Over The Edge

"Over The Edge"

Mark 5:11-13

What if you could do it?   What if you could take all the splotches out of your life and have them thrown into a herd of pigs.  Would you allow it.

We're all a mix, aren't we?  Purity and putridness.  Saintly and sinister.  Best intentions and manipulations?  Fealty and phlegm.  Complimenting and cussing?  Hospitality and hostility?  Endearing and demeaning.  Forgiving and fuming.  Pretty and petty.

The problem is, we can be both at the same time.  Our purity can be putrid when it comes out as self-righteousness.  Your best intentions can be the basest of manipulations if those intentions are fed from the soil of a false ego.

Oil and water can be mixed together.  But if you wait long enough, the oil floats to the top and you can separate them easily.  But if you put chocolate syrup in milk, you can't unchocolate the milk.  Once the syrup is in, it's always going to be chocolate.

We may think the same about our character and our spirit.  Once you've let the smut in, you can't unsmut your character.  Once you've let all the obscenity in, you can't make your spirit obscene-less.  To take the smut and the obscene out of your life would kill you because it's all mixed together.  You have to pour the milk out with the chocolate syrup, if you want to start over.

Maybe you've seen the TV show, Intervention, with episode after episode, each one as frightening and heartbreaking as the last. The show's subjects came from every possible social demographic, from supportive and stable families to dysfunctional, abusive ones. What Intervention does best, though, is show the person behind the addiction — a person with a sense of humor, a set of values, an identity that was getting absorbed into their addiction crisis.

Some episodes of the show were overwhelmingly tragic, some incredibly frustrating, and some make the viewer want to leap through the television, grab people by the shoulders, and shout "stop blaming your child for being the victim of your abuse."

In one episode, Allison was addicted to inhalants, sometimes using ten cans of spray duster a day to get high. The episode stands out for a few reasons: One, until this point, many of the viewers were not even aware that people abused spray dusters as an inhalant drug. And secondly, even while obviously in the throes of a very serious crisis, Allison's personality was really vibrant, even while she was sucking down spray cans and passing out in Walgreens.

But certainly, like these people on the show, Intervention, the mad man who confronted Jesus needed an intervention of some kind.  The mad man was a human being, after all, was, at some time, some mother's baby, some father's child.  And as a human being--an awful mixture of the vibrancy of being human and the tragic of succumbing to the smut and obscene that drives a person to madness.  Can the two ever be separated?

Thinking it impossible to separate the two, people learn to live with it.  You hear them say things like, “This is just the way I am.”  Many addicts on the show Intervention, were heard to say: "This is just the way I am!  If you don't like it, tough.  That's your problem, then, for not being able to accept me the way I am."  That's the problem, isn't it.  We get used to it--the way we are.  Nothing's going to change until the kingdom comes.

But what if it could?  What if you could?  What if all that falseness and madness could be separated out from you and you could be free of it?  Would you do it?  Would you take the chance?

I wonder about the wild man.  If people just got used to him.  And he just got used to himself. If you lived in the nearby town and went to the waterfront for some reason, you just expected to hear or see the wild man, running around screaming.  Or if you went to the cemetery to decorate the grave of a loved one, you expected to see the wild man, either from a distance or up close.  It was just a reality.  The situation wasn’t going to change.  The mad man wasn’t going to change.  People and the man were resigned to the way it was.

But the situation did change.  The man did change.  By Jesus, everything changed.  The man's madness--his deeply imbedded false self--was separated from the good that lay hidden, and removed.  After his encounter with Jesus, the man was "...clothed and in his right mind...".

2000 pigs died that day.  The story thus makes us assume there were 2000 aspects of the mad man's false self that went out into the pigs causing them to stampede and die.  Imagine 2000 aspects of one man's false self.  Makes you wonder, doesn't it.  About yourself.  How many aspects of your false self there really are.  Evidently, not enough to drive you mad and live in the cemetery.

But enough for me to ask the question again, Would you allow it?  Would you allow all the aspects of your false self to be cast into pigs, and watch those crazed pigs, imbedded with your false selves destroy themselves--and your false self with them?  Not scapegoats, but scape pigs.  Would you allow Jesus to do that for you?

The thing is, because the false selves were so many and so rooted in the crazy man's life, he probably didn't even know that he needed such an extraction, such an intervention.  Notice, Jesus didn't ask the mad man's permission.

Thus, Jesus, in effecting our salvation--of performing an amazing intervention--doesn't ask our permission.  Jesus has already made the evaluation that we are a sick, addicted, perverse, violent, and nearly mad people.  In Jesus Christ, God doesn't wait for us to ask that there be some sort of thorough spiritual intervention.  As Paul writes in Romans, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly."

In the intervention that would free us from our false self once and for all, Christ didn't round up all our loved ones and give us a choice.  Christ went through with it, extracting the false self cleanly and neatly from the ways it was intermixed and tangled with the spark that had to do with God.  It's already been done.

As this chapter says, "Putting on the new nature, as with putting off the old, is not something we can do" (page113).  That's the amazing gift we've been given.  The Lord has cast all of our falseness into the pigs and sent the whole mess over the edge.  It has, once and for all, been put to death.  Not because we wanted it or could do it ourselves.  All we need to do is acknowledge what Christ has done for us.

But I like what the author of our book further states:  "Such acknowledgment is far more than our intellectual assent to a theological fact or our cognitive affirmation of dogma.  It is a radical commitment to a whole new mode of being."  We aren't just saying to ourselves, "Oh boy, Jesus has taken care of my false self, and killed it.  What a nice guy."  Instead, our acknowledgement of that fact needs to be the first step in that "radical commitment" to Christ for what he's done.  That commitment is the only thing that will keep the demons from coming back, digging in to create another false self, or false selves.

That's why I love this picture on the front of the bulletin.  It's the picture of a person who has had her false self, with all it's aspects, thrown into the pigs.  The pigs have all thrown themselves into the lake and drowned.  And all that's left is a person, a human being, clothed and in their right mind, clinging to the cross that made it all happen.  Clinging to the Christ on the Cross.  Clinging with radical commitment, free of the false self, and transformed and filled with the Christ self.  All you need to do is put yourself in that picture.

Who Are You?

"Who Are You?"

Mark 5:9; Galatians 2:19-20

In our chapter for this week, out of The Deeper Journey the author uses the image of the door.  This is what he writes:

What is the door on which Jesus knocks?  It is the door of our false self.  It is those places in our life where we have shut God out and enclosed ourself within our self-referenced structure of being…(page 79)

God calls us to open the door so that God can come into our false self… (page 80)

We might think of the door as any aspect of our false self that prevents God from being God in our life on God’s terms.  It may be a habit that holds us in its destructive bondage, an attitude that deforms our way of living, a perception that warps our view of others, a pattern of relationships with others that is destructive to both them and us, a way of reacting to circumstances that hinders us, a cancerous resentment whose poison is eating away the vitals of our being… (page 80)

How do you open this door…you begin to experience his cross-shaped love nurturing you in that love, healing the hurt, removing the resentment, flushing away the bitterness until one day you realize that Christ’s love and forgiveness have become incarnate in you…Your Christ self has come to life!  (page 81)

Here’s a story using that imagery.  See if it helps.

There was a knock at the door.  Oh, for Pete's sake, I thought to myself.  I was deep into a novel, and deep into my chair.  Whoever it was had jarred me right out of the world the novel had pulled me into.  And I was right at a good part--Daenerys' wedding to her "sun, and moon, and stars!”  Darn!  I entertained the notion of letting whoever it was just go on knocking, and I'd go on reading.

