You Shall Know

Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Pentecost B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
Ezekiel 37:1-14

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

It is easily one of the most bizarre scenes in the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophet Ezekiel is transported in a vision to a valley that is representative of everything that the exiled people of Israel were feeling. It was full of the dry bones of a slain army -- and Ezekiel is called on by God to preach to them. The people of Israel -- and Ezekiel as on of them -- are struggling with the reality they have been forced to deal with. 

God’s promises have been impossible from the very start. There is the call of Abraham and Sarah, two impossibly old folks who were charged with giving birth to a nation as plentiful as the stars in the sky. The nation did grow up, but before too long it had been enslaved. When God liberated the people, they continually fell away – even when they had been given their own land, even when they had judges, kings, and prophets to try and keep them in line.

Ezekiel was faced with a situation in which a promise made thousands of years ago, a promise that seemed too good to be true, was turning out to be exactly that. The exile was one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history, and there’s a whole book of the Bible – Lamentations – dedicated to the words of despair and hopelessness God’s people felt at that time. The land was supposed to remind them of God’s promise; the king was supposed to remind them of God’s promise; the Temple was supposed to remind them of God’s promise. Now all those things were gone and the people were left despondent – utterly alone. We can hear their anguish in the words of Psalm 137.

By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!’ O daughter Babylon, you devastator!  Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

 

What we hear are the words of a people who are utterly lost, utterly without hope, utterly defeated. That terrible image in the last verse speaks more to the frame of mind of the Psalmist than to the enduring wish of the people of God. It is an honest expression of the bitterness and hatred that can so easily settle into the heart of one who no longer has hope, who sees no way out of their present circumstances, who is sure that God has -- at least for a little while -- abandoned them. 

Despite the 2,500 years that separate us from Ezekiel, I think each of us must have some idea how he felt, how his people felt. I suspect that there are things many of us treasure as reminders of God’s promise: a passage of scripture; words spoken by a dear friend at just the right moment; the memory of a particular star in the sky one night. They are meaningless to anyone else, but to us they are touchstones to which we cling when everything else falls away. Now imagine that you’ve lost even those, and I think you begin to grasp the magnitude of the exile.

So we return to that painful conversation between Ezekiel and God. Painful because Ezekiel knew. “Mortal, can these bones live?” -- the prophet knew the answer; he knew it was impossible.

And yet, that’s precisely what happens in the vision that follows. In essence, God says, “You think it’s impossible for me to restore my people from exile? I’m going to show you that I could do something infinitely more impossible than that. Not only am I going to restore the bones and sinew and flesh, but I am going to return my breath to these bodies, and they are going to live again.

“I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.” God keeps promises, even though they have been impossible from the very start. 

(Thanks to Joshua T. Andrzejewski, Union PSCE, Richmond VA)

The people of Israel were dealing with very real, very present issues in their life as as a corporate entity - as a nation - they were hundreds of miles away from their home, bereft of their leaders, their temple, their sense of identity -- everything that for so long had helped them understand who they were in the world. 

But then, I guess that may have been part of the problem, don’t you think? They were sure of who they were in the eyes of the world, just not in the eyes of God. I’m not saying that they had NO idea of who they were in the eyes of God, they were just ALSO very aware of who they were in the world BECAUSE of who they were in the eyes of God ... and as so often happens in these cases, the ‘who’ they were in the world ended up taking precedence over the ‘who’ they were in the eyes of God, and when the ‘who’ they were in the eyes of the world got LOST, the initial response was to associate that loss with their PRIMARY identity -- who they were in the eyes of God. So they ended up digging a hole twice as deep as they WOULD have been in had they kept that sense of who they were in God‘s eyes. 

But the beauty of this passage is that it is a vivid reminder -- for them as well as for anyone who has lost that sense of identity -- of just what God is capable of doing in the face of the impossible. 

What seems the most unlikely, miraculous event that could happen in your life right now -- in your wildest imagination, that which you don’t even dare to hope for -- much less speak out loud? That the one you’ve lost - to distance, to estrangement, to a silly little argument - will be back with you? Or that the job you were so sure you had in the bag but which was pulled out from under you in a dizzying twist at the last minute is actually going to be offered to you? Can you picture God coming to you in your dreams tonight and telling you that exactly THAT is what is going to happen? What would that do for you? Would you look forward to whatever it was with relish, anticipating all the wonderful outcomes that would result from that one single event that was beyond hope for you until just a couple of minutes ago? 

