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The Psalmist definitely rings out with a negative rant
against humanity, he says: “1Fools say in their
hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is
no one who does good. 2The Lord looks
down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek
after God. 3They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good, no, not one. 4Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon
the Lord?”
We are in a world of fools but not all
of the fools are bereft of hope… There
are some who are fools for Christ, I am one of them, I know you are too, to one
degree or another… this is the Christian journey. Why do we gather if we don’t hold hope in
that one thing that brings us all together?
That one thing is Christ Jesus who set us free from sin, death and the
power of evil with His cross. This is
what we confess. Some may have clean hands
while their hearts are nowhere near truly proclaiming, teaching and living into
God’s Grace.
It is sad when we get to that place of
not only not trusting each other but judging each other especially when we are
brought together under the guise of serving His Gospel imperative! Welcome to the ugly world of church politics….
As freely responsible servants of the Gospel, we are called to willingly and
authentically live into our true faith—Christ Jesus, the Lord. Most often than
not we find our response as the Body in the world for God being and becoming thinly
veiled works-righteousness or politically charged social agendas.
In fact, more often than not, we have
grounded a new cherry-picked understanding of God based not on His Living and
authoritative Word but around the world of the self and its’ imperatives. This convenience has slowly created doctrine
as well as now has divided us amongst ourselves in “discerning” what God wishes
for us to DO and BE in this world. We
stop at this world and never venture truly and truthfully into living beyond it—the
lifestyle of Grace.
The moment when we become a club where
we discern who is to share in the Gospel, we are no better than the scribes and
Pharisees. Relationships are difficult,
they do need authentic chemistry if they are to grow and flourish… However if relationships are defined by man-made
rules, politics and self-righteousness; we are no longer living as children of
Grace and promise but become graceless, ugly judges who only continue to divide
and dissolve God’s Will for our own will.
There was a young man I knew almost
near the beginning of my journey to serving God. He was in the pre-seminary program I was in
as well as he was “allowed” to take a few classes at the 1st school
I studied at. He was a character. We were in an awful preaching class where the
pastor teaching was in essence an ogre and he still decided to play the class
clown. There were many an occasion in that class, where I nearly felt like
hiding under the table when he would start with his comedic “sermons.” We grew
to be friends sharing our discord in surviving that place…
Only a year or two later, I was blessed
to transfer and finish at a much more Biblically concerned school. We kept in touch via social media only
occasionally engaging in verbal battles over our seemingly differing theological
perspectives. I was still very
supportive and encouraging to this person because of all the politically
oriented abuse he suffered through the hands of that school and that
synod. I was still supportive of him
even after his candidacy is dumped and he decides to waste more of his money on
a doctorate since then they decided to “allow” him to attend their school.
Over the past few years, his posts on
social media became more politically charged, more angry and judgmental and
less open to others to engage with him in meaningful conversation… But as an aspiring a child of grace and
promise, I still tried to remain in touch with him. Until one morning this past
week I noticed he “unfriended” me. I
dashed off an email and asked why. All
he could awkwardly say is because “we’re too different.” I let it go from there but had to wonder,
what made us different? We were both
followers of Jesus living as we thought, His Gospel imperative…
Then it dawned on me what the real
difference was, it was a matter of faith but a faith that was lived externally
and not really internally at all. Works
righteousness is easy for us to fall prey to especially when we don’t hear the
TRUTH of Grace, the Living Word is beckoning us to CHANGE inwardly in order to
outwardly bear the fruit of the Gospel.
He is all too wound up in the trappings of works righteousness as quote “social-progress”
in the world, for the world… and all too often not truthfully beyond the world
for Christ Jesus’ sake.
Again, it comes down to owning up to
our relationship in, with and through Christ as a fully accountable, humble,
authentic servant of the Gospel. We are
called to change from within in that first church of the heart. The heart needs to be prepared to take on the
challenge of service with integrity to Christ Jesus’ Gospel. Once our hearts are truly prepared can we
faithfully and genuinely accomplish the will of God through then our hands and
feet.
St. Paul’s passage this morning to the
Ephesians tells us that spiritually growing into Grace to be able to take on
the challenge of service and integrity begins with family. It goes beyond
obedience—willingness to adhere to the Living Word of God. It is commitment to each other to believe in
God’s saving Grace, incorporate that and authentically LIVE into it. We can’t live into the Gospel as judge and
jurors, we must live into it as a binding relationship of faith through Grace. This binding relationship is what brings us
all together who profess Christ Jesus is Lord.
We live in paradox however, in the
sense that yes, we are individuals… BUT we are in one great family. As the Body, we confess that Jesus is the
head and source of life we shape our lives to.
Individually, there is much more work we need to do within ourselves to be
united to one another for God’s Will and precepts. This is an accountability
internally, that we cannot avoid. In order to realize the Body as the family of
Christ, we must shape our hearts through Grace to not divide but join together
for a much greater purpose!
As mentioned, I did let go of whatever
kind of hurt I felt about this person I am no longer in touch with… but take
this example into where we are as the church in the world today? How can we spread
the Gospel Truth in the world without further division if we are still working
towards a “man-made progress” for the Kingdom of God built upon judgmentalism,
politics and works-righteousness? It
doesn’t work for it makes us hypocritical to what God’s Will is for us
all. The city of God, land of Grace is
found through living reconciling lives in Grace incorporating all Good gifts
the Good Lord has given us to realize this.
I’ll leave you with one last story of
someone I counseled a while back. She has lead an amazing life of someone who
has cheated death more than once. Nearly
being killed several years back in an accident that nearly destroyed her body,
she managed to continue to survive. One
misfortune after the next, from losing contact with her children to nearly
dying from a diabetic coma alongside her common law husband who did die from sepsis.
After several weeks of recovery in the
hospital, a parishioner took her in since she had nowhere to go. After a couple
of months, against the concerns of the parishioner who took her in, she moved
in with another parishioner she said she thought she could help. She really
didn’t go there to help this other parishioner, she simply didn’t like living
underneath someone’s requests or house rules.
Little did she realize that once this person she moved in with really
did need her to be there and care for her, she was unable to truly and
truthfully reciprocate at all. In fact,
she joined in the other person’s addiction and started smoking, drinking and
living recklessly to where they now have both lost their shared home.
As a pastoral counselor I could “label”
this as purely being an example of sociopathic behavior or I could instead step
back and pray for her heart to turn back to God and take up the reigns of being
accountable for her actions. All the
doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and whatnot counseling her are not going
to help her spiritually grow. They may
only shed a light onto her problems or inadvertently enable a self-concerned vacuum
that cannot see anyone else but the self and its needs alone.
We must willingly accept and incorporate
change. The same can be said in regards
to Grace and all the Good Gifts the Good Lord has given us. The Gospel’s “Progress” in the world, must
begin in the heart first, for how can we claim wisdom and discernment if as
Isaiah and Jesus quoting Isaiah say: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but
their hearts are far from me; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching
human precepts as doctrines.’ Jesus
continues to say to the Pharisees in today’s Gospel: “8You abandon
the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
In a nutshell with both stories I’ve
shared here—We cannot claim to be living into the lifestyle of Grace, if our
hearts are only concerned with our own agendas and “progress.” We are only living into further dividing
ourselves from God and from our neighbor.
Amen
August 23rd, 2015; 13th Sunday
after Pentecost; Proper 16; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By Reverend Nicole A.M.
Collins
Psalm 14; Isaiah 29:11-19;
Ephesians 5:22-33 & Mark 7:1-13
Below is a link to the sermon delivered at the Grace Hub Discipleship's house church service 8am:
https://youtu.be/EqKHQ1P_VnQ
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