2014-07-06
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Thursday, July 10, 2014
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Friday, April 11, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Nomadic Faith
Genesis 12:1-4
We humans are a nomadic species. Paleontology
and archeology tell us of the migrations of the human species early in human
history. Humans began in Africa, we are told. Around 60,000 years ago we began
to leave the African continent and spread throughout the globe into Europe, Asia
and Australia. Humans even reached the Americas. Not far from where we used to
live in Western Pennsylvania there is a site called the Meadowcroft Rockshelter,
southwest of Pittsburgh. It is a rock ledge overhang, which according to carbon
dating, was used as a campsite by prehistoric hunters and gatherers 16,000
years ago. It is the oldest known site of human habitation in North America. We
humans are a nomadic species.
Therefore it is fitting that the
forefather of our faith in the Biblical tradition was a nomad. His name was
Abraham; his wife was Sarah. Together they are the forefather and foremother of
the Hebrew people and the Jewish and Christian faiths. The Biblical religion
was different than other religions in the Middle East. Other faiths were a
product of agricultural societies and their deities reflected the cycles of the
growing season. But the God of Abraham was the God of the shepherds. It is no
accident that the most beloved chapter in the Bible is the 23rd
psalm, known as the Shepherd’s psalm, which begins, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
In our OT lesson for today we are
introduced to Abraham. The passage is known as the call of Abraham. God calls
him to begin a physical and spiritual journey. Abraham’s journey is our
journey. It can teach us how God calls us. Let us look at the passage. Genesis
12:1-4 “Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country, From your family and from your father’s house, to a
land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and
make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless
you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and
Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from
Haran.” This passage tells us several things.
1. First, God speaks to us. That is
very important. We do not have a silent God, a mute Deity. God not only exists;
he communicates. This is essential to having a relationship with God. It is
fine to believe in God - to believe that God exists. That is great, but God’s
existence does not mean much if there is no communication between the Creator
and the creature. The fundamental truth of Scripture is that God speaks. That
is what we understand Scripture to be. That is why it is referred to as the
Word of God. The prophets preface their utterances with the words, “Thus says
the Lord” or “The word of the Lord came to the prophet saying ….” God speaks.
God speaks in many ways. Go speaks
through the natural world. That is the way that most people experience God.
People who can never bring themselves to worship in a church building
experience God in the beauty and grandeur of the natural world. God speaks in
other ways. God speaks in our conscience. That is the moral or ethical voice of
God. The Ten Commandments were written on the human heart long before they were
engraved in tablet of stone. They were just etched in stone so we could not
ignore them and pretend they aren’t authoritative.
But this is not how God spoke to
Abraham. There were no scriptures for Abraham to turn to. No stone tablets. Abraham
was not inspired by nature to leave his homeland. God did not give Abraham a
moral command here in this passge. Neither did God speak in a booming voice
like in the movies. It was an inner voice that spoke to Abraham. God spoke to
Abraham through what we might call intuition. That is how God speaks to us
today.
This is not an exact science. We
can get it wrong. There are lot of thoughts and feelings going through our
hearts and minds all the time. Which one do we listen to? Spiritual direction
is the art of sifting through all the inner voices to discern the voice of God.
It is an art, not a science. Spiritual discernment takes practice, experience
and time. Hearing the voice of God begins with getting to know God. We get to
know God by spending time with God. We cannot expect to hear and recognize the
voice of God unless we are willing to spend time with God.
When I answer the phone, some voices
I recognize instantly – even without caller ID. I have some friends whom I have
not seen in years. But I would recognize their voice immediately. That is the
way it is with God. God does not have caller ID. The only way to know that it
is God speaking to you is by getting to know God well. The only way to get to
know God is by spending time with him.
In the gospel of John Jesus uses
the metaphor of himself as the Good Shepherd and his followers as sheep. He
says, “I am the good shepherd; and I
know My sheep, and am known by My own…. My sheep hear My voice, and I know
them, and they follow Me.” He says later talking about himself in the third
person, “The sheep hear his voice; and
he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…. He goes before them; and
the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow
a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
There is no short cut to the spiritual life. There is only one way to recognize
the voice of the Shepherd, and that is by spending time with the Shepherd.
There is no religious trick to
doing this. Spending time each day in prayer and communion with God is
essential. Reading Scripture is helpful. We call it the Word of God because
Scripture speaks with the voice of God. Scripture speaks in human voices as
well. Moses sounds different than Jesus. The prophet Jeremiah sounds different
than the apostle Paul. But beneath the human differences one can recognize the
divine voice. And it is not just about words. On Wednesdays at noon some of us
are reading and discussing the Practice of the Presence of God by Brother
Lawrence. He talked with God but mostly he just lived in the presence of God
without words. We are not expected to keep up a continual verbal monologue to
God. That would be exhausting. All we need to do is walk with God in everything
that we do. We get to know God by being his constant companion. In fact that is
what Jesus’ term for the Holy Spirit means: One who stands beside us. When we
know God, then we will recognize his voice when he speaks to us with that inner
voice of intuition.
2. Now let’s move on to what God
says. What did God say to Abraham? Our
passage says, “Now the Lord had said to
Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family and from your father’s house,
to a land that I will show you.” There are two aspects here: go from and go
toward. We have to leave something behind and we have to move toward something
which is ahead. Our relationship with God is a journey. Like Abraham,
Christians are, in a sense, spiritual nomads. We do not sit still in the
spiritual life; we are moving.
God told Abraham to leave behind
his country, his family, and his father’s house. He was expected to do that
literally and physically. What about us? Jesus put it this way, “37 He who loves father or mother more than
Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not
worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not
worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life
for My sake will find it.” I think God is asking us to put God above all
other loyalties. Martin Luther wrote in A Mighty Fortress is Our God, “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life
also.” This is radical stuff. It is radical to put God above country and
above family. And it can be badly misunderstood as well. This is not
anti-country or anti-family. It is looking for something higher and greater
than earthly loyalties.
God also calls us toward something.
In this passage God tells Abraham to set his face toward a land that he would
show him. The Letter to the Hebrews describes what this means.
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place
which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he
was going. 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country,
dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;
10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is
God…. 13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things
declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to
mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity
to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city
for them.
