Living in the Spirit: Romans 8:1-11

Year A, Pentecost 6                                           

Romans 8:1-1                                                                                                             

            There has probably never been a time when people have not attempted to shame one another.  But in the age where almost every cell phone has the capability to take pictures and video, I fear that our shame culture has gotten a little out of control.  To be honest, I am conflicted.  There are many times when posting a video of an incident can get a lot of attention and hold people accountable who wouldn’t otherwise be held accountable.  A good example of this is the murder of George Floyd.  However lately, it seems that people are posting every horrible thing that people say and virtually demanding shame.  While some of the things I have seen and heard have been truly horrible, the reactions have been equally if not more horrible.  It is not unusual for these people who are called out on the internet to get death threats, to lose their job, to be kicked out of their home.  Many of these people are condemned before they can defend themselves. 

And what does that accomplish?  Do we think that people will have a change of heart once publicly shamed?  Many of these people apologize, but those apologies are perceived as insincere, which they probably are.  Because shame doesn’t typically lead to a change of heart. Sometimes it leads to a change in action, but rarely a change of heart.  The problem with this shame culture is people who are well intentioned are wary of saying anything that might be criticized.  That also makes it difficult for people to have honest conversations, which is what we need if we really want to change hearts.

Photo by Zulmaury Saavedra

            When Paul said, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” he wasn’t just talking about social shaming. He was talking about something much deeper.  He was talking about being condemned by sin—which means you are punished for your sin.  Your sin, your guilt never leaves you.   When Paul says, “There is no condemnation…” ---it doesn’t mean that you are incapable of sin, or even guilt.  It means that you are free from the punishment that comes as a result of that sin. 

For a long time, God’s people believed that the only remedy for sin was the law of the Hebrew Scriptures. The law didn’t prevent sin, it controlled it.   While that was effective in some ways, according to Paul, it never freed people from the bondage of sin.  It was Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that provided that freedom.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  He goes on to say, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”  There is a new law and it isn’t really a law, it’s the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

            Paul believed that there were two realities, two worlds to which humanity can belong.  There was what he called “the flesh.”  In this passage flesh didn’t refer to the body.  It referred to the world of sin and death.  Then there is the Spirit, that is the world of life, life in Christ.[1] Now, it seems like an easy choice. Why would anyone choose sin and death when you can have life with Christ?  Why?  Because if we were living in Christ, then we could not shame people on the internet. We would not be able to buy loads and loads of toilet paper without considering others who might need it.  We would not be able to see injustice without acting.  Freedom in Christ doesn’t just mean freedom from sin and death.  It means freedom from self-interest, self-loathing and smug judgment of others.  Sometimes it seems easier just to be shackled to sin.

            Imagine for a moment what it would be like to live without fear of condemnation.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t sin.  It means that when you sin, you repent and you move on.  Now that still means you have to confess the sin and repent, but then you move on.  Nothing that you have done or said keeps you up at night.  Nothing that someone else does or says keeps you up at night because you are free from human condemnation.  You live in Christ Jesus.  While that might not be an easy place to live, it’s a place where you never doubt your worthiness.  You never doubt that you are loved.  And when it comes right down to it, isn’t that what we all need the most, to know we are loved and to know we are worthy of that love? 

            Often, the reason people shame others…the reason we find ourselves gawking at that shameful behavior is because it makes us feel better about ourselves.  I mean, hey I have said some stupid things, but I never said that.  Yet if we know that we are worthy and that we are loved—that unlike the internet where every wrong doing is cataloged and remains forever—that our sins are forgiven---then maybe we would not have to judge and shame others.

            If you look at the front of our service leaflet, you will see that our mission statement is to live in the Spirit of Christ.  I have often looked at that and tried to discern what that actually means for the people of St. John’s.  Paul would tell us that it means that sin is no longer our master, we live without fear of condemnation.  Our unofficial motto at St. John’s is “Fighten sin since 1610.”   Someone told me that they had shared that with an acquaintance and the response was, “Well you’re not doing a very good job.” The person was not attacking St. John’s, just pointing out that sin is still prevalent in our world.  And let’s face it, Christians have not done a great job fighting sin.  Christians used the Bible to support the crusades, the inquisition, the slave trade, Nazi Germany…just to name a few.  Not only have we not always fought sin, we have been the sinners.   

