Your names are written in heaven

Luke 10:17-24

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

The seventy-two have just returned, having witnessed themselves doing marvels.  The enemy of mankind is subject to them.  By their word, they can free a person from bondage to demons.  They can tread on deadly creatures and suffer no harm.  They have been given power.  They are naturally excited.  Who wouldn’t want this power?  Aside from the fact that it could make you feel pretty good about yourself, it’s also a great way to help those in need.  It’s the same type of power given to the prophets, who did marvelous works when the Spirit of God came upon them.  So they come back from their mission trip, bursting with excitement.

Jesus confirms the power and authority they have been given.  But nevertheless, he says, there is a greater blessing here.  You can do the works that the prophets did?  Good.  But look past the power to do good works.  Lying behind it is the favor of God.  Rejoice that God has bestowed his favor upon you.  Rejoice that you are a citizen of heaven.  Rejoice that by his good will the Father has revealed to you what was hidden from many.  Rejoice that you have been so favored as to see the kingdom of the Lord, even above those favored men and women of the past.  You have seen the Holy Spirit working in power through his people, the inauguration of the ministry of the Church.  The prophets and kings of old longed to see it.  Elijah, believing himself to be the only prophet of the Lord, longed to see the Spirit present and working in all of the people.  But the Lord has shown it to you.  Rejoice!

To me, the kingdom of God seems like the consolation prize because my earthly life isn’t what I want it to be.  The trials seem too hard, the blessings seem too few.  I don’t have the power to heal the sick, to declare the future, to cast out demons, to speak in tongues, to bring the rain, to calm the storm.  I don’t have the money to buy a house, to buy a new car, to help my friends, to fix my brother’s roof.  I wish I had so much more, not just for my own comfort, but so that I can help people.  And I pat myself on the head, saying “That’s okay.  It’ll all be better when you get to heaven.”

No!  That statement does not deserve a condescending head pat.  That truth is the greatest and fullest joy of any.  One day you will be in heaven.  Your name is written there.  You’re on the list.  In the vast census taken of the citizens of the new Jerusalem, your name appears.  When the heavens and the earth pass away and the new are established, when those bound for glory are separated from those bound for perdition, Israel is separated from the nations and everyone returns to the inheritance set aside for him by God in the great year of Jubilee, you will be counted among his people and find security and rest in the land of your Father.

We who were not a people were made the people of God.  We who turned away from him in order to follow our own paths were restored to him.  We prodigals who denied our Father are welcomed as sons and given the ring of authority.  We sinners are bought by the blood of the Sinless One.  We poor and weak are made princes in the name of our King.  We who were nothing are made greater than even the greatest of the prophets who went before.

We were empty and we are filled with the Holy Spirit.  We were powerless and we are given the power of God.  The humble are exalted while the proud are brought low.  The traitors and rebels are gathered in by the King we betrayed and given seats of honor.  Rejoice, then, because this is what everyone has been waiting for since the word of God first came to man.

This is the time when the hearts of stone are replaced with hearts of flesh.  This is when the dry bones are raised up and given the breath of life.  This is when the law is written on the hearts of men.  The serpent has struck the heel, and his head is crushed under the foot of the Son of Man.

You are not abandoned.  You are not drifting alone through a world of chaos.  You are not waiting out your three score and ten for the axe to fall.  You will not remain as dust.  You are not to be cast into the fire.  You have a share in the glory of Jesus Christ.

You will suffer.  You will hunger.  You will thirst.  You will shiver in the cold.  You will be cast out and rejected by men.  You will be mocked, you will face ridicule.  You will be poor while the evil prosper.  But you are royalty.

Do not weep for what you lack.  Do not rejoice in the things you have.  Your sojourn will end and you will come home to where you belong.  Nothing in this life will endure, either the good or the bad.  Live your life with your eyes on the Jubilee.

But do not forget, he has given you authority.  We look ahead to our heavenly home, but our names are already written there.  We are already heirs with the King.  We needn’t lament our earthly torments, because they cannot touch who we are in him.  We can humbly and graciously accept them, because we know who we are.  This earth is not our home.  We can let the suffering go.  And we can work in the power of God, the heirs who are already indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  The Church is his kingdom on earth, and it still has the power and authority it was given when Jesus sent out the seventy-two.

We set up our tents here, we build houses and cultivate the land and fight for the right to remain here.  Dropping the metaphor, we insist on material blessing, we insist on cultural relevance.  We spend our time building up a stock of credibility so that we can engage the world around us.  We put stakes in games, music, movies, politics, patriotism, and we insist on living in them.  We build up worldly wealth, not only in money but in knowledge and pleasure.  We make our homes here.  We set up shrines on our land, offering our sacrifices here because it’s a long way to Shiloh.  We bring God to our house, but we don’t go to his.

I’ve been really excited while I’ve been writing this.  I’m going to slow down here, because it’s important.  I’m not accusing anyone.  That is, I’m not accusing anyone more than I’m accusing myself.  I grew up in an entertainment culture, I learned to excuse all sorts of vice because it’s just TV.  I constantly put filth in my head because it’s not that big of a deal.  I say that I’m interested in virtue, but I spend most of my time on entertainment that has nothing to do with God or with goodness.  I justify it because I like those things.  I like those shows, I like that music, I like those games.

Honestly, the thought of turning my back on this “art” is pretty frightening.  I’m afraid of being in a conversation and having nothing to say because I haven’t heard of the thing you just referred to.  I’m afraid of being thought of as one of those Christians that thinks everything in the world is bad.  I’m afraid of being looked down on.  I’m afraid of not being thought witty or insightful.  I’m afraid that if I cut those things out of my life, I won’t have anything to say to you and no one will want to talk to me.  And I’m afraid of being bored.

