I AM The Door

"I AM...The Door"

John 10:9

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Think with me about the doors you go through each day without thinking.  The door to your work.  I unlock the Genesis Center door, or Michelle is already there and has unlocked it, and I walk through the door.  I unlock my office and feel at ease—it’s a welcome place I spend most of my day.  But with those two doors now open, there is always the thought in the back of my mind: “Who will be coming through those doors today?

I think of people like Rex, who may go through several doors in a day as he makes sales calls for Stanion selling electrical equipment and lighting.  Each door he goes through he adjusts his persona and steels his confidence to talk with the people he has come to call on.  Though he may or may not recognize it, something happens to him as he walks through each door.

Or when you come to church, and you walk through the door, you may have conscious or unconscious expectations about what will happen in that next hour as you worship with others.  Maybe something is going on in your life and you hope to hear a word from the Lord as you sit in the pew.  All those expectations come to the surface as you walk through the church door.  And those expectations are evaluated, as you exit the church door following worship.

As a student (and maybe teachers as well), you walk into your school through the front door, or more particularly, when you walk through the door into each classroom, all kinds of anxieties may come to the surface of your psyche.  Will they like what I’m wearing?  Is someone going to make fun of my hair?  What if we have a pop quiz in algebra?  Will my lesson plans be adequate for the day?  Are the students going to behave today?  All that and more bubbles up in you, and all you’ve done is walk through a door.

Likewise, at the end of the school day, when you walk back through that door, an entirely different you is making their way out than the person who entered that same door in the morning.  Maybe, on the way out, you feel relief to be getting away from situations where you felt like you’ve been acting all day and you can just let go of that to be yourself.  And all you did was walk through a door.

Or maybe you have a shop or craft room at your home.  Tools and projects scattered about.  You may be thinking about a particular project you’ve been working on and all you have left to do, some silly shoe organizer—and you think about that with either excitement or dread.  Maybe your shop is a place where you can go at the end of your day, and no matter how bad the day was at work, once in your shop or craft room you relax and a sense of peace enters your mind, and stress begins to melt away.  All you did was walk through the door.

Some doors have the power to elevate our blood pressure.  Like at a medical clinic or hospital.  You're sitting in the waiting room, with cheery pictures on the wall, and medical brochures about diabetes or other medical conditions scattered about on end tables.  You look through them even though you never would normally, only because you are nervous and anxious.

Then the door to the inner exam rooms open and a nurse pokes through, calling your name.  (Or someone else’s name, and you have to wait some more.)  But when it's your turn, you walk through that door to the inner clinic and exam rooms your blood pressure rises, all because you walked through a certain door.

It’s hard for me to imagine being a firefighter and initially having to walk through the front door of a burning building.  My daughter, Kristin, put up an article on her Facebook page this week about how girls, growing up, are taught to be more fearful than boys are.  The article highlighted a young woman who has been a firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Department, in one of the scariest districts of that city.  In the article, she said,

When I worked as a firefighter, I was often scared. Of course I was. So were the men. But fear wasn’t a reason to quit. I put my fear where it belonged, behind my feelings of focus, confidence and courage. Then I headed, with my crew, into the burning building."  

As I said, imagine going through a door leading to a burning building with all that you are feeling, or having to force yourself to feel—or not feel—simply by walking through that initial smoke-filled door.

When I was in college, I knew, and was friends with, the chaplain at Swedish Hospital in downtown Seattle.  He was also the chaplain at the King County Jail, in that same downtown.  He asked me to preach for him at the jail on different occasions.

All the doors are made of steel bars in the King County Jail, and I had to go through four of them to get to the place where I lead worship and preached to a dozen or so inmates.  There was the characteristic ringing screech of the metallic hinge, as the doors opened, and the clang of the door as it was closed behind me.  I'll admit, it got to me at first, going through those doors, knowing that I was locked in with alleged felons.  All I did was walk through four doors made of steel bars, and all kinds of emotions and anxieties bubbled up.

Are you thinking about all the different doors you go through each day, and how each of those doors, once walked through, evoke different feelings and reactions within you?  And as I mentioned in the school door illustration, it’s not just a matter of going in, but also going out of that same door.  Entering and exiting.  You may feel something very different when you exit through a door you had used earlier as an entrance.  Especially if it’s a jail door.

Just approaching certain doors, without having walked through them yet, can evoke a wide range of feelings.  For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic book, The Scarlet Letter, there is this description of a door:

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. A crowd of dreary-looking men and women stood outside of the heavy oak door...the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era.

Not a very approachable door in that scene from the book.  Some doors are like that.  They seem welcoming and approachable.  Other doors can create a sense of foreboding or fear to have to go up to that door and knock.

There are even psychological studies about doors and how we approach them or feel about walking through them.  In dream therapy, if there is an outward opening door, it is supposed to signify that you are feeling you need to be more accessible and welcoming to others.  And if there is an inward opening door in your dream, it represents your desire for self-discovery and an awakening need to get to know yourself better.  (Now you’re going to have to think about the doors in your dreams!)

Also, if you have no fears about walking through any kind of door it means you are more willing to try to make a difference in the world.  Actress Elizabeth Taylor once said, “I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I'm not afraid to look behind (any of) them.”  Whereas if you have a certain amount of anxiety walking up to and through doors, it demonstrates how you live in constant fear of what the world might do to you.

Mostly, doors have been used as symbols of beginnings, endings, transitions, gateways, time and opportunity.  Think of the phrases we use along those lines:

Being at death’s door.

Get your foot in the door.

Opening the door of your heart.

Telling someone, “My door is always open.”

Closing the door to your past.

Most of these doors we are either unconscious about, oblivious to, or take for granted.  We just don’t think about doors much.  Until someone like me points them out to you and you start to think about how much doors affect your life every day.

There is one door that mostly gets ignored.  Part of the reason is we don’t even think of this one as a door.  I would guess many of you are unfamiliar with this door—not the door itself, but that he is a door at all.  While reading the Gospel of John, most fly by this statement of Jesus and think not much or anything about it.  “I am the door,” said Jesus.  Jesus is the door.

If you were to close your eyes and imagine Jesus as the door, where would your imagination take you?  First, you might wonder in your closed eye imagination, Jesus is the door of what?  The door of a mansion?  The door of a home?  The door of a castle?  The door of a cave?  The door of heaven?

I want you to think of all the places I brought to your minds during this message.  Think of Jesus as the door to all those places.  The door of your place of business and where you work.  The door of other people’s places of work.  The door of this church.  The door of your school and classrooms.  The door of your shop, place of recreation, or hobby.  The door of a medical clinic or hospital room.  The door of a building on fire.  The door of a jail cell.  And all the places your mind takes you that have doors you go through each day.

Think of Jesus as the door to all those places and more.  How does Jesus as the door to those places transform those places?  How would going in and coming out of those places be different for you if Jesus were the door?  How would your feelings and emotions be different if you entered every one of those places through Jesus?

