Faithfulness: The Source of Consolation
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 22, 1996
Memory Verse: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Today's Texts: 2 Kings 6:8-23 and 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
Opening Prayer: Holy God, we pause, at this point in our journey, to listen for your voice. Speak to us of love. Tend to us with grace. Give us the healing balm of your Spirit. This we ask in Christ's name. Amen.
This morning I begin the first in a five-part series entitled Lessons from the Corinthian Church. I was led to preach this series, all the way back in July, because our church was even then evidencing some of the same maladies as afflicted the church in Corinth almost 2,000 years ago. Communication was breaking down. Camps were forming. The body of Christ was being divided. The church was turning against the teachings of its founder. The whole situation prompted Paul to write those riveting words in the very first chapter of First Corinthians:
"Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters."
"What I mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power." (1 Corinthians 1:10-15, 17).
Our challenge, in the coming days, is to take Paul's admonition to heart in order to move forward as the whole people of God. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible. Our message may sound like foolishness to some and may appear empty to others, but to those who are called it is the wisdom and the power of God. By grace we have been saved through faith. Our differences cannot change that fact. Our failings cannot frustrate that new reality in Christ. We have been marked with a seal by the Holy Spirit of God against which not even the cosmic powers of this present darkness can prevail.
This is the hope upon which I stand before you today and it the same hope with which Paul wrote his letters to the Corinthian church. Corinth was a port city on the narrow Greek isthmus which separates the Aegean and Adriatic seas. In its heyday, it was known as sin city. It was the capital of sex, pleasure, and immorality. It was the Las Vegas of the ancient world. But in 146 B.C. Corinth was conquered and totally destroyed by the Romans, not to be rebuilt for more than 100 years.
By the time the apostle Paul visited the city, in the early first century A.D., Corinth was back on the map as a lively new city "where Greek thought and culture poured into the mixing bowl of peoples and ideas that had been thrown together during the Greco-Roman age. It was a busy seaport and a center for commerce, industry, and the Isthmian games." (Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote The New Testament?, Harper San Francisco, 1995). New buildings and roads were popping up all over the place. It was a large, growing cosmopolitan area. There were government headquarters, religious temples, gymnasiums, stadiums, theaters, cultic caves, and public baths.
In other words, Corinth in the first century A.D. was not unlike Columbus, Ohio in the twentieth. It was home to diverse peoples and interests, some of whom found their way to Christ. The message of grace, without regard to ethnicity or status, drew people together who had never before related to each other in significant ways. Such diversity produced sharp differences of opinion as to theology, ethics, leadership, and worship. Paul wrote several letters to the church in Corinth to defend his ministry as an apostle and to steer them away from the excesses of legalism and licentiousness. "All things are lawful," Paul wrote, "but not all things are beneficial!" (1 Corinthians 6:12). Some of Paul's letters were harsh, others were encouraging, but they all lifted up the importance of love.
The letter we know as Second Corinthians is probably the combination of two or three letters, written at different times and from different places. In this sermon series we will focus on five different themes from Second Corinthians which can guide and encourage us on our journey toward healing and wholeness.
In the first chapter of Second Corinthians, Paul lets loose with great thanksgiving and praise. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
These comforting words have a specific application. Paul's use of the word affliction is not a general description of the human condition. He's not talking about natural disasters and illness: sufferings which happen to people because they are people. Paul is not making a blanket commentary on the goodness of God; Paul is rather making a special promise to the church of Jesus Christ.
In verse eight, Paul describes the affliction which came upon him and his companions while on a missionary journey in Asia. They were acting as faithful servants of the gospel, they were acting as Christians, and yet they were so utterly and unbearably crushed that they despaired of life itself. This took place, Paul concluded, in order to make them rely on the resurrection power of God. Had they been otherwise successful, they might have become arrogant or boastful or rude. They might have come to rely on their own prowess and power. As it was, they were filled with a spirit of thanksgiving for the God who rescued them from so deadly a peril. Faithfulness became the source of their consolation. God had made a way out of no way, which Paul saw as the essence of the gospel itself.
This was Paul's message to the Corinthians. Not that God was going to wave a magic wand and make everything better. But that God would sustain and support them as they witnessed to their new-found faith in Jesus Christ. Paul was making a direct link between being faithful and receiving consolation. Paul was claiming for the church a special dispensation of God's protecting love.
This affirmation is never more important, and never more relevant, than when churches go through times of trial and testing. Such times may tempt us to throw in the towel, to assume that God has abandoned us, but Paul urges us to consider otherwise. The blessing of God does not mean the absence of problems. Indeed, Paul expects Christian people and churches to have problems when they act in faith. Christians were, after all, ambassadors of Christ in a world which knew nothing about Him and which was hostile to His claims.
No, Paul approaches God's love from a different point of view. Rather than the absence of problems, for Paul the blessing of God means the resolution of problems. It means being rescued from harm's way. It means finding hope when others would despair. It means finding love when others would hate. It means approaching life with the confidence of Elisha rather than the fear of Elisha's attendant.
This morning's Old Testament lesson is one of my favorite stories in scripture. Who cannot identify with the predicament in which Elisha found himself? Surrounded on every side by the armies of the king of Aram, his attendant cried out in desperation: "Alas, master! What shall we do?" I imagine, we've all prayed that prayer before! But we've not always responded with the assurance of Elisha.
Elisha is an Old Testament character with many similarities to Jesus. He too had a predecessor. Even as John the Baptist came before Jesus, so did Elijah come before Elisha. Elijah and John the Baptist were Wildmen, eating locusts and wild honey. Elisha and Jesus were Healers, who made great use of water. Their approach to conflict produced more light than heat, with fewer casualties and greater opportunities for grace.
