04-29-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART II

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau…did I get that right?  Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an 18^th century   social theorist.  His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution, and the development of modern sociological thought.  In a book entitled Discourse on Inequality, he wrote:

The first man who fenced in a piece of land and said, “This is mine,” then found people naïve enough to believe him...that man was the true founder of civil society.  From how many crimes and wars and murders; from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

    That is really quite profound.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a brilliant man, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not a humble man.  In the first pages of his final book, ironically titled, Confessions, Rousseau imagines himself having died and gone to heaven.  He approaches the heavenly gates with his head held high.   He carries a copy of his Confessions.  As he passes through the Pearly Gates all of heaven turns toward him. The heavenly host actually set their praise of God aside to listen to his story.  He boasts, “I have bared my secret soul, as God himself hast seen it.  So let the numberless legion of my fellow men gather round me and hear my confessions.  And may any man who dares, say, ‘I was a better man than he.’”

    Wow!  Now there was a man who was full of himself.  Contrast this scenario with the story of a man named Karl Barth. Karl Barth was arguably the greatest theologian of the 20^th century. His epic work was entitled, Church Dogmatics.  It consists of 14 volumes, and it is some of the most complex reading I have ever encountered.  Someone once quipped, “When Karl Barth dies, God is immediately going to take him up to heaven so he can find out more about himself.”  Such was the intricacy and complexity of Karl Barth’s writing.

    In his biography of Karl Barth, a man named Eberhard Busch quotes the great theologian speculating on his appearance at the Pearly Gates.  Barth imagines himself pushing along a cart full of books.  Yet the heavenly host does not turn to him for a reading.  Instead…they    laugh.  “In heaven,” Barth says, “we shall know all that is necessary, and we shall not have to write on paper or read any more.  Indeed…I shall be able to dump even the Church Dogmatics on some great heavenly floor as a pile of waste paper.”

    Rousseau dared to imagine that God and the heavenly host might be illumined by what he had to say. Barth understood that his mortal understanding of God – as great as it was – was still very limited.  Which of these two stories better captures your understanding of your own self-worth in God’s eyes?   Which of these two stories better describes your sense of your own standing before God?   If it’s the former, I think you may have a small problem.  If it’s the latter, congratulations!  You’ve been paying attention all these years.

    While we may have our standing before God in proper perspective, I’m not so sure we have our standing in the world in proper perspective. We have become an individualistic society. Ask a teacher.  If a child gets in trouble at school and his parents are called into the principal’s office to deal with it, who are the parents most likely to believe is at fault: their child…or the teacher?  Ask an employer. Many will agree that these days, a lot of people feel as if they are doing the employer a favor by showing up for work. As I’ve said before, there are two common phrases that pretty much sum up one of the greatest problems in our society.   One is the Burger King mantra: “Have it your way.” The other is a code by which many retail stores abide.  That code is, “The customer is always right.”  Those two phrases have helped to skew our perspective on our place in the world.  Perhaps we could even say that our world-view has become more Rousseauian than Barthian.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

    Last week we began a sermon series entitled, Living This Side of the Cross.  The thesis of   that sermon was pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4^th 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.

    When it comes to growing up in Christ, perhaps the place to start is the church.  Jesus Christ himself established the church through his disciples.  The church was called the body of Christ. 

The church is not Jesus, yet it is called to do the work of Christ in the world.  And many of the epistles in our New Testament were letters written to specific churches.  Case in point, the passage I read from the book of Ephesians.  The church in Ephesus was established by an eloquent Jewish preacher by the name of Apollos.  Paul initially stopped to visit this fledgling Christian congregation on his second missionary journey.  He met with them – there were only twelve of them at the time – and guided them into receiving the Holy Spirit.  Due to certain trying circumstances, he ended up staying with them for three years.

    Now most of the epistles in the Bible were written to resolve some particular problem that had arisen in the church. In Thessalonica some of the members of the church were sure that Jesus’ return was so imminent…that they quit working.  The Corinthians were squabbling about diet, sex and worship. The Galatians were regressing into tired old Jewish legalism and needed a thorough shaking up.   Like I said, most of the epistles in the Bible were written to resolve some particular problem that had arisen in the church. It seems as though there have always been problems in the church.

    The book of Ephesians is the lone exception. The book of Ephesians was not provoked by a problem. Ephesians may have actually been a general church letter that was circulated among several first century congregations.  So you see…the book of Ephesians works from the other direction.  It immerses us in holy and healthy conditions...out of which a mature Christian life can develop.  That is why it will be my primary text throughout the course of this series of sermons.

    The book of Ephesians begins with such peaceful eloquence. “To the saints who are faithful   in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes, “Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It sounds so calm. It sounds so serene. It sounds so ideal.  And isn’t that the way we all want to experience church?  Yet IS that the way we all experience church?

    There is a quote from Eugene Peterson printed in the Silent Reflection portion of your bulletin this morning. He writes, “Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity.”  Like I said earlier, “When it comes to growing up in Christ, perhaps the place to start is the church.”  Then he writes, “But church is difficult.”  In fact, “Many Christians find church to be the most difficult aspect of being a Christian.”  Finally, he adds, “So many drop out.  There may be more Christians who don’t go to church, or go only occasionally, than there are who embrace it, warts and all.  And there are certainly plenty of warts.” 

    What has hurt the church more than the scandals involving Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart?  And need I mention the headlines some Catholic priests made a few years ago?  And then there are the endless arguments over the ordination of homosexuals…and the burgeoning debate over same-sex marriage.  Casual or superficial experience with the church can leave one with impressions of bloody fights, acrimonious arguments, blatant hypocrisy, and warring factions.   If the church is meant to be God’s advertisement to the world – if the church is meant to be a utopian community put on display so that people will flock to it, clamoring to get it...it has obviously become a piece of failed strategy.

    Yet the church is meant to be the core element for providing a human witness and a physical presence to the coming kingdom of God.  In other words, it’s all we’ve got.  As my systematic theology professor, Harold Nebelsick, used to say, “The kingdom is here…but not fully here.” Perhaps the question now...is this:  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? Could it be that God knew what he was doing when he gave us the church; this church?   Perhaps the answer to those questions depends on whether you are Rousseauian or Barthian.  In other words, is the church meant to please people, or is the church meant to challenge people to grow?

    I want you to listen to a story.  I don’t know who the author was, but one could assume that the person who wrote it is in his – or her – mid-to-late seventies.  In any case, listen closely.

    I grew up in the 1940s with practical parents.  My mother would wash aluminum foil after she cooked with it, and then reuse it.  She was the original recycling queen…even before they had a name for it.  My father was always happier getting an old pair of shoes fixed, rather than buying new ones. Their marriage was good; their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

    I can almost see them now: Dad in trousers, a t-shirt, and a hat; Mom in a house dress with a dish in one hand and a towel in the other.  It was the time for fixing things: a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven, the hem in a dress…they were things we kept.  It was    a way of life, and it sometimes made me crazy.  All that fixing, saving and reusing…just once I wanted to be wasteful.  Waste meant affluence.  Throwing things away meant that you knew   there would always be more.

    But then my mother died, and on that clear summer’s night in the warmth of a hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning: Sometimes, there isn’t any more.  Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return.  So – while we have it – it’s best that we love it, and care for it, and fix it when it’s broken.  This goes for the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven…and the hem in a dress.

