Stop! You are Giving Too Much!

Exodus 36:1-7; I John 3:10-22

The title for my message this morning are words that you probably have never heard a preacher say. I have never in my ministry had to tell a congregation, “Stop! Please do not give any more money. Stop giving immediately! You are giving way too much!”  Yet that is exactly what Moses said in our OT reading today.

Let me give you the context for this unusual statement. It happened at Mount Sinai. Not long before this, God had given Moses the Ten Commandments. Moses came down from the mountain, and he saw that in his absence the Hebrews had gotten bored and forced Aaron to make them a Golden Calf to worship. This is a significant detail because the Golden Calf was made from jewelry which the Israelites donated. Moses came down from the mountain, saw what they had done, and in a rage he threw the stone tablets of the Law to the ground shattering them. That happened in chapter 32. Well, the people (most of them) repented and Moses made some substitute tablets to replace the ones he had broken. That was in chapter 34. Chapter 35 describes the plans for building a tabernacle, which was a portable place of worship. The temple would not be built for centuries. At this time they worshipped in a tent that they carried with them. Chapter 35 talks about the women and men who worked in cloth, gold, silver, bronze, jewels, and wood to build the tabernacle and everything in it to be used for the worship of God.

Then came the fundraising. This was an expensive undertaking, and the Hebrews were not rich. Remember they had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Slaves are not known for their wealth. But the Exodus story does tell us that the Egyptians were so glad to get rid of them and their plagues that accompanied them that they gave them going-away gifts. So that was part of their wealth. Moses asked for contributions from the Hebrews for the building of the tabernacle. That happened in chapter 35, right before our passage.

Our passage in chapter 36 describes the response of the people to Moses stewardship campaign. Every morning people lined up to bring freewill offerings. They brought so much that the trustees complained. It was more than they could use. I have never heard our trustees complain about something like that. So Moses had to give a commandment that said that people were not to give any more. In fact it says, “The people were retrained from bringing.”  It sounds like people had to be physically restrained from bringing any more financial or material gifts. I would love to have this problem in this church. Let us look at the story carefully and see what we could do here at the Federated Church to have this same problem.

1. First, what were they giving to? I think that makes a difference. The cause influences the amount that people give. We see this all the time on the television and on the internet. The Evening News will run a human interest story in the last five minutes of the broadcast about some person who did a heroic or generous deed or was in need. The homeless man who returned a wallet full of cash that he found. The woman who was a bus monitor and was bullied by the middle-schoolers on the bus and needed a vacation from them. The child who needed a medical procedure that the family could not afford. There is no shortage of dramatic stories. A fund is set up and the money comes pouring in. This happens on Facebook pages as well. I don’t think that is the best way to raise money. A lot of just as worthy causes go unfunded because they did not come to the attention of Diane Sawyer of ABC News. But the fact remains that the cause that one is giving to makes a difference.

The cause that the Hebrews were contributing to was the building of a sanctuary for the worship and service of the Lord. And the people responded immediately and generously. Some people do not like the idea of giving to physical things like buildings. But other people love it, because they can see an objective thing bought with their money. That is why memorial gifts are so popular and so many churches have all sorts of things around the church labeled with the names of the giver and the one in whose memory the gift is given. There is nothing wrong with that. Buildings and furnishings are necessary to religious life in America, and it is wonderful to honor those we love with a gift. So I make no excuse for supporting this. That is how we recently bought some extra hymnals. I think it is worthy of our giving, just as it was a worthy project for the Hebrews in our OT passage.

But it must not overshadow the other work, which is much more emphasized in the scripture. This is the care of those who are poor and hungry and thirsty and homeless and imprisoned. That is why things like the Food bank, the Discretionary fund, disaster relief are important. That is why I included the passage from First John as a reading this morning. The apostle John says in that reading: “Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” Remember that the two greatest commandments are first to love God and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Ministering to those in need is the heart of the gospel, and it is not just physical needs, but emotional and spiritual needs as well. When it comes to what we give to, it is not either-or. God or people, buildings for worship or ministry to people. It is both-and. As long as it is given by the direction of God.

2. Second. Let’s look at what inspired these Hebrew people to give in such a dramatic and generous way. What motivated them to give so much that they had to be restrained from giving any more? Maybe in part it had to do with what happened a few chapters earlier in the story of the Golden Calf. Perhaps they felt badly that they had given so much money to build an idol. So when they were asked to give to the house of the true God, they wanted to show that they had changed. But their generosity was not just motivated by guilt.

I think it was mostly motivated by love. Remember that the greatest command of the Torah, the OT law given by Moses to Israel before the love of neighbor was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind soul and strength. I think they gave as they gave to a great extent out of love. God had saved them from slavery in Egypt. He had done this in a dramatic fashion through the plagues on Egypt and through the parting of the Red Sea. Their response had been to forsake God and worship a golden idol made from their own hands, which in itself is a symbol of wealth and money. Gold has always been a symbol of wealth, and it has always laid claim on the hearts of people. That is why Jesus taught that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. The Hebrews were saved by God, but chose to worship Mammon in the form of the Golden calf. But still God forgave them. That is the love of God demonstrated. I think the generous giving of Exodus 36 is a demonstration of their renewed love for God.

That is the best motivation for giving – joyful love of God. Paul writes to the Corinthians church, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7) That is how I hope everyone here gives. I think that guilt is one of the worst motivators for doing anything. And it has too often been used by preachers and churches to manipulate people, which is why I refuse to use it. The gospel is about the elimination of guilt through Christ, not the fostering of it.

Love of God is the all-consuming passion of the Christian. This cannot be faked. To be genuine our love of God has to be rooted in God’s love for us. Our love for God and our love for others are rooted in God’s love for us. The apostle John says in the fourth chapter of his first letter: “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

We cannot make ourselves give openheartedly and openhandedly in the way that these Hebrews gave. No way! All of our instincts - fear of not having enough, self-protection and selfishness - will kick in and prevent us from giving in this manner. The only way our hearts and hands can be opened is when we overwhelmed by God’s love for us. And that overwhelming love is supremely demonstrated in Jesus Christ. God so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son. Christ so loved us that he gave his life for us. The apostle Paul says in his Letter to the Romans 5 “6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Love is clearly the major motivation for Christian giving.

