Sermons
“MAKING A STAND (not a herd)"
All Hallow’s Eve?
Two holidays a year take their name from the day that follows them. Christmas Eve? Just the day before Christmas. Halloween? All Hallows’ Eve—The day before All Saints Day. Isn’t it funny that we celebrate All Hallows’ Eve but no All Hallow’s Day? I’m not sure how that happened, but culture has pretty much forgotten about All Saints’ Day. The word “hallow” is otherwise out of our vocabulary. Yes, we say in the Lord’s prayer, Hallowed be Thy name, but what does it mean that a thing is hallowed?
Hallowed means holy, sacred. To “hallow” something is to make it holy, but can we really do that? Can we make something holy? I’ll argue that only God can do that, but what we can do is acknowledge something sacred as holy—to acknowledge those things which merit our reverence. We don’t make it holy ourselves, but in acknowledging what God has made holy, we sanctify it, figuratively.
This is from verse 15 of our text: “In your hearts, sanctify Christ as Lord.” Here, to sanctify does not mean to supply Christ with holiness, but to acknowledge His inherent holiness with our whole being.
Today is Dedication Sunday, the day we put forward our pledges and plans for 2020. At heart, it is all about our acknowledgment of the Lordship of Christ. It is a real-world expression of our commitment to Christ and His kingdom. Today, we should be mindful that we are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God, and growing into the image of Christ with every year. This is what we call spiritual formation. It is what we call Discipleship, and we are a disciple-making church.
All discipleship is a matter of constant growth. We are ever-growing as Christians. Christian formation is always in motion. As we seek to be deeply-committed Christians, we move from self-preservation—which is the world of natural man—survival, self-reliance, storing up treasures here and now in this world—toward self-sacrifice.
INTEGRITY’S “NO!”
Our instinct to self-preserve is not just individual, but collective. Families, communities, and nations alike seek to preserve themselves in this world. One downside of this—as regards our discipleship—is that “the need to get along” can become a source of compromise. In trying to be nice people that coexist peaceably with others, we can devalue items of conscience. Is it more important to avoid confrontation and risk stirring up waves than to share the good news of Jesus? On paper, we’d all say NO! In practice, I think we often “shelve” our faith to otherwise keep the peace (which is a false peace, usually).
Because we are social creatures, we also run the risk of avoiding what is truly important so that we can safely relish the warmth of the herd. We want to get along and fit in, so controversial items—even the eternally significant ones—are hidden away so our comfortable place in society is not disrupted.
There is no way for a follower of Christ to determine her priorities without risking disruption. When we “sanctify Christ in our hearts” we essentially proclaim that Jesus alone is Lord. We have one Lord only, and our service to Christ cannot be compromised by any lesser good in this world. When we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, He becomes our light, and that light shines on everything in our world, throwing all things into relief, revealing what is valuable, chasing what is dirty or dark deeper into the shadows, and lighting the path that is growing into Christ. For the Christian, this is conscience.
To live, think, act, and speak with integrity, we must learn to offer a thunderous no to every audience in our world: family, friends, community, and nation. That NO! is our departure from the warmth of the herd and conformity. To serve no one and nothing other than our One Lord is the starting point of integrity.
goodness a gift
I’ve always loved Martin Luther for this revelation. Imagine the backbone required of him to stand up and against the entire CHURCH—all whom he loved and admired—with his thunderous NO! Luther’s integrity came from Scripture and his awakening to the righteousness of God which is not the same as the righteousness of the Church. The righteousness of God, Luther realized, is a righteousness given to us by God. The gospel is indeed good news in that God provides the righteousness needed for salvation. This means we do not accomplish it by our own struggle. Just as we can hallow nothing, but acknowledge what God hallows, so we must accept that we cannot make ourselves holy, but must accept the gift of righteousness given us in Christ. This is a world-changer
John Calvin, THE theologian of the Reformation, followed Luther’s commitment to conscience—to serving God alone—and it gave him the bold stance to change the world. From Calvin:
Integrity is the best of all protectors...we cannot be more secure than when fortified by a good conscience.
As we said a few weeks ago, those who are in Christ are no longer playing by the world’s rules. Our bodies have become temples, dwelling places for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in us as our conscience, as encourager, convict-er, convincer, confessor, counselor, and comforter.
The Holy Spirit
Conscience is not just the mishmash of impressions and feelings put into us by our parents, family, and childhood influences. All of those things make up the natural conscience—shared by nature and all people to some degree or other—but the one who becomes a Christian also becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, and that means God is in us.
Paul says “The Law is written on our hearts”
Our natural conscience is undergoing constant revision and reform as God’s Spirit leads and directs us. When we hear His Word, it confirms what His light reveals, and these things are never contradictory, but always aligned. Yes, we have to puzzle it out and struggle through our understanding, but we are always growing, always being led deeper into that Light.
The churchy word for this is Sanctification. We are being sanctified. This is important because the term is essentially passive. Sanctification is not something we do for ourselves; it is something the Lord does for us.