    Yet maybe it also applies to marriages, to children with bad report cards, to strained relationships and even to churches.  We live in a throw-away society.  Yet maybe there are some things we shouldn’t throw away. Maybe there are some things that are worth fighting to keep. 

    God certainly feels that way about us. That’s why he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, in the first place.  So maybe we can let ourselves off the hook when it comes to that desperate question:  “Am I in the right place? Have I done the right thing?”  Sometimes we need to acknowledge   that we – or others – have made mistakes, and we must certainly try to learn from them.  But we should not foster the kind of worry that leads to despair.  We should not give up…on the church, on others, or on ourselves.  The providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely…where the road to heaven begins.  Amen.

 

04-22-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART I

    Wendell Berry is an author, a poet, and what some have called a prophet of contemporary culture.  In a book entitled, What Are People For? he writes, “We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life – and many thousands of public dollars – on education.”  Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to character.  Does character matter?  Could there be a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school?

    Flannery O’Connor seemed to think so.  Flannery O’Connor was a 20^th century American writer. Her novels and short stories often reflected her own Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and character.  In a book entitled, Everything That Rises Must Converge, we meet a young man who has returned home to die…or so he thinks.  He is arrogant, pretentious, intellectually proud, and very well-educated.  On his deathbed, he decides he wants to see a priest; but not just any priest.  He pictures in his mind the dramatic content of his end-of-life conversations with an equally well-educated priest…a person of culture, as well as religion.

    Much to his consternation, however…instead of encountering a worldly, sophisticated and slightly cynical Jesuit priest – the priest of his imagining – the priest who actually arrives at his bedside is nothing of the sort.  He is short, he is portly, he is anything but sophisticated, and he arrives at the man’s bedside and introduces himself by saying, “I’m Fahther Finn – from Purrgatory.”  And instead of responding to the dying young man’s questions about the literary merits of James Joyce – or the significance of mythology behind the world’s great religions – the priest insists upon asking questions of his own.

    “So,” the priest asks him, “do you say your morning and your evening prayers?  You don’t, eh?  Well, you will never learn to be good unless you pray regularly. You cannot love Jesus unless you speak with him.  Do you have trouble with purity? We all do, but you must pray to the Holy Ghost for it.  Mind, heart, body, and soul.  Nothing is overcome without prayer.  Pray with your family.  Do you pray with your family?” 

    By this time, the proud young intellectual is fit to be tied.  He isn’t having the kind of conversation he imagined.  And at the suggestion that he should pray with his family, he shouts, “God forbid!  My mother doesn’t have time to pray, and my sister is an atheist!”  The priest responds, “A shame.  Then you must pray for them.”

    The conversation only becomes more tense from here on out as the young man attempts to steer the priest toward the more comfortable shores of the arts by saying, “The artist prays by creating.” To which the old priest responds, “That’s not enough! If you do not pray daily you are neglecting your immortal soul.  Do you know your catechism?”

    Here the young man feels as though he is on firmer ground.  He doesn’t need a catechism.  He is an intellectual – an artist – free to experience the world and form his own opinions of it.  “Certainly not!” he replies.  “I do not know my catechism.  I do not need my catechism.”

    The priest moves on relentlessly – not justifying, not explaining – just walking through the catechism.  “Who made you?” he asks.  The young man replies, “Different people believe different things about that.”  “God made you,” the priest says.  “Now, who is God?”

    The young man replies, “God is an idea created by man.”  The priest responds as if he hadn’t even heard the young man’s answer.  “God is a Spirit; infinitely perfect,” he says.  “Now…why did God make you?” The young man tries to deny the premise but the priest cuts him off. “God made you to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next.”

    Exasperated, the priest says at last, “If you don’t apply yourself to the catechism, how do you expect to know how to save your immortal soul?” “Listen,” the young man says, “I’m not a Roman Catholic.”  “A poor excuse for not saying your prayers,” the old priest answers.  “But I’m dying,” the young man says.  “You’re not dead yet,” the priest retorts.

    After a turn in the conversation in which the priest instructs the young man on how to receive the Holy Spirit, the old priest leaves.  The last thing the young man hears the priest say, however, is a comment to his mother.  “He is a good lad at heart,” the priest says, “but very ignorant.”

    What strikes me most about this conversation is the confidence of the priest.  He knows that the questions addressed in the catechism – fashionable or not – are the real questions at the heart of life.  The old priest standing beside the young man’s bed, tenaciously asking questions that he callously brushes aside, reminds us of what faith looks like…and the contribution it can make to our character.  Questions, like some of the great questions in the catechism, remind us that going deeper means asking very tried and true questions…whatever the preoccupation of contemporary culture may say about what matters most.

    We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life and many thousands of public dollars on education.   Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to a person’s character.  Does character matter?  Is there a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school? I think the old priest in that Flannery O’Connor story would say that character does matter and that there is a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school.  What do you think?

    Consider the passage that I read from the gospel according to John.  Jesus had been crucified on a Friday afternoon. Come Sunday morning, the disciples heard some wild reports from a few women who’d been to the tomb claiming that he was alive, but they were a bit unsure as to what to make of them. Then – suddenly – Jesus himself appeared to them. The only problem here was that Thomas – better known as Doubting Thomas – was not with them, and he refused to believe what the other disciples were telling him.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails,” he said, “and put my finger in the mark of the nails…I will not believe.” 

    One week later, Thomas got his wish. Jesus appeared to them again and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not be faithless, Thomas, but believe.”  Thomas immediately blurted out, “My Lord and my God!”  And Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”

    Now after this event, the author of the gospel of John lays out the purpose of his book.  He writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.  But these are written…so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God; and that through believing, you may have life in his name.”

    Here’s the quandary.  What does it mean to have life in his name?  Our Americanized gospel has come to interpret life in his name to mean eternal life, and that’s true.  But it means a whole lot more than that.  The Greek word translated “life” here is zoane.  It literally means life in the physical sense...of the supernatural life believers will receive in the future, as well as that which they enjoy in the here and now. Ladies and gentlemen, listen closely.  Life in Jesus’ name has to do with eternal life.  But it also has to do with life in the here and now...a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness.  This is what the old priest was trying to tell the dying young man.  The question for us now, I suppose, is this: “How do we get there?”  How do we attain a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness ourselves?

    I encountered a startling story in a book by Eugene Peterson entitled, Practice Resurrection.  There was a woman who grew up in poverty in Arkansas in a harsh fundamentalist atmosphere and abusive circumstances.  When she was eighteen-years-old, she escaped her home town and her family and fled to California.  It wasn’t long before she became pregnant.  She was ecstatic about this new life growing inside of her.  She had never felt more “herself.”  She had meaning; she had joy; she felt for the very first time as if she was taking part in the mystery of life.  While she was no longer religious in any conventional sense, she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had created and given this life that was within her.

    She gave birth to the baby.  It was sheer ecstasy, beauty and goodness.  And then, a few weeks later, she fell apart. She knew nothing about life. She didn’t know what to do. She was confused, bewildered, and without bearings. She had no idea what to do with a baby...and no visible means to support one. She started drinking and became an alcoholic. She went on to use cocaine and became an addict.  It wasn’t long before she turned to prostitution.  She spent the next twenty years on the streets of San Francisco, trying to keep herself and her son afloat.

