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When’s the last time that you felt unfettered and truly alive? Do you really know what freedom is—or better said, are you really free? Every time Reformation Sunday comes around, my mind goes to hearing that biting, fantastic dialogue delivered with fury by Jack Nicholson in a ‘Few Good Men.’ As we know the original film is a drama about soldiers dealing with war and service. In looking at this from the lens of being a freely responsible servant of Christ—we’re dealing with another kind of war, spiritual warfare, demanding another kind of action entirely!
Here’s a snippet of the infamous dialogue between Jack
Nicholson as Colonel Nathan R. Jessup & Tom Cruise as Lieutenant Daniel
Kaffee:
“Jessup:
You want answers?!
Kaffee:
I want the truth!
Jessup:
You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those
walls have to be guarded … Who's gonna do it? You? I have a greater
responsibility than you can possibly fathom. … And my existence,… saves lives!
You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about…you
want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like
"honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as
the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who
rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then
questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said
"thank you", and went on your way… Either way, I don't give a damn
what you think you are entitled to!”
You have to love the bulk of Nicholson’s lines especially
when you look at them with the eyes of freedom through Christ. We do indeed want to know the truth to why we
must abide in Christ Jesus & His Word.
We do indeed live in a world that is surrounded by many walls. Some of these walls are around our fragile
developing selves in, with and through Christ! These fragile spiritually
forming walls needed to be guarded from sin, death and the power of Evil! Some
walls, are also built by the years of bondage, stumbling blocks that the Evil
One has helped us to build when we deny our sinful nature & take no
spiritual responsibility to aspire to a True righteousness that a heart healed,
shaped & built by Grace can become and respond through!
Can you imagine for a moment removing the story’s details
of the military drama here & picture Jesus being irate with us about
straightening up and flying right? Those walls built by our sin and bondage do
need to come down & we must be prepared to be and become fully accountable
& fully free! We want Jesus on that wall of bondage to help tear down those
walls through Grace and live faithfully into the cost of discipleship!
What do we think of when we think of words like honor,
code and loyalty? How does the heart respond to these words? Honor itself is one
of those tightrope words that apply to both the ego and to selflessness. We naturally tend to sway towards it being a
matter of the ego—or more specifically pride. Works righteousness feeds the
ego, feeds pride and denies us of knowing the humility that Grace needs to
shape our hearts to. True honor through Christ is true service to God and
neighbor through a commitment to love—abiding through love for a greater goal:
The Gospel imperative!
In essence just falling back on saying I’m only human as
well as God does it all for me is a denial of the true reforming work that God
is holding us accountable to willingly incorporate as a child of Grace and
promise. Grace is not a formula and
neither is the church to be an indoctrinated institution but a liberating
gathering place that requires the 1st church of the Heart to abide
in.
Code in regards to understanding the epiphany St. Paul
speaks from in today’s snippet from Romans is that illusive ever challenging
concept of justification—we are justified by Grace through faith apart from
works prescribed by the law. Grace through faith equaling our response is the
Gospel imperative, the TRUTH, we can’t handle within, revealed from the Word of
God! It is a spiritual truth that our
hearts sway to either be indifferent to or faithfully challenged by to reform—transform
from the Old Nature’s ways to the New Nature—with its beautiful hope of truly
and truthfully living into Grace.
In regards to loyalty, the word abide literally means
being aligned to, true to, loyal to something of great purpose. Being is a state of living but living through
Grace takes loyalty and trust to something beyond your understanding that truly
gives our lives meaning. The Kingdom of
God is opposite to the Kingdom of the world though we try to conveniently blur
the boundaries with our brazen disobedience to the New Covenant God has set
before us to adhere to!
Just this Saturday morning in my text study group, we
talked about the horrors of the concentration camps and the satanic efforts
made to dehumanize people. Not wanting
to share the graphic and gory details but the way people were fed and sanitary
conditions set up it was a diabolical effort to break people—their spirits, who
they were and even more. If you recall
the recent efforts of horrible evil through ISIS; this included the raping,
beheading and crucifying nude of women missionaries… throughout the regions of
Syria. If that doesn’t shake you down to
your core of being… I don’t know what else would.
You want the Truth? Then Live it! 500 something years
ago, our beloved founder, Martin Luther went out of his way to tear down those
walls of bondage and took a stand by nailing a large treatise upon the doors of
the Wittenburg Cathedral long since closed spiritually to the Truth of the
Gospel Imperative! Those nails pierced through the doors as if they were a
confession and acknowledgement of the sacrifice Christ Jesus gave for us, on
our behalf… and we most certainly fall short of the glory of God! This is what
it means to be human and means to acknowledge with faith the sovereignty of
God. Luther wanted those closed behind those doors, behind the walls of that
cathedral to face the TRUTH that what they were doing was definitely not being
accountable to Christ but being accountable to the ruler of the world—Satan.
I don’t know how many people realize that the Roman
Catholic concept of church was literally meant to be the encased Kingdom of God
in this world. In some senses, the
church was to be a hub of supernatural influence on all those who entered the
doors. But when you think about it, we
humans constructed it, claim it represents God but then we have gotten lost…
You can say that we have gotten spiritually lost in truly knowing the TRUTH of
the Living Word of God that is supposed to be Re-forming, transitioning and
shaping us now as we speak! Nothing is
predestined, no one is to assume chosen-ness—this is the boasting St. Paul was
warning us of. We are children of God, we are human.
Take a stand, moving forth boldly as a disciple of Jesus
is hard stuff! Just this past week more than a dozen life events have taken
place in my life. One could say on the outside that it is nearly overwhelming
to say the least! My husband & I
just bought the parsonage for the church I will be going to serve fairly soon…
In fact, God’s timing has our new home set to close on the day before
Thanksgiving! Talk about wonderful things to be grateful for!
Other events include flying to New York & taking part
of a wonderful service beginning my step forward as a postulant in the
(Lutheran) Franciscan Order of the Divine Mercy and last but not least
finalizing a year and a half of boxes by stepping on the gas-pedal to pack and
move to Oregon! There have been new complications that have fueled more nights
of lightly sleeping… but I just like we all must have written on our hearts—that
New law that God loves us and indeed, we can do all things through God who
strengthens us! God Strengthens us to go
out into the world through Grace and reform the world we have allowed to cave
into sin, death and evil.
Realizing Grace in your life is realizing the awesome
power of God. The sermon song for this
morning is coming from the artist side of me it is ‘A Free man in Paris.’ If you read the words in the print out,
putting aside some details but hearing the voice of a New kind of freedom
peeking through—you will see how I saw this song as the song of a Freely,
responsible servant to the Gospel—our calling as the priesthood of all
believers, saint & sinner, to be beacons of light for the world but of the
Kingdom of God!
AMEN
October 25th,
2015; Reformation Sunday; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 46;
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Romans 3:19-28 & John 8:31-36
The link below is to the sermon being delivered at the Grace Hub Discipleship Ministries' House church service 8am:
https://youtu.be/IAZJBwRS_cw
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