3. Third, let’s look at how they gave. I have been mostly talking about financial giving. And that is an important part of the story. But most of chapters 35 and 36 talk about other forms of giving. One is skill. These chapters are all about the artists and craftsmen who volunteered to make the tabernacle and all the articles for the worship of God that had been commanded by God.

It says, “10 ‘All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded…. 25 All the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands, and brought what they had spun, of blue, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. 26 And all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goats’ hair…. 30 And Moses said to the children of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31 and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship, 32 to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, 33 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship. 34 “And He has put in his heart the ability to teach, in him and Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. 35 He has filled them with skill to do all manner of work of the engraver and the designer and the tapestry maker, in blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine linen, and of the weaver—those who do every work and those who design artistic works.”

This is talking about art, which in the history of the church has always been a dominant way that people have expressed their love for God. But it does not have to be just this type of skill. It can be all different types of skill. We all have talents that we can use to express our love for God. And it is important to use those skills.

Another is time. The first verse of chapter 35 mentions this before anything else. “Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do: Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord.” In our 21^st century American culture, time is very valuable. People don’t seem like they have enough time to do everything they want. They don’t have the time to spend with their families. They do not have the time to exercise to protect their health. They do not have the time to relax and enjoy life. And they certainly do not have the time for God. Sunday has become just another day. But the people of Israel made time. They set aside the Sabbath to worship God, and they also used other days to serve God. That is how we today can show our love for God.

We cannot outgive God. But we can aspire to the type of extravagant giving demonstrated in this OT passage. May our love for God be so great, that someone will have to say to us, “Stop it now! You are giving too much!” 

Such Faith!

Luke 7:1-10

Today I will be preaching on faith and particularly on the story of a man whom Jesus said had great faith. Jesus said, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” That is quite a compliment coming from Jesus! It is interesting who he says this about. He did not say it about one of his apostles. He did not say it about Peter, James or John. He did not say it about the Pharisees, who were very religious people. He did not say it about the Sadducees who were the religious establishment  at the time, the head of the state religion. He did not even say it about the Essenes, who were the semi-monastic group who live on the shore of the Dead Sea. We thank them for the treasure trove of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were a very devout, ascetic group who saw the Pharisees and Sadducees as compromising the faith of the Scriptures. Jesus said this about a Roman soldier, a centurion. There is no modern equivalent of the Roman centurion in today’s army. There were eleven grades of centurion which roughly corresponded to modern military ranks ranging from sergeant to major. But he was an officer in the Roman army, and the Roman army was hated by most Jews as an occupying force. It would be the way that most Palestinians would feel about Israeli officers today. So it was a controversial statement for Jesus to say that this Roman soldier had more faith than any religious Jew he knew. Let’s examine his faith.

1. First, the centurion’s faith was prompted by a difficult situation. He came to Jesus for healing. Faith often is born out of difficulty. One might even say that faith needs a desperate situation to come to light. When everything is going fine, most people don’t feel like they need God.  That is why most people here in New England do not attend worship service. They don’t feel like they need it. That is why religious faith is waning in America and in the Western world. Most people feel like things in their lives are going along alright without faith in God.

When it comes to healing for example, which was the situation that prompted this centurion’s faith, people do not think they need faith. They need medical care. That is why we are having this big to-do about health care and medical insurance in our country. Healthcare is important to people; faith, not so much. Faith only becomes important to some people when medicine reaches the limits of it abilities to cure. Then they call they call for the preacher. Difficult times bring people to faith … sometimes. The truth is that these days many people do not turn to God even then. God is so absent from some people’s lives that even in crisis they do not turn to God.

But some people do. Religious people do. Crisis prompts some people to great acts of faith. To connect this to financial stewardship, we can look at the story of the widow’s mite. One day Jesus was in the temple and saw a very poor woman put two small coins into the offering plate. These coins were all she had to live on. Most people would call her foolish, but Jesus praised her. She had faith in God to provide for her needs. When this poor woman was in financial crisis she responded by faith in God. Such faith!

When crisis comes in our lives we also respond in faith. Maybe not in as great a faith as the poor widow or the Roman centurion, but we respond in faith. That is a good thing. Some people think that faith is a sign of weakness.  I had a person tell me that they thought that faith in God was a crutch for weak people and that is why they did not need religion. My response is that admitting our weakness is not bad when the truth is that we are weak. I have no problem in admitting my weakness. The apostle Paul prayed about a physical ailment that he had. He records God reply to him in 2 Corinthians 12. God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Then Paul continues and says, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) Faith is born when we give up our arrogant self-sufficiency and admit we can’t do it by ourselves and we need God.

2. Second, the centurion’s faith was motivated by love. In our story the Roman was not seeking out Jesus for healing for himself. He was seeking healing for his servant. The second and third verses in our passage say, “And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant.” That is true in our lives as well. Personally I would rather be sick and dying than have my wife sick or have by children sick or grandchildren sick and dying. I pray much more fervently for the healing of one I love than for myself. And I do not think I am unusual in this regard. This is human nature.

Faith and love go together like peanut butter and jelly, ham and beans, or like marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. Our faith in God is motivated by love. That is why we pray for people. That is why we share names of folks we know and lift them up to God in prayer as a community of faith. We do it out of love. The greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. That is what we are doing in prayer. We love people and we love God. And so we bring the people we love to the God we love in prayer. Many people do not pray to God - even in times of crisis – because they never developed a love for God. They do not know God’s love for them, and therefore they do not think to ask for God’s help.  This centurion loved his servant and he loved God.