    And then one day, she wandered into a church.  The church was empty, so she sat down and prayed.  And then it happened.  She didn’t know exactly how or why, but she knew that it had happened.  She had become a Christian.  Then it turned out that she was pregnant again.  This time around, she knew that she knew nothing about living…but she also knew that this time around there wasn’t going to be any hand-to-mouth existence on alcohol, drugs and prostitution. After poking around a bit, she discovered and embraced the Christian faith, and gave herself up entirely to Jesus Christ.  

    But do you know what she found most difficult from that point on?  American churches.  It’s not that she wasn’t welcomed. She was. In fact, she was something of a prize to the church. She was one who had been plucked from the underbelly of the world, and had been transformed, literally. What she found, however, was that these American churches seemed to know a lot about being born again in Jesus’ name.  The problem was that they seemed neither interested nor competent in matters pertaining to spiritual growth. They knew a lot about the life of Christ, but they weren’t very good at navigating life in Christ.  The people of the church were unable to help her as she struggled to live this side of the cross.  She was drowning in a sea of chaos, and there was no one there to toss her a lifeline.

    What do you think about that story?  Should the members of the church have been able to   help her in matters pertaining to spiritual growth, or is that something that’s pretty much the responsibility of the individual? Should the members of the church have been able to help her to live this side of the cross, or are we pretty much on our own when it comes to such things?  What it all comes down to is this: People are bobbing in a sea of chaos all around us.  Are we equipped, as Christians, to toss them a lifeline?  Or are we willing to simply let them drown?

    At our Lake Erie Presbytery meeting last Tuesday night, a minister friend of mine by the name of Harry Johns addressed the presbytery.  He said, “The church is one generation from death.” He said that when he used to make that statement as a young preacher he didn’t really believe it.  But now, as a retired veteran of fifty years of ministry, he sees it as a distinct possibility.  The church is one generation from death.

    Jesus transformed the world with but eleven disciples.  Judas, of course, betrayed him and was no longer counted among the twelve.  The way I like to look at that is this: Even Jesus could only keep eleven out of twelve happy.  That gives me consolation when people get upset with me. Ladies and gentlemen, we have nearly 1000 members on our rolls.   Don’t you think we could make a difference in the name of Jesus Christ in our community…if we only knew how?

    The sermon series we begin today is entitled, “Living This Side of the Cross.”  It has to do with spiritual growth.  As Howie read a moment ago from the book of Ephesians, “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.”  Join me over the course of the next few weeks.  We’re going to spend a little time exploring spiritual growth.  We’re going to spend a little time learning how to throw a lifeline.  We’re going to spend a little time...developing character.  Don’t you think it’s high time we did? Amen.

 

04-01-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VIII

    In the year of 1970 – I suspect that sounds like ancient history to some of you, while it seems like only yesterday to others – in the year of 1970 a single man and a single woman on a college campus started living together…and it made national news.  You see, prior to 1970 it was illegal for a man and a woman to live together without the benefit of marriage. Today I’m guessing that at least 75% of the couples I marry are living together before their wedding day. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t bother to even ask any more.  I figure…at least they’re trying to do the right thing now.   We Americans have rationalized our way into believing that living together prior to marriage is a morally and socially acceptable practice.

      Biblical mores aside, I used to be able to say that living together prior to marriage greatly increased the odds that the marriage would end in divorce.  My theory was, “How do you go from a relationship with virtually no commitment to a relationship of the highest commitment?”  And there were statistics to back me up on that.  Then I read an article on the front page of The Meadville Tribune entitled, “Pre-Marriage Move-In No Longer Predicts Divorce.”  Essentially, it said that nearly 50% of all first marriages break up in the first 20 years. And living together first is no longer a factor in determining the success rate of marriage.

    Yet could it be that there is another factor that has contributed to the high rate of divorce in this country?  Could it be that there is something deeper than couples living together that impacts the success or failure of a marriage?  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

    This is the eighth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga.  It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously.  Yet God takes sin seriously.  In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it.  Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there.   No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

    Six weeks ago we examined the sin of pride.  We determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was.  The secret to overcoming pride is humility.  And the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be.  Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent...needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

    Five weeks ago we examined the sin of envy.  We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel.  From a theological standpoint envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God made us.  The secret to conquering envy is love.  And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

    Four weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger.  We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed.  Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God.  In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation.  The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness.  Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger that peace might rule the day.

    Three weeks ago we examined the sin of sloth.  We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world. The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we serve God, not anyone else.  We are called to remain diligent in our tasks, and in our belief, that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

    Two weeks ago we examined the sin of greed.  We determined that all that greed gets us is a whole lot of stress and a much shorter life.  Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to have.”  Charity says, “Thank you, God, for what I do have.” Thus, perhaps charity is just as much for us as it is for whatever charitable institution it is to which we choose to give.

    Last week we examined the sin of gluttony.  We determined that gluttony is weakness…and that weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter.  The key to overcoming said weakness is more a positive frame of mind than it is anything else.

    Today we examine the sin you’ve all been waiting for – the sin of lust.  As we saw in our passage from the first chapter of the book of Genesis, sexuality started out as a good gift from God. It says, “So God created humanity in his image; in the image of God he created them – male and female he created them.  God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply…and fill the earth.’”  In the first chapter of the book of Genesis men and women are seen as equals – both having been created in the image of God and charged to propagate the species.  It’s in the second chapter of the book of Genesis where things start to get messy...because that’s where we begin to make distinctions.

    The second chapter of the book of Genesis records another account of creation.  There we see that God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.  Then God took one of Adam’s ribs and with it he created Eve.  And for the last six thousand years, women have been seen as being subservient to men.

    It started with their temptation by the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  For centuries, Eve was seen as the culprit.  She was the one that was tempted by the Serpent, and she was the one who led poor Adam astray.  Recent scholarship, however, has tried to get Eve off the hook.  Experts say that at least Eve was thoughtful about what she did.  Adam just did it.  As one woman said, “That’s just like a man…always thinking about his stomach!”

    I want to put a different slant on that story.  I want every married man in the sanctuary this morning to raise his hand.  Now, keep your hand up…if you think it’s a good idea to complain about what your wife puts in front of you for dinner. I don’t complain about what my wife puts in front of me for dinner. I’m afraid to!  That’s probably what happened in the Garden of Eden.  Eve put an apple in front of Adam and said, “Here.  Eat this.”  Adam knew better than to question Eve. So you see, I’m not letting either one of them off the hook. In any case, by the end of the story, when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden, they are clearly at odds with one another.  And it seems we’ve been unable to see one another as equals ever since.

    Jesus weighs in on the matter, as well, in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew.  There he says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say   to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her   in his heart.”  Now granted, it would have been nice if Jesus had talked about women looking at men with lust as well, but the point remains the same. To look at a person with lust is to not see them as a person.  It is to see them...as an object.  Lust sees another person as an object for the gratification of its own lewd desires.  And therein lies the problem.

    But hey, that’s easier said than done, is it not?  We humans are passionate by nature.  It’s biological, for crying out loud!  But I submit to you that lust is not the same as love. Lust says,   “I can’t wait to see him again,” or, “I can hardly keep my hands off her.”  That’s what we call romantic infatuation.  Love is showing compassion even when you don’t feel very compassionate.  Love is continuing to give in spite of the desire to take.  Love is holding on when it would be so much easier to just let go.  Love is a mutual respect that is built upon years and years of hard work and sacrifice. You see, love is not something so fleeting as a fickle emotion.  Love… is a state of being.