Okay. Here comes the tough question: if that miracle were to take place, where would your energies then be directed? Would you be lost in the moment, drinking in the presence and ignoring everything else that is going on around you, or would you be focused on the one who made that seeming impossibility possible? There is a sense in playing the scenario out in our heads that we would CHOOSE to do the right thing -- that we would BEGIN to put things in proper perspective, in proper order, that we would regain a sense not only of balance between God being ultimate allegiance and the world - whatever laudable and praiseworthy event, person, or entity it might be -- being second ... but we have no guarantees that we would learn from our previous mistakes and missteps. In the best of all possible worlds, yes, we would learn and carry on with our lives in such a way as to never again let who we are in the eyes of the world overshadow who we are in the eyes of God, but the frailty of the human condition is such that it is never far from our minds -- even on Pentecost Sunday -- the day that commemorates that God can take ashes and bones and turn them into living, breathing human beings, even as Ash Wednesday at the BEGINNING of Lent reminds us that we ARE, in truth, dust and ashes, This day, Pentecost, reminds us that in SPITE of that truth, God is still more than capable of taking our dry bones and our scattered dust and souls and breathe life back into us -- that God can and DOES instill in us a sense of just WHO we are, regardless of our circumstances, regardless of our scattered-ness, our lostness, our confusion and questioning.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

It means that if we are willing to hear the word of God -- that same word that calls us by name before we are even born, that knows us better than we know ourselves, that also calls us to be and to do and to LIVE Christ’s life in the world today, that if we are willing to hear that spirit breathed into our lives here today, we can, just as that army in that valley could, just as the apostles in first century palestine and the Roman Empire at the time DID, we can change the world, through this magnificent source of the same unquenchable fire that burned in Christ’s heart for us -- that same Holy Spirit can and WILL work through US -- frail children of dust though we be. 

Let’s pray.

This Life

Sunday, May 17^th, 2009

Easter 7B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 John 5:9-13

9 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.  10 Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.. 

I love to read C.S. Lewis.  His style is so crisp, so clean, so convincing.  He speaks with an authority and in such a systematic manner that I feel like one of those cartoon characters that gets all worked up and begins running around in a tight little circle to the beat of a frantic conga drum, not really going anywhere, until the straight man hits him up ‘side the head and knocks some sense into him, and my straight man is Clive Staples Lewis.  

I'm sure PART of it is that I hear his voice in my head speaking with that British accent, and that goes a ways towards impressing me ANYWAY.  But it is his thought process that is more persuasive.  C.S. Lewis could write that the center of the earth was hollow and there were giant bats flying around in there and I would be hard put to NOT believe it.  

There are in most of our lives, unless we are of a certain cynical disposition to begin with -- or perhaps after having lived through a lifetime of disappointments -- people or organizations or sometimes newspapers or magazines, perhaps a news anchor with names like Cronkite or Brokaw, or a Radio Talk Show host like Hannity or Limbaugh, but somewhere along the line the words they spoke or wrote ‘clicked‘ somehow and we ended up hearing their voices or reading their words and readily equating them with truth.  

There is real danger in that.  When we begin to assign divine qualities to human beings.  When we half-jokingly refer to ‘taking what they say as gospel’, or similar phrasings.  You see, we are, in many ways, either too tired or too lazy to do the hard work of thinking and studying and following on our own.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  If I think something’s been worked through by someone I trust, I can very easily take that and run with it, without ever having examined closely what has been thought or said.  And that is a shortcoming I have.  It can sometimes be such a time saver to pick up an idea in toto -- in it’s entirety -- and assume, because of it’s origin, that it is a completed whole.  That there isn’t an error with the underlying suppositions, that there isn’t an ulterior motive in the idea being propounded 

John understood that.  He was facing it among the churches he was writing to.  People -- teachers, leaders, well-meaning, well-intentioned, clear thinking, soft-spoken, accomplished people were making their way into the churches and talking about what SEEMED to be the Gospel.  They used all the right words, all the right phrases, but in just slightly different ways, or they left something critical out.  They spoke of the love of God, but played down the part about what that love cost Jesus.  They spoke of the brotherhood of man, but de-emphasized the practical, down-to-earth applications that entails -- the nuts and bolts of getting along with people with whom you agree with in principle on CERTAIN principles, but with whom you otherwise have profound, even insurmountable differences.  

What John is doing is speaking to those who first believed, but who have been swayed by these false teachings.  He spells it out for them:  Those who believe the testimony of God -- the message that came to them from God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- know this to be true in their hearts.  those who don’t or didn’t believe it already consider not just Jesus, but God God’s self to be a liar.  