As with the affliction of Paul in Asia, Elisha is here coming under fire because of his activities as a man of God. The king of Aram did not order him to be seized for no reason at all. The king was responding to Elisha's powers of discernment. Elisha had been doing what God was telling him to do, when he found himself surrounded by armies in the city of Dothan. It was Elisha's faithfulness which enabled him to see the consolation of God.
"Do not be afraid," he told his attendant, "for greater are those who are with us than those who are with them." That is the answer of faith to a world of fear. No matter how great our problems may appear, no matter how large our troubles may loom, greater are those who are with us than those who are in the world. That is the Mystical Power and the Deep Magic of God. To produce consolation in the midst of affliction. To make a way out of no way. To provide angels of grace against the armies of Aram.
The attendant could not see what Elisha was talking about until Elisha prayed: "O Lord, open the eyes of my servant that he may see." Then, as though he had put on a new pair of glasses, everything came into focus. Suddenly the attendant knew that God was with them and that God would care for them in their affliction. "Seeing is believing" may be the bottom-line in the show-me state of Missouri, but Elisha prays things into being the other way around. Believe in order to see. Trust in order to know. "Faith," scripture tells us, "is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
This was the consolation that Paul was urging upon the church at Corinth, and this was the consolation that Elisha prayed for in the city of Dothan. Elisha did not beg God to deliver them from a difficult situation. He did not plead for God to return, as though God had abandoned them to their enemies. He confidently asked God to open his attendant's eyes. Elisha knew that God never abandons people of faith. No matter how difficult or how impossible the situation, God stills surrounds us and carries us and covers us and protects us and delivers us. So Elisha intercedes boldly on behalf of his attendant with prayer.
And the Lord opened the eyes of the attendant, and he saw; the mountain was full of the armies of God. There they were! Behind every chariot of the king of Aram, there stood a chariot of fire. Behind every horse, there stood a horse of fire. And behind every soldier, there stood a soldier of fire. How disorienting this must have been for Elisha's attendant. Like putting on a new pair of glasses, the world suddenly came into focus and the ground was no longer where it used to be.
Where was the army of God just a moment earlier? Were they asleep until Elisha blew the prayer of faith, like a bugler blowing reveille for the troops? Were they hiding, just off stage or out of view? NO! They were there, and from the first Elisha could see and hear and feel their protection. Elisha's attendant, however, could not see them without the eyes of faith. Believing is seeing. Elisha believed, and Elisha saw the power of God. Elisha prayed, and suddenly his attendant saw that power as well.
"When the king of Israel saw that the armies of the king of Aram had been delivered into his power, he said to Elisha, 'Father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?' Elisha answered, 'No! Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.'" So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.'" (2 Kings 6:21-23).
Wow! What an unlikely end to a military campaign. From guns to butter in one fell swoop. From earthly hostility to heavenly festivity between different armies, different races, different peoples, different cultures, different traditions, and different gods. Everyone sitting down at one table together, eating and drinking, making music and learning the ways of peace. Elisha understood that slaughtering the army of the king of Aram was no solution. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ends up with a sightless and toothless world. Elisha the Healer had a different plan in mind. They converted their enemies into friends! By showing mercy, by acting as people of faith, they received the consolation of God.
This is the word which speaks to us today. When we act on faith and experience affliction, God provides us with consolation. However difficult this day, or any day, may appear -- the mercy and power of God is surrounding us on every side. It is here, right now, to help us through this time. As you catch glimpses of what the Spirit is doing with us, pray that others may see as well. Then we will all be blessed with the tender mercies of God. Amen.
Freedom: The Gift of God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 29, 1996
Memory Verse: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Today's Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34 and 2 Corinthians 3:4-18
Opening Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
This morning's New Testament lesson reveals much about the early history of the Christian church. With all its contrasts between the old covenant and the new, between Moses and Christ, between the ministry of death and the ministry of the Spirit, this morning's lesson has been misconstrued as an exercise in anti-Semitism. But that misses the point entirely. One needs to understand the historical context in order to appreciate Paul's message of freedom as the gift of God. Paul is not attacking the tradition of his birth. He is rather applying that tradition to the multicultural setting of the Greco-Roman world.
The meteoric rise of Christianity in the decades following the death and resurrection of Jesus can only be accounted for by the pre-existing spread of the Jewish religion and the growing appeal of that religion to people outside the Jewish culture. The incessant warring and rapid political takeovers of the ancient Near East had produced a far-flung network of Jewish synagogues around the Mediterranean basin. Rather than being insular culture clubs, these synagogues were open to the public. Gentiles who had given up on the gods of ancient Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Rome found themselves attracted to the worship of a single, noble God.
The pantheon of gods in the Mediterranean basin was anything but noble. If you remember your high school mythology, you know that the ancient gods were little more than exaggerated versions of everything good and bad about human life itself. They were personified abstractions of those forces imagined to put the world together for human habitation.
These gods, writes Burton Mack, "were fickle beings, feared and in some ways revered, but hardly loved, and not to be trusted. Their world was like a grotesque mirror of ... life, with the messy side turned up for review. No one would have wanted to live in that world of the gods or would have thought that the gods' primary interest was focused on the well-being of individuals ... and their society. (The) gods were partial, took sides, and often played the trickster." (Who Wrote The New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth HarperSanFrancisco, 1995).
