All You Need is Love

Delivered October 23, 2011

Matthew 22:34-46

A man called up a church and the church secretary answered the call. The man on the other end of the line said, "I’d like to speak to the head hog." The secretary replied, "That isn’t a very nice thing to call our beloved pastor, Rev. Jones." Again the man replied, "I’d like to speak to the head hog, because I’m going to donate $75,000 to the church. She replied, "Hold on a moment, I think the big fat pig just walked in."

This is Pledge Sunday, but I am not going to do a typical sermon on stewardship. I am going to preach on love, because I believe that if you love God, the money will follow. Jesus said, “Where you treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And the reverse is also true: where your heart is, your treasure will be. If we love God with all our hearts, then our money will serve God. If we do this, then our church financial needs will be taken care of.

In our passage this morning Jesus speaks about loving God with all our heart, mind and soul. He talks about it in answer to a question from the Pharisees. It was the last question that he was ever asked by his opponents. It says in verse 46 that after Jesus answered this question, “nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.” There is always one big final question. It used to be known as the $64,000 question. On the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” it is the million-dollar question. Our gospel lesson today says that there was a final question. The passage begins: ³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. ³⁵ Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 

Theoretical physicists today search for what they call “the theory of everything”; it is also known as the “final theory.” It is the scientific theory that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out.  They are still looking for that theory. Theologians look for a final theological theory that ties together everything. The Jews had 631 commandments in the Old Testament, which were the faithful Jew’s responsibility to God. They condensed it to the well-known Ten Commandments. But they were looking for one command to sum it all up. They asked Jesus what he thought it was.

Jesus gave his answer. “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[b] 40} On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”  As John Lennon wrote in his famous song “All You Need is Love.” Love is all you need. This was a revolutionary concept back when Jesus gave this answer. Now, it is not so much so. If you get a group of people together from various religious traditions, they will all agree on the centrality of Love. It was Jesus Christ who came up with this idea, but it has now been adopted by even nonchristian religions. The importance of love is repeated in Christian churches so much so that it is hard to say something new about it. What new thing can you say about love?

Sermons on love are not the most memorable ones. It is like waxing eloquent on the glory of vanilla ice cream. Vanilla ice cream is okay if you put it on something like blueberry pie or indian pudding or apple crisp, but by itself vanilla ice cream is boring. Only when you put something like chocolate chips into it does it get interesting. A sermon on love is like vanilla ice cream. It is so nondescript and vague. I have preached three or four point sermons on this greatest commandment that go through what it means to love God with all you heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. But I don’t want to do that again. I want to come at it differently today.

I want to focus on how. If I try hard I can love God with a bit more of my heart and mind and soul, but I come nowhere near loving with ALL by heart and mind and soul. And the command to love my neighbor as myself? Forget it! I don’t come anywhere near fulfilling that. Would you do for your neighbor exactly the same as you would do for yourself? We don’t do for our neighbor what we would do for our family, much less ourselves. I try to be loving to people – those I like and those I don’t like, because Jesus tells us to love even our enemies. But it comes nowhere near what I do for myself and those dearest to me.

It makes me think of the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus wanting to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the commandments. He replied, “Been there. Done that!” Jesus ponders the man for a moment and then says. “Good. There is just one more thing you lack. Sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.” You remember what happened? The man couldn’t do it. It says he walked away sorrowful. If that is what it takes for us to inherit eternal life, could any one of us here do it?

This is Pledge Sunday. We pledge to give a portion of our income to the service of God through this church.  Will any of us sell all that we have - our properties, our investments, our bank accounts - and pledge to give it all to the church during 2012? I don’t think so! Yet that is what Jesus was asking that rich young man to do. There is something truly radical that Jesus is asking in stories like the rich young ruler. The command to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves is much more than we imagine. Most of the time we do not get anywhere near what Jesus is asking us to do. We reduce it to mean giving a little bit more, to be slightly more sacrificial. But there is something much deeper here.

These commandments, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves, are radical statements. When you really meditate upon this type of love, it goes much deeper than the Beatles lyrics. I will tell you what I think it comes down to. I think it comes down to pure selflessness. Think about it. If you love God with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul, what is left? If you give all to God, what is left? If you make no distinction between yourself and your neighbor, what is left? The answer is nothing is left. The real issue is our selves and our preoccupation with ourselves. We put ourselves over against God and over against our neighbor, and we try to balance things. When we fill out these pledge cards and decide how much we can afford to give to the church budget next year and all the other charitable causes that we want to support during the year we are trying to balance our needs against the needs of other people and groups. But it is always our needs that win. We don’t love anyone the way we love ourselves … except perhaps our family. We are human animals designed to survive, and we will do whatever it takes. That is human nature.