Secondly, Jesus is the door into what?  Jesus says that anyone who goes through him as the door will be saved.  This word “saved” is such a rich word.  It can be translated with the words, delivered, protected, healed, preserved, and made whole.  You should write all those words down.

Think of those words as you go in and out of all the doors you do each day, and imagine Jesus is the door to all those places.  Every time you go through the door of Jesus you will be delivered, protected, healed, preserved and made whole.  Keep that in mind as you go to school, as you go to the clinic or hospital, as you go to work each day, even if you get closed in by the jailhouse door.  With Jesus as that door, something good and healing and whole is going to happen to you no matter what the place or circumstance.

Also, Jesus uses the word “pasture” as the answer to our question, “Door into what?.”  Jesus is the door into pasture.  He is using, of course, a shepherding image.  Pasture would represent food and sustenance.  Basic needs taken care of.  So think of going through Jesus the door means that, as you go through him, you go in to some place, some experience, some situation where your basic needs will be taken care of no matter what.

But this word, pasture, in the Greek Jesus spoke, has a wider meaning than sustenance and food.  It is a word that can also mean growth and increase.  Let’s plug those two words into the verse:  “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find (growth and increase).”

When the Financial Stewardship Team sent out the Stewardship letter in January, a little card was included in that letter.  I hope you put up that card somewhere in your home where you see it everyday and pray that prayer:  The Prayer of Jabez for Pratt Presbyterian Church.  It starts out, “Bless the Pratt Presbyterian Church indeed, bless our church family immensely and enlarge our territory…”

“Enlarge our territory.”  That’s the same meaning of the word pasture that Jesus used when he said he is the door.  Enlarge.  Growth and increase.  It’s the assurance that as we go in through the door of Jesus, into every place, into every experience, we will come out through that same door, enlarged, having grown in some significant way, increased not decreased.  But the key to that enlarging, growth and increase is making sure we just don’t go through some door of our own making, but through the door who is Jesus.

Know that when you go through the door Jesus into a hospital room or clinic, into school, into your place of work, no matter what, no matter where, by going through Jesus, you have the promise of finding pasture, of growing, of being increased as a faithful disciple, of being enlarged as a person rather than shrunk and deflated.

When you leave this sanctuary this morning, go through Jesus the door.  When you go home, enter your home through Jesus the door.  If you go out to a restaurant after worship, enter the restaurant through Jesus the door.  Every place, every where, enter through Jesus the door.  See what happens.

I AM...The Bread Of Life

I AM...The Bread Of Life

John 6:32-35

I asked Jennifer Barten to bring a couple of students to our Optimist meeting a couple of weeks ago.  I knew that there are a number of students from other countries attending PCC, and I was interested in how those students acclimate to life in Pratt, Kansas.

One of the students is from the Democratic Republic of Congo.  If you follow any news coming out of Central Africa, you know it is not good news.  This young man's father owned a shop in their town.  But things got so bad, they had to abandon their shop, abandon their home town, in the middle of the night, basically leave everything behind that defined them, and get across the boarder into Uganda as refugees.

His was an amazing story of gratitude as a Christian young man.  He has become a student refugee in America, coming to Wichita, and now Pratt.  One of the things he said about life in the DRC and then Uganda I'll always remember.  He said, "The main thought my family had, everyday, was, Will we be alive at the end of the day?"  He was so grateful to God for keeping his family safe, and his good fortune to get to the USA so he could get an education.

But getting here meant having to live life at its most basic level--just existing another day.  Keep me alive another day.

I've never experienced anything like that.  I'm guessing most of you have not either.  To be so needy in your desire to have another day of life.  To so eagerly desire just one thing--to be alive the next day.

Imagine that, if you can.  To desire that one thing that is essential:  daily life.

There are only two things needed to sustain life at its most basic level:  food and water.  Without food, a body can last around 3 weeks.  Mahatma Gandhi lasted 21 days one time on a total starvation diet.

Water is a different matter.  At least 60% of our body is made of water, and every living cell in the body needs it to keep functioning. Water acts as a lubricant for our joints, regulates our body temperature through sweating and respiration, and helps to flush waste.   Without replenishing our body's water we would die in 3 to 4 days.  Quicker if it was the middle of a hot summer.

When Jesus said, "I AM the bread of life," he is saying, "I am what fulfills your basic need in life."  Just like our bodies need food and water on the most basic level of survival, so Jesus sustains us on our most basic spiritual level of survival.  Jesus knows that life is about more than just existing from day-to-day.  Life must be awful if a person is simply existing on bread and water.

But isn't life just as awful if you are simply existing on spiritual bankruptcy?  What drives us to Jesus should be the same as what drives us to sustain our basic existence.

Let's look at this through another question.  What do we all hunger and thirst for?  Let's say your basic needs of food and water are taken care of.  So what do we all hunger and thirst for?

Jesus said, when the basic stuff is taken care of what everyone wants is life.  "I AM the bread of life," Jesus said.  Life.  All hunger and thirst comes down to living life.  In the Bible life is defined in at least four different ways:  vitality, fullness, blessedness, and genuineness.

Let's start with vitality.  Vitality is defined as the continuation of a meaningful and purposeful existence.  Life isn't about just existing.  It is sad when life is reduced to that, like the young man at PCC from central Africa.  Worrying about if you will exist at the end of the day.  Thank God we are not experiencing that.

But Jesus is saying, I AM the bread that is fueling your meaning and purpose.  Because that's what life is about.   A vital life is one with purpose and meaning.  You gain that purpose and meaning by feeding on the bread of who Jesus is.

There is one word in the definition of vitality, and I was wondering if you caught it.  Listen again:  vitality is the continuation of a meaningful and purposeful existence.  Did you catch it?  It's the word "continuation."  Vitality, life, is something that is sustained over the entirety of your life through Jesus.

Jesus wants to be the bread of your vitality over the long haul.  But you can't continue something you haven't started.  You can't continue having a life of meaning and purpose if you never started.  And you can't start until you let Jesus be your bread.  Really, let Jesus be your bread.

Secondly, in the Bible life is described as fullness.  An overflowing fullness.  Jesus, in another place in John's gospel, said, "I came that you might have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).  Abundantly means overflowing fullness.

We talk about people who see the glass as half full or half empty.  That won't do, said Jesus, when the glass can be overflowing.  Who wants half a glass of life?  "Whoever comes to me," said Jesus, "will never hunger and never thirst."  There will always be more than enough life with Jesus as the bread of that life.  It's like God rains bread out of the clouds upon us.  But you have to let Jesus be the only bread that fills that overflowing life of purpose and meaning.  Can you do that? is the question.

Thirdly, what we all hunger and thirst for is a blessed life.  Not a happy life.  A blessed life.  The Women's Bible Study that meets at Dona's house on Wednesday's got into a discussion about this when they were studying the Beatitudes a couple of weeks ago.  Is it blessed or happy?  What's the difference?

The word in Greek for blessed describes a joy which has its secret within itself.  That secret is a joy which is serene and untouchable.  Blessedness is a joy which is completely self-contained from all the chances and changes in life.