No wonder the God of Israel was taking the world by storm! This was not just another god to add to the already crowded pantheon. This was a sovereign, transcendent being who ruled imperiously over creation and history with a thoroughly high-minded, ethical, and trustworthy character. This was a God worth believing in, as more and more Gentiles were beginning to discover.
There was only one problem. In order to become a full-fledged Jew, in order to become an heir rather than an onlooker of the promises of God, one had to submit to certain requirements and follow certain rituals which the average Gentile found objectionable and even painful. Circumcision is not exactly anyone's idea of fun, while keeping the 613 commandments of the Torah appeared to be more of a burden than a blessing. The requirements of membership, which defined and preserved the Jewish culture, also served to keep interested outsiders at an arms-length distance from God. They were called God-fearers, but they were not viewed as full partners in the covenant.
This was, in fact, the very issue over which the apostle Paul experienced his conversion. He started out as a Jew of the Jews: "a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of the Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." (Philippians 3:5-6). His concern with the church of Jesus Christ was not its teachings about Jesus but its willingness to admit Gentiles into membership without making them submit to the whole law. There was a certain looseness about this Jesus' movement, a certain freedom, which threatened Paul's entire world view.
And yet even Paul had to acknowledge the integrity of a movement which focused more on the internal spirit and inner logic of the law than on the external signs and outward symbols of conformity. Paul knew that going through the motions was never the point. The point was always to cultivate a relationship of steadfast love and commitment, not only between the Israelites and God but with all the families of the earth. (Genesis 12:3). On the road to Damascus, in a blinding flash of light, Paul's world view was transformed with a sudden. Startling insight: this Jesus movement was the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. Faith was more important than form. The Gentiles could be welcomed into the people of God without first having to become Jews.
The rest, as they say, is history. One can hardly overstate the implications of this new way of thinking. G. K. Chesterton once spoke of St. Francis of Assisi as God's tumbler, the court jester who stands on his head for the pleasure of the king. Chesterton observed that while Francis entertained his lord, he caught a new glimpse of reality himself. With the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downward, the visual effect was essentially one of dependence. Instead of taking pride in the strength of Assisi's massive walls, Francis was now amazed to see them suspended by the power of God alone.
So it was with the apostle Paul. The visible requirements of the law were no longer viewed as the pathway to salvation. The tables had been turned. Everything was topsy turvey. People were cut loose from a tether which had stretched across the centuries. "For freedom Christ has set us free," Paul wrote to the Galatians. "Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you." (Galatians 5:1-2).
If ever there was a bold journey where no one had gone before, this was it. People were encouraged to disregard the requirements of the law in order to establish a new community of grace. This cross-cultural experiment produced its share of misunderstandings and conflicts, but Paul urged people to bear with one another and to forgive each other; "just as the Lord has forgiven you," Paul wrote to the Colossians, "so you also must forgive." (Colossians 3:13).
Communities based upon forgiveness and grace were perhaps destined to push against the limits of common sense and decency, and that's exactly what happened in the church at Corinth. Their freedom in Christ became an occasion for division and debauchery rather than an opportunity for compassion and faithful living.
Last week we learned about the quarrels which developed between different factions within the Corinthian church, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. The Corinthians interpreted their freedom in Christ as freedom from any and all physical and cultural restraints. Paul could hardly believe the reports he received of the things people were saying: "We are rich." We are free." "We are kings and queens." "We are wise." "We are strong." "We all possess knowledge." "We have all we want." "We have spiritual gifts and power." "Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food." "It is well for a man not to touch a woman." "No idol really exists." "There is no God but one." "There is no resurrection of the dead."
Paul was horrified by these reports. He had obviously underestimated the way the Greek mentality would respond to his message about the freedom and power available through the spirit of Christ. He certainly had not meant to unleash the passions of the flesh in his proclamation of the spirit. Freedom from the law was one thing. Freedom from responsibility was quite another.
This was the distinction Paul made for his Corinthian charges The freedom of Christ did not represent the end of the law but the fulfillment of the law. The inclusion of Gentiles did mean the destruction of Israel but the construction of Israel. Paul's words are plain. "Our competence comes not from ourselves; but from God. The ministry of the law brings nothing but condemnation. The ministry of grace brings righteousness and peace. Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, the Spirit comes, and we are transformed into the likeness of God with ever-increasing glory." (2 Corinthians 3:5, 9, 16-18, paraphrased).
Paul expected the church of Jesus Christ to fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah. God was making a new covenant with people. This covenant was not like the old one, which people broke in their attempt to comply. This covenant was written on people's hearts. It did not force people to be good, as if enforcement had ever saved anyone. This covenant motivated people to be good, as if Christ had saved everyone. In Christ, we are set free to love.
"No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:34).
This is how grace takes hold of our lives. If we love God with all our heart, then we're free to do as we please. The restraint comes from the freedom and the freedom comes from the restraint. God so loved the world in order to produce grace-oriented and liberated lives. Such love makes us able to respond like never before. Such love is the basis of the Christian life itself.
It all comes down to an attitude of gratitude. I will never forget the banker who maligned the recipients of our efforts in Appalachia. "Why don't those people help themselves?" he asked. "Look at me! I've never taken any charity. Why can't they take care of themselves? They're just lazy and shiftless" No charity, indeed. Who gave that banker a mind to think like that? Who gave him his health, his abilities, his energy, and his personality? Who gave him his parents, his education, his contacts, and his advantages? These things were not of his own making, and yet he had completely lost sight of that fact.
By walking around with a sense of his own accomplishment this man had developed a self-indulgent, hard-hearted attitude which produced nothing of the love we find in Jesus Christ. We have not been given new life in Christ for no reason at all. We have not been set free in order to devour one another and tear each other down. Our freedom is not an accomplishment. It is a gift of God, given to the people of God as a blessing to all the world. Of this one thing we can be certain: in Christ, we have been set free for love. Amen.