Jesus is challenging that human nature. He is telling us to give that human nature – our heart, our mind, our very soul – all to God. That is what it means to love God with all our heart and mind and soul. This can only be done if there is a transformation of our human nature into something new – a new creature, a new creation – to quote the apostle Paul. In a very real sense to love God with all our heart, mind and soul is the end of self-centeredness.  We cease to be the center of our lives, and God becomes the center of our lives. To love our neighbor as ourselves means that our neighbor and I are two equal human beings centered on God. This involves a spiritual Copernican revolution. In the 16^th century Copernicus revolutionized the way we understood our place in the universe. He established a new model of the cosmos where the earth revolved about the sun and not the other way around. Jesus is doing the same type of thing here spiritually. In Christ’s universe, the center of our lives becomes God and not us. And our needs and our neighbors needs all revolve around God. That is what these great commandments mean.

II. The really interesting thing about this passage of scripture is that this is not the end of the discussion that Jesus has with these Pharisees. The conversation continues.  They had asked him a question. But like Jesus so often does, he turns it around and asks them a question.  ⁴¹ While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴² saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” Jesus turns the conversation from loving God to the identity of the Christ.

As I said previously, love is universally accepted today as a virtue. Adherents of various religions and no religion extol the virtue of love. They do not really get to the heart of what that means, but they will sing the Beatles song with us, “All You need is Love.” But Jesus takes this a step further. He moves the conversation from love to Christ. “What do you think about the Christ?” People don’t agree on this. People can agree on love as long as you keep it as a warm feeling or a spiritual sentiment.. But you start bringing in Christ, and it is a whole different matter. But that is exactly what Jesus does. He turns the discussion about morality and love into one about the nature and person of Christ.

Jesus begins to quote scripture. He quotes a passage from the psalms where King David is talking about the Messiah as his Lord, even though the Messiah had not been born yet and wouldn’t be born for a thousand years.  I don’t really want to get into the details of his argument here. But it boils down to the idea that the Messiah must be eternal. The correct answer to the question, “Whose Son is He?” is not just that he is the Son of David, that the Messiah was to come from the genealogical lineage of King David, but that he is also the Son of God. Christ is divine.

This is important for two reasons. First, if Christ is God, then to love God means to love Christ. You can’t love God with all your heart, mind and soul without loving his Son with all your heart, mind and soul. Second, if God is love, then Christ is love. He is the incarnation of love for God and love for neighbor. That is why Jesus brings the subject of Christ into this discussion about love. If you want to know what it means to love, look at Jesus. Christ shows us what it means to love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. He shows us true selflessness. He shows us what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. Incarnated in Christ, this lofty ideal of love becomes very practical.

Love is supremely represented in the cross. The cross is love. It is the greatest symbol of love in the history of humankind. The cross is Jesus loving his neighbor as himself. More than that; it is loving his neighbor more than himself. The cross is the picture of God loving us and also what it means for us to love God. Jesus loved God with all his heart and soul. And for him it meant dying on a cross. That is true selflessness. The cross is a picture of the self dying out of love. We love God with all our heart, mind, and soul by embracing that cruciform love. If we love God with everything in us, then there is nothing left. Jesus loved until there was nothing left. Not even his life. Jesus said that those who seek to save their lives will lose it, but whoever loses his life for his sake will find it. That is a description of the cross.

That is love, people. That is what it means to love God. If you want to know how to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, look at Jesus. If you want to know how to love your neighbor as yourself, you look at Jesus. The concept of love is not boring or fuzzy or ethereal. When you tie it to Jesus it is very down-to-earth and practical. In Jesus’ case love of neighbor meant dying for his neighbor. The apostle Paul says in Romans 5: 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.”

The apostle John says, “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.” Love cannot really be understood until it is experienced. It is experienced in the life and death of Jesus Christ. We love God loving his Son, Jesus Christ. People want to talk about love but they don’t want to talk about Christ. Jesus wouldn’t let the Pharisees get away with that. If you want to talk about the love of God, you have to talk about Christ. If you want to talk about the love of neighbor, you have to talk about Christ. No one has ever loved like Christ loved. And if we love God, we will love him. And if love him we will give ourselves unreservedly to him. And when we do that, everything else – including all of our money and all of our time and all of our talents and gifts and abilities, will be put to the service of the one whom we love with all our heart, and mind, and soul.

Show Me the Money

Delivered October 16, 2011

Matthew 22:15-22

Ben Franklin is known for his witty sayings. One of them is the well-known quote: “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” What you might not know is that this famous maxim was written while he was the US ambassador to France, and that it was said in the context of talking about the Constitution of the United States which had been adopted by Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia two years earlier. Franklin was uncertain that the US Constitution would survive. He wrote to a scientist friend in Paris, “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” Taxes are in the news again, and so is the constitution. The Tea Party is making sure that both topics are on the national agenda during this presidential primary. Everyone is chiming in.