The word happiness has as its root word, hap, which means chance.  Human happiness is dependent on the chances and changes of life.  Thus happiness is something that life can give and something that life can destroy.

But Jesus' blessedness is a joy that is completely untouchable and undefeatable.  A change in fortune, a collapse of health, the failure of a plan, even the change in the weather can take away our happiness.  But serene and untouchable blessedness comes only from walking continuously in the company of Jesus, and feeding on him as the bread of life.

Lastly, life in the Bible is about that which is genuine.  It's about not being counterfeit as a person.  Things that are counterfeit look real.  They have the appearance of being real.  But under closer scrutiny, the falsehood of that appearance is revealed.

(My $500 bet with Tyler)

It's one of the main tactics of the devil--to offer us counterfeits of the good things of God.  Paul describes the counterfeits of evil so well in his letter to the Galatians.   This is his list:

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

But the list of that which is genuine, that which is about life, of those things of God the devil counterfeits, is much different.  In this list, Paul says is:

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

When you look at the two lists side-by-side in Galatians 5, it is so clear to see how the one list is a counterfeit for the other.  And it makes you wonder why it is we choose the counterfeit over the genuine so often.  Why do we sacrifice being genuine people, when deep down, that's what we all hunger and thirst for?  Why do we let the devil sucker us into being frauds?  What do we get out of it?  Empty and counterfeit lives, leaving nothing but a hollow and lifeless person.

Again, my question:  What do we all hunger and thirst for?  Does not all our hunger and thirst come down to living a vital life of meaning and purpose?  Does not all our hunger and thirst come down to living a life that is genuine to the core?  Does not all our hunger and thirst come down to living a life in which you not only feel that deep blessedness, but that you are also a blessing to others?  Does not all our hunger and thirst come down to living a life that is not just half full but overflowing?

That is what we hunger for, and that hunger can only be satisfied by the bread of life, Jesus our Lord.

I AM...The Light Of The World

I AM...The Light Of The World

John 8:12

I am.

Those are two important words.  Not because Popeye said them: "I am what I am."

You have to go way back to the beginning of the primary salvation event in the Jewish scriptures, the Exodus.  Moses, born of a Hebrew slave woman, cast away in a basket down the Nile river as an infant because all Hebrew children were supposed to be killed, plucked out of the water by the daughter of Pharaoh, raised in Pharaoh's household, killed an Egyptian soldier for beating a Hebrew slave, and ran away to the wilderness.

In the wilderness, Moses met a girl, the daughter of a Midianite priest.  The priest’s name was Jethro.  The girl’s name was Zipporah.  Moses started out working on the lowest rung for Jethro,  becoming a shepherd watching over the sheep.  A job Moses knew nothing about.  He had grown up in a palace, for goodness sake.

One day, out with the sheep, Moses saw a strange site:  a bush on fire, but not being burned up.  It was enough to get him to take a detour and check it out.  Then, even weirder, a Voice spoke out of the bush. God.  God was in the fiery bush.

Moses and God had a conversation through the burning bush.  The conversation was about God wanting Moses to free all the Hebrew slaves.  At one point in the conversation, Moses asked, "What if I go to them and tell them about this big plan, and they ask me, 'What's this God's name'"

God's reply?  "God said to Moses, 'I-AM-WHO-I-AM.  Tell the people of Israel, 'I-AM sent me to you.'"  In Hebrew, YAHWEH.  A verb; an action word.  God's name is an action word.  I am who I am; or, I am what I am; or, I will be what I will be."  But basically, "I AM."

So, in John's gospel, Jesus makes seven "I AM" statements.  Seven, is a holy number, because God created the world in seven days.  So seven is a number strongly associated with God and God's power.  Then, for Jesus to make these seven statements beginning with, I AM, would be clearly saying to people who knew the Moses story, that he, Jesus, is God.

Which would have, and did, make the Jewish religious leaders very angry.  To equate yourself to God, to call yourself God was blasphemy.  So Jesus really pushed the blasphemy envelope by saying it seven times.

I will be talking about six of the seven I AM statements during the church season of Lent.  Hopefully they will make us think about who Jesus was and is, how Jesus defined himself, and what that means for those of us who love him and follow him.  Especially as we journey towards Easter and Resurrection Sunday.

The first, that I will have us look at this morning, is, “I AM the light of the world.”  Let’s hear it again:  “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I AM the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

Jesus made this statement during the Feast of Booths—a special feast day on the Jewish calendar.  It was also called Sukkot.  Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters.

During the Feast of Booths, there were large golden lamps that were lit in the Temple during the feast.  It may have been these large lamps, casting out a glowing light in all directions, that Jesus was alluding to in his statement.

“I am the light…”  Light stood for a lot of things.  Primarily light stood for God.  It was the first thing God created when God made the world.  “And God said, Let there be light.”  Without light, nothing else in creation could be sustained.  So light and God were so important—without God, without light, nothing can grow and live.  Nothing else can happen unless the light—unless God—comes first.

Secondly, light stood for the truth.

A defendant took the witness stand.  The judge asked him to put up his right hand and answer the following question:  "Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

The defendant responded, "I'll try anything once."

This word for truth that is associated with the metaphor of light, means telling the truth, being the truth, all the time, no matter what.  It isn't about the truth only in certain circumstances.

We've talked before if it is humanly possible to tell the truth all the time in every instance.  I, for one, don't think it is possible for any human being to tell or be the truth in every circumstance.  Mainly because we don't know every nuance of every situation.  It's not that we intentionally lie.  We inadvertently lie because we just don't know everything.

But with Jesus as the light, here is truth all the time.  Sometimes that truth comes in the form of insight, in which Jesus, through a parable, shares the insight of truth, even though we have to figure it out and wrestle with it ourselves.  In this way, the word insight, could be another way we understand light, and how Jesus makes that happen in our lives.

"I am the light of the world."  The world!  Not just for a small area of the world.  Not just for the Jews.  Not just for Israel.  But the world.  The whole world.  Jesus was defining what kind of Messiah he would be and the scope of his influence and the reach of his light.

One of the other great verses in the gospel of John is John 3:16.  “For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only son, so that EVERYONE who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  The world.  Everyone.  The horizon of Jesus’ light is as wide as you can see.

And the assumption behind Jesus’ statement about the light for world is that the world needs Jesus’ light.  Jesus wouldn’t need to be the light of the world, if the world didn’t need that light.  But it does.

The world needs Jesus’ light because of the next part of the verse that says the world walks in darkness.  Darkness usually stands for three things in the Bible.  One is ignorance, but particularly ignorance of the ways of God.  I think this ignorance is growing.  People are leaving God behind, but I think people are for the most part ignorant of who it is they are leaving behind.  They may be giving up on God, but they don’t even know what and who they are giving up on.  They are ignorant of God and their ignorance becomes a kind of darkness that tricks them into giving up.

Darkness also stands for wickedness.  Living in darkness is living with a certain obscurity where nothing is really known and nothing is that important.  Living in that kind of darkness makes a person think, after a while, that the whole world is like that.  Within that obscurity, a person becomes a rule unto one’s self.  Which leads to wickedness.  The only way out is in the light—to move out of that self-directed obscurity to the light of Jesus.