It’s easy to say that in heaven I’ll be happy to make my whole life about God, but in this life I need to take care of a lot of other things.  Well, heaven is now.  My name’s already down.  The kingdom has come, and I’m part of it.  So what’s my excuse?  I want the fruit of the Spirit to grow, but I pile gravel around the plants.

Good news.  I don’t have to.  I can abandon the things that lead me away from God and spend my whole life focusing on things that build me up.  I don’t have to watch that show.  I don’t have to play that game.  It’ll be okay.  Better than okay.  I can start cultivating the land that I’ll be eating from for eternity instead of wasting it on the land that I’m giving back in a little while.  I can devote my efforts to things that matter.

Cultural relevance?  I need to have things to say to people at parties?  I’m reminded of St. Anthony, who went out to the desert and lived on a mountain because he wanted to be devoted to God.  He sincerely didn’t want to be bothered by people.  But people were constantly going to him.  Not just Christians.  Greeks went to him, not because he was culturally relevant but because he was devoted to God.  And I’m pretty sure he found something to say to them.  Something better than how much he enjoyed that game.

It’s time to wrap this up.  To put a ribbon on it.  We are the children of God, heirs with the Son, who need no longer be concerned with the things of this world, whether good things or bad things, whether our weakness or our power.  Instead, we fix our eyes on Christ and rejoice in the gift we have been given.

Thanks be to God.

He swore by himself

Hebrews 6:13-20

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

God promised Abram that he would become the father of many nations, and that through his son the world would be blessed.  Abram, impatient for the fulfillment of the promise and unable to see how God would fulfill it through Sarai, took matters into his own hands and became the father of Ishmael by his servant Hagar.  And God promised him that he would become the father of many nations, and that through his son by Sarai the world would be blessed.

It is easy to receive God’s promise and then to assume that its fulfillment relies on us.  Often we take matters into our own hands, working to bring about what God has said that he himself will achieve.  Certainly this is something we ought not to do, since our trying to work it out often leads to problems.  We are encouraged by this passage to imitate Abraham in the end, as he waited patiently for God to fulfill the promise.  But this tendency to work out God’s promises for ourselves is not the main issue for me today.

The tendency to work out God’s promises for ourselves is revealing of the greater problem.  That is, we believe that God’s promises are dependent on our actions.  Most often in my life, this works itself out through the belief that God will bless us and give us the gifts that he has promised only if we merit the gifts.  If I follow him closely enough, if I will finally quit getting enmeshed in this or that sin, if I work hard enough for his cause, then he will give me what he has promised.  If I fail to do so, then I will not receive God’s blessing.

Had I been Abraham, I would have given up all hope once Ishmael had come along.  I would have believed that I had botched God’s plan and given up my chance at the blessing.  Either God would bless me and the world through Ishmael or he would choose someone else.  He certainly would not still give me the promised Isaac.  But this is a view that makes the promise depend on me instead of the God who made the promise.  We know that when God promises, he fulfills it.

We see this pattern repeatedly throughout scripture.  A major instance that comes to mind is his promise to free Israel from slavery in Egypt.  It had nothing to do with the actions of the people of Israel.  We know that they were constantly rebellious and faithless and that they didn’t believe God would or even could save them from Pharaoh.  In one of this morning’s psalms it is even stated that God loathed the generation that he brought out of Egypt.  But because God’s promise was not dependent on them, he fulfilled it and performed a host of miraculous signs to prove himself to them.

I have heard of people who have taught that God’s promise is dependent on our actions.  I have heard of ministers who will promise God’s blessing very specifically, even calling it prophecy, to individuals in their congregations.  When the prophecy is not fulfilled and the blessing does not come as it had been promised by the pastor, the person who was given the promise is blamed.  If only they had been better during the time since they had been told, then the prophecy would have come true. 

I will take a moment to note that there are times when blessings are conditional.  Throughout Torah we see this.  “If you keep this covenant, then I will bless you with these things.  If you do not keep this covenant, then these curses will be your reward.”  In these cases, the condition is always stated.  There is never an underlying assumption that the promise depends on the action of the individuals involved.  If no conditions are named in the giving of the promise, then there are no conditions.  If a “prophecy” is given without conditions and then, when it doesn’t come about, it turns out there were conditions all along, I would judge the prophecy and the prophet to be suspect at best, if not outright deceivers.

But we know that the promises of God are based on God alone.  They are not rooted in our merits, but in the merit of Jesus Christ.  So when we are given a promise by God, we can have confidence that the promise will be fulfilled.  The greatest promise that Christ guarantees for us is our salvation and inclusion in his household, and in the inheritance of his kingdom.  He guarantees us the Holy Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit we are promised an array of gifts.  Not the least of these is the peace and comfort that our Helper grants us in the midst of trials.  He also, at times, promises things to us individually.  Things that are particular to us at the moment.  Personally, when I have seen these promises and seen them fulfilled, it has been in unlooked for ways that had nothing to do with the recipient of the gift and everything to do with the Giver.  Be encouraged.  You aren’t going to mess up God’s gift by being a screw up.

Somehow this is leading me into talking about good works and righteousness.  Having lived most of my life believing that I had to earn love from God and man, this is something that is taking me a long time to grasp.  I have historically been inclined to view good works as the sure sign of my salvation, but not in the right sense.  I have pushed myself toward good works, manufacturing them where I can, to prove to myself that I am really saved.  A friend of mine recently, talking about her garden, said that she wishes she could make her vegetables grow by willpower alone.  It has been that sort of thing.  I have wanted to make the fruit of the Spirit grow by my own power.

The fruit of the Spirit.  That is the sense in which our works are a sign of our salvation.  The fruit grows, and we are changed.  We do these good works out of our very nature.  We are trees bearing good fruit, and because we are trees bearing good fruit, we do things in accordance with the good.  Forcing ourselves to do good against our will is not the same thing.  Doing good willingly, from the depth of our souls, is the key here.  (Doing good against our will is different from willingly doing good contrary to our flesh.  It would take too long to fully go into this now.  I have to go to work in sooner than nine weeks.)