In short God was calling Abraham
and is calling us to put heavenly concerns above worldly concerns, to put the
spiritual above the earthly. This is very practical. We can easily get caught
up in worldly matters. We can get preoccupied with all sorts of things. Caught
up in family dramas, with all their emotions and complex relationships. We can
get caught up in political matters so much so that we sell our soul to a
political party or a political ideology. We can get caught up in our own mesh
of emotional problems and issues and concerns, enslaved to our own minds, being
tossed to and fro by feelings and thoughts. God calls us to something more. God
calls us to liberty – to liberation and freedom. He calls us to a spiritual
life in the Kingdom of God.
That is what God was really calling
Abraham to. Not just to leave Mesopotamia for Canaan. That was certainly true
in a literal sense. But the passage in Hebrews makes it clear that God was
calling him also to a heavenly country. Jesus called that heavenly country the
Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. That is what God is calling us to. We
are to be in this world – in this country, in our families, and our social
networks – in the world, but not of the world.
I saw an old film recently. I wrote
a blog about it, so those of you who read my blog will recognize the title. It
is the 1941 film One Foot in Heaven,
starring Fredric March and Martha Scott. It was the story of an ordinary
Methodist minister and his family in the early decades of the twentieth
century. I wrote about it because I found it very realistic. It is unusual to
find clergy portrayed accurately in films. The title of the film comes a line
in the movie where he talks about the spiritual life as being like walking ”a
sort of tightrope. Balancing with one foot on earth and one foot already in
heaven.” The spiritual life is having a foot in two different worlds. We cannot
be as absorbed in this world as many people are because we know there is more
than this world. There is more than this life. It is not that we do not take
the very real social problems of this world seriously. We certainly do. But we
know that this is only half the story. We see the problems of this world from a
wider perspective.
3. I want to move on now to the
rest of God’s call to Abraham. Verses 2 and 3 talk about blessing. It uses the
word bless or blessing four times in two verses: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name
great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I
will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall
be blessed.”
Normally this is taken to apply to
Abraham’s physical descendants. Usually that is understood to be the Jews, even
though in Genesis the Arabs are also descendants of Abraham, which complicates
matters, especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the fight
over the land of Palestine and the State of Israel. But I am more concerned with the spiritual matters
than real estate. That is how the NT interprets this text. The apostle Paul
makes it clear that not all who have the blood of Abraham flowing through their
veins are children of Abraham. Both John the Baptist and Jesus said that to the
Pharisees who were proud of their ancestry. Paul said that it is those who have
the faith of Abraham who are the true children of Abraham. He writes: “Therefore
know that only those who are of faith are children of Abraham.” He goes on to
say, “For you are all sons of God
through faith in Christ Jesus. … There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise.” Therefore the promise to Abraham applies
to us. We are blessed by God through Christ to be a blessing of God to others.
One last observation about our
passage. That is the final verse. “So
Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him.” A call expects a response. The
call of God expects a response from us. The spiritual journey begins with an
act of obedience, stepping out in faith. Abraham had a choice to make – to
follow God’s call or not. He chose to take the road less traveled. Normally it is
the faith of Abraham which is extolled. But it is important to note that faith always
involve action. When God spoke to him, Abraham obeyed. Faith is not just
believing things. It is acting on faith. When called Abraham to a higher
calling, he went. In this way he is an example for all of us who are spiritual nomads,
who see ourselves as pilgrims on this earth, seeking a heavenly country.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Spiritual Amnesia
Matthew 4:1-11
This is the first Sunday in Lent,
and each year the gospel reading is on the temptation of Christ in the
wilderness. The forty days of Jesus’ temptation is the pattern for our forty
days of Lent. Lent is the time to be a bit more introspective. It is a time to
examine our lives. That is what Jesus was doing in the wilderness during those
forty days before the temptations began. If we read the story carefully we see
that it was not until after Jesus had been fasting for forty days alone in the
wilderness that the devil showed up to make trouble for him. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into
the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty
nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came….” What was Jesus doing during those forty
days beforehand the tempter came tempting? It doesn’t say, but that does not stop
me from speculating. I think he was trying to integrate the experience that he
had immediately beforehand, which we find in the final verses of chapter 3,
which was his baptism.
Jesus’ baptism was the most important
event in his life up to that point. I think it was the moment when it all came
together for him. Up until that point I don’t think Jesus fully understood who
he was. It is clear that he had some idea of his true nature from the time he
was twelve years old. His bar mitzvah and his discussion with the spiritual
teachers in the temple courts revealed that he was no ordinary 12 year old. It
says that the spiritual teachers were amazed at his answers. He called God his
Father at that time, which was a very controversial statement to make in that
religious setting, especially for a twelve year old. It goes on to say that he
not only grew physically, but that “he grew in wisdom as well as stature” from
that day on. I take that to mean that he did not have a full mature spiritual
understanding yet.
I think there was a gradual
unfolding and realization of his self-understanding over time up until he was
thirty years old. Then something dramatically shifted for him. One day he heard
his cousin John the Baptist preach and went into the Jordan River to be
baptized by John. At the moment of baptism it says that the heavens were opened
and Jesus heard the voice of God declaring him to be God’s Beloved Son. Here
are the exact words that come immediately before our text today: “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up
immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And
suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased.” That was the defining moment of Jesus’ life. Immediately
after his baptism Jesus went off by himself into the wilderness to fast and
pray for forty days. I think that during those six weeks, he was trying to figure
things out – to integrate into his life that experience and knowledge of who he
truly was. That is how I see the forty days of the wilderness.
I see our forty days of Lent in
that same light. I think it should be a time of integration for us. There was a
pastor in a church who started each service with passing of the peace, similar
to what we do at our time of Christian greeting. He would say, "The peace
of Christ be with you," and the people would all respond, "and also
with you.” But, one Sunday the sound system wasn’t working. He got to the
pulpit and the spoke, but no one heard him. He said a little louder,
"There’s something wrong with this microphone." And the people (not
hearing him clearly) responded, "and also with you." Lent is not a
time to try to figure out what is wrong with us. That is the way Lent is often
portrayed. I would like to suggest a different approach based on this
temptation scene in the wilderness. I think it is a time to get in touch with
our true nature and integrate that wisdom into our lives
1. The temptation of Jesus was a
time for Jesus to affirm that he was the Son of God. Listen to the first
temptation of Christ, “4:3 The tempter
came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to
become loaves of bread." Let’s not focus on the bread too quickly. Look
at the first words of the temptation: “If
you are the Son of God…” That is what this temptation is about. The second
temptation has the same focus. It says, “4:5
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the
temple, 4:6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself
down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On
their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against
a stone.'" Once again the opening words of the tempter are, "If you are the Son of God.”