Who would be out on a cold day like this, anyway.  I was covered up and toasty with my down throw.  Oh well, I thought.  Might as well be hospitable.

I cranked down the leg rest of my recliner, stood, stretched, and walked over to the door.  "Who is it?" I asked, speaking through the door.  I don't open my door to just anyone.  In fact I don't open my door to anyone.  Not unless I know who they are.

"Who are you?" the Voice came back through the door.

I scrunched up my face at my side of the door.  "What do you mean, 'who am I’”? I asked back.  "I don't have to identify myself to you," I added.

"Yes you do," said the Voice.

"I'm sorry, but that's not how this works," I said.

"How what works?" the Voice asked.

"You know," I said.  "Coming up MY front steps, knocking on MY door that's attached to MY house.  You're the one who has to identify yourself to me. Not the other way around."

"I don't think so," the Voice replied.  "I have to know who you are before I decide if I want to come in."

I scratched my head wondering what kind of joker this was.  I started going through the voice recognition in my mind, trying to place the Voice on the other side of my door.  It has to be someone I know who'd be pulling some kind of stunt on me.  But for the life of me, I couldn't place that Voice.  I was beginning to wish I had installed the peep hole last summer, so I could look out and see who it was.

"So," the Voice said.

"So, what?" I asked.

"So, who are you?"  There's that question again.  I glanced at my comfortable chair, the book, the down throw.  I whimpered faintly. Why can't I just be allowed to enjoy my free afternoon, I thought.

"I'm me," I finally said with a bit of an exasperated tone, hoping the Voice on the other side would catch that.

"Not good enough," the Voice replied.  "Everybody's a me."

"Oh, brother," I exhaled.  "Look.  I'm the me whose afternoon you are interrupting and slowly ruining."

There was silence for a few moments.  Then the Voice spoke.  "You don't sound like someone I'd like to come in and be with."

"What?" I nearly gasped.  "I'm not someone you'd want to come in and see!!??"  Now I was offended.  "And what's wrong with me?" I asked.  "You don't even know me, and now you're judging me!!??"  I did a couple of quick steps between my recliner and the door and back again.  “What's so wrong with me that you wouldn't want to come into my house?" I asked, affronted.

"I'm afraid I need some further convincing," the Voice stated.  "I need to know more about how you identify yourself."

"Identify myself?" I barked.  "You want me to slide my driver's license under the door?" I said.  "This is ridiculous," I further barked through the door.  "You're the one on the outside of MY door.  You need to identify yourself to me!"

"Why?" the Voice asked.  "I know who I am."

I did a face palm, and began thinking I really should have just stayed in my recliner and kept reading.  Images of Daenerys’ wedding night were calling to me from the book.

"So, identify yourself," the Voice said again.  "How would you identify yourself?" the Voice said through the door.

“I…I…I’m an architect,” I said.

“I don’t care what you do,” the Voice replied.  “I want to know who you think you are.  What kind of person you think you are.”

I leaned my head against my side of the door.  Why me? I thought.  Why can’t I get normally weird people to come to my door?  Like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witness’?  Or even just a Girl Scout selling cookies?  That would be nice.  Why this crackpot trying to invade my calm—my castle, my domain?

“I’m a pretty good person,” I finally said.

“‘A pretty good person,’” the Voice replied, with a bit of a snicker.  “Really?  That’s all you got?  You’re going to stick with that?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “There’s nothing wrong with being a pretty good person.”

“Do you feel blessed?” the Voice asked.

Do I feel blessed?  Do I feel blessed?  What kind of question is that? I wondered.  “Uh, not particularly,” I said.  “I’ve got my own stuff I’m trying to deal with.  You know.  Everyone’s got their own stuff.  I’ve got mine.  You’ve got yours.”

“‘Stuff?’” the Voice asked.

“Stuff,” I replied.

“What kind of stuff?” the Voice asked.  “Would it be like bad habits you can’t or don’t want to get rid of?  Or attitudes that get in the way of you living well?  Or perceptions that keep you from seeing life correctly?  Or brokenness that sabotages all your relationships and keeps them from being healthy?  Or constantly reacting to life rather than enjoying it?  Or carrying long-held resentment that is eating away at your sense of vitality?”

“Hey,” I said, putting the palms of my hands against the door, and leaning in, as if I were trying to hold back the flood.  “You’re getting a little personal, aren’t you!!??”

I was quiet for some time.  The Voice had struck a nerve.  “There’s some stuff you didn’t mention,” I said quietly on my side of the door.  I don’t know if the Voice heard me, because there was stillness from that side as well.  “Stuff like a pool full of guilt,” I whispered, “that would just as soon drown you as let you swim in it forever.  And fear the size of a whale that swallows a person whole.  Or ego that just plain gets in the way of everything good in life.”

“True that,” the Voice said after a long silence.  “True that.  Now you’re answering the question I’m asking.”

“What’s the question, again?” I asked, a couple of tears running away from my eyes.

“Who are you?  That’s the question,” the Voice said.

“And who are you?” I asked the Voice.

"I'm dead," the Voice on the other side of the door said.

"Dead?" I asked incredulously.

"Dead," the Voice replied.

"You sound very much alive to me," I said.

"Oh, I'm very much alive," the Voice said enthusiastically.

I shook my head.  This was starting to get crazy again.

"And guess what?" The Voice asked.

"I can hardly guess," I exhaled.

"You can be dead too--you can die with me!" the Voice replied.  "All you have to do is open the door and you will die with me."

I jumped back from the door.  All I could imagine was some nut-case on the other side of my door, wearing a vest strapped with explosives.  Some black ski-masked ISIS character with a long sharp knife.  Or armed with several guns like those crazed and angry people who attack post offices or schools.

“I don’t want to die!” I nearly yelled.

“But that’s the main problem with all your stuff,” the Voice called back.  “It needs to die!” the Voice said adamantly.  “And here’s the problem:  you don’t want it to.  You’d rather hold on to it, thinking you can eventually deal with it all.”

“But I will,” I promised.  “I will deal with it.  I’ll get to it all some day.  I’ll read a couple of books—maybe even the Bible, and gradually all my stuff will be taken care of.”

“Sorry,” the Voice said.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“It doesn’t work that way.  All your stuff has to die.  With me,” the Voice said.  “You have to open the door so that I will die, and you will die, and all your stuff will die.”

“I…I…I don’t know.  It all sounds so…painful,” I said.  “What happens after that?” I asked.

“You will live” the Voice said softly.

“I’ll die.  Then I’ll live.”

“Yes,” responded the Voice.  “But without your stuff.  Instead of all that, you will have me, in you, and you will be alive.  Really alive!”

“I’ll have you—the Voice—in me?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“But I’ll die.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll live.”

“Yes.  But free!” the Voice said.

I stood there breathing.  In, out.  In, out.  In, out.  I closed my eyes.  I reached out.  I put my hand on the door knob.

Your God Is Too Small

"Your God Is Too Small"

Mark 5:17

"Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region."  (Mark 5:17)

Maybe you've heard of J.B. Phillips.  He became the Vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd in London in 1940.  The Nazi's bombed that part of London incessantly during WWII, and he found himself trying to bring comfort to his people, especially a rather large youth group.

