"The Real Revolution;" Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost by Nicole Collins

What is Jesus really talking about?  Are we hearing it 2,000 years later still like the apostles heard it?  Or have we finally perchance, owned up to the real revolution Jesus speaks of being entirely Spiritual?  The war rages onward... the battle between good and evil and the turf is your heart!  BTW, Satan is NOT a metaphor, he’s real and this is something we have to stop placing on the backburner of our discernment as “functional theological mythology...”  The graceless wilderness with its fruit of destruction is ever present and growing.

Now that this has been put out in the open~ let’s look at the texts! Essentially chapter ten of Matthew begins a whole “instructional course,” given by Jesus to the disciples on how to begin active discipleship.  Mind you, this beginning dialogue makes a lot of sense, it’s tangible and “doable” to our logical, rational and physical understanding of the world.  This is so till today’s Gospel text where Jesus flips the focus into truly being about spiritual preparation and the very real spiritual battlefield!

I would have loved to been a fly on the wall to see the disciples’ faces looking perplexed and troubled by wondering if Jesus is now instructing them to prepare for war...  Well, yes he IS but just like many things we have learned and grown with in the Gospel of Jesus it IS SPIRITUAL!

But we find ourselves saying: Oh why go there... Do we really hafta? Yikes, it’s too much work, it’s easier to make it an empirical battle mediated and distributed by the corporate church and even better still, to make it personal, specific and transactional!  It’s only logical or really better said—only human... but then what Jesus says here actually doesn’t make sense?  He’s not here to bring peace?  He wants to divide families? Why?

The following chapter continues our human-misunderstanding of Jesus’ Messiahship and call to discipleship for all when even his own cousin and herald, John the Baptist... sends his disciples to ask if he’s the One or not, should we wait for another? Aren’t we still kinda doing that now? The “modern” church has essentially tried to revise Jesus to be merely a rejected prophet sometimes divine, but mostly human, social activist and well the other stuff... (requiring FAITH, that is) it’s in our liturgies, in our creeds... But maybe we don’t really believe since its NOT physically tangible or transactional.

We need to look deeply into that mirror of the Law in order to “do spiritual battle” fight the Evil One’s stumbling blocks and truly change (SPIRITUALLY) into the children of Grace, Jesus would give his life for.  The New kind of Law Jesus begins to preach and teach is to enact spiritual surgery on the heart and upon our discernment and volition (the mind.) Jesus tool to reach us is the sword of the Spirit through his tongue.

St. Paul starts to bring our problem into greater focus by teaching the Romans the purpose of Christ Jesus’ Law which is to point us to our sin, what he died for and how we are to LIVE for Him and for our neighbor as His disciple.  Taking up our cross yet alone taking on the challenge of who we are and where we need to grow in order to go with the gospel is tough work.  Finding the Kingdom of God’s seed buried deep in the seat of the soul is entirely SPIRITUAL not tangible BUT attainable!

This entire week has been a week of blessings, for I have been serving all three communities’ VBS mission and discipleship projects.  Through the Joliet church I have been a witness to the work of many youthful hands assisting this community to reach out expansively into the surrounding neighborhoods.

They began their work digging out the garden, planting new plants, painting, assembling and singing with a joyful noise as we went with them flyering the neighborhoods!  The shirts, many of the youth came wearing before the official mission shirt was ready to don had the saying: “Live Generously.”  What a beautiful thought!  This saying, however, just like Jesus and Paul’s treatise upon our contemplation, is complex and difficult to understand.

In a physically tangible sense it means giving money, being a philanthropist, or just merely being generous to others...  On an entirely different level, spiritually, it could mean an open heart expressing grace as fruits of the spirit: compassion, love, kindness, peace, etc.  A whole New way of expressing the self which comes out of being regenerated: transformed—willingly accountable through faith to live into God’s Will for the world as His disciple!

In continuing to reflect upon the children and families that came to serve on mission week in all churches serving; the face of need was so very apparent in those we served...  What makes a minister though? This was the question I was left with when just the other day engaging in near borderline “unfriendly” fire with a pastoral peer.  Their perspective of the church aligns completely with the “modern/ liberal church,” which in a sense is all really about politics and ulterior-motivated, focused ministries.  It’s all about intellectual moral theology in action and less to do with actually even broaching the CORE of what need activism done upon it—the heart. Compassion is the fruit born of the spirit.

Erring on the side of Grace, I chose to truncate the online debate, not so much for the understated, finger pointing of: “I know you’re a conservative, “Darth-Vader” club Lutheran who’s this and that and so on.... & I’m a part of the “good guys”—the socialist, for the people’s desires, wants & needs Lutheran club...”  What about Pastoral care?  Accusing someone of not doing anything because of their Biblical focus on Spiritual CHANGE... is like the zealots angry with Jesus that he didn’t turn into being the “warrior” Messiah that they were hoping he would be.

2,000 years later however, the SPIRITUAL warrior Words from Jesus lips are indeed LIVING on as both a timeless challenge and tension upon our yoke of burden we must face as His disciples! Whereas political activism in the guise or superficial use of Christ passes by as a moment in history and a dividing rod to TRUE unity for the selfless sake of the Gospel!  Tattooed, cursing pastors don’t minister more than become a trend for intellectual discord and division on what the Gospel of Jesus through our hands and feet should “look” like or “become.”

I was a practicing visual artist and poet for over 20 years till the Lord spoke to me at that fateful service some eleven years ago and my ENTIRE life changed to be used for a greater purpose... NOT just for my sake but TRULY for Christ Jesus sake and out of love for the other.  It has always been and will always be about Jesus...  Satan works hard upon me daily to only strive harder to go back and intentionally reflect, confess, repent and renew for I AM answering Jesus call to my heart, not culture, instinct, human nature or “logic.”

The first battleground needs to be internal.  A true pastor for Christ Jesus, true disciple to His Gospel must become a skilled surgeon to work upon the hearts and minds of their flock to CHANGE inwardly to bear the spiritual fruit necessary to CHANGE THE WORLD externally! 

Instead we have boutique theologies, revised and divided corporate expressions of faith and nicely fitted labels of bondage to wrap around each other for the sake of worldly politics, transaction and agenda also known as—the death of the Gospel.  The priesthood of all believers needs to own up to its core and calling...  This can only happen FIRST & FOREMOST in the heart where Christ Jesus is most assuredly placed at its center!  He is our internal guide, as the Holy Spirit—empowering, encouraging and leading us onward into the spiritual warfare victory against Satan and his continual efforts against us.

Through “the school of Athens for Jesus;” I learned I needed to deconstruct this intellectualism to TRULY HEAR & LIVE DEEPLY the Gospel of GRACE which is heart knowledge—developed and built by suffering, tenacity and TRANSFORMATION. 

AMEN

Sunday June 29^th, 2014; 3^rd Sunday after Pentecost; Year A; Proper 8; SOLA Lectionary  NicoleCollins

Psalm 119:153-160; Jeremiah 28:5-9; Romans 7:1-13; & Matthew 10:34-42

http://youtu.be/6XAIe5lWiR8