    As I frequently say in my wedding sermons, love is bringing a beautiful, healthy child into a world full of pain because you truly believe your love can make a difference.  Love is watching that child grow up and decide to share his or her life with that of another.  Love is standing beside your spouse when they’re lying in a hospital bed…worried sick about what life would be like without them.  Love is sitting across the room from one another after the kids have grown and gone – perhaps not saying a word to each other – but looking at each other and remembering a lifetime of shared memories.  Love takes time because love is so much more than a fickle emotion.  Love…is a state of being.

    Now back to the notion of living together before marriage.  It seems as though it is now a proven fact that living together prior to marriage does not impact the success rate of marriage in any way.  Could it be that there is something deeper than couples living together that impacts the success or failure of a marriage?  I think there is.

    The general rule of thumb these days…is that after three dates, a couple is expected to sleep together.  And by sleep, I don’t mean sleep. So here’s what happens. A couple sleeps together, and the sex is good.  So then they move in together, and the sex is still good. Then they decide   to get married, and the sex is still good.  Then a few years down the road, the thrill wears off a little bit.  Suddenly a couple discovers that they’re married to someone that, a) they don’t really know, and b) they don’t really like!  Such is the fruit of a relationship built on lust.  Now that’s just my theory.   I’ve never read it or heard it anywhere.   I just think that’s what the problem is.   A relationship that is not built on mutual trust and respect is simply destined to fail. 

    So what have we learned so far?  We’ve examined the seven deadly sins.  And along with that, we’ve examined the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues.  The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins.  As I’ve mentioned in every sermon for the last seven weeks, the only way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

    Yet truth be told, we will never be able to completely master our sin, no matter how hard we try.  If we could, then God would have sent his Son into the world for nothing.  So we have a bit of a conundrum here. On the one hand we are miserable, wretched, hopeless sinners in desperate need of the grace of God.  Yet on the other hand, we are the beloved children of God – more precious to God than life itself. 

    Martin Luther called this situation, simul iustis et peccator.  What that means is this.  We are both justified and sinner at the same time.  We are loved, accepted, redeemed and saved – and we are rebellious, deceitful, dishonorable and vile – at the same time.  Perhaps all this means… is that God isn’t finished with us yet. 

    My oldest son is going to have my hide for telling this story, but I’m going to tell it anyway.  About ten years ago, my son and two of his friends had a book of matches and some fireworks.  They were in a field and it had been very dry that summer.  Let’s just say that shortly after they left the area where they had been…six to eight-foot flames erupted.  A vigilant neighbor called the fire department and disaster was averted. Now in fairness to my son, he did not light the fire.  But as far as I was concerned, he was guilty by association.

    When I found out what had happened, I rounded up my son, Rob, and one of the other boys –   a boy named Neal – and drug them down to the police station. There they made their confession and essentially received a slap on the wrist.  As we were driving home, I said to the boys, “You got off easy.  The next time, you may not be so lucky.”

    I knew I had done the right thing when Rob immediately said, “There won’t be a next time.”  He learned from his mistake.  And Neal…Neal just rolled his eyes.  Ladies and gentlemen, my son is currently interviewing for acceptance into a pharmacy school.  Neal died last summer of a drug overdose.

    Did I love my son any less for his mistake?  No.  Did I love him enough to let him learn the consequences of his actions? Yes.  Maybe that’s what God is doing for us as well.  He loved us enough to send his only Son.  And he loves us enough to let us learn from our mistakes.  God’s not finished with us yet.  What will you make of your mistakes?  Amen.

 

03-25-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VII

    My family and I moved to Meadville in November of 2003.  Prior to that, I served a church in Salem, Ohio for about seven-and-a-half years. I believe it was near the end of September of 2003 when I formally announced to the congregation that we would be leaving Salem.  I was surprised by how fast the news spread in the community.

    For example, it wasn’t more than a few days after I made my announcement in church that I was approached on the street by a young man I knew from the gym.  His name was Dominic Panzott.  Dominic approached me and said, “I hear you’re leaving town.”  I said, “Yes.  We’ll   be moving to Meadville, Pennsylvania.   It’s a tremendous opportunity and I’m really looking forward to it.”  He said, “Meadville.  Isn’t that where Allegheny College is?”  I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.”  He said, “Oh.”

    I was puzzled by his response, so I asked him, “Are you familiar with Meadville?”  He said, “Yeah.  I went to Allegheny College for a year.”  Then I asked him, “Well, what did you think of Meadville?”  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Pretty boring.”  I said, “Dom, I’m raising three kids.  Boring is exactly what I want!”

    Now, those of you who’ve been paying attention know that the subject matter for today is supposed to be gluttony.  Thus, you’ve got to be wondering, “Why on earth I would begin my sermon with a story like that?” What has the relative boredom or excitement of Meadville got to do with gluttony?  Just keep that thought in mind. Hopefully it’ll all make sense by the end of this sermon.

    This is the seventh in a series of sermons entitled The Superficial Saga.  It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days.  Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously.  Yet God takes sin seriously.  In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there.   No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

    Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins.  The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.  Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness.  The opposite of sloth is diligence.  The opposite of greed is charity.  The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity. You see, the only way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

    Five weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be.  Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent…needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

    Four weeks ago, we examined the sin of envy.  We determined that envy is cold-hearted and

cruel. From a theological standpoint envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us.  The secret to conquering envy is love.  And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

    Three weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed.   Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God.  In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation.  The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness.  Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger that peace might rule the day.

    Two weeks ago we examined the sin of sloth.  We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world. The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we work for God, not for anyone else. We are called to remain diligent in our tasks, and in our belief, that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

    Last week we examined the sin of greed.  We determined that all that greed gets us is a whole lot of stress and a much shorter life.  Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to have.” Charity says, “Thank you, God, for what I do have.”  Thus, perhaps charity is just as much for us…as it is for whatever charitable institution to which we choose to give.

    Today we examine the sin of gluttony.  Gluttony is unique among the seven deadly sins in that it doesn’t seem to affect anyone but us.  I mean, if you happen to eat too much, who are you hurting besides yourself?  Of course, as we shall soon see, gluttony applies to far, far more than the mere intake of food.  But for now, let’s focus on the intake of food.  Eating too much these days is often perceived as a sign of the good life.  Case in point…where would the holiday of Thanksgiving be without the sin of gluttony? 

    Have any of you ever seen the television show, The Big Bang Theory?  Aside from the fact that – like far too many T.V. shows, it seems to be sex-obsessed – the writing is really quite clever.  It features three physicists with Ph.D.s, an engineer who only holds a Master’s Degree and a pretty girl across the hall who is an aspiring actress.  Leonard and Sheldon are two of the physicists, who happen to be roommates.

    In one scene, Leonard walks into their apartment with a large bag of Chinese take-out food.  He says to Sheldon, “I hope you’re hungry!” To which Sheldon replies, “Interesting. A friendly sentiment in this country, a cruel taunt in the Sudan.  It’s a lesson in context.”

    A lesson in context, indeed.  Eating too much in this country is often perceived as a sign of the good life.  Yet listen to what a woman named Francine Prose has to say about gluttony in a book entitled, Gluttony.  She writes:

One-third of all Americans, approximately sixty-three million people, are overweight. Fifteen percent of all American children are overweight.  Two hundred fifty thousand deaths can be attributed to poor diet and inactivity.  Fifty percent of cardiovascular disease is related to excess weight. We spend as much as fifty billion dollars a year dieting.  Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery has become the new status surgery for the rich; more chic than a face-lift.  That fifty billion for diets is more than we spend on education, training, employment and social services. We Americans spend more on dieting than the gross national product of Ireland.