For forty days Jesus had been
trying to get his head around the idea that he was the Son of God! He was
trying to emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually come to grips with his
true nature. I think the same sort of self-inquiry should be at the root of our
Lenten experience. The root of all spiritual problems is misunderstanding who
we are. Once we have self-knowledge clearly in place at the center of our
thinking, then everything else falls into place. Then temptations to act out of
character with who we truly are are defeated. For Jesus it meant being grounded
in the realization that he was the Son of God. For us the temptation is similar
but not exactly the same. From a Christian perspective we are not the Son of
God in the same sense that we call Jesus the only Begotten Son of God. The NT
calls us children of God, sons and daughters of God, and I will get to that in
a moment. But Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, meaning that he was a
special kind of fellow from his birth.
But let’s talk about us – our true
nature, our true identity. Who are we? There are two basic answers to that
question given by Scripture. The first is in the OT in the Book of Genesis and
repeated elsewhere. First, we are created in the image of God. I have talked
about this before, but I keep coming back to it because I think it is
absolutely essential that we get this self-identity through our heads. Genesis
says “1:27 So God created man in His own
image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
There are many interpretations of what that means. I think it means that we are
the reflection of God. That is what an image is. An image is not the thing
imaged. It is a representation or a reflection of the thing imaged. I think the
metaphor of a mirror catches the idea best. When you look into a mirror, we see
our image reflected. I look into the mirror and I see the image of Marshall. That
is not me in there in the looking glass; it is a reflection of me. Our little
one year old granddaughter Vera is at the age when she is fascinated by her own
reflection in the mirror. She sees her image and laughs and keeps saying, “Hi,
hi!” It is not real clear to her yet whose image that is.
We are the image of God. We are not
God. Jesus was God. We are the image of God. That is an important distinction
to make. It is the difference between dogs and cats. If you own a dog, you pat
the dog and the dog wags its tail and thinks, “My Master is God.” But if you
own a cat, like we do, it is different story. I pet our cat, and the cat purrs,
shuts its eyes and thinks to itself, “I am the Master. I am God.” Don’t make
the mistake that the cat does. We are not God. We are the image of God.
We are a mirror created to reflect
God. That is what it means to be a human being. When God looks at us, he sees
his own image reflected. When other people look at us, they see the reflection
– the reflected image – of God. At least that is the way it is supposed to
work. But the scripture says that something went wrong. Different theologians
describe it differently. Some say that the image was lost. Some say the image
was marred or corrupted, that the mirror that reflected the image was cracked
or destroyed. But nowhere does the scripture use terms like that. It never says
that we have ceased to be the image of God. So we are still the image of God.
But for some reason we do not see it. We do not experience it as true in our
lives. So what is wrong?
Many people never knew they were made
in the image of God. It is simply a matter of ignorance. They were never told. They
never had a spiritual or religious upbringing. The good news of our true nature
and identity was never communicated to them. This is where the proclamation of
the gospel is so important. It is important that we proclaim the gospel so that
people know who they really are, what their true nature and identity is.
Some people have been told their
true nature, but they have forgotten it. You could say that they have a case of
spiritual amnesia. I read a story about some newlyweds. One day a few weeks
after their wedding, the young man after work absentmindedly forgot to go home
where his bride had dinner waiting for him. Instead he drove to his parents’
house. He was not thinking. It was simply a matter of habit. It was not until
he walked in the door and his parents asked him what he was doing there, that he
remembered that he was now married. That is not amnesia; that is a case of
temporary forgetfulness.
Jude and I just finished reading
Dan Brown’s newest novel entitled Inferno.
Very exciting novel, which seems to have been written to be made into a movie. The
main character of the book is a man named Robert Langdon, who has amnesia. Much
of the book is the reader trying to figure out along with Robert Langdon what
really happened to him during those days that he cannot remember. It is a
common plotline in books and movies.
One of the best films based on
amnesia is The Bourne Identity. Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne — a CIA agent
who has suffered amnesia and is trying to figure out who he is. There is a scene
early in the film where Jason has hitched a ride from Switzerland to Germany
with a young woman named Marie. He's running from the police — but he's not
even sure why. He tries to keep his amnesia a secret from Marie, who is driving.
But she keeps asking questions about him. Finally, in response to her asking a
simple question about him, he turns to her and says desperately, "I don't
know who I am or where I am going." A little later they stop to eat a
truck stop along a snowy highway. Bourne starts to share what little he knows
about himself, looking for clues to who he is. He had recently found a safety
deposit box belonging to him. Bourne asks, "Who has a safety deposit box
full of…money and six passports and a gun? I come in here, and the first thing
I'm doing is I'm looking for an exit." "I see the exit sign, too, but
I'm not worried," says Marie. Bourne replies with increased desperation.
"I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can
tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter
weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to
look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I
can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I
know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?”
That is the human situation. People know a lot
of things and can do a lot of things. They have a lot of information, but they
don’t know who they are. The Scriptures tell us who we are. They say that we
are the image of God. We come from God, created by God, to reflect God. But
people do not know that. They have someone forgotten that innate knowledge.
That is what it means to be spiritually lost. ABC News had a story in 2010
about Scott Bolzan has no memory of any part of his life story. It's all been
erased. It was called, "The Man Who Forgot Everything." Bolzan has an
extreme case of severe retrograde amnesia. The 47 year old man slipped in the
men's restroom of his office building and hit his head on the ground. He forgot
his whole life. His wife, his children. His friends. Everyone and everything.
Bolzan said "The best word I can use to describe it is just being lost, because
I lost who I am." Many people are spiritually lost like this. They wander
their whole lives without knowing who they really are, where they have come
from, or where they are going. The gospel of Christ reminds us who we are.
We are made in the image of God. We are also children of God. The much
misinterpreted idea of being born again, born of the Spirit, or born from
above, is one way Jesus used to communicate this truth of becoming children of
God. In one sense we are always children of God. Paul tells the philosophers in
Athens that they are all God’s offspring. But in another sense we aren’t really
children of God until we believe it. That is where faith comes in – faith in
Christ and what he says. Through faith we accept that we are children of God. The
apostle Paul uses the metaphor of being adopted into the family of God instead
of being born of God. He makes a distinction between Jesus who was born as God’s
Son, and we who are adopted by God into his family as sons and daughters of
God. It doesn’t matter which metaphor or language we use. It comes down to the
same – by faith be come to know and experience ourselves as children of God.