Billionaire Warren Buffet has made news by asking that his Federal Income tax rate be raised; he points out that it is unfair that his tax rate is lower than his secretary who makes $60,000 a year.  Which sort of taxation is fairest? At a business conference in Montpelier, Vermont, the state tax commissioner asked the audience which sort of taxation they thought was best. A white haired man in the back raised his hand. “The poll tax,” he said. “But the poll tax was repealed,” replied the commissioner. “Ay-ah,” declared the man, “that’s what I like best about it.”

Taxes were controversial back in Jesus’ day also; even then they were wrapped up in issues of patriotism, fairness and religion. It is the topic of our text for today in Matthew 22:15-22. I am going to be examining this passage in two parts: the question and the answer. 

First, the Question – verses 15-18. ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. ¹⁶ And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. ¹⁷ Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
¹⁸ But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?

This scene occurs late in Jesus’ ministry. Palm Sunday happened in the previous chapter, so this interchange happened the next day, during the last week of Jesus’ life. Jesus had made some very powerful enemies, and they were out to get him. On this occasion some of Jesus’ opponents came to him with a trick question. It says “the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle him in his talk.” Another translation says that they tried to “to entrap him in what he said.” Jesus says to them, “Why do you test me, you hypocrites.” I have had similar experiences. People have asked me questions, and they were not honestly looking for an answer. They were not seeking for truth with an open mind. They were testing me. They thought they already had the truth, and were looking to see if my answer lined up with their view of reality. They were looking to see if I agreed with them, whether I was on their side or not, whether I was friend or foe. I have been asked test questions like this from both ends of the theological spectrum – liberals and conservatives. They asked me questions on some hot button theological or ethical issue. It was a test to see if I am acceptable in their eyes.

On this occasion the Pharisees had already decided that Jesus was not on their side. They saw Jesus as the enemy, and they were trying to get other people to oppose him. It is a lot like some questions posed to the presidential candidates in the debates. Some of those questions are very bias. Paying Taxes to Rome was the hot button issue of Jesus’ day. No one liked the Roman taxes, but if you publicly opposed them, you could be charged with treason; this is what the Pharisees were hoping would happen to Jesus. They wanted to get Jesus arrested somehow, and this topic seemed like a good possibility. If he said he was against paying taxes to Rome he could be arrested as a traitor to Rome. If he said he was for the Roman tax, people would think he was a traitor to Israel and the Jewish nationalistic cause of independence. It was a no win question for Jesus. No matter how Jesus answered, he could be in trouble. They were clearly trying to entrap him in his words.

To trap Jesus, first they buttered him up with words of praise. “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.”  They are saying, “We know that you are a man of integrity and will speak the truth regardless of what people think.” They are trying to get him to answer recklessly. Then comes the question, “Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” And by “lawful,” they mean lawful under Jewish interpretation of Biblical law in the Torah. They are asking if it is biblical. Jesus immediately perceives their intent and says, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?”

II. Then comes Jesus answer in verses 19-21.He says, “Show me the money!” Actually he says, “Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. ²⁰ And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” ²¹ They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus asked for a coin, and they gave him a silver denarius issued during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. It was the tribute coin used to pay the tax to Rome. He asks, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They answered Caesar. Let me be more specific about what they would have seen on this coin. On one side of the coin was an image of the head of Tiberius Caesar with the words in Latin: “Son of the Divine Augustus,” in other words declaring Caesar to be divine. The other side was a picture of his mother Livia seated and the inscription PONTIF MAXIM, an abbreviation of “Pontifex Maximus”, meaning “Chief Priest,” which was another of Tiberius' titles. There was no separation of church and state back then. Caesar was the religious, political and military ruler of the empire.

The Roman coin itself was considered blasphemous and idolatrous by Jews. Some very strict Jews refused to even to handle it. It could not be used as an offering in the Jewish temple Jerusalem. If you wanted to give an offering to the temple, these Roman coins had to be exchanged for religiously acceptable Jewish coinage minted by the temple authorities. These coins did not have the graven image of a divine emperor on it with blasphemous titles. To make this currency exchange was the job of the notorious money-changers in the temple courts, the ones Jesus had made angry the day before on Palm Sunday when turned over their tables and drove them out of the temple courts.  Jesus held up the Roman coin and “He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” ²¹ They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

This saying is one of the most badly misunderstood and misinterpreted sayings of Jesus in all of scripture. It is often used to promote the separation of church and state. I am a Baptist, and Baptists have historically been champions of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. It is one of the founding principles of our nation and was lobbied for heavily by the early Baptists during those formative years of our nation. It insures religious freedom in our country.

I think it has been taken too far and has been used in a way that was never intended - to ban religion from public ceremonies. For example, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last month, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg prohibited religious leaders from being a part of the official ceremony at Ground Zero. The argument was the separation of church and state. That is a misunderstanding of the concept. I think he was just trying to avoid controversy by having to make the tough decisions about whether or not to include Muslim leaders in an inter-faith ceremony. He saw that as too controversial, so he excluded all religious leaders, and got himself into another controversy.