And just in case there was any doubt, John spells out just what God’s testimony about Jesus is:  God gave us eternal life, and this life is in (through) his Son Jesus.  It would seem that John is belaboring the point when he goes on to say ‘Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life‘ but he is underscoring the statement.   He’s driving the point home.  It’s not about being repetitious, it is about being clear.  

Essentially, John spends the greater part of this letter defining for his readers just what he meant when he taught them that God was love.  He didn’t teach them that Love is God, but that God’s best and first and last action in human history was born out of his love for humanity.  And that action was in God’s becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ.  For John the love of God cannot be separated from the life of Jesus.  It is through that life, through his teaching, through his example, through his sacrifice, and through his resurrection that we are able to BEGIN to comprehend the depth and breadth and fullness of the love of God for us as human beings and the end to which God intended his love.  

Richard Foster, author of ‘Celebration of Discipline’, puts it this way:  

The daring goal of the Christian life is an ever-deeper re-formation of our inner personality so that it reflects more and more the glory and goodness of God; an ever more radiant conformity to the life and faith and desires and habits of Jesus; an utter transformation of our creatureliness into whole and perfect daughters and sons of God. You see, this life, this zoe that comes from God and is the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, is a character-transforming life. It does not leave us where we are but changes us as we progress from faith to faith (that is, from the faith we have to the faith we have yet to receive) and from strength to strength and from glory to glory.

God is intent upon making each of us into "a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright, stainless mirror that reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness." 

To be sure, the full realization of this "perfect reflection" awaits our glorification in heaven. But even now we need to hear the goal spoken over us again and again so that we may more consciously enter into the process that leads to this goal. God does not wait until death to initiate this process of complete transformation. It begins now, and God can and will do far more here and now than we can possibly imagine. We may not be perfect yet, but we can become a whole lot better than we are.

You see, we are so prone to settle for less than what God desires for us. We are glad enough for God to remove some irritating behavior from our personality (like a sour disposition) or some destructive addiction (like alcoholism), but it is a very different thing when God begins a fundamental restructuring of our inner affections. We may be willing to give up honors and possessions and even friends, but it touches us too closely to disown our own selves. But we simply must understand that God is not seeking to improve us, but to transform us-to show us who he really created us to be. C. S. Lewis writes that "the goal towards which [God] is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal."

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist church at Emmerton?

We go into this Christ-following business with open eyes, or we have them opened by the realization that we are not simply dealing with high concepts and noble ideas, but we are dealing with the transformation of our very souls.  And that transformation, though it has eternal repercussions, bleeds over into the living of our lives  HERE AND NOW and results in a little bit of the coming Kingdom being made present where we live.  When we DO respond as Christ would, when we DO make that redemptive connection with someone -- anyone -- and show them the love that God has for them and us in the way we treat and interact with them, when we DO live this life as God wants us to:  in such a way as to reflect God’s glory almost perfectly.         

Let’s pray.  

By Water and the Blood

Sunday, May 17^th, 2009

Easter 6B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 John 5:1-6

Everyone who believes (has faith) that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³ For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴ for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵ Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes (has faith that) Jesus is the Son of God? 

⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. 

What is the difference between faith and belief?  Have you ever posed that question to yourself?  It wouldn’t seem to be necessary, would it?  After all, we could say that faith and belief are, if not one and the same, then maybe so closely related as to be indistinguishable from one another, at the MOST, we could call them two sides of the same coin.

Let’s do a brief word study:

belief:–noun

1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.

2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.

3. confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents.

4. a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith: the Christian belief.

And here is faith:–noun

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.

5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.

6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.

7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.

8.  Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

They appear, in our english dictionary at least, to be so closely intertwined that we can use them interchangeably.  

It was not so for our first century forbearers.  In the original language in which this passage was written, there are two different words at play.  They both have the same root, but one is a verb and the other is a noun.  

Irene Alexandrou teaches modern Greek at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and explains it this way: 

 The Greek word, which is translated as faith, is pistis (noun) and believe, is translated from pisteuo (verb). The word believe (Greek verb "pisteuo"), according to Strong's Greek Dictionary, means: to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), i.e. credit; by implication, to entrust, (especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ.) believe, commit, (to trust), put in trust with. "Pisteuo" comes from the Greek noun "pistis" which means: persuasion, i.e., credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself; assurance, belief, believe, faith.

While this distinction seems subtle enough in the Greek, when we move the two words into the english language, even though ‘believe’ is known and understood to be a verb, the ‘ve’ at the end of the word oftentimes becomes one and the same with the ‘f’ at the end of our noun ‘belief’.  You may wonder what’s the big deal?  Belief, believe, faith, potatoes, po-tah-toes, tomatoes, to-mah-toes ... just leave it at that and be done with it.  