As children of God the spiritual is
more important than the physical. In the temptation scene, the devil tempts
Jesus with bread – making stones into bread. Jesus responds, “One does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Spiritual bread is more important than the physical insofar as knowing who we
really are. Sure we are physical beings who need food to survive, but more
importantly we are spiritual beings who need the Word of God to inform our
existence.
In the second temptation the devil
tempts Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple to test God
whether or not God will protect him physically from harm. Jesus says, “No. Do
not put the Lord your God to the test.'" It is not about the physical; it
is about the spiritual. Of course you are going to die if you jump off a
building. That does not mean God does not love you or that we are not children
of God. In the third temptation Jesus was no longer doubting who he was but
rather was tempted not to act in accordance with his self-knowledge. He was
tempted to live as if he was not the Son of God, to live as if all that
mattered was worldly power and glory. Jesus responds to the temptation saying,
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" That is how we live as
sons and daughters of God.
In the temptation scene Jesus was affirming
who he really was. The tempter was trying to get him to deny that. He was trying to get Jesus to think he was
just physical and not spiritual. Jesus refused to forget who he was as the Son
of God. And he refused to live as if he were not the Son of God. He would
worship and serve God alone. Likewise, we are to remember who we are as humans
created in the divine image. Through faith we are sons and daughters of God,
meant to worship and serve God. Let us not forget who we are.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
A Mountaintop Experience
Matthew 17:1-9
Spiritual experiences are common in
religion. In fact one of the earliest books on the scientific study of religion
was “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature” written
over a hundred years ago by Harvard University psychologist and philosopher
William James. People in all religions have religious experiences. In fact a
lot of times the religion is founded on such an experience. Famous examples are
the Buddha’s enlightenment experience and Muhammad’s experience of having the
Quran revealed to him. Our Bible is filled with religious experiences in both
the OT and NT.
The history of Christianity is also filled
with spiritual experiences, from the Pentecostal experience of speaking in
tongues, to the mystics’ experience of union with God, to the evangelical
experience of being born again. Some people seem to be experience junkies, always
looking for the newest fad, the next powerful spiritual encounter. There was an
item in the news recently about a snake handing Christian preacher in Kentucky
named Jamie Coots, who is the star of the reality TV show “Snake
Salvation" on the National Geographic channel. He died recently of a snake
bite received during a worship service. Snake handling churches base their
practice on a verse in the gospels, but I think the real allure is the thrill
of risking your life. It is like the thrill people get from extreme sports. We
might call Snake Handling extreme religion. Part of the allure of religion is
the experience.
Most of us have had some type of
spiritual experience. Though I suspect not the snake handling, but perhaps one
of the other Christian experienced I just mentioned. It may be more subtle
sense of the presence or guidance of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in our
lives. It might be an intuition of the reality of God. Or perhaps it is quite
dramatic, perhaps even a Near Death Experience or an experience of miraculous
healing. Sometimes powerful experiences of God are called mountaintop
experiences. Psychologist Abraham Maslow calls them peak experiences. Skeptics would reduce spiritual experiences
to its psychological components. But I see such experiences as possibly – but
not always - a real connection to the spiritual dimension of life. Experiences
are not necessary to the Christian faith. Some people’s belief in God is much
more rational. We can be Christians without having a dramatic religious
experience. But we should not dismiss spiritual experiences either.
1. Our gospel lesson for today is
about a dramatic spiritual experience had by Jesus and three of his disciples. It
was literally mountaintop experience because it took place on the top of a real
mountain. Our gospel lesson says that Peter, James and John accompanied Jesus on
a hike up a high mountain one day. The text does not identify the name of the
mountain, but if you visit the Holy Land today, the tour guides will take you
up Mount Tabor, which tradition says is the mountain. There is a nice Franciscan
chapel on top commemorating the event. But I don’t think it happened there,
because that mountain is not very high. It is more like a round hill rising
from the plain. I think the Mount of Transfiguration is Mount Hermon, because in
the gospel it is mentioned as being close to Caesarea Philippi, which is
situated at the base of Mount Hermon. That is a high mountain.
2. There is something about a
mountain view which is by itself a spiritual experience for me. I just love the
view from a mountaintop. There is something about the vast openness of a
mountain vista that connects me to the Creator. But the experience that the
three disciples had with Jesus on the mountaintop was not just a nature
experience. Our passage says in verses 1-2, “Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high
mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone
like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.” This was an
experience of Jesus Christ. And here Jesus is more than a Galilean carpenter.
This was a glimpse into the divine nature of this man that we know as Jesus of
Nazareth. This points us to the central truth of Christianity. We do not just
have a generic nature spirituality. Our faith is focused on Christ. We say that
something unique in the history of the world happened in Jesus Christ. We say
that God became flesh in a unique way in Jesus. Jesus Christ is a window to
God. Jesus himself said, “When you have seen me you have seen the Father.”
On that mountaintop Jesus’ three
closest friends got glimpse of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The light of
God and the glory of God shone from the physical form of Jesus. What does this
mean for us today? I think it directs our attention toward Jesus, both
theologically and experientially. Some people prefer what theologians call a
low Christology, Jesus as simply a man – a Palestinian prophet and nothing
more. Others have a high Christology where the humanness of Jesus tends to get lost
in his Divinity. What we have here in his passage is both the human and the
divine. Jesus was a real human being who in some way communicated the presence
of God in his very person. That was the power of Christ. When people were in
his presence, they experienced God. That is still true today. Even though Jesus
is not physically present with us in a body, we still experience God through
Jesus 2000 year after he physically left this earth. When we read the stories
of Jesus in Scripture, we sense his presence through the written word. When we
hear his teachings we sense his presence.
When we worship Christ, we sense the presence of God.
We can experientially know the
reality of God through Jesus Christ – both the historical Jesus that we can
glimpse in the gospels and more directly the Spirit of Jesus. This is what
makes me a Christian and not just a theist. I don’t just believe in God; I
believe in Christ. It is great to believe in God, but there is more. There is
the experience of God in Jesus Christ. Through Christian worship, like we are
doing today, and through individual Christian devotion, we know God in Christ. We
experience Jesus as the Son of God. We experience God in Jesus.
