LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART XII
Many years ago, a couple in my church came to see me because they were having problems in their marriage. Let’s just call them John and Jane Doe. It seems Jane had struck up an internet friendship with a man she once dated in college…and she wanted to take a trip down to Mississippi to see him. John was upset by this, and Jane couldn’t understand why. That’s when they came to see me.
Now I don’t ordinarily tell people what to do in a counseling situation. But in this case I strongly advised that – for the sake of their marriage – Jane should not go down to Mississippi, and she should cease all communication with her ex immediately. Believe it or not, Jane was not pleased by my counsel. She ended up going to Mississippi anyway and as John and I both suspected, this rendezvous was not as innocent as Jane let on. John and Jane Doe ended up getting divorced. And as it turned out, the ex in Mississippi was still married when he and Jane got together, and he had no intention of leaving his wife. Jane was left out in the cold: no husband, no boyfriend, and ultimately…no home.
Jane came to see me one more time. She was clearly a wounded soul. In the course of our conversation, she actually said to me, “Where was God in all of this? I just can’t believe God let this happen to me.” I’m afraid that, yet a second time, I was not very consoling to Jane. I told her that God has given us free will. And sometimes, God allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions. Are there consequences to our actions, or should God perpetually get us off the hook when we claim to profess the Christian faith? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
This is the twelfth in a series of sermons entitled, “Living This Side of the Cross.” The thesis of the series is pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus, our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.
We talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth. We said that the kingdom is here, but not fully here. Thus, could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? While we live in a throw-away society these days, perhaps there are some things we should not throw away. After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.
We talked about living a worthy life. A worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed in community. Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer. You see, God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us. We see God acting in the world today when we witness the heartfelt convictions of those who serve him.
We encountered what we called Paul’s roadmap through the cosmos. He tells us who we are and where we are going as Christians. We are blessed by God, chosen in Christ, destined for adoption, bestowed grace, lavished forgiveness, made to know the will of God through Christ, and gathered up to God in the end. We are precious children of God – created in the image of God – and destined for eternal life. Do not let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
We noted how Paul refers to us as saints. Paul deliberately chooses a word that identifies us not by what we do for God, but rather, by what God does for us. He is retraining our imaginations to understand ourselves not in terms of how we feel about ourselves – and certainly not in terms of how others might feel about us – but rather, he is retraining our imaginations to understand how God feels about us. In God’s eyes, we are saints. In God’s eyes…we are holy.
We discovered that God bestows grace to sinners like us. Yet the grace of God is a lot like water to a swimmer. It seems as though there is no possible way it could support us. So like the swimmer, we have to lean forward, lift up our legs, and let ourselves go. To coin a phrase, we need to learn to let go…and let God.
We learned that the church is the gift of Christ to the world. Yet there is more to the church than meets the eye. The church is not just bricks and mortar. The church is not just a collection of faithful people. The church is the body of Christ in the world. And it is through the church – and only through the church – that Christ bestows his peace upon us.
We observed what Jesus Christ came to earth to accomplish. He established the church and gave it a commission. That commission is to make God’s wisdom known to the world. What is God’s wisdom? We see God’s wisdom when we possess inscape. Inscape is the capacity to see the God in everything. Inscape is the ability to put on the eyes of God and see the world as God sees the world.
We noted how we describe Jesus Christ as being fully human and fully divine. As the church is referred to as the body of Christ in the world, it follows that the church must also be both human and divine. Thus, while we come to the church to encounter the word of God, we also come to the church to build kingdom relationships.
We heard Paul beg us to lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called. We do so by way of paraclesis – which has to do with the Holy Spirit. In other words, we strive to get the words of Jesus Christ inside of us so that they become us. We condition ourselves to look at the world through the eyes of love.
And finally, we learned that because we are Christian, there should be something different about the way we live our lives. As Cardinal Suhard put it some one hundred years ago, “It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” In other words, we are called to put off the ways of the world…and put on the way of God.
In the passage I read this morning, Paul indicates what happens when we do not put off the ways of the world and put on the way of God. Addressing the Pagan culture of Ephesus, Paul writes, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.” Hmmm…the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. Let’s talk a little bit about the wrath of God and disobedience.