Lee Rouner wrote a book in 1991 entitled, “To Be at Home: Christianity, Civil Religion and World Community.” He gave me a signed copy of it, and we had some conversations on the topic. He believed that civil religion is a healthy part of the American public life – that it did not threaten democracy, diversity or religious freedom. I also believe that there is a place for civil religion, as long as it is not imposing one particular religion. Public prayer and acknowledgement of God in state settings doesn’t violate the separation of church and state. That is why I like praying at town meeting and school board meetings, and I like baccalaureate services for public high schools. I think the trend is going too far in getting rid of such things and trying to ban all mention of God and prayer.  Prayer is a form of free speech and needs to be protected. The original intent of the separation of church and state was to protect religion from the power of state and ensure religious liberty by outlawing state religion. It was not intended to ban all religious expressions in government settings.

Anyway, I believe in the separation of church and state when properly understood. But Jesus’ words, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” are not a first century declaration of the separation of church and state. That is a 17^th and 18^th century idea. Such an thought would have been entirely foreign to both Jewish and Roman people back then. Such an idea never would have occurred to Jesus. To read that into Jesus’ words is to put our own values into his mouth. Then what does this saying mean?

First, it means that the money belongs to Caesar. It was issued by his government with his image, name and titles on it. The money belongs to Caesar, so let him have it. Render to Caesar the tings that are Caesar’s. In other words, Jesus is saying that it is okay to pay taxes. Christians have historically paid taxes to worldly governments. The apostle Paul says the same thing in Romans 13 in a chapter that instructs Christians to be subject to governing authorities. He says in verse 7 “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” Jesus advocated the payment of taxes. So, I’m sorry, you can’t get out of paying taxes on religious grounds. Our coins and dollar bills might say, “In God we trust” on them, but it also says “The United States of America” with the image of our nation’s presidents and leaders on them. We might say we trust in God, but the money belongs to the state.

Second, it means that we belong to God. Render to God the things that are God’s. The money and taxes might belong to the state, but we don’t. We belong to God. The coin might be stamped with the image of Caesar, making it Caesar’s, but we are stamped with the image of God. The creation story of Genesis makes it clear. “Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness…. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Back then images were not only stamped on coins, they were stamped on all sorts of things. Instead of signing your names with a signature, you signed it with a signet ring of a signet stamp, which had your name on it. It was pressed into clay or wax to seal documents. We are sealed with the image and inscription of God. Jesus asked, “Whose image and inscription is on the coin?” and the answer was Caesar’s. The implication is that whatever is stamped with a person’s image and name belongs to that person. We are stamped with the image and name of God. In the Book of revelation the followers of the Antichrist are marked with the number of the name of the Antichrist, meaning they belong to him. The followers of Christ are symbolically stamped and sealed with the number of the mark of the Lamb (Christ.) We belong to God.

But there is even more here in these words. Jesus asks whose inscription is on the coin. On one side it declared Tiberius Caesar as the son of the divine Augustus, in other words the son of God. The common and official title of Augustus Caesar in Greek documents was “Emperor Caesar Augustus, son of god.” It was Caesar’s claim to divinity. On the other side was his title of High Priest. It would not be lost on the gospel writer Matthew - or Mark or Luke who also record this story - that these are the titles that belong properly to Jesus Christ.  He is the only begotten Son of God. He is our High Priest. We belong to him.

You belong to him. The most important question then becomes, not taxes and what you will do with a coin, but a question of what we will do with your life. Give Caesar his money back when he asks for it. We are to give our lives to God when he asks for it. We are to give our lives to God when he asks for it. And that is what he is asking for here: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Lost

Delivered October 9, 2011

Luke 15

This morning, I am going to tell some stories that Jesus told. They are stories found in Gospel of Luke chapter 15. On this particular occasion Jesus told three stories. The first one was about a lost sheep. Luke 15:4-7 :

⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

Once upon a time there was a shepherd. This shepherd had a flock of one hundred sheep. Middle Eastern sheep are not like the nice well-fed sheep we have here at the fair. There is not a lot of grass in the Holy Land; it is a very arid place. It was hard to find good grazing land. The shepherds had to lead the sheep far into the wilderness to find a place to graze. He would stay out in the wilderness with his flock for days or weeks at a time, eating and sleeping in the wilderness. Each night the shepherd would gather his sheep together and count his sheep. That is where the whole idea of counting sheep to go to sleep came from. You have heard it said that if you can’t fall asleep, try counting sheep. That is where it came from. This guy was counting his sheep one night, and no matter how often he counted them, he always came up one short. He only had 99 sheep. He had lost one.