    Maybe gluttony does affect more than just ourselves.  Thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas once said that gluttony was the devil’s bait for our first parents.  He’s referring to Adam and Eve, of course. As it says in Genesis 3, the forbidden fruit was a delight to the eyes and good for food.  Thus, tempted by the serpent, Eve took of the fruit and ate. Then she gave some of it to her husband, and he ate of it as well.  At that, sin entered the world.  Could we go so far as to say it was gluttony that brought about original sin? After all, Adam and Eve were tempted with food, and they failed the test.

    Now let’s consider the passage that Nancy read a moment ago from the gospel according to Matthew.  After Jesus was baptized, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  Note, however, that it wasn’t until after he had fasted for forty days that the devil came to meet him.  Hunger was the door through which the devil tried to enter.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  The devil knew that hunger would be Jesus’ weakest flank at this point in time…and that’s where he chose to strike. Yet unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus did not fail his test.  Jesus replied, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

    The passing or failing of temptation aside, I think these stories reveal what gluttony really is.

Gluttony is weakness.  And weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter.  The devil always worms in…right at the point of our most glaring weakness.

    I thought about this weakness as I read an article by Larry Peers entitled, The Problem Trap.  You see a quote from Larry Peers’ article in the Silent Reflection portion of your bulletin today.  He writes:

One of the primary kinds of stories that takes hold in a congregation and makes change difficult is what is known as the problem-saturated story, or one in which the focus is on who or what is or has been wrong.  You can recognize the problem-saturated story when you’re in a group where someone offers an example of how difficult or awful something is in the congregation, and before you know it the rest of us can’t help but chime in with more evidence for how truly bad and impossible the situation is. We can almost hear ourselves say – even if the words aren’t verbalized – “If you think that’s bad, let me tell you how it is even worse than that!”

    Weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter.  You’ve heard the term, “Glutton for punishment,” have you not?  How would it be if we coined another term here, because I think it truly applies.  How would it be if we coined the term, “Glutton for misery?” A desire to be miserable is a very strange weakness that a lot of us seem to have.  And the more we gripe and moan and complain, the more miserable we become…and the less likely we are to ever encounter a change for the better. It’s also the less likely we are to ever encounter God.    For you see, our incessant grumbling can quickly become a cancer.

    Such was exactly the case in the passage I read from the book of Jeremiah. The Hebrew people had been conquered by the Babylonians. Many had been deported from their homes in Jerusalem and forced to live in the city of Babylon.  The Hebrew people were none-too-pleased about that.  So what did they do?  They griped, and they moaned, and they complained.  And their incessant grumbling was quickly becoming a cancer.

    This is the situation Jeremiah was addressing. Speaking on behalf of God, he cried, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, to all the exiles whom I have sent into Babylon: Build houses and live in them.  Plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Take wives, and have sons and daughters.  Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may multiply and not decrease.  Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

    Did you catch that last part there?  “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” In essence he was saying, “Don’t cave in to your sense of despair and hopelessness.”  He reminded them of who they were outside of the problem, and encouraged them to do what they knew how to do when they were not in exile.  These actions were the start of a new story.  Jeremiah was prophetically helping the people of Israel to re-author their story in the midst of exile.  In other words, bloom where you’re planted.  And you’re either a part of the solution…or you’re a part of the problem.

    I hear a lot of complaints about the church today.  I hear a lot of complaints about the city of Meadville, as well.  Why, it seems as though we truly are gluttons for misery.  Yet as Jeremiah said to the people of his day, so, too, do I think he would say to us: “Seek the welfare of the city and the church where I have sent you…for in their welfare, you will find your welfare.” 

    My old friend Dominic Panzott said that Meadville was boring.  To him, I suppose it was.  To me, it’s not boring at all.  In the end, I suppose it all comes down to what you make of it.  Amen.

 

03-18-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VI

    Haddon Robinson is the Professor of Preaching at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston, Massachusetts.  He recently gave a lecture that somewhat highlighted the evolution of preaching.  More specifically, he said that the model for the preacher has changed.  For example, up through the 1940s and into the early 1950s, the model for the preacher was the evangelist. In other words, preachers were doing their level best to get people to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.

    In the late 1950s and on through the 1960s the model for the preacher became that of the Bible teacher.  Helping people to understand the Bible came to be the most important thing.    It’s interesting to note, however, that he never addressed the 1970s.  Apparently the 1970s was a lost decade of preaching.  In the 1980s and the 1990s, the model for the preacher became that of the therapist.  In other words…the task of the preacher came to be meeting the needs of people who were trying to be Christian, but who were still largely secular. 

    He is much more critical of preaching today.  He says, and I quote, “Sermons today are much more likely to be topical than expository…and many of the materials in the sermon come out of the behavioral sciences.  The aim of most sermons today…is not to explain the biblical text.  The aim of most sermons today is to connect with the listeners’ felt needs.” Then he adds, “The Bible is used as a way to get a divine imprint on what is simply good advice.”

    Ouch!  Is that what the preached word has become?  Is it simply good advice?  Or is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, the word of God to a lost humanity?  Is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, divine instruction on the way to live a godly life?  Is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, a means of grace by which one can draw closer to God?  Hey, I’m old school.  I still think theology is important.  Thus, I suspect you know what I think.   But just in case you don’t…let me tell you what I’m really trying to accomplish in a sermon.

    The goal, plain and simple, is communion with God.  All I’m trying to do is help you come to know God.  As John Calvin noted in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.”  Yet what do we see when we look at ourselves?  We see ourselves as sinful human beings and we see a great chasm between us and God.  Yet we also see a redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ: a redeemer who sets us right with God when we confess our sin and sincerely strive to repent, sincerely strive to live a better life, and sincerely strive to have a change of heart.  Perhaps John the Baptist put it best when he came to announce the arrival of God’s Messiah.  He cried, “Repent…for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  In other words, we need to change the way we are. Thus, the goal of preaching is not to make us feel good about ourselves.  The goal of preaching…is to inspire us to change.

    This is the sixth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga.  It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days.  Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously.  Yet God takes sin seriously.  In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there.  No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

    Like it said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.  Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness.  The opposite of sloth is diligence.  The opposite of greed is charity.  The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity.  You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better. 

    Four weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be.  Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent…needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

    Three weeks ago we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. From a theological standpoint, envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us.  The secret to conquering envy is love.  And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

    Two weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger.  We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed.  Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God.  In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation.  The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness.  Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger in order that peace might rule the day.

    Last week we examined the sin of sloth.  We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world.  The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we work for God, not for anyone else.  We are called to remain diligent in our tasks and in our belief that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

    Today we examine the sin of greed. Perhaps the most famous personification of greed can be found in Charles Dickens’ novel, A Christmas Carol.  I’m talking about Ebenezer Scrooge, of course. Why the very name “Scrooge” has become synonymous with the word “greed.”  In the novel, Dickens introduces Ebenezer Scrooge with these words:

Oh!  But he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge!  A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire…secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

    When it comes to the sin of greed, perhaps there is no more appropriate description.  These days, we tend to view Bill Gates in a similar light.  I’ve heard it said that Bill Gates was once asked by a reporter, “How much is enough?”  To which Bill Gates replied, “You can never have enough.”  I’ve got to admit that I was unable to substantiate that comment.  However, I was able to substantiate a quote from one of Bill Gates’ predecessors in opulence…a man named John D. Rockefeller.  A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, “How much money is enough?”  Rockefeller replied, “Just a little bit more.”  That, my friends, is greed personified.