While I like the way, “Fighten sin” sounds, I think we have to admit it’s a losing battle.  However, that doesn’t mean we are defeated, not if we live in the Spirit of Christ.  If we live in the Spirit of Christ, even when we sin, we are still free.  We are not condemned by our sin or the sins of those who went before us.  We are not condemned by the fact that we have not effectively fought sin.  As Christians, I am not sure our job is to fight sin as much it is to resist it and then forgive it.  Jesus already fought sin and won.  Now it is our job to live in the Spirit of Christ.  That doesn’t mean we deny the sin that we as Christians have committed, but it also means we are not defined by it.  While I will still proudly wear my fighten sin baseball hat on my head, in my heart, I will be living in the Spirit of Christ---where there is no condemnation. There is love, truth, and forgiveness.

           

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4499

Failing the Christian Way: July 16, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 6                                                  
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23                                                                                                

Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney, Fred Astaire, Thomas Edison.  What do these four men have in common?  They were/are incredibly successful in their endeavors. Yet they have something else in common. Before their successes, they failed. Steven Spielberg was rejected by film school multiple times. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas." In one of Fred Astaire's first screen tests, an executive wrote: "Can't sing. Can't act. Can dance a little."  Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything." Thankfully, not one of them gave up.[1]  They kept pressing on despite the failure and  rejection.

            In the last decade, there has been a lot of conversation and research about failure.  I became interested in this topic after reading an article about a conference called: FailCon. Apparently it was quite popular for a few years. The website describes it as a conference for startup founders to learn from and prepare for failure, so their businesses could grow quickly. It was an opportunity for people to share their failures and how they learned from their failures.  Most of the attendees were people who were technical entrepreneurs—the idea being that if you are starting something or inventing something, failure is inevitable.  But just because it is inevitable, does not mean that failure has to be the end of the story. It’s just a chapter of the book, not the conclusion.

            Moses, the Prophet Isaiah, King David, the Apostle Paul. What did they have in common?  They are leaders of our faith.  They are essential parts of our Christian story. They also failed.  Moses got lost in the desert for 40 years and never made it to the Promised Land.  The Prophet Isaiah was ridiculed, despised and miserable most of his life.  King David had an affair and had Bathsheba’s husband killed.  Paul went from being a leader of the Jewish faith to being a man without a home who was jailed and beaten numerous times.  Some might even say that Jesus was a failure.  He was God in the flesh and he was killed by humans.  Failure is part of the Christian story.  It is part of our story.

            It is also part of the Parable of the Sower. Many of us know this story well.  At least we think we do.  It seems obvious.  The sower scattered seed.  Some of the seed fell on a path and were eaten by birds.  Some fell on rocky ground, sprouted and then died quickly.  Some fell on thorns and when they sprouted, they were choked.  Then finally, there were seeds that fell on good soil.  Those seeds brought forth grain in abundance.   If you look at this story logically (which is rarely a good idea when reading parables), it seems like this sower was not very good at this job.  Three out of four of the areas he chose to scatter his seeds failed to produce grain.  He was incredibly inefficient and he was wasteful.  You have to wonder, what he was thinking.  He must have known which was the best place to plant seeds. Why not focus on the good soil instead of messing around with the thorns and rocks?

            Despite the sower’s apparent lack of skill, the seeds that fell on the good soil had an amazing yield. Some of that grain brought forth a hundred fold.  That is an exorbitant amount.  It is far above what would be expected with fertile ground.  Jesus wanted those listening to this story to know that the yield was so great—that there was an abundance where there should have been scarcity. Given the fact that ¾ of the seeds failed to thrive, it is remarkable that there was any harvest at all.  Yet there was and it was extraordinary.