A lot of people think we do it ourselves by building ourselves us up, praying harder or longer, trying harder to be better Christians—and I think all of these are excellent, admirable practices, so know that I am for those activities—but none of these put us in better standing with God. It is God who sanctifies us; we do not and cannot sanctify ourselves.
It is not so much a matter of effort as it is letting go, which is part of the good news of the gospel.
If we think of piety as gutting up and working ourselves into higher holiness, we waste our time, for this is vanity (in my opinion, a rather toxic kind of Christian vanity—the same we see in Pharisees).
Better that we should think of ourselves as simply turning over our controls—again and again—to the Spirit who dwells within us. It is not like working out at the gym or body-building for the soul (which we all ought to be doing nonetheless), but more like relaxing, more like letting go.
we are like hoses
Think of yourself as garden hose. The purpose of a hose is to transfer water from its source someplace deep behind all the pipes out onto the agapanthus. If you think that you are the source of the water—that all that water comes from your good intentions and pious efforts, then the agapanthus is going to die. The source of all that water is not you or me but the Holy Spirit of God, then our role is like the nozzle on the hose. We simply open ourselves up so the living water can come through us.
Our “work” is more allowing God to work than any effort of our own. As Paul says elsewhere, “He must become more and I less”
Isn’t this what we want? Isn’t this exactly what we pray for when we are well-connected with God? “Lord, let me be useful! Lord, we surrender to you and give ourselves to you—become more in us and help me get myself out of the way!”
In all we do, the Light of God shines. This means we let his light fall on everything in our lives and we judge it accordingly. It is God’s light that shows the Christian what is important and what is not, what is true and what isn’t, and what sins in the shadows need to be chased away.
That is conscience and the Christian happily submits to the process of her ongoing reform and transformation. That light is the source of our growth as well. The good stuff gets taller and stronger while the nasty or irrelevant stuff withers away. Happily withers away, I should add, for the withering away of sin and darkness is the answer to our prayers.
In your life and mine, the Holy Spirit becomes our conscience. We invite that Holy Spirit into us in every way we can—we long for the Holy Spirit to possess us and take us over as completely as possible.
The semi-Christian—anyone who wants to follow Jesus, but doesn’t want to surrender all but rather preserve oneself and keep oneself intact—is no Christian at all. The person ready for faith is the one ready to be completely taken over by the Holy Spirit!
Even talking about this scares some people—including semi-Christians—to near death. And it should.
SPIRIT POSSESSION
Halloween-time: We talk of spooks, spirits, and goblins. The whole idea of demonic possession is still Hollywood-marketable; it is a genuinely terrifying idea to think that an alien being—some spiritual denizen of hell with ill-intentions—could enter a person’s soul and take control, replacing dear old you or me with a wicked agency beyond personal control. It is terrifying to imagine a devil coming in and overwhelming you. But this is the exact same language we use for the Holy Spirit of God, and the Christian is one who invites it, calls for it, and daily begs for its power to increase!
“Lord, overwhelm us, take us over, dwell within us so completely that we would do your will instead of our own!” Yes, brothers and sisters, this is how it works.
The difference is that with the horror story, the self is lost—absorbed and consumed—by the demon while the person desperately attempts to preserve himself. With the Holy Spirit, you and are desperate to give ourselves away—to have the Holy Spirit become more and more—but the miracle is that Holy Spirit will not absorb or consume us—rather He gives us back to ourselves in newness and in greater measure—greater authenticity—than we could ever know otherwise. The more we attempt to give ourselves away to God, the more we find ourselves fulfilled and overflowing.
Back to the garden hose: the secular life is an empty hose desperate for water that is constantly anxious to be made full. The Christian life is a full hose that is ever seeking to become empty but can’t because the source keeps the water flowing.
The fallen life is an empty vessel, dying of thirst, seeking even a drop of water. The Christian life is one that becomes an overflowing fountain—one that can never be emptied because it is so well connected to the source.
So it is all about connection and surrender. There is no half-commitment that will work; it is an either/or proposition. Either you empty yourself for the Holy Spirit to fill you and flow through you, or you will simply choose to be empty—empty, dry, and dark.
holy emptiness
It is really simple: only one thing is required to follow Jesus: everything. Simple. That thought is either terrifying beyond description or it is your good news—what you’ve been praying for all along.
The words “believe” and “trust” are attempts to capture this essential calling. Do you really want to follow Jesus? Relax. Seek to become as empty as possible and call his Spirit into your life, down to the roots of your soul. Abandon everything in this life: let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. Do year His call? Is this invitation your good news or your terror?
As his light shines on all things, we learn our way forward. May we all come to the holy practice of seeking emptiness, of abandoning sin and all the irrelevant things. May we call his Holy Spirit into us that his word would become our conscience, our integrity, our life, and our light.
And finally, for all who walk in darkness, or any who may feel that they have been semi-Christians: for all who are ready—welcome aboard—this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. †
“ECONOMIC JUSTICE"
1 TIMOTHY 6: 6-10
6 There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. †
ECONOMIC INEQUITY
The headlines declare it: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Widespread economic inequity calls for economic justice, say many.