I experience God the Creator through
his Creation. I experience the presence of God in Nature, in the mountains,
lakes and desert, and in the stars. Lots of people experience, that even if
they are not Christians. Even if they cannot bring themselves to identify that
sense of awe and beauty and majesty as God, they are still experiencing God. I
think even atheists experience God, though they would not call it God. I have
that same sense of awe, and wonder, and majesty in Jesus Christ – in the
gospels and in the Spirit of Christ. That is a mountain top experience, which
is akin to what the disciples experienced.
3. Then something more happened to
the disciples. Our gospel lesson says in verse 3-4 “And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Then
Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You
wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one
for Elijah.” I want to share something with you about Fern Tilton, an 89
year old member of our congregation who passed away on February 7. This is
something that the family shared with me and gave me permission to share with
you. When I got to Dartmouth Hitchcock hospital the morning that Fern died, she
had just passed away. But her family was still there gathered around her bed in
ICU. As we gathered around Fern there, we shared stories of Fern and also of
Howard, her husband, who I knew from before. Then the family mentioned to me something
I would call a spiritual experience that Fern had shortly before she died.
In the last time that she was conscious
enough to communicate verbally, the family was gathered around the bed. Then
she started saying, “Hi! Hi! Hi!” but she was not talking to her family around
the bed. She was talking to people in heaven. She was talking to her mom and her
Aunt Paulie. And she talked about Dad,” not her own dad but her kid’s dad - her
husband Howard. She said, “You’re Dad!” She apparently was seeing those who had
died before her. She was calling out their names and reaching out to them. They
were as real and as close to her as the family members gathered around her bed.
It was a wonderful confirmation of the reality of heaven and eternal life. You
have probably also read or heard of other people who have reported that same
type of experience. The veil between heaven and earth becomes thin enough that
those people approaching death can see through it.
I think that was the experience that
Jesus and the disciples had on that mountaintop. Elijah and Moses had already
gone to heaven centuries before. But Jesus was so close to heaven at that
moment, and the doors to heaven were open on that mountaintop, and Moses and
Elijah came to the door to greet Jesus. Peter, James, and John were witnesses
to that heavenly encounter. I read this story of the Transfiguration as
confirmation of heaven, just like I interpret Fern’s experience as a
confirmation of heaven for her family.
People have different ideas about
what happens to us after death. No one knows for sure. Near Death Experiences,
and even experiences like Fern had are often written off by people as the
hallucinations of a dying brain. There is no way of proving that this is not the
case. But I believe in heaven. I don’t know exactly what I will experience
after my body dies. But I believe that the death f the body will not be the end
of consciousness in some form. I think that the descriptions of heaven in
scripture are attempts to describe it in human images and ideas that we are
familiar with. I think it will be far greater than anything we know now or can
even imagine. But I also believe that we can get glimpses of that spiritual
reality now. That is what Jesus and the disciples received on that mountaintop
– a glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven while still on earth.
That glimpse of heaven was so wonderful
that the disciples wanted to never end. Peter wanted to set up camp and stay
there. He said, “Lord, it is good for us
to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one
for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He wanted to set up a shrine for each of
them. You go to the Holy Land today there is a shrine or church on every
mountaintop and holy place. There is a church on the spot where Jesus died and
where Jesus rose, and where Jesus was born, and where Jesus ascended into
heaven, and where Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane, and where Jesus gave
the Sermon on the Mount and where Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes.
There is a chapel or church or something on every spot associated with Jesus
and the disciples. So even if Peter did not get to build the three tabernacles,
his spiritual descendants certainly did.
It is our nature to want to keep
ahold of those wonderful spiritual experiences in our lives. To memorialize
those moments. Some people will look back and recount with nostalgia the
wonderful spiritual experiences they have had. And that is alright to a certain
extent. But I think this story is trying to push us beyond that type of
mentality. Jesus did not let Peter build his tabernacles and stay there. In
fact Jesus would not even let Peter and the other disciples even tell anyone
about what happened on that mountaintop. It says in verse 9 “Now as they came down from the mountain,
Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man
is risen from the dead.” That must
have been very difficult for the disciples to keep their mouths shut about this
great experience. Why did Jesus command them not to tell anyone? He probably
had a number of reasons, but one is so that the focus would not be on the
experience.
We can make religion all about experiences,
but that is not what it is supposed to be about. That can be just another form
of self-centeredness. It makes it all about us. I have known people who talk
about their dramatic spiritual experiences, and it is all about them. The whole
purpose of this little passage of scripture is to make it not about the
disciples’ experience, but about Christ. It says in verses 5-8 “While he was still speaking, behold, a
bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud,
saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” And when
the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. But
Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” When they
had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.”
The purpose of this story in the
gospels is clearly to focus our attention on Christ. Religion and spirituality
is not about experience. It is about
God, and specifically God in Christ. It is so easy for us to get wrapped up in
ourselves and make everything about us. It is not about us. We are not the
center of the universe. When we are children we think we are, and some adults
still think they are. But we aren’t. The world will go on without us. Even our
lives are not really about us. Our lives are about God – glorifying God, loving
God, embodying God’s love and grace and forgiveness in our lives. Jesus’ life
was not about himself. He constantly was saying that he said or did nothing but
what the Father said or did. God was living Jesus’ life. God desires to live
our lives. When we are able to be that transparent to God’s Spirit and Power,
so that God shines through us, then that is a mountaintop experience.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Temple of God
I Corinthians 3:10-23
I have been to Israel on a number of
occasions. In fact I used to host tours to the Holy Land regularly for a number
of years, although I haven’t been back for quite a while. I got tired of those
long plane flights and long bus rides. One thing I never tired of was the first
sight of the city of Jerusalem. The best view of the Old City is when you
approach it from the east over the Mount of Olives. The dominant landmark of
the Old City of Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock. It is a Muslim shrine (to be
distinguished from a mosque) with a huge beautiful gold plated dome that shines
in the sunlight. It was built in the seventh century and sits on the rocky
summit of the temple mount. Muslims regard this site as holy because they say
that it was from this spot that Mohammad began a visit to heaven one night. When
the crusaders controlled the city they turned it into a church and called it Templum
Domini, the Temple of the Lord - because that was the original site of the Jewish
temple built by Solomon and later restored by King Herod. That is why that
little piece of real estate is so fought over these days between Palestinians
and Israelis. Ariel Sharon caused what is called the second intifada – a new
wave of Palestinian uprising - simply by stepping onto this sacred ground. When
you see this magnificent religious shrine you get a sense of what the Jerusalem
temple must have looked like in Jesus’ day. The temple of God was one of the
great structures of the ancient world and it remains so today.