And briefly I would like to touch on another topic that is directly related to good works.  There are branches of Christianity that are accused of basing their salvation on good works rather than on faith in Christ.  Certainly in some cases this is true.  Old Gnostic heresies have not completely died out.  But in many cases it is a misunderstanding of teaching.  The one that comes to mind most is the accusation that the Catholic church teaches salvation by works.  So here I am, the least qualified, coming to the defense of the Catholic church.

The brief defense:  Good works are not the means of salvation.  In one sense they are the evidence of salvation, as we see in the epistle of James.  “Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”  It is the faith that saves.  The works are how the faith is seen.  But there is another role of good works other than simply being evidential.  That is, doing good works is a way to work with God.  It’s a way to spend time with God, doing what he cares about.

Which of us, if he sees a little child working with his dad in the garage or in the yard, will think that the child is trying to earn his dad’s love by the work he’s doing?  Don’t we rather think that the child loves his dad and wants to spend time with him?  So when we see a Christian doing good works, we ought to see a child spending time with his father, doing the work that his father is doing.  It is notable that a very young child “helping” his dad sincerely believes that he is helping.  Without his help, he believes, his dad couldn’t get this work done as well.  But when the child gets a little older and still “helps,” he understands that he isn’t really helping.  His dad is doing the work, and he’s there spending time with his dad.  And maybe holding something.

And what about penance?  Earning God’s forgiveness?  Absolutely not.  God has promised to forgive our sins.  Christ purchased us, and purchased forgiveness for us.  So it depends on Christ, and not on our merit or works.  So why do we do penance?  Because we did something (and I’m having trouble finding the right words here) that violated our relationship with God.  We did something hurtful.  Penance is a way to show we’re truly sorry for what we’ve done, yes, but it’s deeper than that.  It’s primarily a way to heal.  Not to satiate God.  Not healing God because of what we’ve done.  Healing ourselves.  It’s the child who does something wrong, knows they have done something wrong, gets spanked by his mother, and then immediately goes to his mother for comfort.  (In Christ, or as mature people, the spanking is generally not required.  We see our sin, we confess it, and we go to the one we transgressed to be comforted and restore our souls.)

I shouldn’t have to mention prayer, but I will.  Prayer can be seen as another of the works that Christians do to earn their salvation or prove their value to God.  “He prays for an hour a day, or three times or nine times a day.  Who does he think he is?  Why does he think that’s necessary?”  It’s prayer.  It’s spending time with God.  Spending time with God is great.  Who doesn’t want to spend time with someone they love?

So these good works are not a means of earning salvation, redemption, forgiveness, or anything else.  They are not a way of meriting the gifts of God.  They are a way of engaging the gifts won for us by Christ, promised to us by God and sworn to us on his oath by himself.  They are a way of fully entering in to what God has done.

So may we be encouraged, knowing that the God who promised us good things will bring them about.  And may we believe, without doubting, that the promised blessing depends not on us, but on the God who promised.

Follow me

Luke 9:57-62

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This morning I am particularly convicted by this text.  In light of the fact that I have been reading about various saints lately, this is coming home to me with extra weight.

In this passage we see three men coming to Jesus, two offering to follow him and one being called to follow him.  Each of them genuinely wants to follow Christ, but they also have some additional request or expectation.  To us, these requests seem pretty reasonable.  They are expectations to have the basic necessities of life met and to fulfill duties and maintain relationships with family.  Jesus elevates following him above all of these.

I am often challenged with the desire to follow God and the simultaneous desire to fulfill certain physical needs or desires.  At my age, I am feeling the pressure of having completed none of the three big markers that some sociologists call the marks of entering adulthood.  So while I want to follow Christ, I also want him to provide me a career, a house, and a wife.  What I expect is that I can follow Christ and, while being separate from the world, still fulfill the basics of what the world requires of me.  I want to be a Christian and follow God with my whole heart, but I want people outside to be satisfied that I am a responsible adult.

In this passage Jesus is calling us to a reordering of priorities.  He calls us to follow.  It isn’t difficult to be willing to follow Jesus and get in on the inheritance if we also get to hang on to the benefits of citizenship in this world.  But he asks us to surrender our worldly citizenship and accept heavenly citizenship.

I spend a lot of time looking at the things I do not have.  Things like a house, or extra money, or free time.  God hasn’t provided these things as abundantly as I would like.  But then again, the Son of Man had no place to lay his head.  He spent his ministry sleeping in other people’s houses and eating other people’s food.  He said at one point, after healing on the day of rest, “The Father was working up to now, and I am working.”  He didn’t get a day off.  He didn’t make any money.  His money came from donations to his ministry, and it had to be good for at least thirteen people.  Jesus’ earthly ministry was done under difficult circumstances.  But I often find myself expecting ease.

It is easy to cast these expectations in a light of idolatry, but I don’t know that it’s the most accurate.  Many of us, even within the church, are brought up to expect these cultural landmarks and are taught how to achieve them.  We are taught how to be “faithful stewards of our money”, which oftentimes is little more than how to properly plan for retirement and has very little to do with using our money to help the poor or those in need.  We take these expectations in at a young age and grow up simply believing that they are essential.  They may become idols.  It is more helpful, I think, to view them as burdens.

The concept of burdens has been difficult for me to understand at times.  I get caught up in the phrase “my cross to bear” and I think that all of these burdens are my cross.  But the proper position of these burdens isn’t on my cross, it is at Jesus’ feet.  These burdens of societal norms are something that we can and must surrender to the Lord.  In so doing we will find that following him is an easy burden and a light yoke, despite the fact that we may not ever achieve some of those landmarks.  Is it better for us to have everything in this life and a tepid relationship with God, or to lack all in this life and have a vibrant and passionate relationship with God?  If I may walk closely with him and know him deeply, do I need anything more?