Verse 5 says that this Roman centurion loved Israel and even built the Jews in his community a synagogue to worship in. It seems clear that his soldier is what the Book of Acts calls a God-fearer. He was a Roman stationed in Palestine who came to have faith in the God of Israel. He did not convert to Judaism, but he believed in the God of the Jews. That is why he went to Jesus when his servant was sick. He could have prayed to the Roman gods and goddesses. But he didn’t. He came to the one whom some people were calling the Messiah, and some even whispered was the Son of God, the man who called God his Father. This man’s faith that Jesus was able to heal his servant was motivated by love. And to tip my hat to the financial stewardship theme here, our giving to God is motivated by love. We should not give to God out of guilt or even out of obligation. We give out of love for God. God has given so much to us! How can we not give to him in return?

3. Third, the centurion’s faith was exercised in humility. Faith is humble. That is why I think that a lot of what masquerades as faith these days is not really faith in God. It is ideology. It is religious legalism. It is rules, and rituals, and self-righteousness. That was the religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This centurion had faith expressed in humility.

When asked to come and heal the servant of the centurion, Jesus went to his house. When the man heard that Jesus was coming he sent some of his friends to intercept him with this message: “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof. Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You.” How different that is than people’s attitudes today. People expect God to arrange the circumstances of their lives the way they think is best. When they ask God to do something, they expect him to do it. And if it is something big, like the healing of a loved one, if God does not do it, they get upset. Humility is not a characteristic that is valued these days. What people like now is boldness and assertiveness. Self-esteem is the new highest virtue. God forbid that we feel or do anything that might lessen our high opinion of ourselves!

This Roman soldier was not nurturing a fragile ego. He was humble. He genuinely believed that he, a Roman officer, was not worthy for this Jewish peasant to come into his home. It is interesting to contrast this with other’s opinions of him. The Jewish elders who approached Jesus on the centurion’s behalf told Jesus that he ought to do what the centurion asked because, in their words, “the one for whom He should do this was deserving, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”  Do you hear their mentality? They thought the Roman centurion deserved an answer to his request. They thought he had earned it because he had built a synagogue. I have seen this same attitude among Christians. They think that if they have contributed a lot of money to the church then they deserve special treatment from God and others. But to his credit, this Roman did not think that way. He exercised his faith in humility.

This is an important quality for us to have in our faith. We tend to get our feelings hurt. It happens in families. It happens among friends. And it happens in church. We get angry. We are offended. When we get our feelings hurt what is really being wounded is our pride. That is a good thing. We should want our pride to be hurt over and over again until there is nothing left. That is God’s way of producing selflessness in our lives. But what do we do? We do just the opposite. We withdraw and lick our wounds. We built up an emotional wall a little higher to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so we will not be hurt again. I can’t tell you how many people I have known who have gotten hurt by something that happened or did not happen in a church and they quit completely. And they never darkened the door of any church again. During my ministry I have heard story after story like that. I want to shake them and say, “You missed a wonderful opportunity! God was working in that situation to tear down your wall of self, and you prevented him too protect your ego.” I don’t ever come out and say those words because they would not be able to hear it, but that is what I think.  God wants to develop faith in us, and the way he does it is by humbling us. It hurts, but it is a good hurt. We can’t have faith without humility.  This Roman centurion had great humility and that is why Jesus said he had great faith.

4. Fourth, the centurion’s faith submitted to the authority of God. After telling Jesus that he was not worthy for Jesus to come under his roof, the man continued in his message to say this: “But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  In response to that statement it says, “When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”  

Faith is submitting to the authority of God. That is another thing we Americans do not like. Every once in a while I see the bumper sticker that reads: “Question Authority.” That is the American way. We don’t like anyone telling us what to do. Especially the government.  And very especially when it comes to religion. That is what the while “spiritual but not religious” movement is based on. And that is what the new atheist and anti-religion movement is based on. And it is true that human authority can be often misused. Power corrupts and all that.  Personally I want as little government authority intruding into my life as possible. That is how I bend politically. But we must not extend that anti-authority attitude to God. We can extend it to religious bureaucracy, dogmatism and legalism. I think it is good to question religious traditions and practices. That is how we grow spiritually. But when it comes to faith in God, we submit to Divine authority.

Faith is trusting completely and utterly in God without reservations and exceptions. That is the only way we can approach God. God is King. He is Sovereign. He is not a President. He is not elected by us and is not answerable to us. God cannot be impeached or recalled like some human politician. We Americans have a hard time with the concept of a king. Our nation is based on rebellion against the British monarchy. We like balance of power between the different branches of our government. We do not like it when a leader oversteps his or her bounds.  And we unconsciously carry that attitude over into our spiritual life and our relationship with God. We easily fall into rebellion against God and we do not even know what we are doing or admit we are doing it. We call it freedom. But freedom from God is not freedom. It is bondage to our own human ego.

This Roman centurion knew about authority. He was a soldier under authority and having authority over those beneath him. And he recognized Jesus’ authority and submitted to that authority. That is what it means to call Jesus Lord. It is not just a title. It is a practice. And when we submit our lives to Christ, then God can do great things in us and through us and for us. That is what happened in our story. As soon as they returned to the centurion’s home, they found the servant “who had been sick.” That means he was not sick any longer. Such faith this Roman solder had! Pray that we might have such faith. 

Scenes From the Life of David

I Samuel 16:1-13; Acts 13:16-23

These stories are from the life of King David. First, we need to establish the historical context of the stories. The stories are in the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. David lived about three thousand years ago, about one thousand years before Jesus was born. David was the second king of Israel, the first being King Saul. The early stories about King David have to do with Saul also, and how David cam to take his place on the throne. In fact there are many, many stories about David. It is hard to pick just three. But I have chosen to tell three of the most famous of the stories.

1. The first one is about how God chose David to become King of Israel. God had already chosen Saul to be King of Israel, but Saul had disobeyed God and gone his own way. God could not use Saul any longer because Saul was more interested in doing what he wanted than what God wanted. So God told the prophet Samuel, who was an old wise spiritual leader, (think Dumbledore or Merlin) to anoint a new king. God told Samuel to go to the little town of Bethlehem. You will probably recognize Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, but this is 1000 years before Jesus’ birth. But Jesus does have a connection because Jesus was a descendant of King David. God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to the home of a man named Jesse, because God had chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be king.