What does a shepherd do who has lost a sheep? Back then there were a lot of predators in the wilderness. The chances were that if he left his flock of 99 sheep in search of the one lost sheep, that he would come back to find only 98 or 97 sheep left. A wolf or a lion would have caught and eaten one while the shepherd wasn’t there to protect them with his rod and staff. That is what the famous 23^rd psalm is talking about: ”Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” If he went off looking for a lost sheep, not only would one or more other sheep be eaten, but the remaining sheep would be scattered. He would have a lot more than one lost sheep. And he would have a heck of a time getting all those sheep back together again.

Therefore most shepherds back then, if they were alone in the wilderness and lost a sheep, they would simply right it off as a 1% loss. Unless there was another shepherd around to guard the remaining sheep, he would not leave the 99 to go in search of the one lost sheep.  He would be taking a big chance to go looking for one lost sheep. But that is exactly what the shepherd in Jesus’ story does. Jesus says, ⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” The audience would be shocked at this suggestion! The normal response to this would be “No! None of us! We would not leave the 99 and go in search of the one!” So this shepherd in Jesus’ story was doing something shocking. Jesus would be telling this story in this manner to get a strong reaction from his audience. His audience would disagree and shout in protest. “No, don’t do it, shepherd.” They would think that this shepherd was crazy to leave the 99 to go in search of the one. And yet that is what the shepherd does.

Jesus tells this story to show us how radical God’s love is. God cares so much for the one who is lost that he does not count the cost. He is willing to do whatever it takes to recover the lost sheep. That is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. That is what the cross is about. God is willing to do whatever it takes to find us and save us. This should sound shocking to us – as shocking as that story was to Jesus’ hearers. The cross is a shocking sight! It is not pretty or peaceful or beautiful. It is a man being tortured and killed. Why was it necessary for Christ to die? Why not just have some nice teachings about love and compassion, the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. Isn’t that enough? It is enough for the 99 maybe, but not for the one who is lost in the wilderness. The one sheep lost in the wilderness has no chance of survival unless the shepherd searches for him and finds him.

That is what the gospel is about. That is what Jesus Christ did. Christ is the good shepherd. Jesus said his mission was to seek and save the lost, not counting the cost to himself. He said, “I did not come for the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance.” He says at the end of this story, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.” God is reckless in his love for us. He was even willing to send his only Son to die that we might have eternal life. That is how much he loves you. And when he finds you he carries you in his arms, and there is a party in heaven. He shouts to all who will hear, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷

The Lost Coin

Next he tells the story of a lost coin. ⁸ “Or what woman, having ten silver coins,^[a] if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ ¹⁰ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Women back then in that Middle Eastern culture usually did not have much to call their own. There were exceptions, of course, but most money and property were owned and controlled by men. But one thing a woman had was her jewelry that she wore. That was hers. In ancient times a woman’s jewelry was made of gold and silver, often in the form of coins used as decoration on clothing. When a woman was married, she was given a ring of coins as a headband on her wedding day. Gold coins were preferable for husbands who could afford it; the bigger the coin and the more coins the better. Kind of like diamond engagement rings today, the bigger and more expensive the better. But the minimum was ten silver drachmas. These were hers no matter what. Her husband could not take them away from her. These were her insurance policy that she kept for a rainy day, in case of emergency or if her husband divorced her.

This woman in this story was not wealthy. She had the minimum of ten silver drachmas. A drachma was about an eighth of an ounce of silver. Silver prices today are about $30an ounce, which would make this coin worth less than 4 dollars. Not a lot by today’s American standard. It cost you more than that to get into the fair. But to the very poor in the world, that is a lot of money. And to this woman these coins were everything she had.  So the coins in this story were not just some loose change. To lose one of these coins would be shocking. For one thing it would be obvious to everyone since she wore them regularly.The closest equivalent would be if a woman today lost her engagement ring or her wedding band. If you lose your diamond engagement ring, then you turn the house upside down looking for it. That is what happened in this story.

One day this woman noticed that one of the ten coins had come off her headdress. She panicked. Where was it? She retraced her steps from the last time she knew she had them. You know what you do when you lose something; you try to figure out the last time you had it and where you were. She figured that the coin probably was somewhere in the house. So she started looking.

Back then houses are not like they are today. There was no electricity, and often there were no windows. If there were any windows, they were small. So the house was dark. That is why the story tells us that the woman lit an oil lamp to look for the coin. You also have to remember that that most houses, except for those of the very wealthy had packed dirt floors. So if a coin dropped on the floor, it would be soon covered in dust or dirt. And if you swept it, you risked burying it even more. But she swept every inch of that house hoping to brush the dust off the lost coin. So picture her, bent over with an oil lamp in one hand (which doesn’t give off much light anyway) and a brush in the other, going over every inch of that floor looking for her lost coin.

Then suddenly there is a glimmer of silver and she finds it! The story says that she is so happy that she calls her friends and neighbors together and has a party. Jesus says, “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  Joy in heaven. That is how Jesus describes the reaction in heaven when one person comes to God. Jesus says that the angels throw a party in heaven when one person turns away from themselves and turns to God. He said the same thing in the story of the lost sheep.