In order to instill them with courage, he began translating Paul's letters into modern English.  With the encouragement of C.S. Lewis, Phillips got his translation published under the title, Letters to Young Churches.  In 1958 his whole New Testament was published, and became one of the most popular translations used by national youth organizations like Young Life.

Phillips also published several books.  One of his most popular was titled, Your God Is Too Small.  In the introduction to that book, Phillips wrote:

Many men and women today are living, often with inner dissatisfaction, without any faith in God at all.  This is not because they are particularly wicked or selfish or, as the old-fashioned would say, "godless," but because they have not found with their adult minds a God big enough to "account for" life...big enough to command their highest admiration and respect...

It's a great book, in which Phillips describes in detail how we find all sorts of creative ways to minimize God, and try to get God to fit in with our lives, our society, our world.  If we constantly try to get God to fit in with our own theology or viewpoints, we are ultimately trying to control God--keeping God in a box, so to speak.  We let God out now and then to do our bidding, and then jam God back in the box to await our next crisis.

That's what's happening at this point in the story of the Gerasene wild man who confronted Jesus.  I will be using this story throughout this sermon series to tie in with the chapters from the book I've asked you to read, The Deeper Journey by Robert Mulholland.

There's a middle part of the story that I'll deal with in another message, that's been left out here.  Briefly, what happens is, Jesus pulls the demons out of the wild man, and throws them into a nearby herd of pigs.  The pigs run down the hillside in a wild frenzy, jump over a cliff and drown themselves in Lake Galilee.

The pig keepers ran back to town, as well as here and there around the countryside, and told others what had happened.  Many of those people came out to see for themselves.  What is odd about this part of the story, the people take a look at the wild man, now calm and in his right mind, and ask Jesus to leave their region.  They don't seem to be mad or freaked out about the pigs or pay any attention to their dead carcasses floating up on shore.  Instead, the gawkers are afraid because of what Jesus did to the wild man.  So they ask Jesus to "get the heck out of Dodge."

Isn't that odd?  You would think they would invite Jesus back to town, and start lining up all the other broken people so he could heal them.  That's what happened in other places, on the other side of the lake.  But not here.  What's the difference?  I don't think it has anything to do with Jesus.  I think it has to do with the perspective of the people who are looking at Jesus and trying to decide what they think of him.

I confess this is all conjecture on my part.  The story isn't full enough, or detailed enough, for us to know why the people of Gerasa reacted as they did.  But humor me for a few minutes.

First, ask yourselves, if the people who came to stare didn't like the way Jesus acted--didn't like what Jesus did--then what does that tell you about how they thought he should act?   Why would restoring a madman back to mental wholeness be so threatening and anxiety producing?

If the people had been told that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, the Savior, or even, the Son of God, then our question is even more revealing.  How is a Messiah, a Savior, the Son of God--God in the flesh--supposed to act?  Certainly God is not supposed to disrupt our lives.  Even if that disruption upends our lives to the point of restoring us to total sanity.

We want God involved in our lives, but not too much.  A number of years ago, I tried the on-line dating thing—match.com, christiancafe.com.  Stuff like that.  I would put on my profile that I was a Christian, and that my Christian faith was foundational to who I was as a person.  A number of women responded.  But when they found out I was a minister, wow, was there some fast backpedaling.  Even though the women had written in their profiles that they wanted a faithful, Christian man, evidently they didn’t want someone THAT faithful.

I get the sense that the people of Gerasa maybe wanted an involved Savior.  Just not THAT involved.  They wanted to fashion their Savior as one who gave them their own space, and didn’t demand too much.  The people wanted to know they were cared about by God, but only when they felt they needed God to be caring.  Not all the time.  Not smothering.

In all relationships, there are strategic areas in which a couple needs to find their own balance.  One of those areas is the closeness/distance balance.  You see some couples and they are together all the time.  In fact, where one is, there is the other.  They text each other every 5 minutes or call.  There is just no individual space.  They just can’t stand to be apart.  Other couples you see have entirely separate lives.  It’s like they’re roommates.  They both have a high need for distance.  To feel their own autonomy.  To not lose themselves in the other.

We do the same thing with God.  We want to be in charge of this closeness/distance dynamic.  And most people, whether they admit it or not, whether they see it or not, want to keep God at a safe distance.  They don’t want to be smothered by God.  They don’t want their lives to be meddled in all the time by God.  They don’t want to be defined by their relationship with God—they’d rather be defined by who they are as an individual.  In J.B. Phillips words, they want a "small God."

But in order to do that, you have to create a God who will comply with your wishes.  God can’t be God as God wants or wills to be.  God has to be the way you create God to be for your own individual autonomy and comfortability.

If God doesn’t comply, or want to fit into your design for God, you will find yourself, as the Gerasenes did, sending God away.  If God won’t keep God’s distance, or act like you think God should act, then you will forcibly push God “back across the lake” so-to-speak.

Thus, Jesus, as God, is too disruptive to their status quo life.  Jesus, as God, doesn't allow the people to have God on their terms.  That’s a huge part of our religious false self—creating our own version of God so that we can have as little or as much of God as we want.  The religious false self wants a small, manageable God.

Something else that may be going on may have to do with power.  The first part of the story that was read last week told about how the people had dealt with this wild man.

No one could restrain him—he couldn’t be chained, couldn’t be tied down. He had been tied up many times with chains and ropes, but he broke the chains, snapped the ropes. No one was strong enough to tame him. Night and day he roamed through the graves and the hills, screaming out and slashing himself with sharp stones.

All the peoples attempts to constrain the wild man, or tame him had failed.  All the behavior modification techniques didn’t work.  Probiotics didn’t help him.  Drug therapy was a total failure.  And I’m sure there was an exorcism or two that was attempted, again a failure.  Locking him up in the rubber room or strapping him into a straight jacket didn’t even work.  Everything that was humanly possible was tried on the wild man, and nothing worked.

It appeared even Jesus wasn’t being very successful at first with the mad man.  Jesus had been trying to exorcise the demons, but they resisted.  Jesus took a different tactic of just talking directly to the demons.  Jesus eventually was able to throw the evil spirits into the herd of pigs.

But the point is, Jesus—as God—was able to do what no other god or person was able to do.  Jesus' power called into question human power, as well as the powerlessness of the false gods.  Evidently, no one wants a God around whose ability overpowers any other power.  Something (or SomeOne) that powerful is uncontrollable.  No one wants an uncontrollable God around.  Or a God who shows us up by doing things we tried, but can’t do.  We don’t want a God showing us up.  That’s too tough on our fragile human ego.

And we don’t want a God around who is more powerful than our idols—especially the idols of science, medicine, psychology and technology. All these idols basically try to convince us they are the be-all and end-all of what is possible and what is impossible.  But what about God?  What about God, who can prove a strength bigger and more powerful than our idols?  What does that say about our idols?  We don’t want a God bigger than our idols.  We want a small God who fits in within the confines of our idols.  Our religious false self tries to fit God within the boundaries of our idols.  If God breaks out of those boundaries, we send God away.

Lastly, by healing the wild man, Jesus may have forced the people to look at a deeper and more systemic illness that involved them all.  Here’s how it works.

When I was in seminary, one of the jobs my ex-wife and I had was as houseparents in a residential treatment center called Maryhurst.  It was for delinquent and broken teenaged girls.  Most of the girls were streetwise and angry lawbreakers.  The court system referred most of the girls to Maryhurst.

But there were some girls who were hauled in by their parents.  The parents would drive onto the campus, drop the girls off, say something like, “Fix them, so our family can be happy,” then drive off.