            The vast majority of us are afraid of failure to some degree.  That fear affects people different ways.   Some people won’t take any risk, won’t try anything that might end in failure.  Others will take those risks but give up quickly when they sense failure or experience any kind of failure.  And some people will be like Moses.  They will wander for 40 years because while they seem to be going in circles, but they keep going because they know that the Promised Land is there.  It’s just going to take some patience and tenacity to get there. 

            About one year ago, we embarked on the Come and See program.  It was a program that entailed training and education about inviting others into our midst.  Virtually every church or faith community tells its members to invite a friend to church.  It sounds so simple, but few people ever do that.  When we first started the conversation, we talked about our fears.  Why are we so scared of evangelism of talking about our faith?  For many, it came down to a fear of rejection…of putting yourself out there, allowing yourself to be vulnerable.  This can be especially scary when the thing we are sharing with someone is precious and sacred to us and that person rejects it.  It leaves us a little raw.  There were some people who chose not to participate.  There were many who did. The majority of people who were invited never came.  Some came for a couple of Sundays and left.  A few stuck around. 

The lack of response was frustrating to me because we put a lot of time and energy into the program.  I was so nervous that I was sick the morning of Come and See because I was so afraid this program would fail.  Mark reminded me that this was about more than a couple of Sundays.  This was about changing the way people think about church and evangelism. It’s about teaching people to take risks.  That was helpful to me.  However, in preparing this sermon I realized that it is also about failure and learning how to move past that failure.  It is about experiencing rejection and not letting that rejection cripple us.  Of course this lesson applies to more than just a church program.  It applies to our whole lives.

            That sower could have been more careful about where he scattered his seeds.  He could have tested the soil and only spread the seeds on the soil he knew would produce a harvest.  He didn’t.  He threw it all over the place.  The reason he felt free to do that was because he knew there was an abundance of seeds.  He knew that as long as he kept planting them, God would keep providing them.  He knew that if he worried too much about the seeds that might fail and whether the soil was or was not fertile, then he would never plant anything.  So he just kept throwing the seed, knowing that there would be a lot that would produce nothing, but all God needed was a few. God would turn that small number into an abundance. 

So it is with the way we share God’s love with others.  If we worry too much about how our words are perceived—if we worry too much about the person who we are talking to, we will never accomplish anything.  The best we can do is put everything we have into our efforts.  Those efforts might only yield a small amount.  They might not appear to yield anything. It might even seem as though we have failed.  But if we keep trying, praying, hoping, believing---God will take our meager attempts and he will make them great. 

               

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[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2014-3/#nston-churchill-was-estranged-from-his-political-party-over-ideological-disagreements-during-the-wilderness-years-of-1929-to-1939-1

July 20, 2014: Genesis 28:10-19a

Year A, Pentecost 6                                          

                                                           

When I was preparing for this sermon, I spent a lot of time thinking about holy places, places where I encountered something sacred and divine.  I got a little frustrated because I could not really think of any specific place.  Then I stopped filtering my thoughts and I realized that when I thought of sacred encounters, I did not think about places. I thought about experiences and emotions.  Sometimes they were in churches or places of natural beauty; but usually I could not even remember the place.  What I remembered was times of weakness, times of desperation and fear.  These were the times when my mind shut down and the barrier fell down and God broke through.  That is where I found my holy places.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Jacob.  On the one hand, he’s sneaky and manipulative which irritates me.  But he’s also pretty scrappy and tenacious.  Jacob was the younger son born to Rebecca and Isaac.  His brother (Esau) was born just seconds before him.  Because he was the oldest son, Esau was guaranteed a birthright and a blessing.  Having the birthright meant that he would be the head of the family when his father died.  He would own all the property and have authority over any younger siblings. Jacob wanted that birthright and convinced Esau to give it to him by tempting him with food.  Esau was hungry after a long day of work.   When he asked Jacob for food, Jacob said he could have it if he gave him his birthright.  Esau must have been terribly hungry because he agreed. 

Years later, when their now blind father was on his deathbed, Jacob presented himself to his father and claimed he was Esau.  Since Isaac could not see, he gave Jacob the blessing that Esau deserved as the first born thus giving Jacob both the birthright and the blessing.  As you can imagine, Esau was pretty angry. He vowed to kill his brother. When Jacob learned of this threat, he ran away.  