You are of great value to God. Each one of us is a treasure in the eyes of God. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks or what other people think. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, property you own, or power you wield. In God’s eyes you are of eternal value. When we are lost under the dirt and grime of life – how the world has treated us or what we think of ourselves - he will keep searching until he finds us. And when he finds us, he will throw a party in our honor in heaven. This is how great God’s love is for us and how great his joy is when we come into fellowship with him.

The Lost Son  

The third story he tells is about a lost son. There was a man in those days that had two sons. He loved them both. The older son was the serious, responsible type. You know the way first-born children are. He helped his father take care of their large estate, which had many servants and workers. The younger son was not so responsible. He was restless. He wanted to get out and get on his own and see the world. So he went to his father one day and asked if he could have his portion of the inheritance early. Back then the inheritance laws gave the first born twice as much as the second son. But that didn’t matter. He knew it would be a lot no matter what. And he didn’t want to wait. He wanted his inheritance now. So he went to his father and asked for it.

Back then in that culture, that was not considered a very nice thing to ask. In fact in that culture, it would have been shocking. It was like saying, “I wish you were dead, dad.” But the father did not get angry or scold his son. He agreed to give the young man his share of the estate. That boy suddenly found himself very rich. And he went off to a far country to start a new life. But as I said, he was not very practical or responsible. But he liked to have a good time. He went through that money in a few years of living it up. Then the economy took a turn for the worse. Back then we are not talking about a stock market crash; we are talking about famine. There was a severe famine in the land, and this young man ended up with nothing. No food, no property, and no money to buy food, no family and no friends. The friends who partied with him during the good times were fair weather friends only. When the boy was down on his luck, they were nowhere to be found.

He finally found someone who would take him in as a hired hand, but he had to start at the bottom. The entry level job was to feed the pigs, which was not a good job for a nice Jewish boy. Pigs were considered unclean to Jews. And even that job did not pay enough even to put food on his table. Sometimes he was so hungry he wanted to eat the slop he fed to the pigs. He was in bad shape.

Then he thought to himself about the way it was back on his father’s estate. He remembered that even the servants had much more than he had now. And he was desperate. If he stayed where he was, he would slowly die. So he figured he would go back to this father’s house, and beg for a job as a hired servant. He knew that he did not deserve to be brought back as a son, but he figured that his father would allow him to come back as a servant. On his way home, he rehearsed the speech he was going to give. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Please make me like one of your hired servants.”

But when he got within sight of his home, a startling thing happened. His father, who was a very dignified gentleman of high standing in the community, ran to meet him. He apparently had been waiting and hoping for his son’s return. He searched the horizon daily, looking for some sign of his son. And when he saw his son walking down the dirt road toward home, this old man was so overjoyed that ran as fast as he could. When he reached his son, he hugged him and kissed him and tears of joy ran down his face. The son gave his well-rehearsed speech but the father ignored it. He shouted to the servants to bring him his best robe to put on the son, to take the place of the rags he was wearing. He told him to put shoes on his bare feet, and to arrange a big feast in honor of his returned son. He said, “Let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Furthermore he told the servants to put a ring on his finger. This would be a signet ring; it took the place of a signature in those days. By giving him this ring, it was like giving him the family credit card. He was in fact welcoming this son back as a full member of the family, with a share once again in the family wealth. The younger son had been fully restored to his previous position.

We are loved by our heavenly Father. You are loved by God. No matter what we have done or where we have been. No matter how much we have spurned the God’s love, he loves us. He loves the one who rejects him and runs away from home, who strays into the far country. He loves the one who stays at the home, the responsible one, the one who does not feel loved. He loves us all. We simply have to accept that love. Then once again the lost shall be found.

Faith and Religion

Delivered October 2, 2011

Philippians 3:4-12

A man was lost and walking in the desert in a foreign country for days. Suddenly, he sees the home of a missionary. Tired and weak, he crawls up to the house and collapses on the doorstep. The missionary finds him and nurses him back to health. Feeling better, the man asks the missionary for directions to the nearest town. On his way out the backdoor, he sees a horse. He goes back into the house and asks the missionary, "Could I borrow your horse and arrange to have it brought back to you when I reach the town?" The missionary says, "Sure but you need to know a couple of things about this horse. First, he has very bad eyesight, so he can’t really see where he is going. Second, he is a very religious horse. You have to say “Praise God” to make him go and 'Amen' to make him stop." The man says, "Sure, ok." So he gets on the horse and says, " Praise God" and the horse starts walking. He wants it to go faster so he says, " Praise God, Praise God," and the horse starts trotting. Feeling really brave, the man says, " Praise God, Praise God, Praise God, Praise God, Praise God" and the horse gallops very fast. Pretty soon the man sees a cliff coming up and he heading straight toward it. He's doing everything he can to make the horse stop so as not to go over the cliff. He pulls on the reins and yells, "Whoa, stop, hold on!!!!" But the horse keeps heading for the cliff. Finally he remembers, and he says, "Amen!!" The horse stops just inches from the edge of the cliff. The man leans back in the saddle, wipes his brow and says, " Praise God."