Reconciliation: A New Point of View
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 6, 1996
Memory Verse: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Today's Texts: 1 Kings 17:8-16 and 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2
Opening Prayer: Gracious God, help us to hear your word of grace and to see our unity in Christ. Be present with us and minister to us with your Spirit. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
World Communion Sunday. It has all the makings of a popular, soft-focus television commercial. People from different countries, in different ways, representing different cultures, sharing the foundation of Christian community. "This is the body of Christ, given for you." "This is the blood of Christ, shed for you." If the right music was playing in the background, it could almost give you goose bumps.
The commercial might start off with footage from this morning's processional, followed by scenes from an outdoor mass conducted by the Pope in South Africa. Then we could show a close up of a Greek Orthodox Patriarch, feeding bread to a congregant on a silver spoon. Cutting away to the Jordan River, we could focus on the joyful faces of newly baptized Christians as they receive their first taste of the holy meal. Finally we could pan across the congregation here at First Church, as trays get passed and people get blessed. "If anyone is in Christ," the announcer might conclude, "there is a new creation: see, everything has become new."
For all its positive qualities, the danger of such a television commercial is that it risks the continued domestication of a radical gospel. Our proclamation is something revolutionary, not something cute. Our sacrament is something profound, not something for a public relations campaign. The "new creation" is an entire Gestalt, a complete way of viewing and experiencing the world, which could be easily obscured in the fleeting sights and sounds of a sixty-second commercial.
Today's lesson from Second Corinthians allows for no such confusion. This passage, which is arguably Paul's greatest explanation of what Christ means to him, challenges each and every one of us to look again at the life we call Christian. Are we being used by God to make an appeal for grace? Or are we being used by the world to keep ourselves away from love? Are we reaching out to others with the ministry of reconciliation? Or are we circling the wagons in order to protect what little peace we have left?
The choice we make is critical to our spiritual well-being, and it hinges upon our understanding of Jesus Christ. Who was this person? What did he do? Why did he die? And how should we then live? Paul's answers to these questions presented a radical revision, but not a rejection, of his ancient Jewish heritage. His training as a Pharisee included a clear understanding of the Christ -- the anointed One of God -- as someone appointed and empowered by God to deliver the Jewish people from their oppressors. This Christ was to inaugurate an era of justice and peace, exceeding the extent and glory of even David's kingdom. He was a political figure upon which Israel had placed many of its hopes and dreams.
By embracing Jesus as the Christ, Paul had to recast this tradition through another lens. An ignominious death upon a Roman cross was not exactly part of the original deal. Instead of a triumphant coronation there was a humiliating crucifixion. No wonder it took a dramatic conversion and many years of theological reflection for Paul to work out the details of his new world view! It was a seminal work, the likes of which had not been seen before.
"We are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. Those who live no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died and was raised for them. We therefore regard no one from a human point of view, not even the Christ. If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"
Now this would have been easier to assert if the Christ had come in glory. If there had been a dramatic upswing in the political fortunes of Israel, no one would have argued that the Christ had accomplished something new. Something big. Something wonderful. But the fortunes of Israel were no better off than before. In fact, the tensions in Jerusalem were getting worse rather than better. There was brokenness and pain, bitterness and violation, tragedy and turmoil. Within decades the temple was once again destroyed and the people were once again scattered.
But Paul was not to be deterred in his assertion of a new creation. This new creation was not a matter of one people being victorious over another nor was it a matter of things always working out the way they should. This new creation was a matter of gaining a different point of view. In Christ God was setting the world free, not counting their trespasses against them, but offering people salvation by grace through faith.
That's a hard lesson for people to learn. We don't want a God like that! We want justice and fairness. We want reward and punishment. We want a strong deliverer who will hold people accountable for their deeds. And so we carry around a mother load of guilt, blame, and regret. We punish ourselves and others for every wrong move. We hold ourselves and others up for judgment. We inflict pain upon a world that already knows too much pain, making heaven the final court of appeal.
But that's the old creation which Christ has set aside, once and for all. You may remember my story of the woman who came up to me after church saying she needed to talk. At first I thought she wanted financial assistance from the Good Samaritan Fund, but her request was for pastoral care. I asked her to wait until after our fellowship hour, and she sat down in one of the pews. Thirty minutes later, a deacon approached me downstairs with the message that someone was sitting in the sanctuary, waiting to see me. I broke away and escorted Tamara to my office, where the two of us could speak in private.
"I have a problem," Tamara began, "and I don't know who else to talk with. I thought maybe a minister could help." She started to cry and I handed her a box of tissue. "A month ago my daughter was in an accident, and she ended up in a coma. For more than a week I maintained a 24-hour vigil at the hospital, and during that time I made a deal with God. I promised God that if he brought my daughter back I would end the affair I've been having for more than two years. Well my daughter woke up, and now she's getting along fine. I don't know what to do. Do I still have to honor the deal I made with God?"
"What do you want to do?" I asked her. "I don't know," she sobbed. "Last night I saw my lover again and now I'm mortified that something terrible is going to happen to me or my daughter. I was hoping that a minister would know how to handle a situation like this, because I'm really upset and I don't know what's going to happen to me."
We had reached the crux of the matter. I could have told her that having an affair was sinful and that she needed to stop in order to get right with God -- in other words I could have told her what she already believed -- but that would have been a works-righteousness approach to religion. I also could have told her that having an affair was sinful but that God would forgive her as long as she was truly sorry -- in other words I could have told her how she already felt -- but that would have been a repentance-forgiveness approach to religion. Neither one would have been faithful to the gospel.