This isn’t to say that those things we desire, the house, the family, the career, are bad things.  Indeed, they are often very good things.  But they are not the important thing.  I often weary myself in prayer lamenting my lack of these table dressings and completely forget about the Holy Spirit, wisdom, virtue, salvation for those who do not know Christ, the union of the Church, the healing of the sick, the poor, the oppressed, and everything I would be better off praying for.  I spend time getting very close to my own heart and neglect to get close to the heart of God.  I want to follow Jesus, but the burdens I carry are too heavy; I focus on dragging my burden along the road, my eyes on the ground, simply taking one trudging step after another.  And Jesus says, I think with a bit of a laugh and a twinkle in his eye, “Just put them down.”  He isn’t saying “Put them down and I’ll take care of making sure you get them all.”  He’s saying “Put them down and follow me.”

So I don’t have a career, but I have a vocation and direction in life that is building up a heavenly nest egg.  I don’t own a home, but I am guaranteed a place to live when the sojourn is over, and a princely share of the inheritance.  I don’t have a wife or children, but I am the bride of Christ and surrounded by his children.  I can lay the burdens down and I don’t need Christ to carry them for me, because he’s giving me something better.  It isn’t that earthly blessings aren’t good.  They are good, that’s why they’re called blessings.  It’s just that they aren’t very important.

Lord, have mercy on me.  Help me to drop my burdens and follow you into the life that you lived.  Amen.

Count it all joy

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

I only have a few minutes this morning, so this meditation will be brief.  That is, the writing of it will be brief.  For me, the truth of these scriptures will take a long time to fully work in to my life.

When we suffer trials, it is easy to focus on the hardness of the trial.  In these passages, we have two descriptions of trials that can change our perspective.  In the first we have God explaining what he was doing with the nation of Israel during their wandering in the wilderness.  He was testing them to know whether they would follow his commands.  He was humbling them, the arrogant people that came out of Egypt with complaints on their lips every step of the way.  How was he doing it?  Simply by giving them hardship to break them and show them that they weren’t great?  Of course not, that isn’t how God works.

“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna”.  Their pride was shown often in their longing for the food of Egypt.  God showed them that their pride was founded in the belief that man could live by bread alone.  He taught them through their hunger that man does not live by bread alone.  Further, he provided food for them in the wilderness.  He taught them in this that man does live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  They were not being crushed, they were being humbled.  They were being changed from men and women who relied on themselves to children who relied on their Father.  Their position was being lowered.  But in this lowering, they were being exalted.  They were no longer the slaves of Pharaoh, they were no longer their own masters.  They were made the children of God.  This humbling in the wilderness was part of the discipline of God.

Discipline is an important word.  In my house growing up, discipline was often the word used to mean punishment.  You broke a rule and you were “disciplined” by being grounded.  That isn’t really what discipline means.  Discipline is teaching, it’s training.  (See the word “disciple” in there?)  God trains us to walk with Him.  He gives us exercises.  The trials we endure are exercises, building us up to walk with the Lord.

James tells us to count it joy when we suffer trials for this very reason.  The trials we endure produce steadfastness.  Later James goes on to condemn doubt in prayer.  He tells us to pray without doubting and says that he who doubts is a wavering man.  How do we walk with God without doubting?  By being steadfast.  How do we become steadfast?  By enduring trials.

I don’t have a lot to say about the end of the Deuteronomy passage, but it’s worth pointing out.  God is disciplining his children because he’s bringing them into a land where he will bless them.  Since he is going to bless them, he is also going to take the time to teach them both that they ought to walk with him and how to walk with him.  So it is for us.

I’ve been gardening lately, so I’m going to bring in a gardening metaphor here.  We often think of trials and all sorts of suffering as the weeds in the garden that will choke out the plant.  Trials, then, are evidence that God is neglecting the garden and does not actually care for us, or they're things that will try desperately to destroy our faith to determine whether the plant was strong enough to satisfy God.  But trials are not weeds.  Trials are the manure laid around the plant and worked into the soil in order to make the plant grow, to make it strong, and to make it bear fruit.

So count it joy, brothers.  The Gardener loves you.  Endure with him, and praise the Lord.

In the land of the living

Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

    whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

    of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me

    to eat up my flesh,

my adversaries and foes,

    it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,

    my heart shall not fear;

though war arise against me,

    yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the Lord,

    that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

    all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

    and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter

    in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

    he will lift me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up

    above my enemies all around me,

and I will offer in his tent

    sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;

    be gracious to me and answer me!

You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to you,

    “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

    Hide not your face from me.

Turn not your servant away in anger,

    O you who have been my help.

Cast me not off; forsake me not,

    O God of my salvation!

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,

    but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O Lord,

    and lead me on a level path

    because of my enemies.

Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;

    for false witnesses have risen against me,

    and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord

    in the land of the living!

Wait for the Lord;

    be strong, and let your heart take courage;

    wait for the Lord!

I had the pleasure last Sunday of worshiping with my brothers and sisters at Arlington Countryside Church in Arlington Heights.  This was the church that held me up during some of the hardest times I’ve yet had to endure, and they bore with me patiently during years when I was not handling it well.  It was pure joy to be with them now, remembering where I was and what the Lord did through them and has done since.  To augment the blessing, I also heard a wonderful sermon from the life of Moses.

In this sermon, taken from the point where Moses is commissioned by God to where he arrives in Egypt, Pastor Dave dwelt on the fact that God was showing Moses very clearly who He is.  He gave Moses clear pictures of His sovereignty, His holiness, and His faithfulness.  These truths about God were things that Moses could carry with him through the difficult days to come.  When Pharaoh continually refused to let the people go, when Israel refused to trust that God would deliver them, when it seemed like there was no hope in his mission, Moses could hold on to these truths and be encouraged to endure.