And thirdly, darkness in the Bible stands for misery.  Someone who has locked themselves into ignorance and wickedness is also miserable.  The darkness of misery becomes a way of life, and living under the assumption that there is no way out of the misery.

One of Leonardo Da Vinci’s greatest works was the painting of “The Last Supper.”  This painting is an amazing work of art.  What is interesting about this painting is the expressions of the disciples when they are told that one of them would betray them.

What you may not know is that Da Vinci painted real people that he knew with expressions as the disciples in the painting.  When he was painting the face of Christ, he sought long and hard for the right face. In one of the churches in Italy he found a young man named Pietro Bandinelli. His face became the face of Jesus and the focal point of the painting. 

By 1498 all the disciples' faces were painted except one: Judas Iscariot. He needed one that had the miseries of SIN all over it. After a long and hard search he found just the man, and Leonardo stated the man's face made him shudder.  He asked the man his name, and the man stated, "I am Pietro Bandinelli, the one who you painted 3 years ago as the face of Jesus."

What happened?  A life of misery in the darkness of sin.  Misery that resulted from sin had created a whole different face on Bandinelli.  That’s why we need the light of Jesus to keep us from becoming people of misery and darkness and ignorance and wickedness and having all that contort our faces into visages we are ashamed of.

The remarkable thing about Jesus’ statement that he is the light of the world, is that it is the only “I AM” statement that we are told we share with him.  In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way let your light shine before others…” (Matthew 5:14-16)

So there it is.  All that Jesus is as the light of the world, so are we to be.  Our work is to be the light of God and the light of truth for a world that would rather be lost in ignorance, wickedness and misery.

But it is important to remember that being the light is not about us.  People aren’t looking at us, but at Jesus as the light.  Our job is to make the light of Jesus known.  Not point at ourselves.

A man, sitting in an English pub in the old days, relates what he saw outside the window:

I was sitting in the gloamin' and a man passed the window. He was a lamplighter. He pushed his pole into the lamp and lighted it. Then he went to another and another. Now I couldn't see him. But I knew where he was by the lights as they broke out down the street, until he had left a beautiful avenue of light.  Now I couldn't see him.  No, but his light could be seen. And that was the important thing. It was the lamplighter's business to light the lamps, not to make himself seen. What matters if people take little notice of you? The important thing is to make them take notice of your light.

We are the light of the world, but we don’t shed our own light.  We shed the light of Christ and leave that light in the wake of wherever we go in the world.  Just as the man in the pub looked out and watched the lamplighter progress down the street, so we as Jesus’ light for the world should be able to look back and see all the places we have left Jesus’ light behind us in all the places we had been that day.

"I am the light of the world," said Jesus.  And, "You are the light of the world."

Look In The Mirror

"Look In The Mirror"

2 Corinthians 3:17--4:2

Once upon a time there was a man.  He was a despicable man.  He had led a mean and disreputable life.  His character was vile.  And his face.  You know how our faces reflect the kinds of lives we have lived, especially once we are old.  This man’s face was almost beastly.  Because that’s the kind of life he lived.

But, lo and behold, this despicable man fell in love with a beautiful woman.  Hers was a beauty that shined through a nearly pristine character.  She was adorable.

The man knew he probably had no chance.  Here was a woman totally out of his league.  He knew.  She had no idea who he was.  All he knew was he had fallen in love.

So the man put on a mask.  It was the mask of a visage of a man who had lived an entirely different life than he had led.  It was the visage of a man who had enjoyed life, who had lived his life in service to others.  It was the mask that showed a face to the world that he had spent his life well.

With his mask firmly in place, he began to woo the woman.  He approached her as if he was the mask he wore.  The man treated the woman as the face on his mask would have treated her.  She fell in love with the man.

But then, out of the man’s past came one of his old associates—a one time partner in his previously shameful and heinous life.  He saw what the man was trying to do, and that he had nearly succeeded.  So the associate confronted the man in front of the woman he had come to love, and who had come to love him.  The associate dared the man to take off his mask and show this poor woman the real person behind the mask.  Demonstrate to her how he had duped her.  Show himself.  Show his true detestable self.

Sadly, looking into the eyes of the woman he loved, the man reached up to the mask.  He slowly lifted the mask up and away from his face.  And there, to the shock of the lowdown associate, but unknown to the man who had been de-masked, was a face identical to the mask he had just removed.

What you love, who you love, changes you.

A couple of weeks ago, my message was about the three people we are:  the person we are, the person others see, and the person we wish we were.  The man with the mask, having fallen in love with the woman, gained a vision for the person he wished he was.  The question, though, is once you have gained that vision, how do you change?  Even though you have had a long held pattern of living, that you may not be especially proud of, how do you make significant change?  Put on a mask?

No.  It all depends, as I just said, on what and who you love.  And it depends, as I shall explain in a minute, on glory. The truth is, change can happen.  But there’s only one way.

II

I wish I could have glued a little mirror on the front of each of the bulletins.  Because, if I had done that, I would now be asking you to look in the mirror at yourself, and think about the person you see—body, mind, and spirit.  Let’s pretend.  Look into the picture of the mirror on the front of your bulletin, and pretend you are looking at your self.  What and who do you see?  What are you thinking as you look into that mirror?

Then I wish I had the super power of being able to hear all your thoughts—to hear all that you are thinking about your selves as you look in the mirror.  What would I hear?  Would I wish I didn’t have that super power after I heard what you were thinking of your reflection?  Would what I hear break my heart for you all?  Would what I hear make me aghast at your blatant narcissism?

For the most part, I think I would be saddened by what I heard from your minds.  I would be saddened at how hard you are on yourselves.  How self-critical you are.  Maybe even how ashamed you are of yourselves.  That would make me sad.  I think that would certainly make God sad.

I was introduced to a woman by the name of Brene Brown a couple of weeks ago.  Alan Luttrell introduced me to her.  Actually, Alan’s daughter Lindsay introduced her dad to Brene, who then introduced her to me.  It was all done via a Ted Talk.  I hope you’re familiar with Ted Talks online; they are a great resource of brief, informative, inspiring talks on just about every subject under the sun.

This one particular Ted Talk by Brene Brown is titled “The Power of Vulnerability.”  I showed it to my class on Wednesday Family Night.  In that talk, Brene shows how shame, and the many ways we feel ashamed of ourselves leads to all kinds of dysfunction.

In the Ted Talk Brene describes how we try to deal with our shame and attempts at vulnerability.  She talked about four ways we attempt to cope with the shame we feel personally.  First, she said we numb.  The problem, Brene says, is that if we try to numb one area of our life, we end up numbing other important feelings and emotions.  We operate under the fallacy that we can numb just our negative aspects, and leave the positive aspects to themselves.  That, evidently, isn't accurate.  Numbness affects the whole of our aspects.