Inequity is nothing new. Vast disparities in wealth and wealth-creating capacity, have been common for millennia. This does not depend upon the particular economic system of a country, because even in those countries which have waged revolutions to produce equal outcomes—such as Russia and China—staggering inequities remain their norm.
Those calling for economic justice believe in equal outcomes beyond equal opportunity, which means as long as some people have more or better property than others, then something isn’t right.
The statistics on economic disparity are as wide and ranging as their political perspectives. Again, it seems one can find facts to fit one’s pre-established bias.
We addressed poverty several weeks ago, and every Christian will acknowledge that the Bible reveals God’s heart for the poor. The question is: can poverty and income inequity be solved by politics?
SYSTEMIC SOLUTIONS?
All history—of every nation—is enlightened by considering the economic history of any period or country.
What does history show us regarding the power of political systems to deliver economic equality? Chiefly, we see a disparity between the plans on paper and the actual practices.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proposed a system to create a classless, property-less society. Honestly, it looks good on paper: equality and fairness for all? That all sounds great! Yet, in over a hundred years of practice, we see little progress. Russia and China have far poorer poor than America and plenty of billionaires at the top.
There is a growing interest in socialism among younger generations. The primary appeal seems to be the promises of redistributed wealth and the end of economic inequities. This sounds great if you’re on the poor side—or worse—have enormous student loans to pay back over the next few decades, but it sounds horrible if you have worked very hard for a long time to achieve financial security.
I have a suggestion over how you might locate your own perspective.
The Hood Test
He is certainly one of the first anti-heroes to achieve international popularity. In simple terms, he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In Robin Hood stories, the rich are always the bad guys and the poor are good guys without exception. So Robin Hood is a hero to those who would redistribute wealth by force—the socialist/communist economic worldview.
The original Robin Hood did not steal from the rich so much as he recovered what the rich and powerful had stolen from the common folk through political power and maneuvering. In the original, the bad guys are the elites who took away property from the people and used the law to do so. As such, Robin Hood and his merry band are like the original Tea Partiers.
Whether Robin Hood is a hero or a thief largely depends upon your perspective and what you stand to gain or lose by his thievery.
Either way, Robin Hood is a thief. He steals and he kills. He is no Christian hero, for we Christians tend not to believe that the ends justify the means. The means—how we behave between points A and B—define our moral character.
FOOLISH MARXISM
I did about a year as a socialist/communist in college. Sincerely. I was a true believer and believed that communism and Christianity mixed like sugar and water. Individuals own no property—I saw this in some of the Catholic orders—historically, monks and nuns—who hold all things in common. The same in communism. “Ah, yes!” I thought, “just like in Acts 2:44-45, when the infant Church had a heart”:
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
But then I read onward and wondered why this practice did not continue Why don’t we read about it in Acts 15 or Acts 20? Why does Paul not instruct any of the new churches to conduct themselves this way?
There is one, simple answer: it didn’t work. People realized they could reap the benefits of other people’s labor without laboring themselves.
Marxism—communism and socialism—tend toward failure because Marx and Engels had a flawed philosophy of humanity. Marx wrote that man would work for the common good because it is his essential nature to engage in free and creative activity. That sounds great, but when you set up a system that rewards people just as much for avoiding work as for working, then the theory falls flat. Marx was wrong about humankind and the Bible is correct. We are sinners. If the sin of sloth—which is doing the least possible to get by—is ever rewarded, it is guaranteed to flourish over and above free and creative work.
The fact is, we need some income inequity because competition is an excellent motivator. It is in being surrounded by more productive and more financially successful people that we find the motivation to work hard—to do what is hard and un-fun in the short term to advance ourselves and our families in the long run.
When I lived in Bakersfield, I went to boot camp. I was afraid of how hard they might work me. Yes, I was feeling my age and soon feeling very sorry for myself. While running two miles that first week, I was passed by a rather un-athletic guy at least 10 years older than me. That got me running again. I got tired and slowed, but then a very non-athletic, middle-aged, Mom-type looked as though she were preparing to pass me. “No way!” I thought, and dug in and found the strength to push myself all the harder. Yes, I hurt, but I finished well. Competition can be inspirational.
No wise person wants a socialist America. It’s not our design and it is outside of our DNA. It would surely destroy us. It was never the Founders’ intention to create a great State(as in Marxism) that would take your money and do good for others on your behalf. We don’t need a state to give to the poor instead of you and me giving to the poor. Do you really believe that the State—any State—is more virtuous in spending than you or me? Do you believe—as some wrongly do—that the State, unlike individuals, is beyond corruption? In such a system, the state is rewarded and encouraged toward power and corruption, and it is a lot easier to deal with corrupt individuals than it is corrupted states!
The chief reason to oppose socialism is that it takes away the virtue of giving from the individual. It robs you and me of the opportunity of giving to those in need. The State says, “No, you can’t serve the world rightly with your money—so give that money to me and I’ll give it to the poor for you.”
The good news about our system—and its mixed capitalism—is that you are free to give as much as you want, and all that you give is to your credit. You are free to give 90% to worthy charities if you like. You can do it and it will be your choice and yours alone because a foundational economic principle of American life is that you and I have the right to own property, which is untrue of communism. The socialist State would rob you of your heavenly treasure only to increase its own power.