When he left his home, he had nothing and no one.  There was no one to accompany him on this journey.   We know he did not have time to pack since he was using a rock as a pillow.  I assume he was experiencing some guilt, maybe wondering whether it was worth it.  While he clearly had the brains in the family, Esau had the hunting skills and he was angry and out for revenge.  It didn’t seem as though having the birthright and blessing was doing Jacob much good since he couldn’t even stay in his homeland. 

The text tells us that he came to a certain place and stayed there for a night.  The phrase, “certain place” is an interesting choice of words.  We know where he left and we know where he was heading to, but neither the reader nor he knew where he was.  He was just in-between his home and an unknown future. He must have been very tired because despite his fear and the lack of comfort, he slept. 

I imagine it was one of those dreams that felt real and unbelievable at the same time because it combined his immediate surroundings with something that was glorious and almost unimaginable.   Our translation of the Bible says it was a ladder, but most scholars say it was more of a ramp, like a land mass in between earth and heaven.  Jacob knew that the ramp led to heaven because he saw angels ascending and descending.  If that was not convincing enough, the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord….”  God proceeded to promise Jacob the gift of land and offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth. It was a very similar blessing to that which God had given his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.

Then God added even more to the blessing.  He said, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land…”  Imagine how that must have sounded to someone who had been forced to cut all ties to his family and his homeland.   God was promising him that he would be with him at all times and that he would protect him from all peril.   That was an added blessing.  That was even more than God had promised Abraham and Isaac.           

That confuses me a little.  What had he done to deserve that?  He deceived his father and stole from his brother and now he gets an extra blessing?  Maybe he needed a little extra blessing.  He was alone and scared.  He was not the hunter that Esau was.  If Esau wanted to find him, he would.  But there was something feisty about Jacob.  God knew that he was going to fight for his blessings. He would doggedly pursue a blessing that he desperately wanted. 

Let’s face it, it’s not like it was fair that Esau got the blessing just because he came out of the womb first.    Jacob fought for that blessing and that birthright and he never gave up.  While his methods were questionable, I think God saw something promising in this him.  God knew that if he was at Jacob’s side, that persistence would no longer be so selfish.  It would be a persistence that would bring blessing not only to him, but to an entire people.  It would be a persistence that the Hebrew people would emulate for generations.      

So not only did God give him this blessing, he showed Jacob something that very few had ever experienced. He showed him a place where heaven and earth met.  What is so amazing about that  ramp to heaven was that it was a two way street.  Angels were ascending and descending.  Angels are messengers of God.  That is the literal translation of the Hebrew word: messenger.  That ramp was proof that the lines of communication were going both ways.  God was speaking and God was listening.  There was no and is no barrier between heaven and earth. 

The only barrier is the one that we create in our minds.  Maybe God chose Jacob to be a witness to that message because he was a man without roots.  He was a man in-between the home he left and a home he was searching for.  He was (as the text says) in a certain place.  And that is where God often reaches people; in that in-between place where we are still open to revelation.  It’s when we get comfortable that we stop having those vivid dreams that allow us to encounter true holiness.  If he was sleeping in a comfy bed instead of on a rock perhaps he would not have seen that vision. 

When he woke up he proclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place---and I did not know it!”  He took the rock that he had slept on and set it up as a pillar so he could remember that place where the Lord had appeared.  He declared the place to be a gate to heaven.  It is understandable that he wanted to remember that place and honor that place.  But I wonder if he kind of missed the point.  That place was not holy because of where it was.  That rock was not holy because he had dreamt on it.  That place was holy because of what was missing from that place, and that was the barrier between heaven and earth, between the sacred and mundane. 

I feel the Lord in St. John’s and I hope you do as well.  But I really hope that in your moments of pain, and fear and loneliness---in those certain in-between places where we feel lost and we have no idea where we are…I pray that we will find the Lord in those places as well.  Because that is where the Lord will find us.