So Samuel traveled to Bethlehem and Samuel offered a sacrifice there. A sacrifice back in those days meant a feast. People did not eat as much meat as we do today, so when they offered a goat or a sheep as a sacrifice, then that meant meat for everyone. In most animal sacrifices, part of the animal would be offered to God, and the rest would be eaten by the worshippers. So it was a time of eating and fellowship as well as worship. After the meal Samuel asked Jesse to bring his oldest son, whose name was Eliab, before him. Samuel looked at this man and thought, “Surely this is the one God has chosen. He looks like a king. He has a royal bearing and appearance.” Today we say of a presidential candidate that he/she looks good on TV. There was no TV back then, but this man looked like a king. Just like Saul had looked like a king when he had been chosen years earlier. But God said to Samuel in his heart, “No, this is not the one.” The actual words of the scripture story are these: “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Samuel asked Jesse to bring out his next oldest son. I have to mention here that in those days it was only sons who were eligible for the throne. Great Britain has recently changed its laws that so that if Prince William and Kate had had a little girl, she would have been next in line for the throne, even if they had also had a whole litter of boys after her. But back then there was not women’s equality. Samuel was only looking at the sons of Jesse, not the daughters. So Jesse’s next oldest son was presented before Samuel. God said the same thing about that son. He was not the one either. The same thing happened for seven sons of Jesse. Each increasingly younger son was paraded before Samuel like a beauty contest. And Samuel thought that any of them would have been a good king. But every time the boy was rejected.

Samuel asked the father, “Is that all the sons you have? Aren’t there any more?” Jesse responds, “Well, yes there is my youngest son. But he is not here. He is out in the fields watching the sheep. Someone had to keep their eye on the livestock while all of us were here at the party. And because he was the youngest, he had to do it.” Samuel said, “Bring him here.” And so they sent out to the fields and brought in the youngest son of Jesse named David. He was only a boy. He did not look like a king. He was not tall and did not have a royal bearing like King Saul did when he was chosen king, or like David’s older brothers. But it does say that David was ruddy, which meant that he was sunburned from being the fields all the time. It also says that he was good-looking and had bright eyes. God whispered into Samuel’s heart. “This is the one. Anoint him as King.” And so Samuel anointed David as King over Israel.

What does this story teach us today? It teaches us that God calls us to serve him not because we are the best looking, otherwise he never would have called me to be a minister. God does not look at outward appearances. God looks at the heart. God looks into your heart and my heart. God does not judge by the world’s standards. The Bible says later that David was a man after God’s own heart. Our NT reading says, “And when God had removed Saul, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” God is not looking for the most charismatic or talented or wealthy or popular. He chose the least of Jesse’s sons, the son that the father did not even think it was worth while having present at the choosing ceremony. God is looking for people today after his own heart, people who will do his will. That is what He is looking for in us.

2. The second story from the life of David is the story of David and Goliath. It is found in the next chapter, I Samuel 17. At this point David is a teenager. He has not yet ascended to the throne, so he is not king of Israel yet, even though he had been anointed as the future king by Samuel. King Saul is still the king now. Israel was at war with its neighbors, the Philistines. They gathered for battle in a place called the Valley of Elah. The army of the Philistines were gathered on the side of one hill, and the army of the Hebrews was gathered on the other hill. We could picture it a huge stadium with the field as the battleground and the hills as the bleachers. The two armies were taunting each other. Imagine Braveheart. It was the custom at that time for a champion from each army to fight a preliminary battle, that would set the tone for the main even. They were kind of like gladiators. Think Spartacus.

The Philistines had a soldier who was renowned for both his size and his fighting skills. His name was Goliath of Gath. Often in telling this story Goliath is called a giant. But we must not think of a fairy tale giant, like Jack and Beanstalk or something. This guy was big, but he was not supernatural big. People were smaller in those ancient days because they did not eat as well nor were as healthy as today. Goliath was big by their standards and probably even by ours. Think of him as being as tall as an NBA player and as heavyset as a NFL lineman. So he was big.

And the Israelites were terrified of him. No one wanted to go up against him. It would be suicide. He taunted the Israelites for days to send forth their champion, but no man among the Hebrews was brave enough. Then enters David. He had the day off from herding his sheep, and he decided to go down to the Valley of Elah see how the battle was going. His father Jesse asked him to bring a CARE package to his three oldest brothers who were serving in the army there. So David went.

When he got there he saw Goliath taunting Israel, and he got upset. He said, “Why do you let this bully say things like this about our people and our country? Isn’t anyone brave enough to go out and face him?” No one was brave enough. In fact David only got his own people mad at him, including his own brothers, for saying these things. King Saul heard about David’s brave words and called him into his tent. During the conversation with the king, the teenager David volunteered to go up against the Philistine. Saul, said, “You will get slaughtered! Goliath is an experienced soldier and you are just a teen with no experience or training as a soldier.” David said, “I am stronger than I look. I have been guarding my family’s flock of sheep for years now. Twice I have fought off a bear and a lion, and I killed them both. If I can kill a bear and a lion I can kill this Philistine!”

So King Saul agreed, but only on the condition that he wear armor to protect himself. So they found some armor that fit him: a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield and a sword. Then David looked like a solider. But when he tried moving around in his new suit of armor, it felt too awkward and cumbersome. He wasn’t used to it. He said, “I can’t fight in this. I can barely walk in all this armor. ” So he took it off and went to face Goliath with no armor. He did not even take a sword, because he was not used to it either. He brought only his shepherd’s staff, his sling, and five smooth stones as ammunition. These stones were not pebbles. These were baseball sized stones. Propelled by a sling they would travel at a high speed, as fast as any Major League baseball pitcher. So this was a lethal weapon, even though it may not look like it. David was an expert in this weapon. He could hit a rabbit on the run. So with these he went out to face this huge experienced enemy soldier.