Secondly, she says we deal with shame by trying to make the uncertain certain.  If we can make everything black and white in our lives then we think we're in control.  But there's a certain amount of mystery in being human and that mystery doesn't fit in neat categories.  One of those mysterious aspects of being human is the feeling of vulnerability.  Uncomfortable with vulnerability, we try to turn that mystery into a certainty so we think we can control it.

Thirdly, she said we deal with shame by trying to be perfect.  Shame is the basis for our perfectionism.  If we can make ourselves perfect, and never mess up, then we will never feel shame.  For those of you who are perfectionists, how many have succeeded in becoming perfect?  None!?  You should be ashamed!  And so the cycle goes.  The less you measure up, the more shame you feel, the harder you try to be perfect.

And lastly, we deal with our shame by pretending.  We pretend we are someone else.  We pretend we don't feel anything.  We pretend we're OK.  We pretend we're fine.  And the more we pretend, the less real we become.

I've become fascinated with all this, so I bought three of Brene Brown's books and am currently in the process of reading one, titled, I Thought It Was Just Me.  In that book, she wrote, 

"Shame often prevents us from presenting our real selves to the people around us--it sabotages our efforts to be authentic. How can we be genuine when we are desperately trying to manage and control how others perceive us? How can we be honest with people about our beliefs and, at the same time, tell them what we think they want to hear? How do we stand up for what we believe in when we are trying to make everyone around us feel comfortable so they won't get angry and put us down?" (p. 242)

III

In a review of this book, one reader wrote, "Reading Brene Brown is like having someone standing in my face, shaking me, and saying, 'You see that crazy thing you're doing? Stop it!'"

Brown is certainly making me think, as she has for thousands of people, according to all the reviews of her book.

But the person who really does it for me is the apostle Paul.  Paul, in ways only Paul does, stands in front of me, nose-to-nose, and tells me the truth about myself.  But the truth he tells, especially here in "two" Corinthians--as Donald Trump calls it--may surprise you.

Let me read again, the verse that was read before.  This is from the King Jimmy Version.  (I wonder if anyone called King James, King Jimmy.  Probably not without losing their head.)

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (3:18)

Did you get that!?  Did you get how amazing that is--what he said?  He said that as believers in Jesus, we all stand in front of a mirror, looking at our reflection.  But the reflection you see isn't the one I mentioned earlier, when I talked about if there was a mirror on the front of the bulletin and you looked at yourself and what you would think as you looked.

Paul says, with our faces fully exposed and open, with no masks to hide behind, look into God's mirror.  What do we see, asks Paul?  Paul says we see in our faces, the "glory of the Lord."  We don't see a reflection of someone who is despicable and awful.

The word "glory" in the Greek literally means, honor, dignity, grace, majesty.  That is, especially, when the word glory refers to people, as well as God.  So when Paul says we look into God's mirror and our reflection is one of God's glory, we are seeing ourselves as people of honor, dignity, and grace.  We can share in that glory only because we love and belong to Jesus.

It is like my opening story.  We have been despicable at one time.  But we fell in love with Jesus.  We thought we had to put on a mask that showed Jesus we were different people.  We were ashamed, thinking that Jesus wouldn't love us unless we looked a certain way, or our visages were hidden from him.  So one of the ways we tried to get in good with God was through wearing a mask.  Which only lead to numbing, perfectionism, and a pretend life.

But our love for Jesus was all we needed to change us.  Remember, I said, who we love, changes us.  If we love Jesus, that changes us.  When we love Jesus, God hauls in this mirror that Paul describes, and we are asked to stand in front of it and take a look.

Instead of flinching and seeing the person we thought we were, created by our shame, we see a person with the face that reflects the glory of God.  Paul says we are changed into that same image of the glory of God because we love Jesus.  But that's not all.  Paul goes on to say that we are being changed "from glory to glory."  We are being transformed into glory and more glory and more glory--more honor, dignity and grace because of who we love.

The only way to change who we are is to fall in love with Jesus.  Once that happens, God uses that love to change our faces into the glory of God.  And keeps on changing our faces, adding more and more glory. It means not having to live according to a shame-based life, but a glory of God based life, a love for Jesus based life.  It all depends on who you love.

`If You Had To Choose

"If You Had To Choose"

1 Corinthians 13

It's too bad this reading from 1 Corinthians 13 didn't come up in the lectionary a couple of weeks from now on Valentine's Day.  But it's close enough.  Maybe by thinking about love and what love really is now, a couple of weeks ahead of time, you can get Valentines Day right.  Because, more often than not, Valentine's Day gets love all wrong.

Let me demonstrate that with some cards.

This one isn't too bad.  "Love makes life alive" is kind of a weird line.  It assumes you know the difference between "life" and being "alive."  And I hate to be the Grinch who stole the heart right out of this sentimental card, but the truth is, you can live without another person.  All the widows and widowers in the world certainly know that you can, and you have to—you have to find a way to go on with life and love after a saddening death.

This card is testimony to the fact for the need of a good proofreader:  "yo just come into..."  And I'm sorry again for being the Grinch who stole romance, but that last line is just a little creepy:  "Yo(u) just come into my life and made it YOURS!"  Letting someone, including your spouse, come into your life and totally taking it over, so you have no more individuality is pathological at worst, and at the least, co-dependent."  And the fact that you would allow someone to come in and totally dominate who you are as an individual says a whole lot more about you than them--and it's not good.

This one is a bit funny to me.  "You are always in my thought.”  Not “thoughts” plural.  Because, you know, I only have one thought.  There's only one thing on my mind.  And you're involved with that one thing.  But wait, there's more!  What this person is excited about is that the other person is "madly in love" with them.  This says one of two things:  first, the person is so full of shame they can't believe someone would actually love a schmuck like them; or, secondly, it's all about me, and love is a one way street.  It's not about our mutual love, or my love for you; it's about you loving adorable, narcissistic me!

This one's kind of funny to me, also.  It all sounds mildly romantic in the top part.  But then there's a jab in the last line.  "Try to respect it."  You can just hear the tone change, and the facial expression change in that line.  There’s almost this unspoken, “Jerk” at the end of that line.  “Try to respect it…jerk.”

And then the last one:

Here we’re getting a lot closer to the true humanity, humor and pathos behind what love really is, and what love has to do with.  Love isn’t about sloshy sentiment.  It’s about the humorous truth of an ever changing and growing view of love, that involves our changing bodies and personalities.

So, let’s turn to someone who will tell us what love really is and all about.  The apostle Paul.  When you first think about Paul telling us about what human love is, you are almost wondering, “Really?  Paul?  The guy whose personality is often abrasive, and whose personal style is in-your-face?  Crusty, hard-bitten Paul?  Push and shove, type A personality?  That guy?”  I mean, how many of you women, if you were unmarried, would go on a date with Paul?  Not the kind of guy who would remember anniversaries or give you roses.  And yet he writes some of the most profound words about love ever written here in 1 Corinthians 13.

I’m not going to get into the list of what love is and what love is not.  What caught my attention was the opening verses.  Paul opens up this part of his letter with some rather provocative choices.  They are choices, between both good and admirable ways of being.