    I’m here to tell you, however, that it’s not just the Bill Gateses and the John D. Rockefellers of the world that suffer from the sin of greed. I recently heard the story of a girl who told her friend, “My mom is only happy when she’s spending money.  She went shopping every day until a thief stole her credit card.”  “Oh, my gosh,” her friend replied. “Did your father report the stolen credit card?”  To which the girl replied, “No.  He says the thief is spending less money than Mom did!”

    Now that’s not sexist!  That story is true of both men and women.  A recent survey indicates that the average American spends $1300.00 on credit for every $1000.00 they make. As someone once said, “People spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like.”  A lot of us suffer from greed.

    A lot of us may suffer from greed, but I don’t think anyone respects it or admires it.  Not long ago, woman named Kristen Clawbury announced to her friends that she was suffering from ovarian cancer. Her friends immediately rushed to her side to comfort her, to cry with her and to pray with her.  After a few months, she told her friends that the cancer treatments had not worked and that she was going to have to go out of state for experimental medical treatments that would not be covered by her insurance.  Her friends then got together…and held fundraisers that brought in more than $40,000.00.  Then they found out that it was all a great big scam.  The woman had cut her hair to make it look like she was undergoing chemotherapy.  She took the money her friends had raised and bought a car, went on vacation and had some plastic surgery.  At the ensuing trial, one of her friends said, “She had a disease even more deadly than cancer.  She had the disease of greed.”

    Is greed a deadly disease?  Consider the passage we read from the book of Acts.  It’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira.  Let me set the scene for you.  It’s shortly after that very first Pentecost and the apostles have established a church in Jerusalem.  As it says in Acts 4:32, “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common.”  In other words, in the first century church, they were into communal living. Obviously it did not work, and that is why we do not do it today.  But in the first century church, they held everything in common.

    A man named Ananias, and a woman named Sapphira, were a married couple who belonged to this first century Christian community.  Ananias sold a piece of property that belonged to him.  What he should have done is bring all of the proceeds to Peter and lay them at his feet.  Or, if he needed to keep some of the money for himself, he needed to be honest about that.  Ananias and Sapphira plotted to do neither.  Ananias brought a part of the proceeds forward and laid them at Peter’s feet...but he told him that he was giving all of it.  Peter somehow knew better and he said to Ananias, “You have not lied to us, but to God!”  And at that, Ananias dropped to the floor and died.  Not long after that, Sapphira came in before the apostles.  She, too, was questioned about the incident.  She, too, lied about it…and she dropped dead as well.  

    And you thought greed was no big deal.  Look, I’m not saying that greed is going to make you drop dead, but perhaps it can keep one from communion with God.  Perhaps it can keep one from finding inner peace.  Listen to this. 

    Once upon a time, an ambitious American businessman was standing at the pier in a Mexican costal village. A small boat with a lone fisherman inside puttered up to the pier and docked.  The businessman noticed several large yellowfin tuna in the boat and complimented the fisherman on his catch.  He asked the fisherman, “How long did it take you to catch those fish?”  To which the fisherman replied, “Oh, it didn’t take long at all.”

    Puzzled, the businessman asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”  The fisherman said, “I’ve got enough here to support my family’s needs for the day.”  So the businessman asked, “Then what do you do with the rest of your time?”  The fisherman replied, “Oh,   I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife.  Then at night I stroll into the village, I sip a little wine and play the guitar with my friends.  I really have a full and busy life, senor.” 

    The businessman scoffed, “Look, I have an MBA from Harvard and I could really help you.  You should spend a lot more time fishing, and with the proceeds you could buy a bigger boat.  With the money you make from the bigger boat, you could buy a few more boats.  Eventually, you’d have a fleet.  Then instead of selling your fish to a middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery.  You would then control the product,   the processing, and the distribution.  You would then need to leave this little village and move   to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise.”

    The fisherman thought about that for a moment.  Then he asked, “Senor, how long would all of this take?”  The businessman replied, “Oh, I suppose you could do it in 15 or 20 years.”  “And then what?” the fisherman asked. The businessman laughed, “That’s the best part. When the time is right…you announce an Initial Public Offering, sell your stock to the public and become filthy rich.  You could make millions.”

    The fisherman asked, “Millions, senor?  Then what?”  The businessman said, “Then you could retire. You could move to a small coastal village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandkids, and take a siesta with your wife.  At night you could stroll into the village, sip a little wine, and play your guitar with your friends.”

    So what does greed really get us?  A whole lot of stress and a much shorter life.  The holy virtue that counteracts the deadly sin of greed is charity.  Perhaps that’s the reason for the divine mandate of tithing.  You know, people often cynically say that all the church cares about is money. Yet maybe God calls upon us to give because he knows that charity is the only cure for our greed. So maybe giving to the church isn’t just for the church’s sake.  Maybe giving to the church is for our sake, as well.

    Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to get.”  Charity says, “Thank you for what I have.”  As 13^th century German mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever said in your entire life was thank you…that would suffice.”  Keep that thought in mind the next time you see something you’ve simply got to have.  Amen.

 

03-11-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART V

    There is a man that I have come to know in this town.  He is big, he’s as strong as an ox, he is healthy…and he does not work.  He has two cars and he lives in an apartment here in Meadville. The owner of the apartment complex is a friend of mine as well, so I know what the rent for one of those apartments is, and it is not cheap.

    I was in my friend’s apartment one time and he proudly gave me the grand tour.  It was a hot summer day and his air conditioner was blowing ice cold air.  In his living room I saw a 50-inch flat screen T.V. The furnishings looked like they had come just come off of the showroom floor at Hovis Interiors.  I was thinking to myself, “Wow!  I don’t have air conditioning.  I don’t have a flat screen T.V.  And our living room furniture is falling apart!”  After the tour was over and I was walking out of the apartment, I saw it lying there on the kitchen counter. It was one of those little green Access cards.  What that means is that it’s our tax dollars that pay for his basic necessities.  He seems to be able to afford a number of luxuries, but it’s our tax dollars that pay for his necessities.

    It’s this kind of thing that has a lot of people up in arms these days.  Is this what we mean when we speak of the sin of sloth?  Is this what we mean when we bemoan the loss of the good old fashioned Protestant work ethic?  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.     

    This is the fifth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga.  It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously.  Yet God takes sin seriously.  In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there.  No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it. 

    Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust.  Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness.  The opposite of sloth is diligence.  The opposite of greed is charity.  The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity.  You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

    Three weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride.  There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be.  Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty, and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

    Two weeks ago we examined the sin of envy.  We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel.  Envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us.  The secret to conquering envy is love.  And the secret to love is to wish what’s best for someone else.  Not an easy thing to do.

   Last week we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God.  In other words, we express our anger to God, and then we leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness.  Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger…in order that peace might rule the day.

    Today we examine the sin of sloth.  Webster’s dictionary defines sloth as a disinclination to action or labor.  It also defines sloth as a slow moving mammal that hangs upside down in trees, but that’s not the kind of sloth we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be looking at sloth as a disinclination to action or labor.