But you see, that, in fact, highlights the problem.  There IS  a difference between the verb ‘believe’ and the noun ‘faith’. If we replaced that first instance of the word ‘believes’ with the phrase ‘has faith’, it just begins to bring out the differences.  

The problem lies in that it is so easy to equate the ideas of having faith and believing in something.  We run the risk of thinking of them in the same intellectual terms; that having faith means believing in something... just like believing in something means ... having FAITH in something... we put the ideas behind the words on equal footing, and end up with circular reasoning, and each word defining the other, and no clear idea of where one ends and the other begins.   

The difference is that pistis, the noun and pisteuo, the verb, coming from the same root, lose some of their power when they are translated into our logical, conceptual, thinking minds.  I’m not knocking logical thinking at ALL, but what I AM trying to do is to introduce the idea that there is more than logic at work in the argument that John is putting forth here.  He isn’t simply trying to persuade or convince his hearers of the logical validity of his argument, but he is trying to introduce the idea that there is a power so overwhelming in the world that was unleashed by God’s coming to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.  

You see, that was an event, it involved action, and consequences, and movement and motion.  Jesus did more than just sit in the temple and argue with the teachers and leaders.  And that is the way it is with pisteuo belief - it is the enacting of that pistis faith in a way that makes it obvious that we have been moved by the same spirit of God that moved over the waters at the beginning of creation to DO SOMETHING for him and through him.  Ours IS a faith of ideas and reason, but it is NOT a faith of ideas and reason apart from action.  It doesn’t exist if there is no action.  We cannot SAY we are a follower of Christ’s teachings and leave it at that.   

This is the reason John writes in verse 2:  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 

One commentator, Edward A. McDowell, a retired professor from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it this way: 

This makes it plain enough that agape does not exist apart from its expression in conduct and action.  Agape demands doing, whatever one’s feelings or emotions may be.  A person may not ‘feel right’ towards a neighbor, a Christian brother, an enemy, and yet love him with agape by treating him as a person and doing right by him.   

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?  

Just as God’s love for us was expressed in so much more than simply spoken and written words, but ultimately through the living word, so is our agape love for each other and for the world around us to be expressed.  Over the last six weeks, and especially in these last two weeks, you have done that in spades, as the saying goes.  This past week, between Monday and yesterday, we said farewell to two precious souls who understood that the love of God was more than just an idea, more than a set of theological concepts and philosophies, it was a way of doing things and saying things and a way of being, a way of interacting with the world around them that helped us realize  that this love that we confess, that we profess, is one that can transform not only US, but has the potential to transform anyone we meet, as we are faithful -- literally -- full of faith -- in carrying out God’s command to love each other.  

May we be found so faithful. 

Let’s pray.  

By This

 

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Easter 4B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton

1 John 3:16-24

Theme: Making the Love of God real

 

¹⁶We know love by this: that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? ¹⁸Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; ²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we should ⁽¹⁾ believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and ⁽²⁾ love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

We continue in the first epistle of John this morning.  Picking up just a few verses down from where we left off last week.  I’m not sure why the folks who came up with the lectionary readings skipped verses 8 through 15 to bring us to today’s passage, but there you have it.  I started to skip the suggested reading and pick up in the very next set of verses for today’s message, but to be honest, John makes it pretty sticky business to go from where we left off last week to using some pretty absolutist language in regards to the idea of whether a believer can sin or not.  It’s not that I don’t want us to wrestle with that particular issue, it’s just that things being what they are in our life as a family and as a congregation, that question is something we can – and will – wrestle with at another time. 

 

Jim is a friend of mine.  He is a few years older than I am, he works in real estate, has a wife, a son, and an ex-wife and I believe two grown children from an earlier marriage.  Jim became a follower of Jesus late in life, within the last ten years.  He was raised in the church, his mother was a faithful member, so he was familiar with the terminology and with the vagaries and faults of people who gather together and call themselves a church.  I vaguely remember the day he made his public profession of faith.  I remember more vividly the day he was baptized. 

 

Our church held Sunday evening services, which were dedicated to more of a straightforward Bible Study time than a full-blown worship service.  I don’t remember the exact context of the question, but I remember our Pastor put him on the spot by asking Jim what was different for him now that he made his decision to follow Jesus.  He hesitated for a few seconds, and then answered:  “The way I treat people – the way I feel about them, act towards them, think about them.  Before, I used to be pretty ugly to people.  I don’t do that any more.” 