The Greek words translated “wrath of God” are orge tou Theou. The wrath of God refers not to some child-like vengeance God plans to take out on his people. It refers more to the fact that God despises sin. Thus, the term “wrath of God” seems to imply that God simply gives people over to the folly of their choices. In other words…sin has its consequences. Why, it’s almost as if God is saying, “You want to live a life of sin? Fine. Have it your way.”
Let’s go back to the story with which I introduced this sermon. A woman took part in an act of adultery. She lost her husband, she lost her boyfriend, and she lost her happy home. “How could God let this happen to me?” she cried. The question was, “Are there consequences to our actions, or should God perpetually get us off the hook when we claim to profess the Christian faith?” I think you know the answer now. Sin…has its consequences.
Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best in his book, The Screwtape Letters. He wrote, “There are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” Which kind of person are you?
Paul said that the wrath of God comes to those who are disobedient. We’ve seen that the wrath of God is essentially God saying to us, “Thy will be done.” Yet it comes upon those who are disobedient. What does it mean to be disobedient? The Greek word translated “disobedient” is a-pei-theia. Can anyone think of a similar word in English? How about the word, “apathy?” The word “apathy” means a lack of interest or concern. So perhaps we could say that the wrath of God comes to those who blatantly disregard the will of God, AND to those who could simply care less.
Paul gives us the secret to avoiding such calamity. In verse 15 he writes, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise.” In verses 18 through 20 he adds, “Be filled with the Spirit as you sing psalms and hymns among yourselves…giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Any clue as to how that might be done?
Perhaps the secret Paul has in mind…is worship. For it is only in worship that we tend to put ourselves in a position to listen for God. It is only in worship that we tend to put ourselves in a position for the wind of the Holy Spirit to blow upon us. As Jesus himself said in the gospel according to John, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you know not whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nobody knows where the wind comes from – and nobody knows where it’s going – but everybody knows when it’s there. It’s alive. Stand in it, sail in it, and you’re alive too. With the wind at your back, it’s full steam ahead. You’re confident; you can do anything…until the wind dies. And you can’t do anything about it. What then?
Some years ago, the sails of our churches seemed to be filled with the wind of the Holy Spirit. The pews in mainline denomination churches were full to overflowing. Programs were robust and volunteerism was contagious. But then the demographics shifted…and the culture began to change. Some began to wonder, “Is the church a thing of the past?”
So, we got busy and tried to fix things. We formed committees; we dreamed up programs, we crunched numbers. Somehow we felt it was completely on our shoulders to make things right. But there was always that fear in the back of our minds: “What if we can’t fix it? It’s hard to recreate the wind.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, speaks of a similar fear successful artists have when they sit down with a blank piece of canvas to create their next masterpiece. The burden to repeat past success can be terrifying. Gilbert proposes that artists feel this pressure because somehow – over the course of the last 400 years – they’ve gotten the idea that genius comes from them, instead of beyond them. The Renaissance and the birth of rational thought put human beings at the center of the universe.
But in classical times, the Greeks and the Romans felt that genius came to them from someplace else…from some divine, unknowable place. While artists still had to roll up their sleeves and do the work, it was believed that their outside genius was behind their success or failure. All that changed with the Renaissance. For the first time in history, a person was referred to as being a genius, not having a genius. With this intellectual shift, Elizabeth Gilbert feels that we humans have missed the mark in understanding the relationship between our own creative acts and the divine.
Perhaps she’s on to something here. We try to restore the church to her former glory by working hard to muster up our past genius – recycling approaches that worked once – but that no longer do. Personally, we try to make ourselves perfect by the sheer determination of our will and the strength of our own intestinal fortitude. We forget about the realm of the Holy Spirit, and we end up exhausted and disheartened.
What if catching a new vision of what the church could be was placed in the hands of the Holy Spirit? What if catching a new vision of what WE could be was placed in the hands of the Holy Spirit? What if we could just show up at worship with open hands and open hearts and say, “We’re ready, God, whenever you are. We promise to do our part, but we also need you to do your part. Let the wind of your Holy Spirit blow where it will. At long, long last…we’re ready to sail.” Amen.
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