When Goliath got a good look at him, at first he laughed, and then he got mad. He thought the Israelites were mocking him. He said, “Do you think that I am a dog that you come out to me with sticks?” He said, “Come here, and I will kill you and leave your body for the birds and beasts to eat.” David replied to him, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

 And so the two faced off. David ran to meet Goliath and Goliath trudged toward David. David put a stone in his sling and swung it over his head and let it go. It hit Goliath in the one place he did not have armor, right in the center of the forehead. It hit so hard that it broke his skull and knocked him unconscious. Then David went up to his fallen body and took Goliath’s own sword and killed the enemy soldier.

What is the lesson of this biblical story? David said it: “The battle is the Lord’s.” Might does not make right. Bigger weapons and defenses do not ensure victory. What matters is whether we are on the Lord’s side. Whether the Lord is fighting for us or against us. That is true in every area of life. It is most important that we take sides with God and not against God. It is important that we have the courage of David, and be courageous enough to stand up for God and the causes of God in this world and in this country. If we do that, even giants will fall.

3. The third story from the life of David is about David and Bathsheba. This is one of those R-rated stories in the Bible. There are a lot of those, although people don’t realize it because they don’t read the Bible. It is a long story so I will give you the condensed version. David was married to Abigail, whom the bible describes as both intelligent and beautiful, but he had an affair with his neighbor Bathsheba who was the wife of one of his soldiers. His army had gone off to war, but David stayed behind in Jerusalem. One day from his balcony in the palace, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath on the rooftop next door. Roof tops were flat living spaces in that time and place. They were like porches or patios today. It was not unusual for families to have an awning or tent on the roof and use them for meals or just to catch a bit of a breeze on a hot day. But you normally did not take a bath on the roof! What she was doing taking a bath on a roof in plain sight of the king’s palace? It seems that David was not the only guilty party here. It takes two to tango. Anyway, David invited Bathsheba over for dinner and one thing led to another and a month later, she sent a message over to the king that she is pregnant.

Here comes the bad part – or the worse part. Adultery was bad enough, but now David compounds his sin by covering it up. It seems like cover-ups are often worse than the sin. We see it with politicians today. They do some pretty stupid things, and then they try to cover up their sins, which only makes it worse. What would Watergate have been without the cover-up, which was an obstruction of justice? Anyway David calls Bathsheba’s husband Uriah back from the front lines. He encourages him to go into his home and spend the night with his wife in his own bed, thereby hoping he would think the baby was his.  But Uriah would not do that. He did not think it right for him to be at home when all his fellow soldiers were fighting.

So David had to come up with another plan. His plan B was to have Uriah die in battle. He instructed the general to put Uriah right up on the front line and then have everyone else fall back except him, leaving him stranded and vulnerable. It worked. Uriah died bravely in battle. David immediately married Uriah’s widow and no one was the wiser. Except God. What was David thinking? Did he really think he could fool God? It seems like he thought so!

One day God sent a man named Nathan, who was a prophet, to confront David. But he did not accuse him directly. He would have just denied it, like every other politician. Nathan did it by means of a story. Nathan told David a story So here we have a story within a story.. They did not have TV back in those days, and so story-tellers were very popular. David liked a good story just like anyone else. Nathan told this story:

“There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:1-7)

In this way God arranged for David to judge himself for his sin. What does this story say to us? It tells us that there is no such thing as secret sin. As the Bible says, “Your sin shall find you out.” We all have sinned. There is no such thing as a perfect person. The only difference between people is whether we admit our sin or not. Jesus had no tolerance for hypocrites who pretended they were sinless. Jesus spent all his time with sinners because they were the honest folks, unlike a lot of the religious people of the day. The same is true today. The apostle john wrote: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

All of us have fallen short, which is the meaning of the biblical word for sin. What makes the difference is whether we admit that, confess that to God, and receive forgiveness for that sin. That is what David did in the story. He immediately acknowledged his wrongdoing. That is what made him the greatest king in the Bible. The scriptures call him a man after God’s own heart. Not because he was so good. He was not so good, as this story clearly shows. He was an adulterer and a murderer. But he confessed his sin and he was forgiven by God. The same is true for us. No sin is too great for God to forgive if we come to him in genuine repentance. When we acknowledge our sin God will forgive us our sin through the way of forgiveness and redemption that he has provide for us in Jesus Christ, who was a descendant of this same King David.

Letting Go

Matthew 6:25-34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8

If you took a foreign language class in high school or college, you undoubtedly had to conjugate verbs. In seminary it was required that every student take a minimum of two semesters of Biblical Greek in order to be able to find our way around the New Testament in the language in which it was written. We had to memorize the conjugation tables of Greek verbs. The first verb we learned was the verb luo, because it was the most regular of the verbs. It followed the rules, and therefore was the standard. Every minister in the first week of class had to memorize the Present Active Indicative of Luo: luo, lueis, luei, luomen, luete, luoousi. I still remember it. My Greek professor, Dr. Culpepper, would be proud of me. Although I would not be able to tell you what the aorist passive subjective forms are to save my life. It so happens that the definition of this simple verb is one of the most important concepts in the spiritual life. It means “to loose” or “to let go.” If one learns to let go, one has learned a great truth.

A man was hiking up a mountain, lost his footing and tumbled off a cliff. He managed to grab onto a root sticking from the side of the mountain and he hung there. He could not go up, and below him was a 300 foot drop and certain death. He was hiking alone and had seen no one for hours so he thought he was a goner. Just when he thought he could hold on no longer he heard a voice call out to him from above, “Dave.” Dave replied, “Yes. Yes, is someone up there?” “Yes, there is. I am here.” “Help me!” “Of course I will help you, Dave.” “Who is this? How do you know my name?” “It is me, God.” “God?” “Yes, God. I am here to help you. You do believe in me don’t you?” “O yes, God. Throw me a rope.” “No, Dave. I am God. I don’t need a rope to save you. Just let go of the root and I will catch you.” “Dave was silent for a while. Finally God said, “Dave, you do believe in me don’t you?” “Um, yes,” replied Dave. “Then just let go, and I will catch you.” Dave thought for a moment and then yelled, “Is there anyone else up there?”