Jesus’ comments about the temple
got him in trouble. Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple while sitting
on the Mount of Olives shortly before his arrest. In fact his words were used
against him at his trial, and were one of the reasons he was executed. Jesus’
predictions turned out to be true. Within a generation, the temple was in ruin,
destroyed by invading Roman armies. When we read what Jesus said carefully we
see that Jesus was not only predicting the destruction of the stone temple but
also predicting his own death – the destruction of this own body. He refers to
his body as a temple. The apostle Paul picks up on this metaphor of a body
being a temple in our epistle lesson for today. He says in verse 16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of
God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” That is the verse I am
preaching on today. I have two points.
1. First, you are the temple of
God. That is what the apostle says. What does he mean? He means this is two
ways. First, you individually are the temples of God. Our bodies are temples.
Paul says a few chapters later in this same letter: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” In the Gospel
of John, right after he cleanses the temple by driving out the moneychangers,
he predicts the destruction of the temple. He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The
Jewish religious leaders were outraged and said to him, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise
it up in three days?” Then the gospel writer explains, “But He was speaking
of the temple of His body.” Jesus was talking about his own resurrection, and
the temple was his own body raised from the dead.
The physical temple in Jerusalem
was considered by Jews in OT and NT times to be the dwelling place of God on
earth. They believed that that God in a special way dwelled in the holy of
holies, the innermost chamber of the temple building. Of course they believed
that God was Spirit and omnipresent – that he was present everywhere and could
never be limited or confined in a physical structure. But they believed that in
some way God was especially present in that structure of stone. As Christians
we also believe that God is Spirit and omnipresent. There is nowhere that God
is not. But we also believe that God was present in a special way in Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is our equivalent to the temple. Furthermore the NT
teaches that we are temples of God as well. Our physical bodies are physical
temples of God. We believe that God dwells within us a Holy Spirit. We come to
this church building to worship on Sundays and sometimes we call this building
the house of God. But we also house God. God dwells within us. We are temples
of God.
The second thing that the apostle
Paul meant, when he say that we were the temple of God, is that he was
referring to the Church. I am not talking about the church building, but the
church which is composed of people. Paul talks at great length about the church
being the Body of Christ. Christ does not walk the earth in the body of Jesus
of Nazareth any longer. That body died 2000 years ago. But Christ still walks
the earth in his church which is his body. The Church is called the body of
Christ. We are the temple of God on earth individually and as a church. Those
are the two ways that we are the temple of God. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of
God dwells in you?”
2. Now for the rest of his message
I want to explore the implications of those statements.
It means that we are not our own.
Paul says in chapter 6 of this letter: “Or
do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a
price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
There was a famous book published back in 1971 as part of the women’s
rights movement entitled “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” It is still in print, having
been republished in 2011. It was about women’s health and sexuality. I am
certainly not going to get in to those issues in this sermon. I don’t know
about the content of the book. I never read it. But from a spiritual
perspective the title is not true. These are not our bodies and we are not
ourselves. “Or do you not know that your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God,
and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
When something is not ours, it
changes the way we look at it and treat it. If I borrow something from someone
– a tool or a book or anything else – I take special care of it because I know it
is not mine. I am more careful than normal because if it is lost or damaged
that I have to give an account of it to its owner. I will have to return it
someday. I am responsible for it until that day. That is the way we should
consider our bodies. They are not ours. We have them on loan from the Creator
and Owner of this world and everything in it. In the context of the letter in
which Paul spoke these words were spoken about sexual immorality. The verse
right before it says, “Flee sexual
immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits
sexual immorality sins against his own body.” That is the way we ought to
come at sexual ethics – not with a list of do’s and don’t’s, but with this basic
principle that our bodies do not belong to us. If they did, then we could do
whatever we want with them. But from a biblical perspective we are just the
caretakers of these physical forms for a few decades. When they are returned to
God, we are responsible for what we have done with them.
The same is true with our selves.
The body is just the outermost shell of who we are. Our selves – our
psychological selves – our minds, our emotions, our wills – what the Bible
calls the soul or sometimes the spirit - is the engine of this body. It also is
God’s. We belong to God body and soul. “For
you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God’s.”
Let me talk about that first part
of that verse also. You were bought with a price. This is the Christian concept
of redemption, which is at the heart of the Christian gospel. It communicates
the idea that we are the purchase of God. We have been bought and paid for. We
are not our own. The Epistles picture us as being in bondage before our
spiritual awakening. We were slaves, and our freedom has been purchased and we
have been set free by Christ. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says
elsewhere. Christ has given us our freedom at a great price. What are we going
to do with it? Eleanor Powell said, “What we are is God's gift to us. What we
become is our gift to God.” Christ bought us back from death at the cost of his
own death. He gave us life at the cost of his own life. He redeemed us and set
us free. We are free agents who can either spend our lives in gratitude or on
ourselves.
There are a couple of other
implications of this idea that we are the temple of God. Another is that we
represent God. Whenever anyone saw the Jerusalem temple they knew that it
represented the presence of God on earth. In the same way we represent the
presence of God on earth. When people drive through this town and see the
church buildings they think they represent God, or at least Christianity. When
I am identified as a pastor publically I am aware that I represent God to
people, or at least I represent this church in a certain sense and represent
Christianity in a broader sense. When Lee Quimby as Town moderator invites me to
say the invocation at the Town Meeting, he is not asking me as an individual
citizen of Sandwich. He is asking me because I am the pastor of the church. I
represent something more than myself. For better or worse Ministers represent
God to many people. That is why when ministers do immoral things it damages not
just their own reputation, but the image of the larger church and Christianity.
That is why the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has done great
damage not just to the Catholic Church but to all of Christianity, because a
lot of people do not distinguish between different branches of Christianity.
