deals. No guarantees.
Can you not see? Can you not hear? Authentic wealth begins the moment we are set free from the bean-counting of everyday life. Contrary to recent reports, the incredible universe has not just opened in Hilliard and it does not amount to being able to touch and feel more merchandise under one roof than ever before. The incredible universe began about 2,000 years ago when somebody finally came along who cut through the lies of the money god to the very heart of the gospel and the very essence of authentic faith. Love the Lord, and love your neighbor as yourself. Not because of what it will get you. Not if God does just this one thing for you. But in spite of whatever obstacles and stumbling blocks might stand in your way.
Unfortunately the religion of money has been alive and well in North America for all of my adult life, and no doubt long before. In 1967 first-year college students were asked whether it was more important to be well-off financially or to discover a meaningful philosophy of life. The vast majority chose a meaningful philosophy of life. In a similar poll taken twenty year later, eighty percent responded that it was more important to be well-off financially. The money god had been busy.
From 1980 to 1987 the circulation of Money magazine doubled. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous made its television debut. Heroes like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy gave way to Iacocca, Trump, and Icahn. Business school applications skyrocketed while schools of social work almost shut their doors. Lottery participation soared off the charts. And young people unashamedly sang along to Madonna's hit, "Material Girl." (Bill Hybels, Honest to God?, Zondervan, 1990).
On and on it goes, with seemingly no end in sight. But that's how the money god works. First you want little, and then you want more. Once you have more, you'd think you'd be happy, but you're not. And so you reach for even more. I remember at Good News the first year I ever made $12,000. A $1,000 a month. Wow! I thought to myself, "Who could ever want more than this? Who could ever spend so much money?" Twelve months later I found out the answer. Me! The more money I had, the more money I wanted. There was absolutely no end to the things I could think of to spend it on. Travel to exotic and wonderful places. Electronics to make life more productive and efficient. Redecorating with more than just second-hand furniture from second-hand stores. Cars that actually start on even the coldest of mornings. Why there's no limit to the things I can imagine.
The religion of money seeks total domination of our value system without our even being aware of it. Where we live. The jobs we take. The schools we attend. It all gets driven by a calculated appraisal of the bottom-line. If it's better for me financially, then I do it. If I'm going to take a financial hit, then I avoid it. And if you can't count and weigh those beans for yourself, there are plenty of financial advisors who will do it for you. The religion of money is big business, you see, with more priests and prophets, warriors and kings, than all the other religions put together.
In the end, there's only one way to break the back of the religion of money and it's called giving. Nothing does a better job at undercutting and undermining the money god. The religion of money wants you to spend more and more on yourself, ideally borrowing to the hilt with the easy credit that Americans have come to take for granted. Just as you reach one financial goal, the religion of money comes up with a new one. That's how it works.
But giving your money away, tearing it up if you have to, that's when you begin to chip away at the clay feet of this religion. On Thursday I went out for coffee with Nancy Loy at a shop in Worthington. When I got to the register the checker asked if I was together with the person behind me in line. Now this wasn't Nancy. This was a total stranger who I had never seen in my life. But I had just been to the bank, had a big wad of money in my pocket, and felt like being generous, so I said to the checker, "Sure, put her food on my bill too." Well the woman looked at me like I was absolutely crazy and wouldn't let me pay for her breakfast.
You see the religion of money doesn't work that way. I have my money and you have yours, and never the twain shall meet (without an appropriate contract or exchange of comparable value). That's why giving, especially cheerful giving, goes right to the heart of the matter. But it's so hard to take that almost no one is ever cured of this malaise. Christmas presents turn into swaps. Birthday presents become rewards. Impromptu largesses carry with them expectations of payback. Even churches reduce giving to little more than payment for services rendered. Come listen to great music and great preaching, then put your ticket price in the offering plate.
But that, in the end, will never get us to authentic wealth and never get us to authentic Christianity. Giving -- the dumb, no-reason-for-it, unloading of money -- remains the only cure and the only way to sass the religion of money back. Next week I'll be away, attending a conference in Lincoln, Nebraska. But when I return I'm going to spend two more weeks on this subject of giving. It's that important. If we ever hope to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, if we ever hope to become authentic Christians, if we ever hope to love our neighbors as ourselves, then we have to start making different decisions about how we live our lives. The Christian faith holds out a different God, a different baptism, a different body, and a different Spirit. Together we can discern and abide with that difference, living lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Together we can become authentic Christians. Amen.