Today I am not going to talk about religious horses, but religious people. George Barna of the Barna Group is one of the most well-known researchers of religious trends in America. Every few years he comes out with a new book on the topic. His most recent one is entitled Futurecast, which tracks changes from 1991 to 2011 and projects these trends into the future. To sum up his findings, he found that involvement in churches and other religious organizations has declined rapidly in the last twenty years. In every subgroup of religion, race, gender, age and region of the country, the important markers of religious connection are fracturing. Dramatically less and less people go to church in America each year. More people than ever before say they haven't been to church in the past six months except for special occasions such as weddings or funerals. In 1991, 24% were in this category. Today, it's 37% and increasing. In certain parts of the country – such as New England the trend is more dramatic.

Yet he finds that more people claim Jesus as Lord and expect to go to heaven now than ever before. He attributes this contradiction between the decline of church attendance and the increase of personal faith to what he calls designer religion. "We are a designer society. We want everything customized to our personal needs — our clothing, our food, our education," he says. Now it's our religion. People pick and chose what they like and what they don’t like about religions. As he looks into the future Barna says, America is headed for "310 million people with 310 million religions." Clearly people are making a distinction between corporate religion and personal faith.

The apostle Paul made the distinction between religion and faith two thousand years ago in our scripture text for today. The early Christians were accused of rejecting the religions of their day. Not only did the earliest Christians reject Judaism with its synagogues and temple worship, they also rejected Roman religions and their practices. In fact, during the era of persecutions in the early centuries of the church, one of the charges brought against the Christians in the Roman courts was that they were atheists. By that it was meant that they rejected the Roman gods and Roman religion. This morning I want us to look at this passage in Philippians. In it the apostle Paul describes his own distinction between his experience of religion and his faith.

I. First let’s look at Religion. 3:4-9 “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: ⁵ circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. ⁷ But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;”

Paul was a very religious person all his life. Long before he came to faith in Christ he was religious. He calls himself “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” He says here that he went through the ritual of circumcision as all Jews did. He undoubtedly practiced the Jewish ritual baths called mikveh. He says he was a Pharisee, and Pharisees were very concerned about ritual cleanliness. The Pharisees were very strict keepers of the religious law. In fact he says he was, “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” In other words you could not get any more religious than he was. He said that he was so certain that his religion was right and others were wrong that he persecuted the church. The early Christian movement was an offshoot of the Jewish religion and was considered to be heresy by the strictest Jews.

Paul was very religious. As he looks back on that phase of his life later he realizes that he was also very wrong. He uses the phrase “confidence in the flesh” to describe his religion. He starts off our passage: “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.” I think the phrase “confidence in the flesh” sums up all religion. The term is very complex. His use of the word “flesh” partly has to do with his physical body insofar as he believed at that point that you had to be a physical descendant of Abraham, and more specifically of Israel, in order to be one of God’s people. But it was more than just genealogy. What Paul means by this phrase “confidence in the flesh” was that he was relying on his own human effort in his relationship with God.

Religion is the human effort to connect with the divine. In most cultures it is organized and institutional. We know these religions by names like Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and even Christianity; Christianity is a religion. These religions each have very different understandings of the divine, but they all share in the human attempt to relate to the divine. I would include Barna’s new phenomenon of “designer religion” as part of this same religious effort. Just because you have created your own private religion does not make it any less a religion. A lot of people today who reject organized religion and the institutional church are just as religious as any member of a church, mosque or temple. It is all “confidence in the flesh” to use Paul’s term. There is the assumption that one can – on our own or with others - connect with God. Given enough time and sincerity and perhaps discipline and effort, if we read enough spiritual books and hear enough spiritual teachers, then we can find out what is true and live it. In short, that we can do it on our own.

Paul calls this in verse 9 “having my own righteousness.” Righteousness is another very complex term. Basically it means the state of being right. Having right beliefs, right practices, right behavior, and being right with God. Paul was convinced that he had it right in every way. He says that he was “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” He thought he was blameless! There is nothing more dangerous than a person who thinks he is right and blameless, especially a religious person who is convinced that he is right and righteous. This is what we would call self-righteousness.

Religion tends to produce self-righteousness. It was Jesus chief criticism of the religious Pharisees and Sadducees of his day. That is why we have to be so careful as Christians. Our faith in Jesus can easily become self-righteous. There is nothing more ugly than a self-righteous Christian. A Christian who thinks that his religious views are the only right ones, who thinks that his/her standards of morality are the only right ones, that his/her interpretation of scripture is the only right one, that his or her political and social views stemming from his religion are the only right ones, is not only self-righteous but self-deceived. And I am talking of both liberal and conservative and even moderate Christians. All have sinned in this area.