History shows that capitalism has brought more wealth to more poor people than any economic system in history. And though we haven’t eliminated poverty, our poor are better off than the poor of any other nation, and they stand the best chances for climbing out of poverty yet.
Socialism appeals to those with less who resent others with more. This is more widespread than you might at first think.
A very revealing study asked a large number of people:
Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $150,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.
Most people—over 65%—answered that they would rather make less as long as it was more than those around them! That’s messed up, isn’t it? It is at the heart of the outcry against economic inequity. The Bible calls it either greed or envy—both of which are deadly sins.
JUST GREED & ENVY
A myth to dispel: greed is not only for the rich; greed is a problem for rich and poor alike.
One of my favorite writers and social commentators is Thomas Sowell, who says:
I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.
Greed is universal—so universal that it is guaranteed to permeate and affect every economic system that humankind can devise.
Envy is universal as well. Envy is another word for coveting, as in “You shall not covet.”
It is very hard to avoid coveting things when so much of American life is dedicated to getting us to envy what others have. What else is advertising? Who among us has not been inundated with hours and hours of commercial messages telling us we ought to want more of what we do not have? Is it any wonder the crowds cry out for economic justice—by which they mean We Want More!?
Envy is toxic to the soul and should be actively eschewed by Christians. In 598 AD, Pope Gregory put it well:
From envy arises hatred, joy at neighbors' misfortune, and grief over his prosperity."
It is greed and envy which say: “That guy has more than me and it is not fair! I want someone to take from him and give to me so that I at least have as much as he!”
When “economic justice” advocates focus on equal outcomes and an empowered state to play Robin Hood in removing wealth from the rich for even distribution among all, they are advocating simple thievery, which is patently immoral—absolutely unacceptable for anyone with a functioning conscience or even the weakest moral compass.
THE FIX: CONTENTMENT
The fix for greed and envy are found in our Scripture today. Verse 8:
…if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
Christian people: we are to practice contentment, which many people find elusive, and many others consider unworthy of our pursuit.
Jesus is constant and un-veering in calling us not to put our trust in the things of this world. Consider the lilies, Seek first the Kingdom, If anyone takes your shirt, then give your coat as well, Do not lay up treasures on Earth, etc., etc.
It is Christ’s call that we should place everything in our lives under greater considerations and deeper analysis than can be done by politicians and worldly theorists. God wants us ordering our lives against the backdrop of His love and the glories of His unsearchable mysteries. We are to order our lives up and against heavenly things:
- • our mystical connection with God.
- • our knowledge of God.
- • the gifts of the Spirit: Faith Hope Love Peace Patience Kindness Gentleness—all virtue and truth—all things that are excellent, praiseworthy, pure, true, and good.
If you must covet and envy something, covet these. I tell you in Jesus’ name that it is okay to covet things like God’s presence and the gifts only He can give!
As for us, we should actively pursue the kind of contentment which Scripture proclaims.
“Lagom”
Some wisdom from the Swedes—no, really!—the Swedes have a word that is difficult to translate, but the idea runs throughout Swedish culture and we would do well to practice it. The word is Lagom.
Lagom means something like practicing moderation—not too much, not too little, but just right. Not so much lukewarm, or Goldilocks’ porridge, but more like living a moderate lifestyle.
Swedes wouldn’t think of buying the very best of anything. Tesla? No way! Ferrari? Are you kidding? Mercedes Benz? Probably not. How about Toyota Tercel? Also no. Nothing too good and nothing too bad—go for the Volvo or Saab, no matter how much money you have to spend.
Swedes would consider it gauche—gaudy, showy, even crude—to own a house that is too big, a car too sleek, or clothes anything but off the rack. Modesty and moderation rule, and it is not a bad code for Americans—especially American Christians—to adopt.
Practicing contentment means finding that heart and spirit that says, “I have the Lord; what else could I really need?”
We don’t play one-upsmanship with the Smiths and Jones. We get by with less in order that we can give more. Our churchy word for this is stewardship, but we can call it whatever we like. The goal is that we would indeed practice contentment even as we seek justice for others.
BETTER AS GIVERS
Our life and witness are both improved exponentially when we are perceived as givers more than takers. Our lives know more joy and happiness when we decide to quit the Rat Race of envious climbing and accept the simpler blessings of walking with Christ in contentment.
To want to be rich or wealthy can do a Christian no good. America in many ways will beg us to want more and become unsatisfied with less, which means we are called to live a very alternative lifestyle indeed.
Verse 6 says it well: There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.
May we all learn to live the Lagom life, and may we know God’s power and presence as we practice contentment. . †
“PLAYING GOD 2020"
1 Corinthians 6: 12-20
12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” 17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple[f] of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
corinth: wealthy, wild
Corinth was a wealthy and wild city. It was Vegas, Hollywood, San Francisco, and New York—all wrapped up into one. There were people from every nation living there, and it was a major port. Sailors by the hundreds and thousands came to Corinth to visit the temple of Aphrodite there. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, invited worship that was expressed sexually. The temple and many outlying shrines were invitations for men to honor the goddess by union with one of her servant girls—of which there were hundreds. And it was their normal. It was the normal Greco-Roman world.