In this psalm we see a similar picture.  We see David actively remembering God in the time of his trials.  If we begin in the middle of the psalm, we see David’s request to God that he not be turned away or forsaken despite his being forsaken even by his mother and father.  We see him ask God not to hide his face.  We see that his adversaries are rising up against him.  This, then, is the context of his initial statement.  “The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

It is difficult in times of hardship to say this.  Often I have an answer ready.  Whom shall I fear?  Well, poverty.  The guy actively trying to get me fired.  Loneliness.  Despair.  These things could overtake me, and what can I do about them?  David answers this question brilliantly.  “When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.”  He could look to the future and fear what is to come, but instead he looks to the past and finds hope for the future.  When he has been in trouble in the past, God has helped him.  When trouble overtakes him in the future, God will help him.  In the midst of the troubles of today, he finds faith to believe that God will carry him through.

The desire of David’s heart, as we see here and in many other places, is to dwell in the house of the Lord.  He earnestly seeks God, even as God has commanded him and us.  It is easy in the time of trial to simply hold to the hope of heaven and to despair of all else.  And certainly we do believe that heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of our hope.  But it is not the only fulfillment.  Even when David speaks of dwelling in the house of the Lord, I do not get the idea that he is simply speaking of the resurrection.  He says “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!”  Being saved from his enemies is not something that is simply far off, it is also something to come very soon.

A friend of mine once, speaking of heaven, expressed concern about how many people seem to be dwelling on the wrong thing.  We look to the resurrection and see only an end to suffering.  That places all of the emphasis on our own suffering now, and the desire for it to be over.  Rather, we ought to look to the joy of dwelling fully with God.  That is the deepest hope of heaven.  Yes, suffering will end, but an end to suffering is not the end.  In place of the suffering we will have a full and complete joy.  To me, this makes heaven an even greater thing to hope for.  It also corrects my perspective about this life.  If the fulfillment of the promise is only an end to suffering, then I will see this world simply as a place where I suffer.  God, then, is waiting to bless me and give me good gifts.  He will not do it in this life, but will wait until I die.  What folly!  If the hope of heaven is joy with God, dwelling with Him fully, then the hope of life is also joy with God, and dwelling with Him even imperfectly.  The God who desires to give us joy for eternity also desires to give us joy in this life.

Lest this start to sound like prosperity teaching, I will again mention that trials will come.  There will be trials.  Creation itself groans to see the final redemption of God.  And there will, for most of us, come a time of suffering that will not be ended this side of heaven.  But nonetheless, it is certain that God desires good things for us in this life.  And even in the midst of suffering we can find joy as we share in the sufferings of Christ.

The example given us by godly men is to remember what God has done.  Remembering what God has done, we get glimpses of what God will do.  David remembered it and found hope for the future.  Moses remembered and found endurance to continue in his mission even when all seemed lost.  We remember, and we press on.

David’s final statement is beautiful.  “Wait for the Lord.”  He doesn’t allow despair to overtake him, because he believes that God will answer.  He doesn’t try to achieve salvation for himself, because he knows that God is his helper.  So he is also able to say “be strong, and let your heart take courage”.  Do not wilt under the trials that you now face.  Do not give up hope, but knowing what God has done, face whatever trials may come.  The Lord will answer.  The Lord will overcome.  Wait for the Lord.

Seasoned with salt

Colossians 3:18-4:6

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

I woke up this morning, two hours later than I intended, after a wonderful and exhausting weekend.  “You are my sunshine” drifted up from the kitchen, each note sliding into place in my head until it formed into a recognizable tune.  I was startled to find Thomas picking the banjo where I expected Anthony, and it took me a few seconds to realize what I was seeing.  As I stumbled toward the coffee maker and began to prepare my morning brew, Thomas started in on telling me about this great new thing he’d discovered.  I’m almost certain that it made sense.  Seeing the baffled look on my face, and sharing in his brother’s excitement, Anthony joined in the explanation.  Two people were then gabbling at a high pitch what were most likely perfectly coherent statements, well articulated and full of meaning.  I blinked slowly, pointed to the pot in my hand that held fresh, clean water, and said nothing.  They laughed and left for work, with mumbled good wishes for their day trailing after them.

Relationships are difficult.  Even and maybe especially when they are relationships with people you love.  There are times when we are very caught up in ourselves and unable to see the other person’s point of view, or when we simply don’t care about the other’s point of view.  Since we love the other person, we want to feel loved by them.  We demand more from those we love, or from those that we are in a consistent relationship with, and so we are more hurt when we don’t receive what we feel we deserve.

People who know me know that I’m a moderate to severe grump.  I started on the road to being a curmudgeon as soon as I learned the word.  I was about 17.  The same people who know me to be grumpy also know that I care tremendously about people and under the right circumstances am even able to express it.  This morning I woke up to find two people that I love in my house, making sounds and expecting me to process information two minutes after I woke up.  They also know that these are less than ideal conditions for me.

To celebrate what God has done in my life in the last few years, I will point out that I didn’t yell at them and I wasn’t even annoyed by them.  Hurrah.  What’s more impressive is that when I reminded them gently that I had just woken up and needed my coffee, their response was to laugh.  There was that recognition, “Oh yeah, Dan’s brain isn’t on yet.”  And rather than slowing down what they were saying or in some other way insisting on being heard, which they both knew I would be unable to offer at the moment, they just went on with their day and didn’t demand anything from me.  It was a very small selfless act, but it was selfless nonetheless.

What St. Paul does in this passage is give us guidelines for how to be kind and selfless in relationships.  He isn’t telling us “This is all you need to do in order to please God.”  Rather, he’s illustrating the principles he had been instructing the church on in the earlier paragraphs.  Namely the principles of putting to death the old self and letting love rule in all relationships.  As someone that loves people and yet finds relationships with them very difficult to navigate, I think it will be valuable for me to explore what he says a little more deeply.