 

In an otherwise unremarkable testimony – and I only mean that in the sense that there was no thunder and lightning or awesome miracle that prompted Jim’s decision, his was one of those quiet “now is the time” moments when a lifetime of seed planting finally took root in his heart.  The statement isn’t really all that remarkable in and of itself, is it?  ‘I treat people different’ I’m sure it would speak volumes if I had known Jim better BEFORE he became a follower of Jesus.

 

What made it stand out in my memory was the honesty and simplicity of it.  He didn’t couch it in standard American Christianese.  He didn’t go for the clichéd answers that DO apply, but which have become virtually meaningless from overuse … or worse, from being applied in situations where the facts belie the reality of a life UNchanged.            

 

As I got to know Jim better – we lead the men’s group at our church for a couple of years – I came to appreciate that about him.  That he didn’t use the familiar language that we as church people tend to find useful.  If we are talking within the community, there ARE phrases that we can use to communicate a host of things that we would otherwise be spelling out.  Phrases like ‘backsliding’ or ‘moral sin’ or ‘church split’. 

 

Jim is as open and honest as he can be.  When he talks to you, he’s sincerely interested in what your answers are – he genuinely cares for you as a person.  He’s not without faults; he has a temper, which he can sometimes struggle to control, and sometimes you can actually watch as he tries to bite his tongue, but he acknowledges those faults and shortcomings, and laughs at himself and carries on with the business of the kingdom.  He rarely lets that get him down. 

 

So when I read this morning’s passage, Jim came to mind.  He loves God because God first loved him, he loves his church, and he doesn’t judge anyone.  He is one of the most welcoming people I know. 

 

This part of what John is saying is directed … sort of like an internal memo, if you will, to the believers in the churches in western Turkey and eastern Greece, as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago.  There are some basic but profound truths that John is both instructing his children in the faith in and at the same time reminding them of.

 

He opens the argument by stating the foundation of Agape love: 

 

¹⁶We know love by this: that he laid down his life for us

 

And he follows that statement immediately with … the corollary to the proof offered in that first statement:        

 

– and we ought to lay down our lives for one another

 

Notice that he is using the first person plural – us and we.  He’s talking about – and to – the fellowship of believers here, not necessarily how we should treat the world, but that will come to an even higher test.  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  John the beloved disciple remembered what he had heard come from the mouth of Jesus, and it had marked him for life.

 

But what he is addressing here is the way believers should treat each other.  It stands to reason, if we say we love each other, and don’t show that by the way we act and speak towards each other WITHIN the body of Christ, then our efforts to present to the world a different way of being and of doing life – through the life of Christ – is wasted time and useless in the extreme.

 

John’s question following the statement is terribly uncomfortable for those of us who live in as wealthy a society as we do:

 

¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 

 

I heard on the radio earlier this week a talk-show host take a call from a small business owner who was experiencing what so many across our country are living through – the slowdown in his business, and he was telling about the fact that he felt an obligation to his employees to keep them employed, to keep them working, in the hope that things would turn around soon.  He still had to cut costs in order to keep everyone on, so he chose to cut his own salary – apparently by a substantial amount, because what resulted was that for the first time in his life he was looking at not being able to cover his mortgage payment.  He had been in contact with what seemed to be a legitimate mortgage assistance company that took the money that he would normally have paid his mortgage with, in the hopes that they would renegotiate his terms with the mortgage lender, and in the end kept his money but were unable to renegotiate his terms.  The man kept coming back to the fact that he didn’t want to lay anyone off.  The talk show host’s response was, unfortunately, predictable:  “put yourself first, take care of yourself first.”  I listened to him say the words and was struck by how selfish they sounded, how ‘of the world’ they were, and I was disheartened, saddened in a profound way. 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

I hope it means that we take to heart the fact that our way of being, our way of thinking, our way of reacting and responding to a given crisis would be not to think of ourselves first, but second, or third, or last – that we would truly practice this Agape type of love – that self-sacrificing self-less love that seeks out the needs of others before thinking of one’s self.  We – the kids and Leslie and I – have been beneficiaries of that selfless love in these last couple of weeks while Leslie was gone in sitting down to meals in the evening that we didn’t have to worry about preparing, because they were lovingly prepared or provided for us.  There is something incredibly moving that is experienced when you receive a gift like that – so practical, so warm, so perfectly symbolic of what it means to belong to a body of believers who do love each other in truth and in deed, not simply in words and thoughts. 

 

In the same breath, I would challenge us all to look into our hearts to see if there is, as the psalmist wrote, any iniquity in us, and that we would allow it to be exposed for what it is and get rid of it in exchange for the pure love of Jesus that can so transform our souls as to make us new again.     

 

Let’s pray.