"Why do you think God works that way?" I asked her. She looked surprised. "Everyone knows that if you make a promise you're supposed to keep it," she said. "A promise is a serious thing, and a promise to God is the most serious thing of all. If we don't keep our end of the deal, God won't keep his. Isn't that right?"
"It depends upon the kind of God you're dealing with," I replied. "With most gods, that's the way the game is played. But with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I think not." At this point she looked totally confused. "You mean that Christians don't have to keep their promises to God?" she asked rather incredulously.
"Not exactly," I replied. "I mean that promise keeping is not capable of getting us either accepted or damned by God. Acceptance, according to the Christian gospel, is a free gift bestowed upon a world full of undeserving people like you and me. It's not a reward for hot-shot behavior in the promise-keeping department. And damnation is not a punishment for breaking our promises to God -- or even for breaking the commandments of God themselves; it's the consequence of stupidly throwing away the free gift of acceptance. It's a new deal, without any strings attached." (cf. The Mystery of Christ & Why We Don't Get It, Robert Farrar Capon, Eerdmans • Grand Rapids, MI, 1993).
Tamara was skeptical. The deal seemed too good to be true. "Where I'm at right now," she said, "that's hard to believe." "The new creation in Christ is always hard to believe," I replied, "since we must believe it in the midst of a harsh and dreadful world. But God nailed sin to the cross that we might be set free to love. In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Do what you want about this affair, but do not worry about the salvation of your soul. God will love you no matter what you do."
This may not have been the advice a therapist, but as a pastor it was right on target. What Tamara wanted to do about her affair paled in significance compared to what she wanted to do about the love of God. Walking around with the idea that she had done something so terrible as to cut herself off from the grace of God was not going to get her anywhere, except further in trouble. Walking around with the idea that God loved her, no matter what, at least held out the promise of new life and new creation.
That, in the end, is the mystery of Christ. Although it was made manifest in the person of Jesus, it's been present in the world since the beginning of time. When God sent the prophet Elijah to the widow at Zarephath, he was touching upon this mystery. Zarephath was a Phoenician town, about a mile from the sea in between Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenicians were not exactly the chosen people of God. They were a Canaanite people, who had been in constant conflict with Israel.
And yet it was a Phoenician widow who was selected to minister to the needs of Elijah, with a little water, a little flour, and a little oil. Talk about giving someone a new point of view! Elijah could have refused to go into foreign territory. He could have refused to defile himself with the ministrations of this woman. But instead he embraced her as though she were his own family, disregarding the hostilities which separated their two peoples. Such communion became a foretaste of the holy meal we share today with Christians around the world and in the future with all people everywhere.
We too can set aside the doubts and divisions which separate us from God. We too can live as though God has reconciled the world to himself. In Christ God has extended the offer of salvation in perpetuity. We have only to trust the good news of God's unmerited and unlimited grace. We have only to live as if the new creation has come. We have only to accept God's invitation to the joyous feast of heaven.
This was fundamental insight of the apostle Paul: our brokenness and our pain notwithstanding, we have all been made one in Christ Jesus our Lord. Israelites and Phoenicians. Righteous and unrighteous. Christians and Jews. Males and females. Conservatives and liberals. Blacks and whites. Straights and gays. The second person of the Trinity has been upholding us all, since the beginning of time, with the outstretched arms of grace. Don't make the mystery of Christ any harder than it has to be. Be reconciled to God, who has given to us the message of reconciliation for all the world to hear. Amen.
Generosity: The Overflow of Faith
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 20, 1996
Memory Verse: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Today's Texts: 1 Kings 17:8-16 and 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Opening Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit, Come. Quench our thirst with the living water of your word. Speak to us and make us generous to one another. Amen.
Yesterday afternoon, as I was leaving the church following Carmen's memorial service, someone asked what I was preaching about today. Pointing to a book on Christian stewardship, I mentioned the title of this morning's sermon: Generosity: The Overflow of Faith. "Is it that time of year again?" was my friends' good-hearted reply.
The correct answer is "Yes and No." Our annual stewardship campaign actually begins two weeks from today, so it's not quite that time of year. As you read in this week's newsletter, we will be changing our approach. An estimate of giving card will be brought to your home by a church member. After you have filled out your card, you will place it in a sealed envelope and deliver the bag of cards to the next person on your route. Each person will receive a visit and make a visit. Our theme, appropriately enough, is Spread the Word. We hope to complete the campaign in three weeks, with a service of celebration on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
But Christian stewardship, properly understood, is always in season. It's always that time of year. Stewardship doesn't have to do with an annual campaign. It has to do with an attitude of generosity, which Christians are challenged and encouraged to adopt each and every day of our lives. There is no better sign that we do, in fact, believe in God. People should look at us and marvel at our willingness to share. When that quality is present, everyone knows that Christ has gotten hold of us. When that quality is absent, our proclamation and our faith has been in vain.
Who, for example, would deny that Christ has gotten hold of Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born nun who received God's call to serve the poorest of the poor some fifty years ago. Her religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, began, in a small way, with her earliest experience on the streets of Calcutta, India.
"On my first trip along the streets of Calcutta," she remembers, "after leaving the Sisters of Loreta, a priest came up to me. He asked me to give a contribution to a collection for the Catholic press. I had left with five rupees, and I had given four of them to the poor. I hesitated, then gave the priest the one that remained."
