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Believe, receive, incorporate and
share... it's what we choose to believe, and how much we choose to receive of
it, yet alone incorporating it within ourselves, to then become the fruit of
what we choose to share. Sometimes what we share is really isn't coming from a
place that God desires for us. Every outward act of sin is preceded by an
inward active choice. “Here I stand, for I can do no other…” were once words
from a trouble voice seeking to free the spirit from the bondage of the world.
It was also from those same reforming lips, we are told to "sin
boldly."
Radical words from someone at the
point of perhaps having their faith shaken in the midst of the battle. Got to
live it, to give it. This is easy to say but much harder to really do. From a
letter that was once called a “letter of straw,” we are told to be doers of the
Word, not merely hearers. A simple proverb, nuggets of Truth… again much easier
to hear, then to live into. The beautiful letter we have this morning from Paul,
is getting to the close of his conversation with the Ephesians. It basically is
his testimony laying out the rules of the Christian Journey. He is speaking of being
equipped for our journey in the world as Jesus disciples. This is all the while
being under house arrest in Rome, bound in chains to a Roman soldier.
Both Paul and the voices of the
Reformation weren't paying “lip-service” to human idealism, they were truly “walking
the talk.” They were most certainly equipped from a place that God carved out for
them in their hearts to trust in His Words and proclaim them. Finding that
inner freedom from God's Word and truly living into it in your own life, takes
a lot of trust. This expects a lot from you in order to find yourself on the
level, or your internal compass in sync with that of God's plans. This compass
goes beyond being a moral compass, grounding with God…. It is more about
keeping a balance of many things about the self. Being on the level is a task
that we need to keep in check to be able to be ambassadors in the world with
God's Word, as St. Paul certainly was.
Truly being fed and led by God's Word
isn't going to be all fast food or comfort food that you want to take in a lot
of times. They are going to be Words that are hard to hear. I love that old
preaching quote that says: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
In this consumerist society, what we have today, those are certainly not
comfortable words to people who just want to hear, what they want to hear and
believe what they want to believe in and live upon their own designs. The stark
reality, the truth within God's Words are hard for all of us to really hear.
The foolishness of the cross haunts us: why would Jesus do this for us? Did he
really make right our relationship with God? When you look around in the world
and everything going on today, how much is truthfully living into God's plans?
Things don't seem to be going too well. But this isn't going to turn into a
therapeutic, moral lecture on Jesus, yet alone turn into comfort food to make
you “feel good” about what you're doing. What may seem to be an easy way out is
what is sticking a knife in the heart of what God needs us to do as His
disciples.
Standing firm in your faith doesn't
work too well with the “me generation,” yet alone our politically correct
culture. God's Word becomes unpopular to our agenda of doing things the way we
want to do, in manipulating things to say what we need them to say. Jesus knew
this fact with the Pharisees. They manipulated God's Word to do whatever they
wanted it to do and for them, the law was control. Yes, the last several
Sundays in this “extra-ordinary” time of Pentecost are trying to jar us from
thinking what our priorities are. Do we follow and trust in God's law and
promises? Or do we just do whatever we want and who cares about the
consequences? This little tail end of the Gospel of Mark this morning includes
some concluding thoughts of Jesus still rebuking the Pharisees for picking on the
disciples for not washing their hands. The showy piety of the Pharisees was not
connected to their hearts at all. They were merely paying lip service to God
and had other things that they wanted to do behind and through God's Words.
The timing of the Holy Spirit is so
interesting, for I've been reading a wonderful book by the theologian and
philosopher Gerhard Forde. He's talking about how we are to deliver and express
God's Words. It's not just written towards the pastoral task of what I'm doing
right now in front of you, but what we do in our own lives in taking seriously,
the Word of God. That first gesture I started with was a wonderful learning
nugget, I received from the pastor I studied under for a number of years that's
something that sticks out very clearly in my memory in thinking about
discipleship. For me it's even better than buying a pet that could eat glass
and poop diamonds! It's even better than the tongue and cheek comment that
doing Ministry in the world is a lot like herding cats, then sheep. For poor
Saint Paul, probably the Corinthians were like cats to him for they certainly
didn't follow him in the end, yet alone care or believe truthfully and what he
was trying to share with them. I have to say though, of having 20 years’ worth
of cats… enough patience and perseverance and you can actually get them to sort
of listen to you. I said, sort of!