What we found out, the more we dug into the family situations, was that it wasn’t the kids who were sick—it was the whole family.  In family systems theory, the girls were simply what is called “the identified patient.”  That is, the girls were the ones who were being forced to carry the family’s dysfunction and anxiety.  The girls were the blame carriers for marriage issues, family problems and other issues.  Yes, the girls acted out, but it was the whole family that needed to be treated, not the girls.  Fixing the girls wasn’t going to make the family situation better.

In fact, once the girls were taken out of the family situation, one of the other kids started acting out.  The family “needed” in a sick way, someone to blame for all their problems.

Now, let’s transfer that to this situation with the mad man.  What if the whole town was like the sick family.  I’ve lived in a town like that in my first pastorate.  The madman was simply an "identified patient" in a sick town culture.  In a weird sort of way, the town needed someone to blame, needed someone to carry their dysfunction.  So it isn't just the crazy guy who needs to be healed.  It's the whole weird town.

But what happens when the identified patient gets well?  The identified patient becomes the systems distinction about what it means to be healthy or sick.  We can point at the sick person--the identified patient--and say, "At least I'm not like that!"  But what happens when there is no distinction anymore?  Who's the real sick one?

Thus, Jesus wasn't just dealing the death blow to the false self of the wild man; he was at the same time trying to deal the death blow to the false self of the whole sick community.  They, all too clearly, recognized that and asked Jesus to leave, unwilling to let Jesus go so far as to finally kill their communal madness.  Jesus healing the wild man, at the same time, calls into question the madness of the whole community.

The Gerasa community had everything neat and tidy, using God to define that neatness and tidiness.  But Jesus turned all that on its ear.  Jesus was not the kind of God who would allow a sick system to stay sick.  So the community has a decision:  either we allow for a larger God, and allow that God to heal us all; or, we remain in our sickness and keep our small God that will allow us to remain sick.

Here's the thing.  God has to be free to be God as God wills to be God.  If we don't let God to be free, to be God as God sees fit, then we have created a God to act as we think God should act.  And that God is not free.  That God is too small, because that's God by our box size.  Letting God be God as God desires is too scary for most of us.  Because then we lose control.  God may act in a way that we don't think God should act.  God may not heal.  God may not restore.  God may not intervene.  God may not substantiate our own private theology.  God may not come to our every beck and call.  God may do whatever God wants because that's what a large and free God can do.  Are you willing to let God be that large?  If not, you might find yourself asking God to leave your region.

Legion

"Legion"

Mark 5:1-9

If you're a perfectionist like me, there's a reason you're trying to be a perfectionist.  And by perfectionist, I'm defining as someone who is trying to portray themselves as having it all together.  The reason we're trying to be that way is because we don't want anyone to know we really aren't perfect.  The secret is, everyone else already knows.  But don't tell us.  It's too fun being wrapped up in our delusions.

The thing is, we all have our issues.  We're all bent here and there.  The way we are all most bent is not our own particularly skewed dementedness.  The worst thing, in all of us, is how hard we work to make sure no one else finds out.  That we try to hide our craziness is the craziest thing about us.  It is the flaw that is driving us most mad.

The harder you work at doing all the voodoo, slight-of-hand, and hypnotism, trying to convince others you're something your not, the deeper you go into the rabbit hole.  The more you become a false self, ruled by your delusions and illusions and lies.

Kurt Cobain was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.  The last few years of Kurt Cobain's life were filled with drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife Courtney Love.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle. His death was ruled by authorities as a suicide by self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.  One of the most compelling points surrounding his death was the suicide note that he left.  It was a note filled with the angst that his false self had taken over his life, and he didn't know any other way to be free of it.  He wrote:

The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you. It simply isn't fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending...Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage. I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do, God, believe me I do, but it's not enough)…I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

Then he went on to write:

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general...I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Do you hear it?  Do you hear it in the voice of this suicide note?  It's almost like he's looking in a mirror as he writes it, and he's full of disdain for the image of himself that he's staring at.  He can't see who he really is anymore.  He only sees his false self reflecting back at him and it sickens him.  He's lost any semblance of his true self.

What psychologists won't tell you, if you've done any work with a psychologist, is that one of the things they're looking for from you is resistance.  Resistance to their questions, to their line of questions.  Do you know why?  The more resistance you exhibit the closer the counselor is getting to your pain.  Your resistance is all the protection you have wrapped around your pain.  Part of that resistance is the facade you put up.  Part of the resistance is the delusions you have convinced your self of who you think you are.  Part of the resistance is the illusions you spin in front of others, trying to get them to think--as you do--that you're really something you're not.

So, when you read this long chapter in the book, The Deeper Journey, on the "false self" try to get in touch with how much resistance you are putting up, trying to convince yourself you really aren't anything like what the author is describing.  Don't just listen to the words of the author as you read, but listen to the messages you are telling yourself in your own head as you read the words:  “I don't do that.  I'm not like that.  I'm a pretty good person, after all.”

Or the deflections.  “I'm not like that, but boy, that's describing so-and-so to a tee!”  Ask yourself, as you hear your own ego-defensive voice, "When am I going to finally face the truth!!??  I'm messed up!  Guess what everybody--I'm messed up!!"

Go ahead.  Run and hide.  Some get really good at it.  But the further you go in that direction the more and more you get in character debt.  The higher you have to keep building your ego defenses.  The more resistance you have to strengthen to keep people from seeing what they already see.  You're flawed!  You're living out of a false self!  Admit it!  Don't resist.  Just get it out on the table.

There's another term psychologists use in describing what happens when the external lies you are telling yourself and others about who you are come face-to-face with who you actually are.  It's a musical term:  dissonance.  What is dissonance, Brenda/Deb/Beth?  It's when at least two musical notes are sounded that don't go together.  You hear a lot of dissonance at your kids early piano recitals.  You're proud of them, but you cringe a lot when you hear the discordant notes that are played.

So, in counseling terms, all of us have this discordant gap between who we really are, and the false self we are trying to portray to the world.  The larger the gap, the larger the anxiety.  The more distance there is between your portrayal and your true self, the greater the level of insanity.   The bigger the gap of dissonance in a person, the greater the possibility of totally losing yourself and your self identity.  The more despairing you become, the more hopeless.  The more like Kurt Cobain.  The more we, like this mad man who confronted Jesus, allow the demons to control our lives.  Lots and lots of demons.  Legions.

Take a look at the description of this guy.   The guy shouts and screams.  My daughter, Kristin, and I were driving around LA one time when she was in college there.  The state prisons and hospitals had just released hundreds of patients onto the streets of LA because of budget cuts.  The people were pretty much harmless to others, but they shouted.  A lot.  It seemed there was one on every corner, shouting at cars--some of the cars were parked and empty.  They were screaming at people, at the traffic lights, at building walls.  Anything that could be screamed at was screamed at.

Now you may say you aren't crazy like that.  But do you, or have you ever "gone a little crazy" and screamed at your kids, your spouse, your parents?  It's there.  It's in us.  That thin line, that dissonant gap between who you show yourself to be at church on Sunday and what happens behind closed doors at your home.  It's in you.

The guy who ran up to Jesus had cut himself with sharp rocks.  Why do people cut themselves, or perform other acts of self injury?  Self-injury behavior is something that is more common than many people realize. In one study of high school students by researchers at Brown University, 46 percent had injured themselves in the past year on multiple occasions.