"That afternoon the same priest came to see me and brought an envelope. He told me that a man had given him the envelope because he had heard about my projects and wanted to help me. There were fifty rupees in the envelope. I had the feeling, at that moment, that God had begun to bless the work and would never abandon me." (Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado and Janet N. Playfoot, eds., My Life for the Poor (New York • Ballantine Books, 1985).
Mother Teresa often appears on lists of the world's ten most admired women. Why? Because of her generosity. Because of what she has given to the world, rather than what she has taken from it. Her faith has led her to risk everything for God, and along the way she has built a life worth living.
What a contrast to the two richest persons in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. How many of you know, for example, that both of them grew up in the United Church of Christ? That fact has probably escaped you. File it away, however, since it may appear in a game of Trivial Pursuit. As their personal fortunes grow in excess of the gross national product of many Third World countries, their faith seems to be just that. A trivial pursuit. Only extraordinary generosity could make things appear any other way.
But generosity problems are not limited to the two richest persons in America. Each and every one of us has been infected by the American dream of striking it rich by whatever means. We do it for the kids. We do it for ourselves. We do it for the company. We do it for good reasons. The river boat gambling issue on the November ballot fits right in. Watching the commercials on television, with their emphasis on the schools, one would never know that it's all based on avarice and greed.
Such are the days of our lives -- focused more on getting than on giving. We are like the prosperous farmer who had a voracious appetite for more land. When asked about this, he stated, "I really don't want that much. I only want the land next to mine." Where is the end of the lust for more?
It begins by calling upon God as the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of life. If God is nothing more than an idea that we hear about in church on Sunday morning, then God will never shake the foundations of our lives. We may as well look out primarily for ourselves, just like everyone else. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But if God is a living presence with the power to build up and break down, to tear and to sew, to plant and to pluck up what is planted, then we've got to look again at the values and priorities of our lives.
This morning's Old Testament reading was not a mistake. We read it two weeks ago to focus on the unlikely pairing of a Phoenician widow with a Hebrew prophet. It was a match only God could have arranged. This morning we read the story again to focus on the generosity of this widow. Like Mother Teresa, she gave away her last bit of food, her last rupee, and she too received a blessing from God.
Elijah had appeared at the city gate, fleeing from the wrath of King Ahab. When Elijah spoke to the woman, she must have been surprised. You may remember the reaction of the Samaritan woman, centuries later, when Jesus came up and spoke to her at the well of Jacob. She was incredulous that a man would speak to her in public, let alone a Jewish man.
So too with the widow of Zarephath. Elijah was breaking all the rules by speaking to her at the gate. Men just didn't do that, let alone foreign men. But the word of God was doing something here. "Bring me a little water in a vessel," Elijah said, "and a morsel of bread in your hand." The woman tried to put him off. She didn't even have food enough for her own family, let alone to start sharing with a stranger. She had given away all her rupees, except one. But Elijah made an arresting promise.
"Do not be afraid." Share what you have, and the God of Israel will provide for your needs. The woman took Elijah at his word. She fed him and sheltered him for many days, during which time the jar of meal was not emptied and the jug of oil did not fail. Her faith led to generosity, and her generosity led to the blessing of God.
This, of course, is the hook which has been manipulated by religion throughout the ages. The apostle Paul himself, in this morning's lesson from Second Corinthians, comes very close to sounding like a television preacher. Send me $10, and God will bless you a hundred fold. Those who sow sparingly, reap sparingly. Those who sow bountifully, reap bountifully. What goes around, comes around. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity.
But Paul was not turning generosity into a formula for prosperity. Paul was viewing generosity as the evidence of faith. The context for Paul's appeal was the increasing poverty of the church in Jerusalem. This was the birthplace of Christianity. This was the home of the Jews, into whose covenant the Corinthians had been adopted. They had not earned their salvation. They had been far off. But through baptism, by water and the Spirit, the Gentiles in Corinth had been given a share of the inheritance. They had been cut into the deal. Gratitude and generosity was the only appropriate response.
It would be, Paul said, a kind of testing. Not testing God, but testing the faithful. Do you really believe all this stuff about the good news of Jesus Christ? Do you really think that the surpassing grace of God is sufficient to meet your needs? This was no prosperity gospel. Paul could hardly imagine a prosperous Christian. This was a necessity gospel. The God who had brought them into the covenant would provide for their needs, even as they provided for the needs of others.
It worked because of the solidarity between Christians. Paul recognized a certain reciprocity within the church, having nothing to do with gender, race, or culture. He compared the church to the human body. When one member suffers, all suffer. When one member rejoices, all rejoice. For this reason giving becomes a spiritual experience. We are acting out of compassion rather than coercion. We are practicing the presence of God.
Paul Tillich, in The Eternal Now, speaks about this mystery. "There is an ultimate unity of all beings, rooted in the divine life from which they emerge and to which they return. All beings, nonhuman as well as human, participate in it. And therefore they all participate in each other. And we participate in each other's having and in each other's not having. When we become aware of this unity of all beings, something happens to us. The fact that others do not have (what we have) changes the character of our having: it undercuts our security and drives us beyond ourselves to understand, to give, to share, to help." (New York • Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963).
This point of view turns generosity into a blessing rather than a burden. If we had been raising money for the church in Jerusalem, we would have focused on their need. We would have shown pictures of starving children and crumbling facilities. We would have worked up a good case of guilt. But this was not the approach of the apostle Paul. Giving was not a duty; it was of no value in getting right with God. Giving was an opportunity; it was an expression of appreciation for God's indescribable gift.