In Corinth also was a community of Christians. I'm sure there was a synagogue. And these Corinthians to which Paul writes were early converts to Christianity. And, of course, it was hard to give up their old ways. And so Paul is addressing their "normal lifestyle." Their worldview was about to undergo a great change because their worldview was based in what is called "gnosticism." And gnosticism has different ideas about what it means to be a human being than Judaism.
Paul writes to the infant Church in Corinth, telling them that though they have been saved by grace alone, their earthly, fleshly lives still mattered more than they knew. Gnosticism held that matter—the material world—was evil while “spirituality”—by which they meant “things of the spirit world”—was good. Your body was like a "soul cage" that unfortunately trapped and imprisoned your spirit, which was all things good. Gnostic religion largely involved trying to escape the bonds of the material world so your spirit might fly into the ether and through the seven heavens, and therein find enlightenment, wisdom, and peace in those higher planes. Because this immaterial spirituality was so important, they said the body is unimportant. It is just "a body." This resulted in an enormous libertinism in regard to their bodies in general, and their sexuality in particular. Because this flesh doesn't matter, neither does sexual behavior.
Paul’s new view
In direct opposition to Gnosticism, Paul tells them that their bodies—their flesh—is of infinite value in God’s eyes. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of God. Once we are in Christ—baptized into His body—we become bearers of His Holy Spirit. The body is not lowly, but incredibly high, profoundly spiritual. Therefore, what we do with our bodies matters tremendously and there is no spirituality other than the one including our bodies.
Paul's emphasis of this comes as he stands especially against sexual sin. He says that sexual sin is, in fact, worse than other sins. Because he says in other sins you're not being joined to another person. If you steal or lie your body isn't united to another. Paul held that there was a mystery about sex. And that mystery is a mystery of connection.
And that's a very different position than the Greek world and perhaps the modern American world that wants to say it's just sex. It's just bodies. Paul says No. Our bodies participate in God's eternal glory. Remember, Jesus' body was not left in the grave. The Resurrection is not a resurrection of disembodied spirituality.
Remember all those old cartoons with Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird? [My apologies to anybody under a certain age—you've probably never seen a Sylvester cartoon!] When Sylvester is losing one of his many nine lives—say he falls out a high, city window to the sidewalk below— and in the cartoon what happens? Well, out comes the "ghost Sylvester" in a white robe, a little halo and his harp and he goes up to Cat Heaven. That image is not Christian in the least! That image is Greek. It is Gnostic. It is not the Christian vision of resurrection. Because resurrection, remember, will not leave our bodies in the grave forever. Our bodies, like Christ's body, will be resurrected. This flesh will live mysteriously in a transformed existence, and will live eternally. That ought to scare you if you look at your fingernails. For more reasons than one. Our bodies will participate in eternity. This idea that we've nurtured that eternity is somehow a disembodied, ghostly, vaporous spirituality for eternity—that's the gnostic idea. It is not the Christian idea. Not the Jewish idea either. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and they mysteriously participate in eternal life in the Glory of God. That changes absolutely everything.
how responsible?
So then, to the larger question: to what degree are we responsible for what we do with our bodies when it comes to life and death issues? Where does our responsibility begin and end?
Now, when it comes to man's control of nature and humankind's exercise or control over nature, we have been practicing this from the beginning of time. It began with farming and continues today with all we do to alter our physical reality—from farming all the way to pharmaceuticals. We have rightly exercised dominion over creation—sometimes not wisely—but it is in the human toolbox to control what we can.
We do exercise a certain control over the natural world. And we do so inside of ourselves as well. When it comes to end-of-life issues we immediately face a world of ethical quandaries. There are times when we determine that it is a better moral decision to take a life. There are times when it is justifiable to take life. Is it better to allow one person to be killed than to have 100 or a 1,000 die? Yes, it is. And in terms of self-defense or military defense we will do pre-emptive strikes in order to preserve lives.
The atomic bomb, while grotesque in its destructive power, may well have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the long run. Capital punishment—the right to kill one person so that the others can live—raises plenty of questions. I think we're of different opinions on that in this congregation. Euthanasia is another deliberate and willful practice to end life. Now, any of you that have had to put a dog down know the horror of that event. My wife said she's never seen me cry harder than when I had to put our dogs Buttons and Velveeta down, but it was the right time and the right thing. They were starting to suffer and ending their lives when we did is—we believe—a mercy. But do we allow people—human beings—to be euthanized? Well, not easily. It raises a lot of questions. If we have the responsibility and the means to keep somebody alive, ought not we to keep them alive as long as possible? Well, it depends; it's a messy issue. Some people may be in agony. It may be better to let their life come to an end. Moral quandary.
These issues are terribly complex. It would be easy to spend a week on each of these issues, especially as I raise up the question of abortion. It is complex and it is complicated as an issue, culturally and personally. As I’m saying throughout this series, we need our discussion of these things to be beyond merely political.