    Now back to my friend who seems to have a disinclination to work, yet who also seems to enjoy many of the finer things in life.  Is that what we’re talking about when we talk about the sin of sloth?  From a secular sense, we might be inclined to think it is.  Yet that is not the sloth that is described in the seven deadly sins.  The situation with my friend is the result of several generations of poverty.  It is a mind-set and a state of being we middle and upper-middle class Americans simply do not understand.  What’s more, I have a sneaking suspicion that God has placed such people in our midst just to see how we handle them. Are we compassionate and understanding…or are we condemnatory and judgmental?  Perhaps our passing judgment on such people reveals just about as much of our sin as it does theirs.

    So what, then, is sloth as defined by the seven deadly sins?  Let me begin by explaining how the seven deadly sins came to be in the first place.  The earliest Christian formation of the seven deadly sins came from a fourth-century monk named Evagrius.  Evagrius established a group of monks, who formed a hermitage in the desert, that they might separate themselves from the evils of the world, and draw closer to God.  The irony of this…was that in separating themselves from the rest of the world, they found that in living so close together, they often brought out the worst in each other.  It was a little bit like the struggle a college freshman has getting along with a new roommate.   The seven deadly sins were what these monks tried to overcome that they might live together in peace and harmony.

    Here’s where sloth came in.  The main meal of the day was served at 3:00 in the afternoon.  Long about noon, as these monks were in their cells studying and praying, they started to get hungry.  They started to get real hungry.  They got distracted in their prayers and their minds began to wander.   As their minds began to wander, the monks began to wonder, “What’s the use of all this holy effort anyway?”

    The Latin word Evagrius used to describe this feeling was acedia.  It literally means spiritual apathy.  Spiritual apathy occurs when the great goal of life, communion with God, is abandoned for whatever reason.  The French use the word ennui for apathy.  Yet perhaps the Germans put it best with their word, Weltsmerz.   It literally means, “pained by the world.”   And perhaps that’s when spiritual apathy really occurs. It occurs when we become pained by the world and we start to think, “What’s the use?”  There is so much pain and suffering in the world today.  What’s the use in turning to God?  What’s the use in worshiping God?  For far too many people it’s the pain of the world that leads to sloth…as a defense mechanism against the hopelessness of the world.

    There once was a man who was on fire for the Lord.  He decided that he wanted to serve the Lord as best he could.  So he spoke to the minister of his church and asked what he could do in the name of service. He got involved in a small group Bible study. He began serving on a church committee.   He came to worship every Sunday morning.   He threw himself whole-heartedly into godly service. And then he became, as he described it, burned out.  Apparently he didn’t feel as though his service to God was making enough of a difference in his life, and so he just dropped out.  He dumped his wife and his family. He began to pursue more worldly outlets for his personal satisfaction.  You see, it’s one thing to have a life-changing conversion experience. It’s another thing entirely to maintain the tenacity and perseverance God asks from us over the long haul.  That, my friends, is acedia.

    I think of the couple who raised their children in the church.  They wanted to ensure a good spiritual foundation for their kids.  And then their kids grew up and went away to college.  And then they, essentially, dropped out of the church.  That, my friends, is acedia.

    I think of the person who is on the rolls at the church.  They come and worship God if they’ve got nothing better to do.  But they don’t want to get involved.  They want to remain anonymous. They figure there’s someone else who can do the job much better than they.  That, my friends, is acedia. 

    You see, there are sins of commission, and there are sins of omission.  Sins of commission are things we do that we ought not to do.  Sins of omission are things we ought to have done, but did not.  Acedia is a sin of omission.

    Consider the passage we read a moment ago from the gospel according to Luke.  There we see a rich young ruler approach Jesus and say to him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus says, “You know the commandments.  You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal or bear false witness.” The young man replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.”  Then Jesus got to the heart of the matter.  “There is one thing you lack,” he said.  “Go, sell all that you have, and give the money to the poor.  Then come, follow me.”

    When the young man heard this, he became very sad, for he had many possessions.  Actually, I think I like the American Standard Version of the Bible’s translation even better. It says, “And his countenance fell at the saying, for he had great possessions.”  His countenance fell.  You see, he came to realize that he did not have what it takes to follow Jesus Christ.  This is closer to what acedia means than laziness is.  It’s more like a lack of commitment.  Call it, “a lukewarm faith.”

    Perhaps this is more theologically significant than we might notice at first glance.  Have you ever heard the term, “Protestant work ethic?”  It’s a term attributed to a sociologist by the name of Max Weber.  In the late 1800s, he observed how hard Protestant people worked at their jobs and in their churches. He noted how those of Lutheran or Calvinist heritage believed in the concept of predestination.  You know, people are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  The catch is that it’s impossible to tell who is saved and who is not, except for one thing.  The notion developed that it might be possible to determine who was saved and who was not by observing the way they lived their lives.  Hard work and commitment – in life and to the church – were two important consequences to determining who was in and who was out. 

    Are you with me? What the Protestant work ethic is saying is that our diligence in serving God reveals the status of our salvation. We work not in order to receive salvation, rather, we work out of gratitude for what we have already received, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that lives within us.   Thus, perhaps sloth is more than just sinful behavior.   Perhaps what it really reveals is whether God is at work within us or not.

    So how do we avoid acedia?  How do we avert that spiritual burnout that keeps us at arm’s length from God?  I think of a woman in my last church was elected at a congregational meeting to serve on the session. Someone actually said to her, “Now you’re going to see the church’s dark side.”  It really upset her.  But you know what?    The church isn’t perfect.  The church is imperfect people trying their best to imitate the perfection of God.  Sometimes we get it wrong.  But sometimes…we get it right.  And it’s oh, so good when we do.

    The point, however, is that that’s not what we should be observing.  You see, when we work   in the church, we are serving God…not anyone else. There will always be someone there to criticize us or to challenge us or to frustrate us. The point is that we don’t work for them. We work for God.  If God is pleased…we will find the strength to persevere. Who cares what anyone else thinks?  Amen.

 

03-04-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART IV

    Will Willimon was once the chaplain at Duke University, and is now a bishop in the United Methodist Church.  In a book entitled Sinning Like a Christian, he addresses the topic of anger.  More specifically…he addresses the topic of how people deal with their anger.  This is what he had to say:

As a pastor, I have grieved over those people – usually women – who suffer some great injustice…and who handle it by turning that pain inward upon themselves rather that toward its proper object, the perpetrator of the pain. There are those who think that Christians are not allowed to be angry.  If you are Christian, you’ll always be all smiles.

 

I’m thinking of a woman whose husband left her without any word of warning after two years of marriage. She was terribly depressed.  I asked her as her pastor, “Are you angry that your husband has done this to you?”  “No,” she replied, “not really angry, just hurt.”

 

“Not angry?” I asked.  “I think you’ve got a right to be angry with him.  And maybe angry with God, as well.  After all, God told you to be faithful in your marriage vows,   and you were.  But the other side of the bargain wasn’t kept. I would think you would be angry!”  “No, just hurt,” she said.  I decided then and there that depression is often the result of anger turned inward, anger inappropriately expressed, anger suppressed. 