And so Paul focused on the connection of the Corinthians to other churches and other persons in the body of Christ. If you can understand the miracle in Zarephath in no other way, understand it this way: no giving ever goes unrewarded because giving is its own reward. By sharing with the church in Jerusalem, the church in Corinth would overflow with many thanksgivings to God. It would fill them with joy and strengthen their faith.
Generosity is about our entire approach to life. It's not just about our assets and our income. Do we happily share our time with others? Do we enthusiastically share our talents? Yesterday, at the men's retreat we learned about the simple discipline of walking around with a smile on your face. It's a way of being generous with people that can change the day for both you and them.
But generosity cannot stop with time and talent alone; it must involve the substance of our lives. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21) We too often turn this around. We make it seem as though where your treasure is unimportant, just so long as you do not give your heart to it. But Jesus says it doesn't work that way. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." If your treasure is being shared with others, then your heart will be with God in the community of faith. If your treasure is being kept to yourself, then your heart will be isolated and consumed.
Give for the glory of God. That was Paul's message to the Corinthians. Give generously as an overflow of faith. Many people in today's world never think about this. They give little or nothing to others. The word stewardship is totally unfamiliar to them. They manage to neither save nor give. Old maxims about saving 10%, giving 10%, and living on 80% have fallen by the way side. We chose, rather, to live beyond our means.
Such choices have produced material possessions beyond compare, at great cost to our soul. We've become so focused on the good life that we've ended up with an empty life. But there is a way to turn things around. By opening our hearts, by sharing our gifts and treasurers, by pouring out our lives for things that matter we begin to reconnect with the Source of life itself. Jesus claims us not in the peripheral and superficial areas of our life but at the very center where our treasurers and prizes are to be found. As we respond freely and generously, yielding our strengths, the life of the spirit begins to open to us. We find ourselves blessed by God. Amen.
Weakness: An Opportunity for Grace
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 27, 1996
Memory Verse: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Today's Texts: 1 Kings 19:1-10 and 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
Opening Prayer: Gracious God, be present with us now in the speaking of your word. Release our hearts and satisfy our minds. Bring us together to listen for the still small voice of love. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
I've been surprised by my emotional reaction to the news of the past week. I'm not sure how I missed hearing about it a month ago, but one of my friends and mentors from Yale Divinity School died from a heart attack at the age of 64 on September 21st. Father Henri Nouwen impacted YDS like no other professor. Whether you took courses from him or not, whether you were a student, on the faculty, or in the administration, his presence made a difference in your life.
This was particularly obvious to me because I attended two different seminaries, giving me the opportunity to compare and contrast. My first and last years were spent at Yale. In between I sandwiched two years at Garrett-Evangelical, a United Methodist seminary located on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Yale was known as the more academically oriented institution, cranking out professors to teach in higher education, while Garrett-Evangelical was known as the more professionally oriented institution, cranking out pastors to serve in local churches.
One might think that the seminary oriented around parish ministry would have had greater involvement in worship and spirituality, but this did not prove to be true. Garrett-Evangelical had one or two, poorly attended, chapel opportunities per week. Yale, on the other, had a morning chapel service, five days a week, for which the entire school practically shut down as so many people wanted to attend. After chapel there was a time of fellowship and at other times there were small groups for prayer, study, and spiritual direction.
Daily chapel was part of the tradition at Yale, but there was a noticeable heightening of interest and participation with the coming of Henri Nouwen. Long-time professors commented on the infectious piety which Henri brought to the school. Over time, all kinds of people took an interest in personal and corporate devotion. I can still remember Henri's lectures on compassion and one particular sermon, in which he dramatized Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem, is as vivid in my mind as if it happened today. As a native of the Netherlands, Henri had the ability to catch nuances in the English language which native speakers missed.
This morning I bring to a close my sermon series on Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, and I want to do so by connecting Paul's message on weakness and power with Henri's life and death. The latter could hardly be a more perfect illustration of the former.
Let us keep in mind the simple outline of Paul's message to the Corinthians. He began with a celebration of God's goodness and love. These Corinthian Christians were primarily Gentiles who had once been far off from the promises of God; now, however, they were brought near without the requirement of proselyte conversion to Judaism. In the person of Jesus Christ, God revealed a new creation based upon an indiscriminate outpouring of divine mercy. It was a gift, a free gift, with no strings attached.
Perhaps it was this message of grace which led to so many divisions in the Corinthian church. Leaders arose with different, competing perspectives. They each had a different formula for success. One talked about miraculous signs. Another about wisdom. Still another about keeping the law. The church divided into factions and began quarreling over the right way to obey God and who should be their spiritual leader.
Paul entered into this fray with a disarming message: there is no right way to obey God. Any formula for success, however attractive it may appear, is a kind of bondage which the Corinthians would later regret. Our salvation is not based upon what we do, what we know, or what we have. It is based upon who we are in the providence of God's love. We are the chosen people of God, the redeemed in the Lord, the forgiven body of Christ. This is the new creation in Christ. We can accept or reject this mystery, but there's nothing we can do to change God's granting of amnesty to one and all.
Amnesty is a hard thing to accept. Just look at the Dole/Kemp commercials about the possible granting of amnesty by the Clinton administration to people involved with the Whitewater affair. People want justice, not forgiveness. They want to be rewarded for their accomplishments, and punished for their sins. They want God to keep a scorecard and to position them in heaven as they were on earth. The good should float to the top while the bad should sink to the bottom.
All this was turned on its head for the apostle Paul after his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He had been persecuting Christians, in obedience to the law, when a voice spoke to him from heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell. But Paul was given a vision of Paradise which included the very people he was persecuting. Apparently God had something different in mind than Paul's narrow view of the gospel.