Self-injury is used by people as over-drinking or drug use is used by others — to drown out emotional pain with something else. It focuses your attention and takes your mind off of your emotional pain, if only for a little while.

How many of you, even though you may not be trying to dull the reality of your false self with alcohol, or drugs or a blade, are nonetheless slicing yourself with sharp, self-hating words?  Admit you're hurting and you don't know what to do about it.  And the way you're trying to handle it is all wrong.  It's only making you bleed even more.  What sick thing are you doing to yourself to deal with your pain?

When this guy runs at Jesus at top speed (imagine how scary that would be to have some naked guy running at you at top speed screaming at the top of his lungs) and skids on his knees in front of Jesus, notice what he screams:  "What business to you have, Jesus, Son of the High God, messing with me?  I swear to God, don't give me a hard time!"  (vs. 7)

The reason I point that out is that our false self doesn't want to be messed with.  It wants to be left alone to do whatever it wants to do.  Our false self doesn't want anyone checking it out, challenging it, or especially, as Jesus was trying to do with this guy, totally cleanse him of the monsters within.

C.S. Lewis does a great job with this point in his book, The Great Divorce.  It is such a great book.  I should have us read it for next years Lent study.  The book is a story about a bus ride from hell to heaven.  A bus comes into dark, overcast, always drizzly hell, every so often to pick up souls who want a chance to check out heaven.  People line up in hell, even though they have no idea what they're lining up for.  (I thought that a hilarious point of Lewis, to make part of hell be nothing but lines of people, for which no one knows what they're lining up for or waiting on.)

So a bus load makes it to heaven and it's dark and wispy characters unload.  One of the characters, is described as a "dark and oily" ghost who carried something on his shoulder.  What was on his shoulder was a little red lizard, who talked incessantly in the ghost's ear.

"Off so soon?" said a voice...

"Yes.  I'm off," said the Ghost.  "Thanks for all your hospitality.  But it's no good, you see.  I told this little chap," (here he indicated the lizard), "that he'd have to be quiet if he came--which he insisted on doing.  Of course his stuff won't do here: I realise that.  But he won't stop.  I shall just have to go home."

"Would you like me to make him quiet?" said the flaming Spirit--an angel, as I now understood.

"Of course I would," said the Ghost.

"Then I will kill him," said the Angel, taking a step forward.

"Oh--ah--look out! You're burning me.  Keep away," said the Ghost retreating.

"Don't you want him killed?"

"You didn't say anything about killing him at first.  I hardly meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that."

"It's the only way," said the Angel, whose burning hands were now very close to the lizard.  "Shall I kill it?"

"Well, that's a further question.  I'm quite open to consider it, but it's a new point, isn't it?  I mean, for the moment I was only thinking about silencing it because up here--well, it's so...embarrassing."

"May I kill it?"

"Well, there's time to discuss that later."

"There is no time.  May I kill it?"

"Please, I never meant to be such a nuisance.  Please--really--don't bother.  Look!  It's gone to sleep of its own accord.  I'm sure it'll be all right now.  Thanks ever so much."

"May I kill it?"

"Honestly, I don't think there's the slightest necessity for that.  I'm sure I shall be able to keep it in order now.  I think the gradual process would be far better than killing it."

"The gradual process is of no use at all."

"Don't you think so?  Well, I'll think over what you've said very carefully.  I honestly will.  In fact I'd let you kill it now, but as a matter of fact I'm not feeling frightfully well today.  It would be silly to do it now.  I'd need to be in good health for the operation.  Some other day, perhaps."

"There is no other day.  All days are present now."

"Get back!  You're burning me.  How can I tell you to kill it?  You'd kill me if you did."

"It is not so."

"Why, you're hurting me now."

"I never said it wouldn't hurt you.  I said it wouldn't kill you."

"Oh, I know.  You think I'm a coward.  But it isn't that.  Really it isn't.  I say!  Let me run back by tonight's bus and get an opinion from my own doctor.  I'll come again the first moment I can."

"This moment contains all moments."

"Why are you torturing me?  You are jeering at me.  How can I let you tear me to pieces?  If you wanted to help me, why didn't you kill the...thing without asking me--before I knew?  It would be all over by now if you had."

"I cannot kill it against your will.  It is impossible.  Have I your permission?"

The Angel's hands were almost closed on the Lizard, but not quite.  Then the Lizard began chattering to the Ghost so loud that even I could hear what it was saying.

"Be careful," it said.  "He can do what he says.  He can kill me.  One fatal word from you and he will!  Then you'll be without me for ever and ever.  It's not natural.  How could you live?  You'd be only a sort of ghost, not a real man as you are now.  He doesn't understand...

"Have I your permission?" said the Angel to the Ghost.

"I know it will kill me."

"It won't.  But supposing it did?"

"You're right.  It would be better to be dead than to live with this creature."

"Then I may?"

"...blast you!  Go on can't you?  Get it over.  Do what you like," bellowed the Ghost: but ended, whimpering, "God help me.  God help me."

Next moment the Ghost gave a scream of agony such as I never heard on Earth.  The Burning One closed his crimson grip on the reptile: twisted it, while it bit and writhed, and then flung it, broken backed, on the turf.

The little red lizard on the shoulder is such a great depiction of our false self.  It has become such a part of us that we aren't sure what to do about it anymore.  We know the depth of it's evil in our lives.  We listen to the false self--the red lizard--every minute of the day, but at the same time we don't want to listen.  We hate it and need it all at the same time.  We are afraid if our false self were dealt a death blow, we would go up in smoke as well.

The man who raced at Jesus, screaming, was under the same spell.  But he had gotten to the point where he didn't have one red lizard on his shoulder; he had a legion of red lizards on his shoulder.

You've all got one.  (Take mirror around for people to see their reflections.)  I see them on your shoulders.  Do you see mine?  These little, red, tail whipping, incessant creatures called our false selves.  Can't live with them; can't live without them.

Would you like it to be killed?  It's possible.  But we're not ready for that quite yet.  There's another lizard on your other shoulder.  It's called your religious false self.  We need to talk about it next week.  And then we’ll start talking about what to do with these vile things.  Our false selves.

Starting With The End In Mind

We have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. It was all given to us by God’s own power, when we learned that he had invited us to share in his wonderful goodness.  God made great and marvelous promises, so that his nature would become part of us. Then we could escape our evil desires and the corrupt influences of this world.  (2 Peter 1:3-4, CEV)

In Stephen Covey's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, there is one chapter titled, "Beginning With The End In Mind."  Covey has you picture yourself at the end of your life.  Even your funeral.  Imagine being invisible at your funeral service, hearing what people are saying about you and how they saw your life.  Seeing how people are grieving, or not grieving your loss.  How they are having conversations at the reception afterwards about your contribution to life, or lack of contribution.

As Covey takes you through that time of guided imagery, he begins to ask some important questions, and offer some thoughtful guidance.  One of those pieces of guidance is to begin today with the image or picture of the end of your life as your frame of reference by which everything else in your life is examined.  How you end up, the kind of person you end up to be, is descriptive of your whole life.

So the strategy is to use that vision of your end as your starting point now.  If you don't like what you envisioned as your end, then envision a new and different end.  Then start working now to make that end happen.

Begin to ask questions like, "How does each day of your life contribute in a meaningful way to the vision you have for your life as a whole?"  Not just the compartments of your life, like your job or business, not just your family, not just your recreational self.  Your WHOLE life.