My message this morning is on letting go.

1. First, let go of worries and fears. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, which is our Gospel Reading for today: “Do not worry.” Some translations will use the words: “Do not be anxious.” This is easier said than done. Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.” He says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” And he adds, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

My wife and I had a conversation while traveling in the car the other day. Jude was saying she was worried about our kids. I said, “I don’t worry about them.” She said, “I know. You could stand to worry about them more than you do!” I am not saying I don’t worry! But I don’t worry about our grown kids. I figure I did my job and got them into adulthood in one piece, and now they are on their own! And their kids are their worry, not mine. I am not saying I worry any less than my wife. We just worry about different things.

But Jesus is telling us not to worry, to let go, to loosen up. The primal sin of human nature, perhaps we could even call it our original sin if we want to use that term, is that we hold on so tightly rather than giving it all to God. Worry is really nothing more than fear, when you think about it. When we worry we are afraid of something that might happen or not happen. A lot of the anguish and emotional suffering of life stems from our inability to let go of fear.

2. Second, let go of sin. Here I am talking about forgiveness. The Greek word for forgive means literally “to let go.” It is an image of a clenched fist which is relaxed. Forgiveness is the centerpiece of biblical religion. Every religion in the world defines what they see as the essential problem of human existence and proposes a solution. The Judeo-Christian tradition defines the root problem as sin, and the solution is forgiveness. There is a human need to be forgiven and to forgive.

People have a real problem with forgiveness. People have a problem with guilt and sin. They might not use those words. But they will talk about people doing something wrong to them or to others. They will speak in terms of anger, injustice and resentment. They will not let go of that sense of being wronged. They will remember some wrong done for years. Their lives and relationships are governed by something that happened long ago. Or it might be something that they have done, and they have not felt forgiven nor can they forgive themselves. They carry around guilt with them poisoning their hearts. The genius of the gospel is that we can be freed from this. We can be loosed. We can let go of the past and be set free from it. That forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ we can experience forgiveness for what we have done and we also receive the ability to forgive others for what they have done to us.

It is possible to forgive and forget. I have heard people say that they can forgive but they will never forget. If that is the case, they have not really forgiven. They have not been set free from the sin. They are still attached to it. All they have done is loosened the rope that binds them to the sin a little. But they have not cut the rope and been freed. We are able to forget. God has given us that ability. We just need to practice forgetting. Some of us do not need any practice forgetting things. We are getting better at forgetfulness as the years progress. I walk into a room and forget why I went into it. My forgetter is getting better and better. We can use that gift of forgetting when it comes to forgiving others and forgiving ourselves. We can let go.

3. Third, let go of possessions. We have our annual stewardship emphasis coming up soon. Some pastors dread preaching about money every autumn. Personally I have never had any problem with it. My experience is that most people ignore whatever the preacher says about money anyway. Jesus has a lot to say about money, and people did not take what he said seriously. Why should my experience be any different than my Lord’s?

My experience is that people get tied in knots about money. Money destroys families and friendships. When a parent dies, the kids will fight over the inheritance. That money can permanently damage that family. From doing marriage counseling I know that finances is one of the biggest issues of contention between husbands and wives. Friends will get all bent out of shape about money that is passed between them. If you want to put stress on a relationship, just borrow a big sum of money from that person. That will change everything. This is true of property. Property lines seem to be a big deal to many people. People get upset over a few feet of dirt. Who cares? If somebody borrows something and doesn’t return it, it is a big deal to people. People’s lives, relationships and happiness are all tied up with things and money. Their sense of self-worth and happiness is tied to what they own.

Jesus told story after story about such people. He said on one occasion, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." Paul said, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” The advice of the NT is to loosen up. Let go. You have probably heard the old illustration of the monkey trap. The way that people used to catch monkeys in the wild was by carving a hole in a coconut just big enough for a monkey to get his open hand into. Then they put some food in the empty coconut and chain it to a tree.  The monkey will put his hand inside and grab the food. And he cannot pull his hand out when it is in a fist, but he will not let go. So he is trapped by his own clenched fist, and supposedly the trapper can come up to him and capture him. I am not so sure that old story is true. I think that monkeys are probably smarter than that. But I am not so sure about humans. My experience is that humans will not let go of money and possessions. They are willing to give up an awful lot to keep ahold of things. Just let go. You can’t take it with you anyway. As Jesus taught in the parable of the Unjust Steward: “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon,” meaning to use money and things to develop relationships and not harm them.

4. Fourth, let go of self. This is the fundamental issue. The inability to let go of money, possessions, sins, resentments, guilt, worries and fears all comes down to our inability to let go of self. We are the problem. The solution is to die to self. Jesus said, “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but who loses his life for my sake will find it.” He is not talking about being a martyr. Any half-crazy jihadist can be a martyr for a cause. He is talking about something much more radical and profound. Jesus is talking about dying to self. To get back to the original language of the NT again, the Greek word translated life, or soul, or self is the word psuche or psyche. It is our psychological self. It is what we normally think of when we think of our personal identity.

Some people call it the ego, but it is much more than what Freud or modern psychology means by the term.  Self is the mental construct that we have created in our brains by which we define who we are. The truth is that we are not who we think we are. We are not the collection of thoughts and emotions inside of our brain, walking around in this physical body. That is what we tend to think we are. We hold on to that personal identity with all our strength, like the monkey clenching his fist in the trap. We really think we are the sum of our personality traits, our ideas, our beliefs, our histories, and our relationships. But the truth is that we cannot take any of this with us when we die.

We hold on to these so tightly because we are afraid that if we let go there will be nothing left. Who are we really if we are not ourselves? If we are not the “self?” I cannot give you the answer to this question in a sermon. If I tried to do that, it would simply be another idea to add to your collection of ideas in your head about who you think you are.  All that does is confirm the self, whereas we are trying to die to self. The only way we will ever find the answer to this most important question is to let go of self. 