The over-arching principle described here seems to be this:  Put Christ in the place of everyone.  Treat each person as you would treat the Lord if he were in that position.  This could get a little hairy if we think that means “worship everyone”, but if we remember the incarnation it will get a little easier.  Particularly if we remember Mary and Joseph, who were charged with raising their boy who happened to be actually the Lord.  They were still his parents and treated their son as a parent ought to treat a child.  Their relationship was not simply one of servant to lord, as our relationships with one another are not simply one thing.  (Incidentally, I can’t wait for an opportunity to meditate in a post on how great St. Joseph was.  We are quick to celebrate the Blessed Virgin, and we ought to.  Joseph was the man chosen to raise the Christ, to stand as his earthly Father, knowing full well that Jesus was not the son of his body.  He was called to be Jesus’ adoptive father, and he did it faithfully.  That’s worth dwelling on.)

So how do I apply the principle and examples described in this passage?  Not being married, I don’t intend to spend too much time on the marriage portions.  But for the sake of those reading, I will say one or two things.  First is the reminder that this is only a portion of the relationship.  So when wives are told to submit to their husbands, they are not being told that their entire relationship will be one of submitting to every whim of their husbands and nothing more.  When husbands are told not to be harsh with their wives, Paul is not saying that the entire relationship will be one of management or criticism where the husband has the option of being cruel or being kind.  He’s drawing out one aspect of the relationship and giving an example of how to treat the other as Christ in that situation, and how to put the old self to death.  Are you being asked to do something reasonable that you are naturally resistant to doing?  Put your old self to death, think less of your own dignity and more of the other’s, and submit.  Are you tired and frustrated because it’s been a long day where incredible demands have been placed on you and coming home to your place of rest and security only to find more demands being placed on you?  Put your old self to death, put on love, bridle your tongue, and don’t be harsh.  For the moment I’ll consider this solely from the angle of a relationship where the other person is not being unreasonable or ungodly.  We’ll get to the other side later.

What is of particular interest to me right now, in light of my own working situation and in light of the social injustices that have been dominant in the news lately, is how we approach relationships between those in power and those without power.  I am certain that more can be said than I will say.

In working life, it is often tempting to do only what is required and not a whit more.  We are offended if asked to do something beyond our job description and even tempted to demand more pay as compensation for the extra duties.  When we do go beyond, it is often out of ambition.  We want to get a promotion or a raise and believe that by being exemplary employees we will achieve this.  So we often do good work out of purely selfish motives.  Or we refuse to do good work out of purely selfish motives.

What Paul recommends here is to work as if we are working for the Lord.  Put Jesus in the place of your boss.  If Jesus asks me to do something extra, I’m not likely to get upset and tell him no.  Why not?  Because I love him immensely.  Another hour of work to help him out won’t seem like a big deal, even if I am tired.  And I’ll want to do my best work for him, not to impress him, but just to make him happy.  We ought to treat our employers in this way, doing good work for their benefit, not for ours.  And the Lord, for whom we are in fact working, will reward us for the good work we do.

To masters, or to those in power, Paul’s words are shorter but I feel much stronger.  Masters are told to treat their servants justly and fairly.  He doesn’t deny that the relationship of master to servant exists and he doesn’t even claim that it shouldn’t exist.  In the world there will be some in power and others not in power.  It isn’t the master’s job to give up his power, but to use his power well.  He should use his power to ensure justice (which is the opposite of oppression) and fairness.  He should not take advantage of his staff or place unreasonable demands on them.  He should do all he is able to ensure that his power does not chaff those placed under him.  As the Lord’s yoke is easy and burden light, so we ought to make our yokes and burdens for those under us.

The statement to masters gets its hard edge at the end.  “Knowing that you also have a master in heaven.”  The apostle says here to everyone in authority, “Remember, you are not the one in authority.  Your power is temporary and limited, and you will be held accountable for how you use it.”  If I am a master that abuses my servants and I remember that I have a master who insists that servants not be abused, I’m likely to start trembling for the outcome of that annual review.  When I’m forced to explain why I’ve been managing in a way contrary to what my boss told me, I’m probably going to face some pretty harsh consequences.  I might even lose my job.  So be careful, all of us in power, to remember those who are not.

How do we in the majority treat those in the minority?  How do we treat the poor, the oppressed, those whose only social difference is their skin color?  Do we treat them with dignity?  Do we recognize that they have been placed in a subordinate position in our society or do we deny it?  Do we treat people with the dignity they deserve?  Do we blame the poor for their poverty?  Do we blame the criminal when he is abused or killed by the police?  Do we make excuses for those in power when they are oppressive or unfair?  Be careful.  We have a master in heaven.  And our master loves the poor and oppressed.  He’s going to call us to account for our actions and our inaction, for both our deeds and thoughts.  Love the poor.  Do not simply treat each person as Christ would treat him, but treat him as you would Christ.

So how do we as employees, as spouses, as children, as parents respond when the other party in the relationship is not reasonable or is abusive?  I’m going to begin with the easiest one to answer, because all of the other ones are incredibly difficult.

As an employee, when my employer is abusive I still have to do my work as if I were working for Christ, as in fact I am.  I have to do my work well, or to the best of my ability, even when his demands are unreasonable.  However, given the culture we live in, I do not have to stay in that job.  I am not in fact a slave who has no option but to serve the master that owns me.  I have some choice in whether I will serve this master or another.  But as long as I am in a working relationship with my employer, I must honor that relationship.  I am not allowed to spitefully do shoddy work in order to teach my boss that he ought to treat me better.  Often, refusing to be spiteful (submitting) can be very difficult.  I want to treat others the way they are treating me, which means that I want to abuse those who are being abusive.  That isn’t the Lord’s way.  So for as long as I am in a job, I must do that job as for the Lord, as I would for an employer who treats me well, even when he doesn’t.