Some people are about doing things right.  They want to live towards an end in life where people describe them as going through life not making waves, but living in a way that did things the right way, according to their own rules and laws.  But there are others who want to be known for doing the right things.  There's a difference between doing things right and doing the right things.

Or there are people who want to be known, in the end, as having lived their lives by a road map.  They mapped out the kind of people they wanted to be, they drew the lines, and then they never varied from those lines, never allowing themselves to think there are other lines that could have gotten them to the same destination.  Another option to living a mapped out life, is living by a compass.  You set a certain direction you want to go in life, and you live by the compass, not a road map.  You decide what’s going to be your true north, and you keep living by that direction. True north has more to do with your core values than a direction or destination, or lines on a map. That way, each choice you make will have to do with either staying on the lines, or staying true to your self.

Covey is a big promoter of the practice of writing a mission statement.  I've talked about these before in different sermons and classes.  A personal, or couples, or family mission statement can help you stay focused on where you are going, what kind of person you want to be.  It's important to have an underlying statement upon which your being and doing are based.

That is where we start our deeper journey this week, the first week of Lent.  We start with the end in mind.  Where is it we are going in this deeper journey?  The subtitle of the book I'm asking you all to read during Lent is, "The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self."  So we could say the end we're moving towards in Lent is "discovering your true self."  I want to make that a little more particular.  I'm going to tell you what the end is, by the time we get to Easter Sunday.  The end we are moving towards has two parts.

The two parts that make up the end, the journey that this book is describing for us, I'm taking from the scripture reading this morning:  The first end we are starting with involves escaping our evil desires and the corrupt influences of this world.  What this assumes is that we will have to face, we will have to admit, that there are "evil desires" and corruption that is deeply embedded in who we are.  Those evil desires and corruption is what makes up what our book calls, "the false self."

By the end of this journey, you will be forced to look at your individual false self.  You will be taking a long, sobering look in the mirror at yourself.  You will confront certain ugly truths that you may quickly be trying to shove into a closet of your mind and heart right now.  This confrontation with the false self is not going to be fun.

Ray Bradbury, famed and prolific science fiction writer (who died a couple of years ago) made the point in most of his books and short stories that humanity would always be humanity — violent, cruel, self-destructive — whether on earth or anywhere else in the universe.

For example, in his book The Martian Chronicles, the story was about the red planet, Mars, which became just another venue for human colonization, war-making and bickering. People who moved to Mars brought their old prejudices with them – their sick desires and fantasies, and tainted dreams.  In summing up Bradbury’s work, one writer described it this way: "He showed me that the most exotic adventures in life always lead back to an examination of our original sin — the space in our hearts that are as inky black as outer space itself.”

There’s the old saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”  In other words, you can’t escape your self.  You can’t run and hide from your darker self.  Like your shadow, it’s stuck to you and whether you like it or not, always visible in the light.

It is confronting and dealing with this shadow side of the self, once and for all, that is the end we will move towards in Lent.  The end in mind that we will start with is that everyone of us here is living out of an entrenched false self.  The end that we are going to move towards is the utter and absolute death of the false self.  That will be the hardest part of this journey.  Realize we are starting with that end in mind.  I can almost guarantee you that you will be kicking and screaming the whole way, trying to do anything you can to keep from killing your false self.  Because there are only two options:  either kill the false self, or hold on to it until you die.  You need to know that confrontation is coming.  Soon.

I said, earlier in this message that the end in mind that we are starting with has two parts.  I just told you the first part.  The second part of the end in mind is that God's nature would become who we are.  If we are going to have to put to death our false self, then that opens us up to being filled with our true self—which is being filled with God’s nature.  You can’t have the second part without the first part.  You can’t be filled with your true self in God, until the false self has been put to death.  We can’t be like Jesus if we are still ruled by sin.

A master of karate was trying to explain something to a student. This student was not a brand new student, but a student who had advanced through the different colored belts of karate. He had knowledge and experience aplenty to draw upon. But each time the master tried to explain something new to the student, the student kept trying to hold it up against his own notions of what he had already learned from other masters.  The student was unable to see the lessons in what the new master was trying to teach him.

Finally, the master poured a full serving of tea into his own cup, and into the cup of the student. Then he told the student he wanted to give to him some of the tea from his own cup. He began pouring tea from his cup into the student's cup, but the student's cup was already full, and all the tea from the master's cup spilled out over the student’s cup onto the surface of the table.

The student said, "Master, you can't pour anything into my cup until I empty it to make room for what you are trying to give me.”

The master replied "Yes I know.   And I can't teach you any new lessons until you clear out some thoughts that are already teeming in your mind to make room for what I have to teach you." Then the master paused for a brief moment, meeting the student's eyes with his own knowing look and calmly but sternly said: "If you truly seek understanding, then first, empty your cup!”

That’s what we are about in this “deeper journey”.  The end in mind, and the place from which we begin, will have to do with first emptying our cups—that is, pouring out our selves, our false selves, our own ego.  After the emptying has happened, then we can be filled with the fullness of God, filled with God’s nature.

The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody was to have a series of revival meetings in England. An elderly pastor protested, “Why do we need this ‘Mr. Moody’? He’s uneducated and inexperienced. Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?”

A younger, wiser pastor rose and responded, “No, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on Mr. Moody.”

That’s where this journey is heading:  to allow the Holy Spirit to have a monopoly on our lives rather than our egos and our false self.  Are you ready?

Compromise Or Opportunity?

"Compromise Or Opportunity?"

1Corinthians 9:19-23

A minister acquaintance of mine found the following ad in a newspaper:

PREACHER.  We would like to find a clergy-person who will marry us in a cocktail lounge on February 14; Call after 4 p.m.  555-2620

There are some who would say that any minister who answered that little ad would be compromising their Christianity by holding a service of marriage in a bar.  Others might look at it as an opportunity to influence the couple for Christ and the church.

That may be a mild example.  Here is another one, out of my own experience, that has also to do with a wedding.

I was asked to do the marriage ceremony for a young couple, the groom being of the Sikh religion from India.  The bride-to-be had grown up in the church.  The family had been extremely active and giving people.  The hitch came when the couple decided to hold the service in the church sanctuary.  But, they didn't want the name of Jesus Christ to be mentioned, in deference to the groom and his family, since they did not believe in Jesus.

After much discussion with the couple, and with the senior Pastor I worked with, as well as time spent in prayer, I decided I could not compromise the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ for their wedding service.  I went to the Elders and informed them of what I had decided, because there might be repercussions that might have to be dealt with.

As the Elders discussed the situation, they went a step further.  They decided that any service that was held in the church, that consciously left out Jesus Christ would not be allowed to take place.  So, now I had to tell the family: 1) I wouldn't do the ceremony and why; and, 2) that their wedding could not be held in the church without the mention of Jesus Christ.

This was equally complicated by the fact that the bride-to-be's parents had become very close friends of mine.  It was like I had given the face of that friendship a hard slap.  We came at the issue from two different angles.  I came from a position of Christian principle and theology.  The bride and her parents came from the position of relationship--that our friendship should over-ride principle and theology.

Was it an opportunity to influence that young man and his family for Christ, by bending my convictions and beliefs?  From my viewpoint, intentionally writing Jesus Christ out of the wedding service (which is a worship service when held in the sanctuary) would have been a stark compromise to my faith and to the sacred trust given to me when I was ordained as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was one of the hardest and most emotionally charged decisions I had made, up to that point in my ministry.