You want to know what the official position of the Presbyterian Church USA is on this? It is a perfect picture of our country. The PCUSA's position on abortion is: "We are pro-life and we are pro-choice." That's it! That is the official position of the PCUSA. We are a pro-life/pro-choice denomination. It means that we have accepted papers that say abortion in most cases is wrong, and we also support a position that says only a woman, not the State, has he right to determine the viability of a pregnancy. Think we’ll solve this here and now? Not likely.
But at the heart of it is that the end-of-life issues in all cases create—they put us into an area of moral uncertainty. And I would remind you—as I remind myself—not to dumb-down any issue just to make it easier to have a stance on, because that is intellectually lazy. It is sloth to simplify something in order to make an easy decision on. No, we have to let it live in its full complexity and then still have our foot come down on what we feel God is calling us to do as right.
Other end-of life issues: palliative and hospice care. Perhaps you, like me, have sat with families wherein someone is in slow decline and in great pain. Is it moral to fill them up with morphine at the end so that they are oblivious to the pain and leave this world quietly? I think it is. It is humane, anyway. Anyone can rationally disagree, saying that it is wrong, that God put them in this position and it's their cross to bear, and as Jesus rejected the sponge and the drugs on the cross, so should we. This is the position of Christian Science and some other denominations. I don't think they're wrong for having that position.
And then there is suicide. Suicide numbers are going up in this country. It is hard to get good information because many suicides are covered by family members as accidents or just kept secret.
Is it an unforgivable sin? I for one certainly do not think so.
grievous matters
But what of this? Making the big decision—playing God—willfully choosing to end a life? Is it always bad? Is it good just because we want to think it is? There are things in this life that we feel are necessary but they are not celebrated, but grieved.
My father fought in World War II. He crossed Germany with Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division. He liberated at least three Nazi death camps—the most notable being Ohrdruf—but he never showed anything like pride or glee in having served. There was never the least hint of “Hooray! we won!” His attitude throughout his life was as one remembering a nasty bit of business that had to be done, that nobody wanted to do, and as soon as it was done, he was just glad it was over with and could get back to living. It seems for me there are things for which this kind of attitude is appropriate.
There are things that necessarily must be done, but aren't to be celebrated. They are to be grieved and acknowledged as just part of living in a fallen world. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and you live with the consequences.
The problem with most of these hot topics is that when people argue about them, as with everything else, they only bring it down to the level of the political and they fight about it. Or when they talk about it they talk about exceptional cases only, or bring up the most bizarre hypotheticals. What they don't talk about it is 90-plus percent of the practice. What is really going on is what happens 95 percent of the time.
Another dimension of these bio-ethics in not end of life, but other practices—research and experimentation. You probably heard the horrid story of how the United Way procured intact fetuses for medical research from abortion doctors. That's terrifying.
Then there is cloning. A doctor that lived in my neighborhood was famous for having cloned a human ear onto the back of a mouse—yeah! it caused the mouse to grow a human ear on its back! Is this ethical? Is it unethical? Why haven't we cloned any humans yet? Well, we're not doing it because here in America we feel that it isn't quite right—it's a little bit too much playing God. By the way: they're doing it in China.
We don't just charge ahead blindly into every progress or advance we can imagine. And there's a reason for this. Behind all of this is this prior idea that our bodies do matter.
Furthermore, in terms of human responsibility there's the issue of climate change. To what degree are we responsible for what is happening to the planet? If you don't admit it or if you don't want to face environmental change, you say that it is all according to natural causes of which we are largely ignorant. The other choice is to say we're clearly responsible for something. And if we are to be responsible, if we're going to exercise control over nature, we also have to exercise control over ourselves and do what we can to eliminate whatever degree we're contributing to the problem.
I, for one, am rarely enthusiastic about Chicken Little in all of her forms in our world. There are people who love Chicken Little, and every time Chicken Little says the sky is falling they line up and they show up in droves. I don't deny the sky might be falling but I feel that to be responsible I need to learn more. And the panic-making, the fear-mongering never has any good in it. But behind it, before the idea of saving the planet was ever in our popular imagination, I would say that Christians have always been mindful not to be wasteful, not to do stupid stuff with what God has given us. We have always had a word for it: stewardship.
Stewardship plus
Stewardship has a lot less to do with giving to the church than it does the larger issue of spirituality—which is how are you doing with what God has temporarily entrusted to you? Your and my stewardship—it isn't about fundraising—it is about how we behave with the controls God has given to us. Will we behave ethically? Do we the gifts from God?
This includes our bodies. The number one cause of death in this country is heart disease and we know in many cases it's largely preventable. Less food—more exercise. If there's such a thing as sinful eating the Church is the greatest offender! The issue is not I have to take care of my body better so I live longer. The real issue of stewardship begins with the idea that you are not your own. Your body doesn't belong to you. The text says you were "bought with a price." The body that you think of as "mine do whatever I want with," is not the Christian worldview. The Christian worldview is that this body was created by God ultimately for His glory. And what we do with our bodies matters enormously—more than we can imagine. Every one of us is called to a level of responsibility that we call stewardship. It is the opposite view of gnosticism, and it is quite counter-cultural in America in the 21st Century to say, this body is a temple, I am not my own. This body is not my possession, it belongs to the Lord. It is a temple of His Holy Spirit. What this means is that as we exist in the Body of Christ(through Baptism) His Holy Spirit lives in us as temples. To know this is a good step toward responsibility and stewardship.