Preaching about Jesus, not only
always talking about what He has done for us, through releasing us from the
power of sin, death and evil with the cross, is to be preaching about God's
promises. This is what the real abundant life is all about. What the real
abundant life is all about is sacrifice, or should I say takes sacrifice and
humility. Faith is a complete and perfect trust in Christ. It is a close
personal relationship that you can truly say you have with Him. Taking on being
humble and thinking of others beyond the self is pretty much what James’
proverb is when he says for us to be “doers of the word” not merely hearers,
who deceive themselves. He continues to say: “…for if any are hearers of the
word and not doers, they're like those who look at themselves in the mirror for
they look at themselves and on going away immediately forget what they were
like.” That's probably the most profound lines from that particular letter. Do
we look completely and deeply into a fully silvered mirror that God places in
front of us, to help to guide us to “do the right thing?” Or have we found ways
of removing the silvering of that mirror of God's law?
Last year around this time, I was
getting ready to go check out Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum on Charleston near 4th
Street. One of the items I thought was really interesting and kind of cool, was
that he had a supposed haunted mirror owned by the late Bela Lugosi. Strangely
enough, not known to the public, but apparently Bela Lugosi was into doing
spells and a cult-like activity on his own or secretly. It was said that this
mirror absorbed this strange temptation of his to be looking into Supernatural
things and that if you gazed into this mirror too long you would be haunted by
the troubled spirit of Bela Lugosi. The place was kind of set up like a fun
house attraction. There were many little weird interconnecting rooms of these
bizarre collections haunted items of Zak Bagans. He had a big black cloak that
was hungover this mirror and a white line drawn on the floor some 4 feet away
from the mirror to where you are supposed to stand from it. You were only
supposed to look into the mirror for just a minute or so, and no longer. You
were definitely not allowed to touch the surface of the mirror as well.
In all honesty, didn't notice
anything. I thought it was just very interesting as well as the other items he
had throughout this museum of his… Why the Holy Spirit had me remember this
little museum tour was thinking about the mirror of God's law hidden within His
Word that we are supposed to make the effort to find. We are supposed to be
challenged and seek not resist finding the truth within God's Words in order to
build the kingdom of God, here and now. This is the Christian Journey. This
little haunted mirror in this fun house museum with its little rules harboring
a subliminal message of fear upon gazing into it… I think was intriguing
connecting to the scriptures, we have this morning. To boldly go where no
disciples have gone before, not exactly Star Trek… but every day we go out into
a hostile environment that needs to hear the truth about what we believe. What
we believe about the Christ, who came to save us. This is what we have received
in our hearts and have allowed it to take root, we have incorporated it and now
it's our turn to share it.
The only example we have of someone
who is truly on the level and perfectly balanced in every way is Jesus. He not
only became the New Adam, the example of the New Creation in the world, but He
tried to free us. That verb “tried” is a hard one because it points to our
problems today. We proclaim in the Gospel that Christ freed us, period. But we
have resisted this freedom. We're not completely” sold on the idea.” We have
passed our own judgements against God... This resistance we might not
even be aware of, but we do it none the less. That's probably one of
those terms, that I think is really sad, that we use when we are coming so much
from a place of the self, not just that self-righteous side of the self, but
just a self-concerned side when we say we’re not completely sold on the idea. We
can definitely say that was the Pharisees problem. They certainly weren't sold
on what Jesus was saying... In fact, the truth, the stark truth that Jesus was
trying to get them to hear, as we know, provoked them to kill Him. We know
afterwards the triumphs that Jesus made with the Resurrection. We're supposed
to be living into a resurrected life today, but I think we're still in the
process of “killing God…”
You don't hear much about Christians
standing up for things going wrong in our current culture these days. We just
see a lot of the victories of the supposed American civil liberties union
allowing a statue of a satanic idol, Baphomet in the courtyard of Arkansas
capital building to make a statement for a rally that was held earlier this
past month for the First Amendment. We do, and we don't have
freedom of speech, and this isn't just a political reality. We are not free. We
are not free to express our faith without it being mired by divisive
evil. Another example from a couple years ago was with what was called
the “911 cross” at Ground Zero in New York City. There were tons of groups
protesting to get it removed... of course that was covered by the news media
over efforts of those trying to keep it. And it went beyond a matter of it
being the cross it was a symbol of all that horrible evil that took place on
that day. That cross was what remained from the destruction of those two towers.