As was read earlier, Paul wrote:

When I am with the Jews, I live like a Jew to win Jews. They are ruled by the Law of Moses, and I am not. But I live by the Law to win them.

And when I am with people who are not ruled by the Law (of Moses) I forget about the Law to win them. Of course, I never really forget about the law of God. In fact, I am ruled by the law of Christ.

There's the rub, isn't it?  How do we become a part of the lives of others with depth of understanding and sympathy, and even become close friends, but not abandon our Christian beliefs and principles?  In a more general sense, as the old saying goes, how can we be in the world, but not of the world?  How do we influence without being influenced?

Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthian church:

 For we are like a sweet-smelling incense offered by Christ to God, which spreads among those who are being saved and those who are being lost.  (2:15)

There are certain aromas and odors that seem to be able to over-power all the other aromas that are floating around.  Like when you come into a house where bread is baking, the aroma becomes captivating.  It's all you can do until you ask when it will be done so it can be carved, buttered, and eaten.  There may be a hundred other minor household smells, but the bread will overpower them all.

Likewise a feedlot or pig farms have the same kind of pervasive influence.

Christians are called into every segment of society, but not to become like them.  Instead we are to be an over-powering aroma to each person, each group we come into contact with the love of Christ.  That is what Paul is saying here, isn't it?  Paul, and ourselves, have the freedom to conform to other kinds of people and beliefs, but only where basic Christian foundations are not compromised.  We will go this far, and no further.

"Yes," says Paul.  "I can become like a Jew, but I will not give into the ways of the law, because I am under the grace of Christ.  Yes, I can become like those who have never even heard of the law--in a sense become lawless; but I will not give in because I am under the law of Christ."

Paul has the intention that the influence will only go one way--from he to them, and not the other way around.

A dignified old minister owned a parrot that he really liked a lot.  But the bird had picked up an appalling vocabulary of cuss words from a previous owner.  After a series of particularly embarrassing episodes, the minister decided he would have to have his parrot put to sleep.

But a lady in the congregation suggested a last-ditch remedy.  She said, "I have a female parrot.  She is an absolute saint.  She sits quietly on her perch and says things like, 'Let us pray.'  Why don't you bring your parrot over and see if my own bird's good influence doesn't reform your bird?"

The pastor said it was worth a try.  The next night he arrived with his pet.  The bird took one look at the girl parrot and chirped, "Hey baby, let's kiss (get it on)."

The girl parrot responded, "My prayers have been answered."

That's not exactly how the influence was supposed to happen, but more often than not, it does.

C.S. Lewis once wrote,

The difficulty we are up against is this.  We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted.  As long as the situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible.  We must attack the enemy's line of communication.  What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects--with their Christianity latent...It is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books.  (God In The Dock, page 93)

One of the points Lewis is making here is that we don't lose the war in one battle, but as in a state of siege, one brick of the wall at a time.  What Lewis is calling for, and I agree with him here, is that as Christian change-agents in the world, we need to use the same kind of influence, in our friendships, in our behavior, in our writing, in our businesses.

I was talking with a businessman who told me if he ran his business in a Christian manner he felt he would be bankrupt, and on his ear in a matter of months.  He seemed to think he would lose his respect and toughness among his peers and clients.

That is a tough place to be in.  It is usually within our primary relationships of business and friendships, that present the hardest situations where we must decide, Is this a compromise or is this an opportunity?  Will we allow our Christian convictions to be overruled by the fear of losing a friend or profit?

Our main temptation will be that of yielding to the winds of doctrine or worldly convention, not of ignoring them.  We are not likely to be narrow, rigid, and inflexible in our opinions.  We are more likely to be the slaves of fashion.  The standards of clear Christian witness must be clear in our minds.  It is against those standards that we must test all contemporary thought and behavior.

Why was Paul doing what he was doing, infiltrating, becoming a one man underground force?  "...I do all things for the sake of the gospel."

The gospel of Jesus Christ is our prime motivating factor.  The main emphasis of our influence is from the gospel and for the sake of the gospel.  The emphasis is not on getting, but in sharing with others the blessings of the gospel.  That is why the Christian faith must not be compromised or contaminated.  It remains its own definitive standard.  We are defending Christianity, not "my religion."

A lady once gave detailed instructions to a friend for making a special and original recipe for crabmeat casserole.  Some time later when at a luncheon at her friend's, she was greeted with, "Guess what, Runa?  I'm serving your gorgeous crabmeat dish today."

The lady went into the luncheon telling everyone about her famous casserole.  "I must admit, though, I had to change the recipe just a bit.  Since fresh crab meat wasn't available, I had to substitute canned tuna.  I didn't have time to make the delicate white sauce so I just threw in a can of mushroom soup.  It was easier, anyway.  I omitted the sherry and blanched almonds since I forgot to put them on my grocery list."

With that, the hostess plunged the serving spoon into the steaming casserole while saying to the guests, "So, if this casserole isn't any good, don't blame me.  It's Runa's recipe."

The gospel can't be amended or changed or compromised, no matter how difficult a situation that might lead us into.  As Christians, as God's change agents in the world, we need to follow God's recipe to the letter, or drop it all together.  Either we let it influence us, and thereby influence others, or we give in to the enemy.

Again, to C.S. Lewis for a concluding quote:

One of the great difficulties is to keep before the audience's mind the question of Truth.  They (always) think you are recommending Christianity not because it is true but because it is good...You have to keep forcing them back, and back, to the real point.  Only thus will you be able to undermine their belief that a certain amount of "religion" is desirable but one mustn't carry it too far.  One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance; (but) if true, of infinite importance.  The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.  (God In The Dock, page 101)

The Life Of Authority

"The Life of Authority"

Mark 1:21-28

When you're reading an engrossing work of fiction or literature, there are certain elements that make it a good read.  If the author does a good job, you don't think about these elements of fiction being part of the story.  They just are there.

For example, you need believable characters.   The characters in the story have to be able to live for the reader.  When we read a good story, we are of course interested in the storyline.  But a major proportion of our interest in that story will have to do with the identification of ourselves with the main characters of the story.

A good story also needs an engaging setting. I'm reading a series of books now called The Theft of Swords.  I'm at the point in the story where one of the two heroes, who happens to be a thief, is trying to figure out how to break into a tower and steal a special sword that has the power to slay a beast.  There's a problem.  The tower is built up on a raised rock outcropping that is in the middle of a raging river.  And the rock outcropping is sticking out over the edge of a huge waterfall, thousands of feet high.  I'm at the point in the story where the thief is trying to figure out how he is supposed to get himself across half a raging river to the tower, break into the tower, steal the sword, then get himself back across that same river.  It's a great setting for this part of the story.  And the setting makes all the difference for the tension and adventure in the story.

The third element a good story needs is dramatic conflict.  As nice as it would be to read a story that is full of all good guys, it would end up being really boring.  You need some kind of conflict to drive the tension in the story.  You need a bad guy.  You need some kind of evil that drives another character to be the hero.  Some of the best stories I've read have a bad guy who is part good guy.  They're a frustrating mix.  And it drives you crazy because you never know which they're going to be at any given moment in the story.

So, let's take these three elements and see how they fit in this story of Jesus.

First, setting.  Because there was only one temple for the Jewish people, and that was in Jerusalem, and Jews were scattered all over the known world, some alternative place of worship had to be created.  Little house-type churches began to spring up where Jewish people gathered to worship.  These were called synagogues, a word which means "to gather together."  So a synagogue was a gathering place, and most of them were not churchy looking at all.