Eternal Bodies
Our bodies matter. Paul says all things are lawful for me. It's not about legalistically determining what is right and wrong and then doing what's right and avoiding what's wrong. All things are lawful—but not all things are good. Not all things are helpful. Not all things are beneficial and profitable for the Kingdom. So regarding our own bodies, and regarding how our body affects the environment and affects other people, we practice responsibility and good stewardship.
Again and again, we say Lord, I turn my life over to you. We don't merely mean, O Lord, you can have my spirit. But rather, Lord, I give you my heart, my soul, my spirit, my flesh, my body, Lord, all these I dedicate to you and your glory. Lord, all that I am belongs to you!
I think self control follows that awareness. And this is God's word proclaimed to us—we are vessels of the Holy Spirit. What a marvelous thing! Our bodies are not lowly animals, but participate in God's eternal, constant glory.
Let us seek diligently to help all God’s children make the transformation from being self-serving bodies to Temples wherein God’s Holy Spirit can knowingly dwell!
“ROOTS OF RACISM"
Galatians 3: 23-29
23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Notes from the Text
Today’s text is a personal favorite of mine, so I’d like us to look at it before we jump into its application—the Roots of Racism.
Paul says that the Law (by which he means the Torah, the Book of Moses, the first five books of the Bible) was a cage to the people of God until Christ came. He goes on to call it our “disciplinarian,” but I think that is a flat translation. The literal word is paidagogos, from which we get “pedagogue”—a schoolteacher—but to the ancients, the pedagogue was the one who walked boys safely to school from home. Like a school bus driver. Still, to say that the Law is like a school bus driver leaves much to be desired. I would translate the word to babysitter.
Like a nanny, or one who watches, guards, or otherwise helps to raise children, the Law looked over and raised the children of Israel until the Messiah should appear. The Law is Mary Poppins, a good babysitter helping to bring children to adulthood.
But Paul’s insinuation—no, his clear proclamation—is that the Law has done its job and is no longer needed. Children need babysitters only until they are adults and then they need babysitters no more, except to raise children of their own.
Are we not expected to fulfill the Law? Are we not obliged to obey the Ten Commandments and fulfill righteousness? The short answer is no. No, we are no longer obliged to fulfill the Law because it was fulfilled in entirety by Christ. It is no longer needed, for righteousness comes by faith in Christ, not by doing the works of the Law.
As such, we can think of the Law—the Old Testament covenants—as training wheels on a bike. Did you ever have training wheels on your bike as a child? What were they for? Yes, to help you learn to ride. Once you learned to ride and became proficient at pedaling, what became of the training wheels? That’s right, you took them off because they were no longer needed.
“But are you saying that the Law is bad?” By no means. The training wheels were good—they are good—but they are no longer needed. The Law is good and true nonetheless. The Law is our straight edge, a plumb line by which we learn straight from crooked, and true from warped. But we have something far better. The “faith that arrives” in Jesus Christ is the Law’s fulfillment. Jesus fulfills all righteousness, seals the covenants, and finishes them, completes them.
By faith—and faith alone—we are united with Christ in baptism. That means we are united with him in his death and resurrection, united with him in all his righteousness. The righteousness we are supposed to achieve has already been achieved by Jesus who gives us that righteousness as a free gift. Our union with him is a covering over all sin and redemption that is wholesale and complete.
That union with Christ also unifies us with all whom he saves, and the text tells us that in him we are all one despite our race, nationality, or place in life. There is no Jew or Gentile (we are all Jews—inheritors of the promise to Abraham), no rich or poor, no black, brown, yellow, red, or white, and no male or female—we are one humanity in Christ—all children of God and eternal brothers and sisters.
So no Christian can be a racist, and no racist can right call him or herself a Christian.
But let’s have a look at where it all comes from.
We Prefer Our Own
The natural animal that is a human being is motivated to self-preserve, self-protect, and self-advance. We are by nature selfish and self-serving. We take care of ourselves—make sure we have food and shelter, and then we take care of our own family and kin. We look out for our own. When grouping up, we look for our own—something to give us confidence that we will be cared for by others as much as we care for them. We group alike, and of course, when we need to add to our in-group, we interview and test carefully, making sure this new one will fit us as we are and conform to our inner code.
If a bank board of directors are all Indian women and they need to fill a vacancy, and among the four equally-qualified candidates, one is Indian woman, she will—all else being equal—most likely be chosen. I’m not saying this bad, or evil, or wrong; I’m saying it is our nature. It is also the root of all racism.
Racism is, at first, simply the preference for others who are like us, whatever our group happens to be. It isn’t even necessarily racial, as I’m sure the same is true about any group of plumbers, stamp collectors, or guitar players. Our nature is to group, to form clubs and societies, and to select for membership those who reflect the core values of that group.