Jesus talks about dying to self, losing self, and even about crucifying self. The apostle Paul says that he is not his self. When Paul discovered who Christ is and who he really was while on the Road to Damascus, he would later describe it in the earliest of his letters saying, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) We discover ourselves only when we lose our self and live to God. What we normally take ourselves to be is really nothing more than a temporary phenomenon. No more real and permanent than an eddy in a river. When doing yard work I saw a miniature whirlwind pick up some dead leaves and twirl them around for a few seconds like tiny tornado in the corner of my back yard.  As I watched that little display I realized that is all I am. Our personal little whirlwind of physical molecules just lasts a few decades longer than the autumn leaf variety.

What we really are is the wind, which happens to take physical form for a little while. The Greek word for wind is the same as spirit. Jesus explained this to Nicodemus. He said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) When we let go of self and surrender to the Spirit of Christ, then we find ourselves.

5. Fifth, let go of body. The apostle Paul talks about his own death in our epistle lesson for today. “The time of my departure is at hand.” (2 Timothy 4:6) The Greek word he uses that is translated “departure” is a word for casting off the mooring lines of a ship as it sets out to sea. It means to untie a rope so that the boat can go on its way. That is the apostle’s understanding of the end of physical life. Death is letting go. But we do not like the idea of letting go, do we? Not when it comes to our death. In fact we hold on to this physical life for as long as we possibly can. Some people hold on for too long or they try to hold on to their loved ones for too long, keeping ourselves or our loved ones alive on so-called ‘life-support” when there is no longer any personal consciousness. In such cases that is not life-support; it is death-denial.

The best thing we can do is let go. We cannot hold on to these bodies forever. They say that every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years. That means we get a whole new body every seven years. This new model I have is not any better than the old one. It is a lot worse than the one I had 7, 14, 21, or 28 years ago. A lot of people trade in their cars every few years. They will upgrade to a newer model. But when it comes to our bodies, we keep getting older models in worse condition than the one we traded in!  I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The cover story of Time Magazine recently was on Google’s attempt to cure death so we could live forever. That will not happen in our lifetime. And if it did, I do not think I would buy into it.  Who wants to physically live forever?

We are not our physical bodies. To cling to them is to deny our true nature as children of God, born of the Spirit and not the flesh. It is to trade our birthright for a mess of pottage like Esau did. People cling to physical life because they fear death. So we cling to what we know now as long as we can, instead of letting go into the unknown. Jesus says, let go. Why worry about something that is inevitable? To worry about something that is inevitable is a waste of time. You can’t do anything about it. Let go now, so that when the time comes you can let go of the body for good. As that time approaches we can face the inevitable with equanimity like the apostle Paul. He says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8) When we let go of all, we gain all. 

Fifty Shades of Love

Mark 12:28-34; I John 4:7-21

Do Eskimos really have 50 words for snow? I have heard that claim for many years, but it has always sounded like an urban legend to me. This claim has been made for over 100 years, ever since anthropologist Franz Boas published his 1911 book “Handbook of American Indian Languages.” In the introduction to that book he claimed that Eskimos have dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of words for snow. Most linguists have considered this false, the product of sloppy scholarship and journalistic exaggeration. Some have even gone as far as to call it the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. But according to an article this year in The Washington Post, the latest evidence says that it is true. In fact the dialects of the native peoples who occupy the far north in Alaska, Siberia, and Canada have up to seventy different words for snow and ice. But they are outdone by the Sami people, who live in the northern tips of Scandinavia and Russia, who, according to Ole Henrik Magga a linguist in Norway, use at least 180 words related to snow and ice.

Why am I talking about Eskimos and snow? I am not trying to rush winter. It is to point to the fact that different languages explore different areas of human experience more thoroughly. In English we use the word “love” to mean many different things, from loving ice cream, to loving our spouse, to loving our pets. But the Greek language, in which our NT was written, has for five words for love. There are not fifty shades of love, as the title of my message suggests. That is just a ploy to get your attention, a reference to the best-selling romance novel series “Fifty Shades of Grey,’ which I have NOT read and which I am not talking about this morning. So if you are expecting me to be giving a talk about romance this morning, you will be disappointed. But I am talking about love.  

The Greek language has five words for love. One is mania. This is possessive love. This is more like obsession than love. It takes over the “lover” as a form of insanity.  It is fanatical love. The word fan, as in football fan or soccer fan is short for fanatic. And when we see the fights and violence that erupt in the stadiums between fans of opposing teams, we see why they are called that. It can also be used for mental disorders like kleptomania, pyromania.  In the NT “mania” is translated as “madness” and being “beside yourself” in Acts 26.

The second word is eros, from which we get the word “erotic.” That is what the novels “Fifty Shades of Grey” are about. But eros does not describe only sexual love. It is also emotional love; the feeling of love.  Eros love is that insatiable desire to be near the object of love.  The third word for love is philos. It is sometimes called “brotherly love.” Philadelphia is called the “city of brotherly love.” Philos is friendship or neighborly love. Philos describes the love between two people who have common interests and experiences.  The fourth type of love is Storgy, commonly called “motherly love.”  But it can also be fatherly love. It is family love, parental love.

But the type of love I am going to be talking about this morning is the fifth type of love. It is the Greek word agape, which is used in the NT exclusively for divine love. It is the love of God. Our epistle lesson for today uses this word when it says, “God is love.” I would not go so far as to say that love is a synonym for God, but it is the best human word that we have to describe God. For the rest of this message we are going to be exploring this type of love, which comes in three shades.

1. The first is Love from God. Here I immediately want to get into experience. It is fine to talk about the meaning of biblical words, but that might mean no more to us than different meanings of the fifty Eskimo words for snow. Those distinctions mean nothing to a person who has lived all their lives in the tropics and never seen or touched snow. Let’s talk about experience of God.