First, Paul wrote that if you had to choose between speaking like an angel or a theologian/philosopher; or, being a loving person, it would be better to choose being a loving person.

Just before Presidential advisor, Lee Atwater died back in 1990, he wrote in an article in LIFE magazine:

What was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood…I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90’s, but they must be able to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

What a great thing it would be, to be able to “speak to the heart of American society” and address the “spiritual vacuum” with eloquence.  What an unbelievable gift it would be to touch the American populace with that kind of angelic speaking.  But what Paul said was, as wonderful as that would be, and as worthwhile, if you had to choose between that and being a loving person, choose being a loving person.

The second choice Paul highlighted was similar.  If you had to choose between being a profound and powerful preacher, a person who could answer any and all religious questions, or, be a person who loves, choose to be a person who loves.

There was a very popular preacher in Scotland by the name of Thomas Guthrie.  People who were critical of him said he was not a very logical preacher, nor very profound.  “But,” said one admirer, “the people thronged to hear him because they knew he would warm their hearts.  And that’s what people long for.”

How great would it be to be such a preacher!  Your style may be a little quirky, but you would be able to warm the hearts of your listeners.  As wonderful as that kind of ability would be, if you had to choose between that and being a loving person, Paul said, choose being a loving person.

Thirdly, Paul wrote, if you had to choose between being a miracle worker or being a loving person, choose to be a loving person.  In a TIME magazine article about miracles, author Lance Morrow wrote:

A miracle is a wonder, a beam of supernatural power injected into history.  For an instant, Up There descends Down Here.  The world connects to a mystery—a happening that cannot be explained in terms of ordinary life.

Then he went on to write:

Miracles take the form of lives.  Abraham Lincoln was a miracle.  Divinity poured almost spontaneously out of Mozart.  Surely when it is time for the Catholic Church to make Mother Teresa a saint it will seem redundant for a panel of theologians in Rome to ask for proof of miracles she performed.  She herself is the miracle.

What a wonderful power it would be to be not just a miracle worker, but to embody in yourself the miraculous.  To be a spark of the Divine in the everyday.  Even as great as that might be, says Paul, it would be greater to be known as a loving person.

And speaking of Mother Teresa, Paul wrote if you had to choose to be like her, to give everything away to the poor so you had nothing, or, be a loving person, choose to be a loving person.

One time a bunch of reporters were following Mother Teresa around on her daily rounds.  One reporter was overwhelmed by all her mission did, and the kinds of people they worked with.  He said, “What is one thing I can do to support your work in this mission?”

She looked at him and replied, “Go home and love your family.”

That is what Paul meant.  If you don’t know how to love, even your ability to be charitable will be suspect and tainted.

Then, fourthly, Paul made the claim that if you had to choose between being a martyr for what you believe, and witnessing to your faith by making the ultimate sacrifice, or being a loving person, choose to be a loving person.

There was a famous regiment of the Roman army called The Forty Wrestlers.  They were some of the best and bravest soldiers in the army.  They were loved in the arena for their athletic abilities.  They were also all Christians.

During one campaign in the high mountains of Armenia, in Asia Minor, winter had set in.  The Roman Emperor issued a decree that all of his armies on a given day were to pay homage to the statue of the emperor by offering a cup of wine, bowing and burning incense.  The 40 Wrestlers refused.  They told their general, “For Rome we will fight on any field and under any sky in the service of the Emperor.  If necessary, we will die.  But we worship no one save our Master, Jesus Christ.”

Because they wouldn’t worship the emperor’s statue, the forty soldiers were stripped of their armor and their clothing.  They were forced naked out on to the surface of a frozen lake.  When night came, the temperatures dropped below zero.  The other soldiers, by their warm campfires, heard the forty soldiers singing,

Forty wrestlers wrestling for thee, O Christ,

claim for thee the victory

and from thee the crown.

The song grew fainter as man after man died in the cold on the ice.  There was one who was yet alive.  He came up to the general’s tent and said to the guard, “I will recant and bow to the emperor’s image.”  The guard, who was a non-believer, but had been moved by the heroism and faith of the other 39 wrestlers said to the man, “Since you have proved to be a coward, I will take your place.”  Right then and there he stripped off his clothing and went out in the night upon the ice.  He too sang the song of the 40 Wrestlers.  After a while his voice also went silent.  When the morning sun arose over the mountain tops, it shined down upon the 40 Wrestlers who had refused to bow to another, who died for Christ, and from Christ received the crown.

What a powerful story.  What an inspiration.  I don’t know if I’d be able to do that.  But as heroic as that was, Paul said, “If you had to choose between dying a heroic death and being a loving person, choose to be a loving person.

And lastly, Paul wrote if you have the chance to be a real somebody, or be somebody who loves, choose to be somebody who loves.  Dr. Albert Schweitzer was the surgeon who gave up a lucrative practice in London to go to Africa and be a missionary surgeon.  One time when he was in the United States, a group of reporters had cornered him in the Chicago railway station.  As they were talking, a woman carrying a couple of heavy suitcases struggled by.  Schweitzer excused himself for a moment and taking the woman’s suitcases, helped her board her train.  When Schweitzer returned to where he had left the reporters, not a single one was there.  They were each trying to find some lady they could help with her suitcase.

There was Dr. Schweitzer, the world famous missionary surgeon.  He was a real somebody.  He was a big somebody.  But he choose to be somebody who loves.  That’s what Paul was trying to say.

Now if you’re like me, when you look down that list of things that you could choose to be, there are a lot of great things.  A miracle worker.  A great speaker.  A person of great insight and intelligence.  A self-sacrificial person who is even willing to give up your life for what you believe in.  But without a single ingredient, all those are worthless.

As Paul wrote at the end of the chapter, most of those things will pass away and become unremarkable.  Inspiring speech will have its day.  Miracles will one day be unnecessary.  There is a limit to what one person can know.  Everything has its limits.  There is only one thing that is lasting and limitless, that will never become unnecessary, and will never see its day.  That one thing is love.  There is no limit to how much you can love others, or how much you can be loved.

So, as Paul wrote at the end of this chapter, “…love extravagantly.”

Three Men

"Three Men"

Luke 4:14-30

There is a short poem by John Masefield that reads:

And there were three men

Went down the road

As down the road went he

The man they saw, the man he was

And the man he wanted to be.

As the poem states, there is but one man walking on the road.  But within the one man there are really three:  the person others see, the person he really is, and if caution could be thrown to the wind, the person he’d really like to be.

We all have opportunities in our lives when we have the chance to make minor or major adjustments in those three selves—that trinity that is within us all.  One of those times may be when you are embarking on something new, like starting a new job, or making a career switch.  Or you’ve lost a loved one, and you have the opportunity to redefine those three selves without the other in your life.  The same happens after a divorce.  Or maybe you have reached a point in life when you are tired of who you are, and you begin a new self-examination, pondering changes you want to make in those three selves.  Or maybe you are a teenager and you are trying to put yourself together apart from parental control and influence, not to mention peer pressures.