    Willimon suggests that suppressed anger can result in depression.  I suspect he’s right about that.  But I also suspect that suppressed anger can result in something much, much worse.  As many of you know, there was another school shooting in Chardon, Ohio – a community about sixty miles west of here.  A teenage boy, named T.J. Lane, opened fire in the high school cafeteria, killing three of his classmates. It’s a newspaper headline that’s becoming all too common in our country these days.

    What makes a person reach a point in their lives where they are willing to put their classmates to death? Many studies have been done over the years to try to obtain a psychological profile of school shooters.  Those studies have reached the conclusion that no one shooter fits a definitive psychological profile.  However, the studies did show that there were a few common denominators between the shooters.  According to Katherine Newman, a sociology professor at Princeton, school shooters are people who feel they have failed at social integration. Other common factors include a feeling of rejection by others, being bullied by their peers, and a sense of severely suppressed anger.  Like I said, suppressed anger can result in something much, much worse than depression.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

    This is the fourth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga.  It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously.  Yet God takes sin seriously.  In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there.  No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

    Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are as follows: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.  Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins.  For example, the opposite of pride is humility.  The opposite of envy is love.  The opposite of wrath is forgiveness.  The opposite of sloth is diligence.  The opposite of greed is charity.  The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity…or purity.  You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

    Two weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride.  There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be.  Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

    Last week we examined the sin of envy.  We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. Envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us.  The secret to conquering envy is love.  And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else. 

    Today we examine the sin of wrath, or anger.  If it’s all the same to you I’ll be using the words interchangeably. Even though I believe there’s a basic difference between the two, I also believe that modern day semantics renders them synonymous.  Thus, today we examine the sin of wrath …or anger.

    In the stories we encountered at the beginning of this sermon, we saw that anger turned inward, or anger inappropriately expressed, or anger suppressed, can result in depression.  It can also result in something much, much worse. Thus, there is a simple and obvious solution to our problem, is there not?  Anger should not be bottled up inside.  Anger should be expressed.  To coin a phrase, perhaps we should let it all hang out and vent our anger at the drop of a hat. Now please, don’t turn your minds off just yet. I don’t want you to be saying to the police when they arrest you after you express your anger toward your spouse, or toward an aggressive driver, or toward some simple-minded sales clerk, that the minister at the Presbyterian Church said it was okay.  You need to hear me out a just a little bit longer.

    If you’re like me, you’ve heard it said that it’s okay to express your anger.  I mean, even   Jesus got angry. Look what he did when he chased the money changers out of the Temple in Jerusalem.  It appears as though he flew into a rage, and drove them out with a whip of cords.   In fact, that’s the very passage I read a moment ago from the gospel of John.  I mean, if Jesus was allowed to have a temper tantrum, then why shouldn’t we be allowed as well?

    I think there’s a difference between why Jesus got angry and why we typically get angry.   Let’s take a look at what was really going on in the Temple in Jerusalem.  The Passover of  the Jews was at hand.  Jewish pilgrims from all across the land would be making the trek to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices in the Temple.  They were required by Jewish law to sacrifice a cow, or a sheep or a dove…depending on their economic circumstances.  Of course, you couldn’t travel all those miles and drag such an animal with you.  No, you bought your sacrificial animal in the Temple courtyard.  Unscrupulous businessmen were there with livestock in hand, which they sold at exorbitant prices.  There were also what they called money changers in the Temple courtyard. The Temple tax – a lot like our per capita dues – was only allowed to be paid in Temple currency.  In other words, if you were a Jewish person living in Rome – and you came to Jerusalem for the Passover – you could not pay your Temple tax in Roman currency. You had to have Temple currency. The money changers were there to make the exchange.  The catch was that for ten dollars of Temple currency, it might cost you about a hundred dollars in Roman currency. Do you see the problem? Do you see why Jesus was so upset?  These unscrupulous individuals…were making a profit at religion’s expense. 

    Jesus was upset about the fact that they were taking advantage of the humble people of God.  His anger was aimed at protecting the powerless.  That’s not where our anger is usually aimed, is it? Our anger is usually aimed at protecting ourselves, or our feelings, or a perceived violation of our rights.  For us, anger typically protects the status quo of our egos. It’s far, far easier for us to get angry…than it is for us to trust that God will work things out.

    Perhaps, of all things, the passage that Scott read a moment ago gives us some insight on how to deal with our anger.  Let me set the scene for you.  The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 587 B.C.  A group of people from outside of Jerusalem – a group of people called the Edomites   – delighted in the fall of Jerusalem. They encouraged the Babylonians to utterly destroy the city.  What’s more, when persecuted Jews tried to sneak out of Jerusalem during the siege, Edomites actually captured them and sold them to the Babylonians as slaves.  Now do you understand the Jews’ strong dislike for – and anger toward – the Edomites? 

    Listen to the last few verses of the 137^th Psalm. It reads, “Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, ‘Tear it down!  Tear it down!’  Happy shall be they who pay you back for what you have done to us! Happy shall be they who take your little ones and dash them against a rock!” 

    Happy shall be they who take your little ones and dash them against a rock?  That doesn’t exactly sound very Christian, does it?  But listen to this.  The psalm does not say that THEY are going to dash Edomite children against a rock.   The psalm simply says that if we have a just God who runs the world as he should, then God ought to even the score.  The Jews have been the victims of injustice…and they want God to set things right.

    Anger is a natural response to injustice in the world.  Anger is an acknowledgement that the world is not the way it is meant to be.  Yet that anger should be expressed in conversation with God.  As the apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”   Vengeance, acting out our anger or even our righteous indignation, belongs to God, not us.  In other words, our anger ought to be given to God as an offering when we come to that place in our lives where we are unable to fix that which afflicts us.

    But there’s one more thing.  Demitrius Hewlin was one of the boys who was killed in that awful school shooting in Chardon.  Phyllis Ferguson was Demitrius Hewlin’s mother.  In an interview with ABC News, she was asked what she would say to the shooter.  She replied, “I would tell him that I forgive him…because, a lot of the time, people don’t know what they’re doing.  That’s all I’d say.”  

    Anger is one of the seven deadly sins.  The holy virtue that counteracts anger is forgiveness.  Forgiveness prevents repercussions.  It leaves the consequences in God’s hands.  It keeps a person from reacting to the anger that seethes inside them, which clearly breaks the cycle of anger. You see, if Demetrius Hewlin’s mother lashed out, then someone else would lash out in return, then she would lash out again…It thus becomes a vicious and unholy cycle. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of anger.

    A little more than ten years ago, our nation was devastated by the events of nine-eleven.  Not long after that I preached a somewhat controversial sermon on forgiveness.  I said something to the effect that we should forgive those who hurt us.  Because if we retaliate we are likely to find our nation in a holy war that will not end.  I received a couple of unsigned, nasty notes after that sermon.  Someone clearly did not agree with me.  To them forgiveness, in that situation, was incomprehensible. 

    Then I remember how swept up our nation was in the aftermath of Charles Carl Roberts’ killing of those five little Amish girls in Lancaster County.   We were all amazed at how the Amish community forgave Charles Carl Roberts, and then invited his family into their circle of mourning. The Amish people forgave the killer of their children and it made national news. 

    You see, we believe in – and we admire – forgiveness.  It’s when it touches a bit too close to home that we object.  It’s when we are asked to forgive something ourselves that we become upset. Yet here’s the point. When we are wronged, and we lash out in anger, it only invites reprisal.  When we are wronged, and we forgive, we give peace a chance.  Give peace a chance.  Amen.