In the same way every one of us
Christians represents Christ and God. We are the temple of God. We are the Body
of Christ. If we are followers of Christ, that means that our actions or lack
of them, will reflect on Christ and his church. And they should, because we are
his church. We are the living presence of Christ to this world.
Another aspect of being the temple
of God is that we have some building to do. Both the apostles Paul and Peter
develop this metaphor of the people of the church as being a building. Paul
writes in our passage today:
“According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master
builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one
take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than
that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation
with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will
become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire;
and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work
which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work
is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through
fire.”
The apostle Peter writes: “Coming to Him as to a living stone,
rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living
stones, are being built up a spiritual house….” The metaphor being employed
by both of the apostles is that some building is going on. God is building
something of our lives. We are building something of our lives through the
grace of God. God is building something here in this town in this church. Lots
of churches have building programs in which they erect new structures. But
every church is in the middle of a spiritual building program. In Paul’s
metaphor we are the builders. What are we building? What type of material are
we using? Are we doing the best that we can to give glory to God through what
we do as a church in this town?
In Peter’s metaphor (which is
somewhat different than Paul’s) we are the building material. He calls us
living stones which are being built up into a spiritual house – a temple to
glorify God. In either case, some building us going on. It took King Herod the
Great forty six years to completely rebuild the temple which Jesus and the
disciples worshipped in. You can still see today the foundation stones of Herod’s
temple in the Western Wall, which is the holiest site to Jews today. Those huge
stones are impressive. If the foundation stones are so impressive, we can only
imagine how great the temple was.
Our lives are a temple. The
foundation of our spiritual lives according to Paul is Jesus Christ. “For no other foundation can anyone lay than
that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” It is a sure foundation. The
storms of life will not wash this foundation away. The earthquakes that shake
our lives will not crack this foundation or cause it to fall. If that stone
foundation of the Jerusalem temple is still standing after 2000 years, how much
more will the foundation of Jesus Christ stand throughout eternity. The
question is not whether the foundation will remain. It will. The question is
whether what is built on it will stand the test of time. Herod’s temple did not
stand. It was torn down by the Romans. Not one stone above the foundation was
left standing. How about our lives? What will stand the test of time?
Paul writes: “12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day
will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test
each one’s work, of what sort it is.” The Day that Paul is referring to is
the day when we have to return our lives to God and give account of how we have
used our time and materials. On that day it will become clear what we have done
with our lives. Will they stand the test? Some people’s lives are only about
themselves and their possessions. Other people invest their lives in that which
will not perish. The missionary Jim Elliot, who died young, wrote: "He is
no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
We cannot keep these bodies. We cannot retain our earthly lives. They are only
of value insofar as we spend them for that which does not perish. Let us do so.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Digging Deeper
Matthew 5:21-37
A couple of months ago there was a
brief controversy on the news about a woman named Justine Sacco. She had her 15
minutes of infamy. She was a PR executive for a media company who make a
careless and racist statement on Twitter right before boarding a plane to South
Africa. Her tweet read: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just
kidding. I'm white!" What a horrible thing to say! What was she thinking?
She obviously was not thinking clearly. She was not editing the thoughts coming
into her brain, and she suffered the consequences. Her tweet went viral as they
say. It was called “the tweet heard round the world.” She was unaware of all
the controversy she was causing because he was on the plane for 12 hours. By
the time she landed in Cape Town, South Africa and checked her twitter account and
email, she had already been fired from her job. Then there was the more
prolonged case of Paula Deen, the American celebrity chef and TV cooking show
host. She likewise lost her job and a lot of business because she admitted to
using the N word to refer to African Americans.
It is obvious that such language is wrong
and should be eliminated from our vocabulary, but the problem runs much deeper.
It is more important that the attitudes be removed from our hearts. That is the
way Jesus approaches this and all the issues he tackles in this passage. In
this segment of the Sermon on the Mount he tackles five sensitive areas.
1. The first is violence and he also
says some things about language in the same section. He says in verse 21-23 “You have heard that it was said to those
of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the
judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a
cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother,
‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall
be in danger of hell fire.”
Violence is a big problem in American
society and in many societie. Gun violence in particular. Gun deaths are on the
local and national news shows every night. They did not have guns back in
Jesus’s day but what he says about murder still applies to today. Jesus looks
at the problem of murder and he sees a deeper problem. He sees that violence
rooted in anger. Anger is the real issue. And he sees anger expressed not only
in acts of violence, but also in violent language. So Jesus takes language
seriously. I think his teachings apply to bullying, which is often done in
words as much as physical acts. Words can lead to violence and death as
certainly as any assault weapon. Words can be used as verbal assault weapons.
That is why Jesus uses such strong language in speaking against them. But he
addresses the real issue much better than our nation does. Our society punishes
the one for using the language. The person is fired and people think the
problem is resolved. It is not resolved. It has just gone underground. The
language was just a marker of something deeper. The deeper issue is not being
addressed.
The deeper issue is a psychological
problem and an emotional problem. We would call it a mental health issue. Personally I think that is where our attention
and money should be directed – in detecting, diagnosing and treating mental
illness. But Jesus sees something deeper than even the psychological. He sees a
spiritual issue. Anger is an issue not just for those who might turn that anger
into violence. It is an issue for all of us. And that anger can be turned to
our family and especially the most vulnerable in the family. This is the source
of abuse of all sorts, and it is fundamentally a spiritually issue that needs
to be dealt with spiritually.
2. Jesus goes on in our passage to
talk about the importance of reconciliation as a way of resolving anger and
conflict before it turns into violence and even legal problems. He says in
verses 23-26:
Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that
your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar,
and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer
your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with
him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to
the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will
by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.”
Jesus is talking about interpersonal
conflict. We all have interpersonal conflict. As nice as we try to be, none of
us gets along with everyone. But it is how we handle disagreement that makes
the difference. These teenage shooters who open fire on people in cinemas,
schools, and shopping malls seem to have a problem connecting with people and
relating to people and handling disagreements. Their frustration and anger gets
bottled up and eventually erupts in violence.
In this passage Jesus is telling us
to deal with disagreement and conflict quickly. He is refers to Jewish practice
in his day of the daily offering, and says that if during your daily offering –
which for us would be like out daily time of prayer in the morning – if during
that time with God we remember we have a
problem with someone, then we ought to deal with it sooner rather than
later. The longer you wait the more
difficult it is and the bigger the problem will become until it can get blown
all out of proportion. Jesus advice is to solve small problems before they become
big problems. Very good advice.