Of course Christians are not the only ones who fall into this danger. Those who are not Christians and self-righteously condemn Christians for their self-righteousness are just as dangerous. Perhaps even more so these days. Anti-Christian prejudice is a very pervasive and unexamined form of bigotry in our American society. Some people are using the word Christophobia now to describe this prejudice against Christians, especially prejudice against evangelical Christians. It is a real form of intolerance that is not being acknowledged or addressed in the mainstream media; in fact the news media are themselves guilty of it. But I am getting off topic now.

Paul was so religious and so certain that he was right that he persecuted the followers of Jesus. He had them imprisoned and killed. He seems to have been the ring leader of the execution of the first Christian martyr Stephen. Then something happened. While on a trip to Damascus, Syria, to arrest some more Christians, he had an encounter with the living Spirit of Jesus Christ, and his life changed. He says that he considered his whole religious life up to that point as rubbish. He says in verses 7-8 “⁷ But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” The old King James Version is much more accurate here. It doesn’t say rubbish; it says “and do count them [but] dung.” Even that is a very polite way of translating what Paul really wrote. Paul is using the strongest words he can think of to describe his opinion of his religiousness before he came to faith.

II. Now let’s talk about faith. If faith is not religion, then what is it? Paul tells us in this passage. He says in verse 8 “⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Just like he couldn’t have used stronger words to describe religion, he could not more glorious words to describe faith in Christ: “the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Faith is first of all a knowledge of Christ Jesus. By knowledge Paul is not talking about facts. It is important to have your facts straight when it comes to Jesus of Nazareth, but he is not talking about historical knowledge. He is talking about personal firsthand knowledge. He is talking about what happened to him on the Damascus Road. His experience of Christ happened years after Jesus of Nazareth died. Paul never met Jesus in the flesh during his lifetime. He probably knew very few facts about Jesus’ life and ministry. At least he refers to very few in his letters. We know that he had heard Stephen preach the gospel. But you can be sure that everything he had heard was twisted and warped by his hatred of Christians. When Paul talks about “the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” he is speaking of personal knowledge.

I do lots of funerals. Most times I know the person who died. Some I know very well. Others I have never met. A family will ask me to do a funeral for their loved one, and I never knew them. But I have to give a eulogy. So I get as much information as I can from the family members and try to make it as personal and meaningful as possible. But I know the difference between talking about someone I knew and someone I didn’t know. When a family member comes to the pulpit and describes their beloved with tears and a cracking voice, it is clear that they KNOW him. I just know about him. When Paul is talking about the knowledge of Jesus, is not talking about knowing about him; he is talking about knowing Christ. That is faith.

Faith is also trusting in the righteousness of God. He says in verse 9 “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” There is self-righteousness and there is “the righteousness which is from God by faith.” Religion tends to produce self-righteousness; faith trusts God’s righteousness. Faith admits we have nothing to bring to the table. It is all God. Religion thinks it knows and understands and can reach God. Faith knows that really cannot understand nor can we reach God by anything we know or do. Faith throws itself entirely on the grace of God. Faith trusts itself entirely to the righteousness of God, “not having my own righteousness…  but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Faith knows Christ and the power of the cross and the resurrection. Verse 10-11 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Religion makes the cross and the resurrection into doctrines to be believed about Jesus. Faith experiences them as the power of life in Jesus given to us. To know Christ is not just to believe some things about his death and resurrection. Even though that is helpful, it is not enough. Faith is to experience the power of his death. Faith is to know the power of his resurrection.

          Faith is a journey. He says in verse 12 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” We never arrive – at least not this side of heaven. We are not perfect. We do not understand it all. In fact in my spiritual journey, the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know. The more I discover my ignorance, the more God fills me with his knowledge. The less righteous I feel, the more the righteousness of God is sufficient for me. It is when you are completely undone that God can make you whole. Faith is being nothing and inheriting everything. Faith is being no one, and because of that being filled with Christ. Faith is everything that religion wants to be. And the only way to receive this faith is to give up and give ourselves into the hands of God.

          Just so I am not misunderstood, let me make it clear that our faith can be expressed through religion, as long as faith is in control. You can have religion without faith, and faith without religion. But we can also have faith expressed through religion. That is what true Christianity is about. That is what my life is committed to, and what I desire this church to be about. I hope that this church might know Christ and the power of his death and resurrection, and that it may be expressed authentically through religious expression. That is why I called this message not “Faith or Religion,” or “Faith versus Religion,” but “Faith and Religion.” Or better yet “Faith expressed through religion.” But let us remember that faith is the key. As the old hymn says, “Faith is the Victory.”