Experientially my awareness of the love of God is rooted in awe. It is not “Jesus is my buddy” love. That is technically philia type love – brotherly love, rather than agape, divine love. There is a sense of awe in the presence of God that transcends “what a friend we have in Jesus.” Jesus is my friend; Jesus calls us friends in the Gospel of John, so I am not knocking that. But Jesus is more than that.

A year ago, September 2012, the network news ran a video of guy who owned a pizza restaurant in Florida giving President Obama a big bear hug. Remember that? Obama is lifted up into the air by this guy, and the president has his arms outstretched to the Secret Service as if to say, “Hey, Why are you letting this happen?” I would never think to do that when meeting the president of the United States. I think that the office demands more honor and respect, not a bear hug. That is why I dislike party politics, especially as currently practiced by the two main political parties. One party is always degrading those in the other party, even when they hold the office of the president of the United States. It was true when Bush was president and true now when Obama is president. Showing disrespect to those in the highest office of the land is wrong in my opinion. The Scriptures tell us to honor and respect those in authority.

When we come before Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, you don’t give him a bear hug. At least I don’t. Christ deserves awe and reverence. He is Lord and God. My experience of God as Lord is awe. We could use the word awesome. A more literal word might be awful, not in a bad sense but in the literal meaning of being “full of awe.” God is awe-inspiring.

When one comes in contact with God one becomes awestruck. My favorite description is that of Isaiah who describes himself when he meets God as being “undone.” He feels like he is coming apart. One dissolves in the presence of God. Boundaries are breached. The wall of separation between God and us, human and divine comes tumbling down. The apostle Paul describes this in Ephesians 4:6 as “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

A powerful experience of God is not just for apostles and prophets, monks in a monastery, ascetics in the desert, or gurus on a mountaintop. This awareness of God is available to everyone all the time. It is always present because God is always present. It is just that we have so much else going on in our heads and in our hearts that we miss it. We miss God. All we have to do is pay attention to the presence of God for a moment. All it takes is a few seconds – if we can manage that - of not thinking about ourselves. If we do that, then we notice God.

Awareness of God is the default setting of the soul. It is not difficult. In fact it is the most natural thing in the world to one who knows God. If we get over our preoccupation with ourselves, our obsession with ourselves, our manic possessiveness of ourselves for just a moment, then God immediately is perceived as subtly yet powerfully present. If we step out of our self-love for a moment, then God instantly fills us. Science says that nature abhors a vacuum. Emptiness is immediately filled. That is also spiritually true. When we stop filling our lives with ourselves for a moment, we are immediately aware that our life is filled with God.

I have been talking experientially about the love of God, but let me talk about this theologically now. Theologically this comes through Jesus Christ. That is what makes this spirituality Christian. The apostle John says in our epistle Reading today: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:9-10) The love of God is manifested in Jesus Christ. Without Christ the love of God is just an idea in our heads or a feeling that comes and goes. Sometimes we feel the love of God and sometimes we don’t, depending on what is happening in our lives or the chemistry of our brains. Love as emotion does not serve as a firm foundation for the spiritual life. It is not about what we feel. It is about Jesus in history manifesting the love of God. He incarnated the God of love. When the apostles saw him they saw the Father. He was the love of God in a physical form.

And the pinnacle of the God’s love manifested in Christ was the Cross. Every moment of Jesus’ life was the incarnation of the love of God, from the moment of his conception to his birth in Bethlehem, those years of ministry, his teaching and his healing ministry. This was all an expression of God’s love for us. But the supreme and clearest moment of God’s love was the cross. That was pure divine love. That was self-sacrifice. Jesus said, “No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” That is what happened on the Cross. Theologians have spent a lot of time trying to dissect that love shown by the Cross. I have spent a lot of time reading theological books and attending seminary lectures that seek to explain that love. But to be honest with you, the theology does not capture it for me. I experience that love of the Cross, but when I try to explain it I get frustrated. Theories of atonement and propitiation fall so far short of the reality that I know in Christ, that it almost seems better not to try to explain it. When I try to explain a mystery like this it feels like it is cheapened in the process. It is certainly subject to misunderstanding. So I leave it to those who are better theologians than I to describe how the Cross expresses love from God.

2. The second shade of love is Love for God. I have been talking about God’s love for us, but there is also our love for God. Jesus was asked by the spiritual leaders of his day what was the greatest commandment in the Scriptures. He responded, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

The 19^th century Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote a book entitled “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.” That one thing is God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” To will our lives to be dedicated to this one God is to love God with everything. That is purity of heart – single-mindedness or better yet,  single-heartedness. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” When Jesus told us to love God, he did not say to love God before all things or to love God above all things. He said to love God only. We are to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our mind, all our strength. All means all. When you use all, nothing left over.

Our problem is that we want God and everything else in the world. We want our cake and eat it too. We want God and the world. Brother Lawrence repeatedly said that his practice of the Presence of God was to know only God, to do everything in life only for God. Only with the single-heartedness of love can we come into the presence of God. That is what God means in the OT when he says he is a jealous God. That does not mean that God is insecure. It means that if we really want to know God, then we need to want only him. He will not be one among many in our life. We cannot serve both God and mammon, as Jesus said. And Mammon is not just material wealth, but the whole material world.

3. This brings me quickly and briefly to the third shade of love, which is love through God. Love from God, love to God, love through God. Jesus tells us that that second commandment of love is like the first. It is to love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot do this by our own resources but through God’s resources. The truth is that we cannot love God without loving others. The apostle John says in our epistle lesson: “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”

Christian love of neighbor is not a different type of love than the love of God. The same word is used because it is the same love. It is just a different shade of divine love. God’s divine love for us, in us, loves others through us. God is love. That love has been demonstrated in Jesus Christ. That love dwells within us as the Spirit of Christ. And that love is returned to God and is turned to others as love. This is unconditional love.  God loves us unconditionally and we can love others unconditionally. Everything else in the spiritual life flows from this. As Paul says in the love chapter, “So faith, hope, love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.”