The apostle Paul gives similar advice
when he says, “Be angry but do not sin,
and do not let the sun go down on your anger.” By that he means it is okay
to feel anger, but do not let the anger fester and grow because it will turn
into a much bigger problem. It is like cancerous and precancerous cells. I get
recurring skin cancer so I go to a dermatologist annually and he removes all
the precancerous cells so they do not turn into cancer. Anger is like
precancer. It is not bad or wrong in itself. Anger is natural; it is not sin.
But if left unattended it can grow into sin. It can grow into the cancer of
verbal or physical violence.
3. The next subject Jesus deals with
is sex. Jesus certainly does not shy away from the controversial topics. He
says in verses 27-28 27 “You have heard that it was said to
those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever
looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his
heart.” Sexual misconduct is a problem in America. It is the cause of the
failure of many marriages. The media has been telling us recently about the serious
problem of sexual assault on college campuses and in the military and military
academies. It is just another aspect of this problem of violence. This is
sexual violence. Jesus deals with this in the same manner. He is saying that
the problem is in the heart. The body is going to feel what the body feels. You
cannot eliminate lust. It is the body doing what the body does. But it is what
we do with our bodies that makes the difference between a loving committed
relationship and adultery or even sexual violence. Then Jesus starts to speak in hyperbole. He
uses exaggeration as a teaching technique and says in verses 29-30
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you;
for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for
your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin,
cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of
your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
We are obviously not supposed to take
Jesus literally. He is not advocating self-amputations Some people in the
history of Christianity have taken Jesus literally with devastating results.
Jesus is using the literary technique of hyperbole to tell us that this is
serious business. I think the problem with sexual assault and sexual abuse is
that we have not taken it seriously enough. I think that most people do not take morality seriously.
They certainly do not take spirituality seriously. They consider religion to be
a hobby, and church like a social organization. Jesus is using the most
forceful language he can to tell us that we need to take morality seriously. It
is not just a matter of personal opinion or personal choices. What we do with
our bodies effects our souls and our relationship with God.
4. Now if Jesus has not tackled
enough controversial topics in this passage, now he deals with divorce. He says
in verses 31-32, “Furthermore it has
been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of
divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except
sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman
who is divorced commits adultery.” Here is Jesus speaking in hyperbole once
again. We have to get comfortable with Jesus’ style of teaching. Jesus was not
a legalist. He was not a religious lawgiver like Moses. He is a grace giver. The
whole point of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was to present an alternative to Moses
Sermon on the Mount – Moses giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Jesus starts off
with nine beatitudes which are supposed to remind us of the Ten Commandments. Our
section here today deals with some of the Ten commandments like “Thou shalt not
kill” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not bear false
witness.” Jesus is reinterpreting them here.
Jesus is presenting an alternative to living a religious life based on
law. He is presenting a spiritual life based on grace.
That is how he approaches divorce. The
Mosiac Law allowed divorce and men took advantage of it to the harm of women
and children. Divorce was common in Jesus’ day and it was easy. At least for
the husband it was easy. Not so easy for the wife. All a man had to do was
write on a piece of paper that he was divorcing his wife, and give it to his
wife in the presence of two witnesses. That was it. On the certificate of
divorce he could give any reason he wanted. It could be a trivial as burning
his breakfast that morning. A man could divorce his wife for any reason at any
time. That put the woman in a very serious situation. It was very difficult for
women to survive financially without being part of a male-led household. After
divorce, if a male relative did not receive her into his household the woman
was homeless, and so were her children. The dirty secret of the society at that
time was that a lot of women who were divorced were forced into prostitution.
Today we talk about sex trafficking. That existed in Jesus’ day as well. That
is what Jesus was referring to when he said, “But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except
sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery.” He is saying that a man
is forcing his ex wife to sell her body just to survive.
Jesus is speaking against the abuse
of women. Men used divorce as an excuse to get rid of one wife so he could
marry a younger woman. Often it was to advance his career or get a rich dowry.
We cannot take Jesus’ words and apply them legalistically to the 21st
century American phenomenon of divorce. It is not the same thing. If we want to
apply Jesus’ words to day, we should see Jesus supporting marriage and in
particular caring for women’s standing in society. It is certainly true today
that single-parent household headed by women account for a disproportionate
percentage of families living in poverty. Divorce still today harms women and
children much more than men. So if we are going to apply Jesus’ words about
divorce to today, we need to see him as trying to protect marriage and
particularly protect women.
4. The final subject Jesus deals with
in this passage is about oaths, which brings us right back to the subject of
language once again. Jesus says in verses 33-37, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not
swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do
not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth,
for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great
King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white
or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is
more than these is from the evil one.”
Again let’s not make Jesus’ words
into a rigid rule. There are religious groups that take Jesus’ words literally
as law and will not take an oath of political office, or an oath to tell the
truth in court, or an oath to defend the country by joining the military, or
even recite the Pledge of allegiance to the flag. These religious groups
believe that all such oaths violate Jesus’s teaching here in the Sermon on the
Mount. That is legalism, and a misunderstanding of Jesus’ words. Once again,
Jesus is speaking “over the top” as it were. He is trying to make a point by
exaggeration. It is a well-known teaching method used at that time used by
religious teachers.
Jesus is telling us that we should
not need to take an oath, or to swear to God, to tell the truth. Truth should
be our natural and normal way of speaking. Unfortunately it is not. Not even in
court. Oaths taken in court have become meaningless. People perjure themselves under
oath in court all the time, especially when they take the stand in their own
defense. Even the plea “Not guilty” is a lie most of the time. No one takes
that statement seriously. Jesus is telling his followers to make honesty an
everyday practice. “But let your ‘Yes’
be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil
one.” Let your tongue speak the truth.
More importantly we need to search
our heart and see why we are so reluctant to tell the truth to others or even
ourselves. The problem with lying is self-deceit. The problem is lying to
ourselves and lying to God. People live a lie. Jesus is teaching us to live
truth. Live his way. Follow him. He is the Way , the Truth and the Life. To sum
up this passage, Jesus is trying to get us beneath the surface of life. It is
not just about changing outward behavior, as much as it is about what causes
the behavior. When the heart is changed, the behavior will change. That heart
change comes from God. It is an act of grace.
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