People would come to the synagogue for worship, and worship involved three aspects:  prayer, reading the scriptures, and the teaching of the scriptures.  That's it.  They didn't sing.  They didn't perform sacrifices.  They didn't do anything else that was normally done in or associated with the big Temple in Jerusalem.  All the Jewish people needed was a place to gather:  someone's home, an empty building, or a place down by the river--whatever.

So you can see why Jesus started his ministry in the synagogues.  People were coming to pray and hear God's word.  It was exactly the place to open people up to the Word of God.  It wasn't in the Temple that Jesus did most of his ministry.  In fact, he only visited Jerusalem two or three times.  The rest of his story is played out in the little meeting places--the synagogues--smattered out and around Israel's countryside and small towns.

As far as the characters in this story, first and foremost is Jesus.  The portrayal of Jesus in this particular part of the story is a Jesus who was authoritative.  Someone who had this kind of authority literally means, to do something with power.  But not a power of your own, but from God.  This kind of power had two characteristics:  the knowledge and wisdom of God.  Jesus, as he is portrayed here, spoke powerfully, out of the very heart and knowledge of God.  In this way, it was as if God were speaking when Jesus opened his mouth.

A rabbi was coming to the Day of Atonement in a state of deep depression.  (The Day of Atonement is a day of repentance and restoration for the Jewish people.)  The rabbi was depressed; he was lethargic; he was fatigued; he was feeling spiritually oppressed.

The rabbi stood in the doorway of his little house and down the road came a shoe cobbler pushing his cart with his tools and leather on it.  When the cobbler came to the rabbi's house and saw him standing in the doorway, the cobbler shouted in a loud voice, "Do you have anything that needs mending?"  The rabbi said it was like the voice of God, because he suddenly saw so clearly what the source of his problem was--his life needed mending by God.

That's how Jesus spoke with the simplicity, the clarity, and thus the authority of God, opening up in people's hearts their great needs, and showing the way to mend those broken places.  Instead of a lot of legalistic jabberwocky, Jesus spoke with authority, as if God were speaking himself, with simple but powerful words.

A company employing several thousand people was attempting to institute a pension plan.  But the plan could not be implemented without 100% participation.  Every employee signed up except one man.  Many efforts were made to win this guy over, but the man kept resisting.

Finally the President of the company called the man into his office.  "Here is a copy of the proposed pension plan and here is a pen," the President said.  "Sign up, or you're fired."  Whereupon the man immediately picked up the pen and signed his name.  The President of the company said, "I don't understand why you refused to sign until now.  What was your problem?"

To which the man replied, "You're the first person who explained it to me clearly."

Only Jesus was the one who had that kind of authority to open people's ears to the power and clarity of God.

The other main character in this story is the crazed man.  It's a little hard to get a handle on this guy.  He's described as "unclean."  But someone who is unclean means they are blemished or broken in some way, according to Jewish cleanliness laws, and are therefore not allowed to come to the synagogue to worship with everyone else, who is "clean."   Being unclean covered a lot human conditions.

The fact that the man is screaming at the top of his lungs and drooling all over the place gives us a little bit of an indication of his brokenness.   Mark is fairly sparse with the details, but you can imagine the drama and the tension of the scene.  This guy doesn't walk into the meeting place, he runs.  He doesn't start talking out loud during the little gathering's Bible study, he screams.  The crazed man isn't standing apart from Jesus, he standing nose-to-nose, eyes bulging in Jesus face, beyond loud.

Mark Graber told our Men's Bible Study about a similar meeting with a crazed guy at the gas pump at one of our local stations.  Mark was being screamed at by a guy who was making no sense.  The guy was totally out of control.  Mark happened to be holding the nozzle of the gas pump hose.  Mark aimed it at the guy, who was coming at him, and said, "You back off or I'm going to spray you down and light you up!"  It was a classic line.  If they every make another Dirty Harry movie, we have to send that line in.  It's become one of our all-time favorite lines from Men's Bible Study.  See what you're missing, all you guys who don't show up?

I imagine if Jesus had been in Men's Bible Study, and he later came across this crazed guy in the synagogue, he would have used that line.  It is rather scary to have to cross paths with a crazed human being.  Graves that have been unearthed in Israel by archaeologists have contained skulls with little holes bored in them.  A number of skulls contained not just one hole, but several.  The holes weren't large enough for surgical purposes.  It was determined that those holes were bored to allow the evil spirits to escape through the person's head.

And in a recent book by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier, he wrote,

Doubtless there are many doctors who in their struggle against disease have had, like me, the feeling that they are confronting, not something passive, but a clever and resourceful enemy.  (from A Doctor's Casebook)

There certainly was a clever, yet demented resourcefulness, to the crazed man's behavior towards Jesus that day.  And it was directed towards Jesus, not anyone else in the gathering place of the synagogue.  The man wasn't screaming at anyone else.  Just Jesus.  Here Jesus is portrayed as a person who taught with "authority" who is now confronted by a sick and broken man, who was himself a kind of authority, although from the dark side.  Thus the conflict in this story.

This dealing with the crazed man is the first of Jesus' miracles in Mark's gospel.  It is significant, because Jesus is signaling from the start that in his presence the power of evil, wether it be in the form of misguided religious teaching or a demented lunatic, can be overpowered.  The point of this part of the story with the running, shouting, possessed man comes back again to the power and authority of Jesus' words to affect a dramatic change in people.  Even if those people appear to be beyond the reach of any kind of effective change.

There is a famous painting in which the artist depicts a young man playing chess with the devil.  The devil has just made a decisive move which checkmates the young man's king.  Serious chess players who examine the painting immediately feel sympathy for the young man because they understand that the devil's move has finished him.  He has come to a blind alley from which there is no exit.

Paul Murphy, one of the world's great chess players, once studied the painting for a long time.  He saw something that no one else had seen.  This excited him, and he cried out to the devil's opponent in the picture, "Don't give up!  You still have a move!  You still have a move!"

That's the amazing authority Jesus has in speaking to our brokenness.  Jesus said to the man, and said to the crowd, and continues to say to us today, "Don't give up!  You still have a move!"  It is for this reason that we, in our sometimes judgmental ways, can not consider anyone a goner in God's eyes, because of the authority of Jesus' life and words.

I think when the man approached Jesus and asked, "Have you come to destroy us?" I get a sense that there was a spark of hope in the man's question.  That, in a deep sort of way, he was asking Jesus, "Have you come to set me free?"

A guy who owned a pub locked his place up at three a.m. and went straight home to bed.  He had slept only a few minutes when the telephone rang.  He picked up the phone and heard an obviously inebriated man ask, "What time do you open up in the morning?"  The pub owner was so furious he slammed down the receiver and went back to bed.  A few minutes later the phone rang again.  Again the same drunken voice asked, "What time do you open up in the morning?"

"Listen," the pub owner said, "there is no sense in asking me what time I open because I wouldn't let a man in your condition into my place."

To which the caller replied, "I don't want to get in; I want to get out!"

To those who call for help, Jesus responds with a straightforward word of authority.  With that word, freedom and release is won.  With the powerful authority of God's love, wrapped up in the words of Jesus, changes were made in the lives of his listeners.  It was more than a different approach; it was the authority and love behind the approach that made people listen, and then go tell others.  The power and influence of Jesus' words and works mushroomed, as people responded to that kind of authority.