For all the others, the abusive marriage or the relationship with an abusive parent?  It’s more difficult.  We have all had relationships with people who will constantly take advantage of us.  No matter what we do, the other person will not change.  It is obvious that it is not acceptable to start mistreating the person who mistreats us.  But is it acceptable to leave?  I’m not wise enough to give an answer to that question. 

Some who are wiser than I have said that there are situations where ending the relationship is the best for all the parties.  There are other situations where we are encouraged to stay in the relationship and bear the mistreatment.  Paul speaks in another place about believers married to unbelievers.  He tells them to remain with their spouse, and so maybe win their spouse for the Lord.  But if the unbelieving spouse leaves, they are not bound to stay with their spouse.  (This isn’t saying that a marriage to an unbeliever is dissolved if the unbeliever leaves; it’s simply saying that the believer doesn’t have to insist on living with their unbelieving spouse if he or she leaves.  All of the standard laws about marriage and divorce still apply.  There is some dispute over this, but I’m fairly certain that this is accurate.)  So there are situations where we should stay in the negative relationship and some where we should not.  I will leave it to the wise to determine which is which.

There is this comfort given us, though: “The wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”  When we are called or in some way forced to be in an abusive relationship, we are to love as Christ.  It is not ours to punish.  But the wrongdoer will receive his reward for his wrongdoing when he is called to account.  And for doing right, you will receive the inheritance for your reward.

Bringing it back to general principles of our daily relationships:  “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”  Salt makes an offering sacred.  So the graciousness of our speech makes it sacred.  Let the Holy Spirit be in everything you say, so that you may be wise and loving in your relationships.  And love one another, as the Lord.

In the great congregation

Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the Lord;

    he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

    out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock,

    making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth,

    a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear,

    and put their trust in the Lord.

Blessed is the man who makes

    the Lord his trust,

who does not turn to the proud,

    to those who go astray after a lie!

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,

    your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;

    none can compare with you!

I will proclaim and tell of them,

    yet they are more than can be told.

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,

    but you have given me an open ear.

Burnt offering and sin offering

    you have not required.

Then I said, “Behold, I have come;

    in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

I delight to do your will, O my God;

    your law is within my heart.”

I have told the glad news of deliverance

    in the great congregation;

behold, I have not restrained my lips,

    as you know, O Lord.

I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;

    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;

I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness

    from the great congregation.

As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain

    your mercy from me;

your steadfast love and your faithfulness will

    ever preserve me!

For evils have encompassed me

    beyond number;

my iniquities have overtaken me,

    and I cannot see;

they are more than the hairs of my head;

    my heart fails me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!

    O Lord, make haste to help me!

Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether

    who seek to snatch away my life;

let those be turned back and brought to dishonor

    who delight in my hurt!

Let those be appalled because of their shame

    who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

But may all who seek you

    rejoice and be glad in you;

may those who love your salvation

    say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

As for me, I am poor and needy,

    but the Lord takes thought for me.

You are my help and my deliverer;

    do not delay, O my God!

Colossians 3:1-11

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

It may not be readily apparent what these two passages have to do with one another.  To be honest, it isn’t readily apparent to me what they have to do with one another except that they are both included in the Daily Office readings for the day.  But they are both beautiful, and I feel compelled to write about them both this morning.

To begin with the morning’s psalm:  I will tell of the Lord’s wondrous works and his great salvation.  To give a nutshell, the Lord brought me from bitterness and despair, anger and selfishness, and taught me joy, love, and patience.  Granted, I’m a slow learner.  It is much truer to say that he is teaching me.  Truest to say that he has taught, is teaching, and will continue to teach.  But as far as I know English lacks the pluperfect so I can’t get that statement into one word.

I have seen the gospel worked out in my life.  That gospel that says “If any man is in Christ he is a new creation”.  I have seen that personal care of a loving father for his beloved son.  I currently have no debt because the Lord rather miraculously provided a job for me that paid well enough to get them all taken care of.  If you haven’t heard that story, the short version is that I got an email out of nowhere from a friend I hadn’t seen for years who lived in another state offering me a job that I wasn’t qualified to do because he felt that God was wanting him to do something for me.  It just so happened that in the previous months I’d been spending a lot of time praying about the future and felt that God was telling me to pay off my debts, which was impossible at the time since I worked a low paying job.  I did at one point tell God that if he wanted me to pay off my debts, he’d have to do something about it himself, because it wasn’t going to happen any time soon otherwise.  The story could be longer.  I’d be happy to give anyone a longer version if you ask me for it.

There are many other ways that I have seen God’s love for me personally, from the family and friends he’s given me to the simple things that could go unnoticed.  Do we remember when Israel was wandering in the wilderness?  God sustained them so that their shoes didn’t wear out.  I now invite anyone to look at my 2001 Oldsmobile with 250,000 miles that should probably be dead by now but is still limping along from day to day, despite its many injuries and mice.  I’m counting that as God’s provision.  Why?  Because it should be dead and it isn’t.  And he’s doing a great job of providing me a lack of car payment at the moment.  Also great affordable housing in a pastoral dreamscape with an awesome roommate and community around.

Yes, the Lord has done great things.  Psalm 40 sets up an awesome picture of the relationship between God and his servant.  (It struck me how much this psalm is like the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah.  Fulfilled ultimately and perfectly in Christ, but true of the one speaking and of all of God’s anointed servants.)  The picture is of God giving mercy and blessing and his servant giving thanks.  Not the servant giving sacrifices and offerings and the placated God responding with kindness.  Servant asks for mercy, God shows mercy, servant gives thanks.  The image gets better.