This ironically is, as well, a symbol, we still have the most difficulty with
spiritually, the Cross of Christ.
With this incident at the Arkansas
Capitol building the Satanists basically were protesting for their rights to
have this statue there since the state legislature had approved to erect a 10
Commandments Monument in Little Rock. Again, we need to step away from the
politics of all this, the church and state stuff, Etc. and think about what is
really offensive here. We can probably just hear this: “My thoughts and my
words should have precedence over yours. What I believe should condemn what you
believe and so on.” This is not the truth within God's Word. This is our
own talk over and above God’s but what is it really walking for, and what is it
really speaking to? Life together on this floating rock in space, hurtling into
the unknown shouldn't be feared, but should be traveled upon together united in
spirit and united in a selfless mission for a greater good.
How are we going out into the world
though, with the Christian message? This is what I love about Paul's beautiful
images we have this morning, of putting on the whole armor of God. All these
abstractions of putting on the belt of Truth around the waist, girding into the
breastplate of righteousness and donning shoes that will make you ready to
proclaim the Gospel of peace. A more favorite line to come is putting on the
helmet of salvation and taking up the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of
God with you, out into the world. Going out into the world, a very hostile
world, where all kinds of evil are going to come as arrows towards you. We
must as Paul even concludes his letter in saying: “…Make known with boldness, the mystery of the
Gospel.” Speak the truth, and the truth will set you free. Just after the
rally at the state capitol in Arkansas, the Ten Commandments monument was
installed and was vandalized by a man using his pickup truck to run it over and
shatter it into pieces.
Perhaps this individual saw it as a
temporary victory of politicking alone just like the recent activities at the University
of North Carolina taking down another Confederate statue, ‘Silent Sam?’ Tearing
down and decimating things, does not erase the history that is still there.
God's law is still here, even in the midst of all of our tribulation and
turmoil between each other. We have not and are not able to decimate God's law.
With Jesus Christ, a new kind of law was written by the scandal of His cross
and that is to love one another. Simple words with truly a much more profound
challenge for us as we are to not only believe, receive, incorporate and share
God's Word… but we are to be ambassadors not bound in chains of our own doing—
we are to be freely responsible
servants of the Gospel.
So being a “doer of the Word,”
myself not merely a hearer, these scriptures this morning are hoping for us to
be a wise and discerning people, once again, even in this new age. We need to
hear God's Words as light within us to truly build faith. These scriptures
are challenging our faith this morning. “Walking the talk isn't for
yourself, it's to be beyond you. It's for something much greater. If you let
the world revolve around yourself, yet alone justify it, as well; how can you
be Faithfully obedient to the rules of the Christian Life? How are you fully
equipped if you're only equipped with your own means and not that of God’s?
Again, this is another hiccup of what your priorities are. It's not just our
priorities here in this church, but what are your priorities grounded in God
truthfully reveal? Live boldly into the challenge Christ continues to put in
front of us: don't resist the truth. Stand firm with God's word, period!
Let us pray
Loving and gracious Lord Jesus,
There are so many things that we
need to be strong for
And to be equipped, ready for living
in a hostile world
With Your Gospel as our task to
carry.
Please help to remind us that there
is a price for the freedom, that You have paid
May we never forget living into Your
Gospel promise for a New world ahead
Thank You Dear Lord, for all You
have given us
AMEN
September
2nd, 2018; Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 17; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
119:129-136; Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 7:14-23 & James
1:17-27
This sermon was delivered at First Congregational Church at 10am:
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