These roots grow into racism given time, complexity, and politics.
Politics = Lose/Lose
As I’ve said with former issues in this series, when we only allow issues to descend to the level of politics, we all lose. Sources of conflict end up oversimplified and polarized. We are left with either/or categories that end up in a stalemate and flawed, partisan resolutions.
When racial tensions are politicized, we reduce our one humanity into win/lose categories: haves/have nots, oppressors/oppressed, perpetrators and victims—as if these things totally defined anyone.
Our current political climate favors victimhood and rewards the victimized with moral authority. Hence we have political groups that actually aspire to victimhood to gain upper political ground.
At the other end of the spectrum are those who are privileged, sitting pretty, and desperately wanting nobody disrupting their scene. One universal aspect of privilege is that the privileged can’t quite seem to see it for themselves. They, like most people, tend to take their privileges for granted, especially as they see others with even more privileges enjoying their lives and prosperity more than they.
We are geared to take our privileges for granted. You might not like to hear that and think of yourself as immune to having special privileges in this country, but I would challenge you to consider the question: In what ways might I enjoy unfair privilege?
Surely, asking the question can’t hurt.
The easiest way to identify privilege may be through considering the times and instances wherein you were not privileged. Maybe you were next in line at the butcher counter at Staters, but someone else was served first. Annoying? Make your blood boil? But if you who were served first—unfairly perhaps—you might just quietly go forward and secretly love it.
The opposite feeling of privilege is exclusion, the feeling that you don’t belong.
Most of us here do not know what it’s like to be pulled over for no reason whatsoever and questioned as though we had committed a crime. Most of us here, when entering a department store, are not eagle-eyed at every step, enduring someone looking over our shoulder wherever we go, but if and when it happens, I’m sure we would all dislike it and feel belittled by it.
HUMILITY FORWARD
So where do we find solutions? How ought Christians to act?
As to major racial tensions that grip so much of the media and are raised to feature status by Spike Lee, we are in a fairly volatile time. Again, it is hard to speak of things without them becoming immediately politicized. Perhaps Christians can take a different tack; namely, saying less—much less.
Don’t say, “I don’t see race” or “I don’t see color” —which may be your best shot at self-evaluation, but it isn’t helpful to say. In that case, it is best to say nothing. How about that? Just. Say. Nothing. Some things don’t need to be said. If you’re part of the majority race, the less said the better, because more than likely, when the mouth goes open, the foot goes in.
Better to say nothing, and simply to stay focused on loving everyone equally and treating everyone the same. This is the true source of all justice.
We would do well to practice a couple of key virtues: humility and patience. Not everything we think we need to say is of ultimate importance. Better that we should listen more. A key aspect of humility is simply this: open ears. Think: I'm willing to listen to others - I don't have to speak. I can simply listen.
We've been working out the racial problem in America and through the world for 200-300 years and yeah, we've made some progress. But it's not for us to say so. It's simply something we still work on. And I think it's one thing to say in the secular world we can expect bad things to happen. We can expect tension. We expect stupid things to be said. We can expect volatile, insulting things to be thrown back and forth in these issues. But I would say Christian people—my brothers and sisters—we play a different game and it isn't the world's game. We are all about Love, Love - Absolute Love. Equal value in this world in God's eyes and equal treatment because—and this is our text—we are eternally brothers and sisters in Christ.
ETERNALLY UNIFIED
And before we come to the table, this is our meditation. We really don't think about it enough and I really don't think we get it. This is preparation for the table. This table, this humble table—with out little hunks of bread and grape juice—is a dress rehearsal that we all do again and again. I know: I sound like Jim Jones. But it is a dress rehearsal for a meal that we will have —a very real meal. We will not be spirits; we will be in the flesh. In fact, more solid flesh than we now know. And we will be with Jesus. And he will take the bread and the cup. And in that moment, if we still have tear ducts, we're going to be crying because we are going to realize what we did all these years on Earth was getting ready for that meal. He will break the bread. We will be together at one table. And although there will be millions and millions, I have a feeling we'll be able to see every face.
And in that place the person who is now least like you in this world—who is also in Christ—will be closer to you than your own siblings, than your own spouse. In fact, your knowledge of that person and that person's knowledge of you will be deeper than your knowledge of yourself. And that's just the beginning. That reality will last forever. Not 100 years, not a million, not a trillion-google-plex years, because after google-plex years have passed we won't be at 0.01 percent of one percent of eternity. We will live with each other in the love of Christ for eternity. That is the promise we celebrate. And that is why we, as Christians, must accept, adopt, and even feel our essential one-ness and live it out as deeply and thoroughly as we can.
Let us not accept the stupidity of American politics to define who we are. Let's let that baptismal font tell us who we are and Whose we are. Let's let this table remind us of where we're going as we look forward to that coming table is. And let’s start living like that now, inviting others to come to this table with us.
I tell you, it's going to be more glorious than we can imagine. And if, in this day, in this hour, if at this table today you get the least glimpse of that—then living it out gets easier and easier. May we all be drawn together into this eternal one-ness we have through our Lord and savior, Jesus, who prepares a place for us even now. †