Henri Nouwen was cut from the same cloth as the apostle Paul. He too could boast of his religious accomplishments. Born in 1932, ordained a priest in 1957, receiving two advanced degrees in psychology, Henri came to the United States in the mid-1960s, serving as fellow at the Menninger Clinic and teaching at Notre Dame before going to Yale Divinity School in 1971. He received tenure at Yale in 1974 and was appointed a full professor in 1977. He was the author of more than 30 books and taught classes on spirituality that were wildly popular and always oversubscribed. Regardless of how big the room, it was always standing room only. This man was a clear success.
Things began to change for Henri in the 1980s. He joined the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in 1983, from which he ventured out beyond the confines of academia. He spent one year in Bolivia and Peru, living among the poor and dispossessed. Than in 1985 he went to live as a priest at Daybreak, a community of mentally handicapped people in Toronto, Canada. Henri originally intended this to be a one-year stay, but he soon found this to be the calling for his last decade in life. He never again returned to circles which had made him famous. It was a matter of finding God more in weakness, than in strength.
In response to a clear and unambiguous call from God, Henri moved "from the best and the brightest (at Harvard), wanting to rule the world, to (the) men and women (at Daybreak) who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of our society." This was a "hard and painful move." Suddenly his value had nothing to do with his. "Since nobody could read (his) books, they could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, (his) twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction."
Henri had to find a new way of being. He learned to appreciate the present moment, which is really the only moment any of us ever have. To be in relationship with his new-found friends was to be vulnerable, naked, and weak. There was really not much he could do to help. His competencies could not fix the problem. It was a permanent condition, forcing him to learn and accept the ministry of presence.
This lesson proved to be the most important lesson of all. Notwithstanding his accomplishments of the first twenty years, notwithstanding his competencies and credentials, even Henri had to attempt that the world at large and the church in particular were no better off than they had been before. In many respects, they were worse off. Trying to make the world a better place had produced little more than pessimism and despair. He could never fix things up enough; in many cases he couldn't fix things at all. Living with the mentally handicapped brought this reality home on a daily basis. He had to look elsewhere for relevance and meaning. (In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, Crossroad • New York, 1989).
So too with the apostle Paul. We have already learned, at the start of this sermon series, how Paul's zeal for the gospel had produced affliction rather than exaltation. Paul had been called by God to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. He went proclaiming the good news of salvation as the free gift of God. You might think the people would have been more appreciative. You might think they would have come flocking into the church with grateful and generous hearts.
Instead, Paul found himself the victim of ridicule and persecution. There were times when he despaired of life itself. He was beaten, flogged, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked, robbed, hungry, thirsty, naked, and homeless. He was anything but a success by the standards of the world. In city after city, his churches amounted to little more than household gatherings of small numbers of people.
Slowly the light bulb went off in Paul's head. Paul came to see things from a new point of view. His afflictions were meant to teach him, and the whole people of God, that the battle would be won not by their own efforts but by the efforts of God. This is the word of the Lord: Not by power and not by might, but by my Spirit says the Lord. (Zechariah 4:6).
Paul even came to see his own medical condition in this light. Three times he asked the Lord to take away his thorn in the flesh, which some scholars have speculated may have been epilepsy while others have speculated may have been a homosexual orientation, but every time he asked for relief God said to him: "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness."
The word for weakness generally means illness, but can be used for all manner of brokenness and pain. It is the opposite of strength. It is, in fact, the life-giving helplessness which Henri discovered at Daybreak and which Elijah discovered in the wilderness.
This morning's Old Testament lesson reveals the prophet Elijah in a very peculiar mood. Elijah had been on a roll since the time he confronted King Ahab almost three years earlier. His accomplishments were legendary:
If anyone was successful, if anyone had reason to boast, if anyone was in control, it was Elijah. But when Jezebel put out a contract on his life, Elijah fled into the wilderness in an absolute panic. He despaired of life itself, realizing that his mighty acts of power had isolated him from the people and had left him more vulnerable than ever before. "It is enough, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors."
But while he slept God came to him with the ministry of presence. An angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." Journey to the mountain of God. I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.
There is not a person here who does not know something of illness and death, of brokenness and pain, of weakness and despair. This is a universal human experience. This is what we seek to control and to eliminate from our lives. We hold on to the notion that we can keep these things at bay. But Paul came to welcome these things as reminders of our total dependence upon God. We too can learn this lesson.
Recently, Henri Nouwen went to the home of his friend Robert Jonas, where he wrote three books in three months. This was not, however, his reason for being there. Jonas had suffered the premature birth of his daughter Rebecca, who lived for only four hours. Henri "enlarged and deepened our grieving," Jonas said on NPR, "by grieving with us, and by assuring us of God's presence, even in that terrible pain." Henri encouraged Jonas to write down and tell Rebecca's story, which has recently published under the title Rebecca: A Father's Journey from Grief to Gratitude.
"Am I afraid to die?" wrote Henri Nouwen in his 1992 book Living as the Beloved. "I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that my 'little life' is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to that small soft voice calling me the Beloved, I know that there is nothing to fear and that dying is the greatest act of love, the act that leads me into the eternal embrace of my God whose love is everlasting."
Yes, Henri, yes. That is the gospel of God. God has been good to us, and will never leave us alone. We too can be good to others. In the fullness of time we can set aside the noisy voices of the world in order to be present without expectation, loving without manipulation, and gracious without demand. This is the gift of God, for the people of God. Let us give thanks, and sing. Amen.