There was an actor who came to Hollywood from Paris to look for work—to make his dream come true of breaking into the entertainment world.  As he entered each casting office, he would leap over the secretary’s desk.  No one every forgot him.  Whenever they needed an actor of that type, they called “the fellow who jumped over desks.”  Likewise, most of us search for some way, some look, some behavior, some attitude, some characteristic that will distinguish us from the rest of the pack and make us memorable.

But at some point in our lives, we all have to figure out some way to reconcile the “three selves” each of us live as.  There is the person others see.  Some of what other people see about us is within our control and some is not.  It’s determined by how well we define ourselves in ways we want to be defined, rather than being wet clay, always formed in someone else's image.

In the book on marriage titled, Scary Close, that Men’s Bible Study just finished up, there is this illustration that fits well here.  Donald Miller and his fiancé went to a place called “Onsite” for pre-marital counseling with a group of other prospective couples.  This is what happened in one of the group sessions.

Back at Onsite, our group therapist created a terrific visual example of what a healthy relationship looks like. She put three pillows on the floor and asked a couple of us to stand on the pillows. She told us to leave the middle pillow open. She pointed at my pillow and said, “Don, that’s your pillow, that’s your life. The only person who gets to step on that pillow is you. Nobody else. That’s your territory, your soul.” Then she pointed at my friend’s pillow and told her that was her pillow, that she owned it and it was her soul. Then, the therapist said, the middle pillow symbolized the relationship. She said that both of us could step into the middle pillow any time we wanted because we’d agreed to be in a relationship. However, she said, at no point is it appropriate to step on the other person’s pillow. What goes on in the other person’s soul is none of your business. All you’re responsible for is your soul, nobody else’s. Regarding the middle pillow, the question to ask is, “What do I want in a relationship?” If the pillow you two step on together works, that’s great. If not, move on or simply explain what you’d like life to feel like in the middle pillow and see if the other person wants that kind of relationship too. But never, she said, ever try to change each other. Know who you are and know what you want in a relationship, and give people the freedom to be themselves.

This is a huge developmental question for all of us.  Who am I on my own pillow?  There are people who allow all kinds of others to stand on their pillow and tell them what kind of person they should be.  From the poem, that’s “the man he was,” or, “the man he wanted to be.”  I would amend this to say that if there is only one other who is allowed to stand on your pillow, it should be Jesus.

Jesus, himself, had to deal with that at the start of his Galilean ministry.  He had already launched his mission in the Capernaum area on the north shore of Lake Galilee.  Stories about Jesus traveled northward through the Galilean region so that by the time he got to Nazareth, expectations were already being formed about what He would do and who He was.

Walking through the little hill village of Nazareth, where he grew up, Jesus had to be sensitive to the “three men:”  the man they saw, the man He was, and the man He wanted to be.  I think Jesus had those three worked out in His mind, but did any of those who came into contact with Him—especially with whom He grew up with in Nazareth?

I was reading an article this week about the state of American religion and spirituality.  There was a phrase that caught my attention.  The article stated that in America, we live in “the Christian ghetto of the already convinced.”

Not only in the church, but in every facet of life, there is a segment of people who are “already convinced.”  That is, they have their opinions already set.  They have their ways of thinking already set.  They have their impressions already formed.  They have their beliefs already poured into concrete.  No new thoughts are entertained.  No new ideas are contemplated.  No new ways of being are attempted.

At the Elders meeting this past Tuesday, Alan Luttrell has started leading us through the process of how we are going to change directions in our congregation so we have a growing worship attendance.  We realize this is going to take some new ways of thinking about who we are, and who others think we are.  But we are looking forward to embarking on this adventure of growing our worship and program attendance, and not let the attitudes of the “already convinced” have the day.

I heard the story about a family that moved to a new town.  The youngest child in the family was, shall we say, a very active boy.  One of those kinds of kids who never gets tired and is always in the middle of something.

When the boy’s mother went to enroll him in his new school, she was asked to fill out an enrollment card with the usual information.  She filled in all the required data, such as name, address, age, family doctor, etc.  Near the bottom of the form she came to a spot reserved for “additional remarks.”  In large letters, the mother wrote, “BRACE YOURSELVES!”

Brace yourselves.  We will be looking at our congregation and not only deciding who we are, and how others see us, but who we want to be as we strive to increase our worship attendance.

I think Jesus also had some of that “Brace Yourselves” as he started his ministry, especially to people like those in his home town where they may have thought they already knew who he was.  But those gathered there to pray and sing and hear scripture were seeing a different man.  They were seeing a man who had a nice voice, who could read scripture well, maybe even prayed sincerely.  Here’s how Luke described it:  “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph's son?’”  (verse 22)

But then Jesus pulled his three men—his three selves—together and let everyone see who he was, and who he wanted to be.  Jesus already knew that he was in the middle of a ghetto of the already convinced.  Once Jesus told them that God had sent the prophet Elijah to sustain “a widow in the town of Zarephath near the city of Sidon” (in other words, a Gentile); and that God through the prophet Elisha had only healed the leper Naaman from Syria, (also a Gentile), and that Jesus was defining himself and his ministry as one for “outsiders”, then that lit the match of their ghetto mentality.

So, at the outset of his ministry, Jesus took the misperceptions head on, and made the “three men” of who he was, who he wanted to be to come together into the seamless robe of his ministry.  But it didn’t work.  Instead of seeing him for who he chose to be, the people couldn’t see past their own self-convinced misunderstanding.  Suddenly they turned, and instead of thinking him a gracious talker, out of their wrath, they tried to throw him over a cliff, in his home town.

In Men’s Bible Study we are using the 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan as the basis for our study.  If you have been using that also, this past week you would have read Mark 14 and Mark 15, the record of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and Crucifixion.  One of the points we discussed at Men’s Bible Study was the total misunderstanding of who Jesus really was.  It seemed at every turn of the story in those chapters of Mark’s Gospel, there was someone who looked at Jesus and saw only what they wanted to see.  Defined Jesus by their own misunderstandings.  It didn’t matter who Jesus really was.  Others had already made up their minds and acted toward him accordingly.  This time Jesus didn’t escape, as he did in Nazareth.  This time he was crucified.

It becomes a constant task of Jesus to define clearly who who he was and what his identity is—to somehow bring the three men together.  This story of how the Galilean ministry got started in Nazareth—with rejection—is important because it signals what kind of message Jesus is going to speak, what kind of Savior he will be, and what his followers are asked to be and do.  I think each congregation has to go through the same identity “crisis” defining who they are as a church, and how they want to be perceived.

The problem, and the truth is, most Christian churches are ghetto’s of the already convinced.  That is, we are already convinced about who we think Jesus is, what kind of message he speaks, what we are being asked to do, what kind of people are in and which are out, what the church should be like and what it should be doing.

We already know.  We don’t want to hear any new stories, like those Jesus told in Nazareth, that God’s whole project with people is a great deal larger than we had determined.  We don't want to find out that in our Bibles there are stories of God’s gracious inclusiveness and acceptance of people we would rather God not include or accept.  We don’t want our arrogant level of being convinced challenged.  We don’t want Jesus free to be Jesus the way Jesus wants to be.  We don’t want to find out we’ve been living in the Christian ghetto of conclusions that have, in all reality, deprived us of growth and experiencing Jesus in all His fulness.