Why does the servant ask for mercy?  “My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see.”  It isn’t simply the outside world heaping contempt on God’s servant.  He is suffering under his own iniquity.  (I mentioned Christ fulfilling the psalm perfectly in the above paragraph.  I’m not making the jump that Christ was suffering for his iniquity.  Keep it focused.)  This is a little bit hard for me to describe well, because I don’t think I understand it very well.  I’m tempted to set up a situation wherein God punishes us for our sins in this life and this is the result of suffering.  There’s a part of me that wants that to be true.  That part of me is wrong and a liar and is trying to make me forget God’s love and kindness.  There are natural consequences of our sins that God may not shield us from, but he is not heaping bad things on us because of how wretched we are.  He doesn’t do that.  Discipline, sure.  He will use even our sin for our good.  He may send us difficult circumstances in order to teach us something about himself or to help us learn to walk in his ways or simply so that we may share in the sufferings of Christ.  But he doesn’t beat us in anger to show us who’s boss.  He has forgiven our sins.  They are nailed to the cross.

One more thought about the psalm before I move on to the epistle:  It’s very clearly a cycle.  I suffer, God delivers, I suffer again, God delivers again.  I know that God will deliver me from this suffering because God has delivered me in the past.  I will tell it to all the people because I’ve seen it, and I will tell it to myself because I need to remember.  I am suffering now, but God will deliver me, and I will give him praise.  Because he loves me.  All of it, because he loves me.

It feels unnecessary to move on to the epistle, but I have to do it.

So then, in light of all these things, in light of the fact that God has forgiven all our sins (pluperfect?) and delights to give us good things, how ought we to respond?  Giving thanks, of course, is important.  But there’s something more here.  God always required righteousness and he was always forgiving.  That didn’t change under the new covenant.  (I’m fairly certain that the biggest change in the new covenant was its being open to all people and giving the Holy Spirit, but don’t take that as any sort of authoritative statement.  Ask a bishop.  Or if you’re a part of my diocese, you can also ask our Canon Theologian, who will certainly answer your question and leave your head spinning with all of the extra fantastic information that you never thought to ask for.)    God still requires righteousness.  He accepts the righteousness of Jesus.  But that isn’t excuse for us to go on sinning because Jesus has us covered.

What St. Paul says here is that we have died and been raised with Christ.  If, then, we have died and been raised, we ought to live our lives as if we have died and been raised.  We ought not to focus on the things of this world.  We ought, rather, to set our minds on heavenly things.  We ought to put to death what is earthly in us.  A short list of things to put to death: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, social and political divisions.

We exist in a culture that elevates the rights of the individual above all things.  (Granted, it is impossible to consistently maintain the rights of the individual as a highest good.  Holding up the rights of one means that you will inevitably infringe the rights of another.  The impossibility of maintaining the rights of the individual as a highest good even under the best possible circumstances should be our first hint that it is not in fact a high good.  That reality should encourage us to stop pursuing it as if it were.)  Because we value the rights of the individual as a culture, we bring that into our Christian lives.  This isn’t a new problem, and I’m not claiming it as a uniquely modern or uniquely American thing.  Which is fortunate, because that means we have lots of examples throughout history and scripture to show us the right way.

There is a question often asked by Christian teens and twenty-somethings who are dating.  “How far is too far?”  I don’t propose to answer that question.  I simply use it as an example of the thought that is in our minds and hearts when we look at sin.  “How much can I get away with and still be okay?”  This sets up a balance, as if we could put two or three ounces of sin on the scale without tipping it, but anything more is too much.  But Paul doesn’t describe it like that.  He describes it as life and death.  It’s binary.  Either it is alive or it is dead.  Okay, I can’t covet my neighbor’s donkey, but how about his dog?  Is that still too much?  Okay, maybe just his rose bushes?  No?  One rose?  The problem isn’t the object of coveting or the quantity of coveting, the problem is that covetousness is still alive.  Put it to death.

We sow divisions within the church based largely on our desire to define the acceptable quantity of sin.  On one side we have people completely excusing all sorts of things that have been described as sin in scripture, like sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, and they entrench in a political party or social group and spit at the other side of the church.  Why?  Because they value their own dignity above all other things and demand that they be allowed to do what they want.  Their minds are focused on earthly things, not on things above.  If their minds were focused on things above, it might become less important that they aren’t married or don’t share a bed with another man or woman.  It might become less important that they don’t have the same pay as another.  It might become less important that they are limited in what they are allowed to do, by one power structure or another.

On the other side of we have people absolutely forbidding all sorts of things, even things that scripture doesn’t forbid, and in so doing are glossing over and thus practically excusing sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, and their entrenchments in a political party or social group that spits at the other side of the church.  “Don’t be given to drunkenness” becomes “Don’t taste alcohol or go into any establishment that serves it.”  This side is caught up with the rules of “Do not touch.”  Why?  Because they value their own dignity above all other things and demand that others thing highly of them.  Their minds are focused on earthly things, not on things above.  If their minds were focused on things above, it might become less important that the government is taking away their legally protected rights.  It might become less important that others are receiving rights that they believe ought not to be given.    It might become less important that they be paid more than others, or that they be given the respect and recognition they feel they deserve.

We don’t really have two sides in the church.  We have one big circle that’s doing the same things in different ways.  When we spit hatred on others, we spit hatred on ourselves.  We have to stop doing that.  Put to death wrath and malice.

We also have to stop living as if we were not crucified and raised with Christ.  We must put to death the old self.  Not because we will only earn our salvation if we work it out perfectly.  Of course not.  But because the reality is that we have been crucified and raised with Christ.  To live as if we have not been is a lie.  And to put to death the old self is to proclaim to the great congregation the things that God has done.

May we also shout his good works to the world and to one another.  May we embrace death and resurrection.  May we love one another with all kindness and humility.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.