Don’t we all feel the gap between the three men:  the person we are, the person people think they see, the person we really want to be.  Imagine how that must have been so frustrating for Jesus, knowing he was the Savior of the world.  Most everyone saw someone else.

And the same is true of the church.  There is the church we are, the church others think they see, and the church we really want to be.

It is time to change the ghetto in which we live.  It is time to see Jesus in the seamlessness of his own self-definition.  And it is time to take a fresh look at our church, and find a way, together, to be as seamless with those three selves as Jesus was.

Something From The Spirit

"Something From the Spirit"

1Corinthians 12:1-11

You each have “something from the Spirit.”  Do you know what it is?  Some call it a gift.  Or an ability.  Or something about your character.  Whatever it is that we call it, according to Paul in this letter, it can be “seen in each person.”  That’s the first thing.  And secondly, it is “for the common good.”  The common good of the church, that is.  And probably for the common good of all life.

Are you aware what that “something from the Spirit” is in yourself?  How many think you do?  I like the way this is phrased, “seen in each person,” because, though it is visible to others, it is not entirely visible to us.  That’s one of the things we need other believers for.  That’s one of the reasons we need this community of Jesus—to help each other see, what is in us, that “something” from the Spirit.

So here is what I want you to do.  There is an insert in each bulletin.  If you don’t have one, we printed some extras.  Ushers please make sure each person has one.  Now, print your name at the top.  Pass them all to this end of the pew.  Ushers, collect them and mix them up.  Once they are mixed up, pass them out randomly.  If you get your own back, trade it with someone else.  Now take a few minutes and just write one word (or a few) that you think describes what that “something from the Spirit” is that that person has.  A spiritual quality, not, “this is the kind of person I think you are.”  I would be like, “You have the spirit of…”

Keep in mind what verse 7 says here in 1 Corinthians 12.  The New Century Version that was read, states:   “Something from the Spirit can be seen in each person, for the common good.”  And in the Contemporary English Version, it states, “The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others.”  So, what you are trying to identify in the person whose list you have is what the Spirit has given them, that is visible to you, that enhances or directs the way this person serves others, or works for the common good.

Here’s an example.  I’ll use John and Dona Cochran.  I think, together, as a couple, the “something” the Spirit has given them is hospitality.  Not everyone’s home is a swinging door like their home is.  Men’s Bible Study, Women’s Bible Study, Christmas Eve Soup Supper, just to name a few.  It is so visible to me what the Spirit has given them, and it’s not just for them—it’s clearly for the common good.  It’s their way of serving others.  So if they had a sheet as a couple, I would write, “hospitality” on one of the lines.  When you look at John or Dona individually, you may see other “something’s” the Spirit has given them.

When you’re done writing one thing down, pass it along or trade with someone else.  If you really don’t know the person to write something down, just pass it along to another person.

Once a sheet has 10 fill-ins, give it back to an usher.  The ushers can collect these and pass them back to the right person.  Questions?

After you get your list back, look it over.  Is there anything there that surprises you?  Maybe a difference in what you see in yourself vs. what others have written they see is that special something from the Spirit.  Any one want to make a comment about the process, or about something on their sheet?

The reason I’ve had us do this is based on one of my main assumptions that we can’t see in ourselves that certain something.  We may look at another person and think, “You have a certain something about you—and it’s got to be from God—because it is so clear.”  But the person we’re thinking that about may have no idea.

What dulls us to a sensitivity to that certain something the Spirit has given us for the common good?

One answer will come when we remember which church Paul was writing to:  the Corinthian congregation.  If you know anything about that congregation, you will know it was a mess from day one.  The people of Corinth, were as a whole, infatuated with themselves.  Arrogant.  Self-centered.  Narcissistic to the core.  Sexualized everything.  They had no thought of the “common good.”  They only thought about themselves and their personal good.

One of the reasons the people of Corinth were that way was because of their worship of Diana, also called Artemis, the sex goddess.  It got to the point that if someone told you you were acting like a Corinthian, it was not a complement.

But the other reason was, there was a popular philosophy, developed by Greek thinkers, called Stoicism.  The Stoics wrestled with the question, as did most ancient philosophies, of, “What makes people happy?”  The answer of the Stoic philosophers was to be a completely autonomous individual will.  We would call it being a rugged individual.  The way you did that was to live a life marked by the quality of, to use the Greek word, apatheia.  What English word does that sound like?  (Apathy.)  Apatheia in Stoic philosophy refers to a state of mind where a person is not disturbed by the passions.  In our day and time, apathy means to just not care about anything.  But it was different when the Stoics got started.

Apatheia means not being taken over by, or to react with your emotions.  It is to let logic rule your life.  The Stoic philosophers believed one of the main ways you let your emotions get the better of you was through human relationships.  So the fewer humans you allowed yourself to get close to, the more logical and clearly you can think, and the more you can live a life of apatheia—thus, be happy.  The more you can be a completely individual person the happier you will be.

I know this is a brief philosophy lesson, but it’s strategic in understanding what Paul is saying here about that special something that comes from the Spirit.  Stoicism was the main, and most popular philosophy in Greece, where Corinth was located.  The converts that Paul made at Corinth would have been Stoics.  These Christian converts would have, previously been trying to discover happiness through apatheia, thus becoming individuals, completely separate from others.

But then Paul comes along and tells them something entirely different.  He tells them that the Spirit has given them something, yes, very individual.  But what is given by the Spirit is to be used for the common good.  You don’t find happiness by cutting yourself off from others.  You find happiness by creating community with others by sharing the unique gift the Spirit has given you.  That’s the truth Paul was trying to make to the Corinthian converts.  It was a hard sell.

Stoicism is still alive and well.  Ever been told, “No one is in charge of your happiness but you”?  Stoicism.  “Don’t let anyone rob you of your happiness.”  Stoicism.  “The question is not, ‘Why does so-and-so make you mad’; the question is, ‘Why do you let them make you mad?’”  Stoicism.

The better, the positive flip side to all that is being given something from the Spirit for the good of the Christian community.  Giving of yourself in some specially gifted way that adds to the common good.  Not living life for yourself, but for the health and empowerment of the community of believers.

The Stoicism of our day is called social media.  Facebook.  Instagram.  You may think you are connecting with others.  But you are literally isolating yourself from others.  Keeping yourself at arms length.  Trying to create a measure of safety from real human emotional relationship.  You don’t have to really care as much, because the reality is, you really aren’t putting the real you out there.  Through social media you are protecting yourself from true community and relationship.  You are protecting yourself from emotions, just like the Stoics did.  Letting people affect you, but only so much.

Paul is saying the opposite.  What followers of Jesus are trying to do is build authentic community, where people really get together, and build that community together, using the special something from the Spirit.  You all have it.  You hopefully got a vision of it through our little exercise this morning.  Use it.  Help all of us build something for the common good.