In Festal Gathering

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Ordinary 21C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Hebrews 12:18-29

¹⁸You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, ¹⁹and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. ²⁰(For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.” ²¹Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) ²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. ²⁵See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! ²⁶At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” ²⁷This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; ²⁹for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

I wish, for the sake of an opening statement, that I could stand here and tell you that my earliest memory, my earliest conceptualization of God was of a wrathful, vengeful, jealous God.  I can’t.  Insofar as I connected the idea that was forming in my head about who God was with what I was experiencing in and among church people on any given Sunday or Thursday night, I heard and saw too much about the Love of God expressed that it was never that.  Having said that, in all honesty, neither can I stand here and tell you that my earliest conceptualization of God was of a deeply caring, loving, embracing God.  I can’t do that either.  God didn’t become the “Holy and wholly other” that I found later in life until … well … later in life. 

How we approach God, how we interact with God, and how we express God’s action in our lives has SO MUCH to do with how we initially encountered God. 

We can remember from earliest childhood the stories from our primary Sunday School class:  about Adam and Eve, about Noah and the Ark, about Moses and the Israelites crossing the sea on dry land.  What stands out in each of these stories to you in your memory – from when you first heard them? 

With Adam and Eve, is it God’s statement that “it was good” at the end of each ‘day’, or is it God’s banishing Adam and Eve from the Garden?

With Noah and the Ark, is it the fact that God made provision for Noah and his family, or is it that everyone else drowned?

With Moses and the Israelites crossing the sea on dry land, is it the safety, food and security God provided for the people of Israel while they wandered in the desert, or is it the plagues that were visited on the people of Egypt and their Pharaoh before the Israelites even left?  Or maybe it is that God allowed that initial generation of Israelites – including Moses – to die off as they wandered through the desert for all those forty years instead of letting them actually experience the Promised Land, as punishment for their unfaithfulness?       

We are, each of us, on our own journey – our own pilgrimage when we enter into relationship with God.  It may be that we first began our journey with just a brief glimpse of who God was … and it was sandwiched between all the other stuff that popular culture and myth and yes, even the church, has painted for us as a picture of God, but somewhere in the midst of all that, something caught our attention and drew us in. 

The writer to the Hebrews is underscoring that something for us this morning.  What he is contrasting in this passage is two common images that are part of the Jewish identity.  The contrast is between Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion – the NEW Jerusalem.  At Mt. Sinai, the Hebrew people were given the law, and God DID speak to them – through Moses.  And what do we have as an image of Mt. Sinai?  Clouds, rolling thunder, darkness, lightning … not exactly a welcoming vision, is it? 

The Israelites had an experience of God that was most definitely VIVID … it was full of crashing and thundering and fire in the sky at night and a column of smoke during the day … it was immediate to their everyday existence – they literally DEPENDED on God for the food they ate each day.  They awoke to manna on the ground, and pheasants for meat.  God instructed Moses where to strike with his staff to draw water … the reestablishment of the relationship between the people of Israel and God was one that left little room for ambiguity.  There was really no need for a nuanced understanding of what being in relationship with God meant.  It was pretty simple.  If we are out of relationship with God, we most likely will die.  If we ARE in relationship with God, we most likely will live … at least a little longer.  

All in all, being that closely dependent on God for your survival was hard on the people of Israel… the writer even quotes Moses directly in verse 21: “I tremble with fear.” And seems to be speaking for the whole crowd. 

Immediately, we are given the contrasting view.  The other familiar image to the people of Israel –

²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

It is a radical change from the image that Mount Sinai produces.  To begin with, it is a brighter image, a light-filled panorama.  There are angels “gettin’ down”, there are those who are called the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven … that’s an interesting turn of phrase, isn’t it?  You enroll in something before you actually become involved in it.  You enroll in a class, or in school, before you actually attend either one.  In saying it in that way, the writer is speaking a word of hope into the hearts of those who are receiving the letter.  They are hearing that, while they may not yet SEE heaven … remember, this is after having gone through the roll call of the faithful in chapter 11 of all those folks who lived by faith and DIDN’T see the promise fulfilled – he is connecting the readers and hearers with everyone on that list.  He’s saying that they ARE enrolled in heaven because of the blood of Jesus Christ. 

And it is on THAT that the whole of creation hinges.  The writer deftly compares the voice that warned from earth – Moses – of ignoring or dismissing God – to the voice that now calls from heaven – Jesus.  The juxtaposition of the voice of God shaking the earth at Mount Sinai to the promised effects of the voice of Christ shaking not ONLY the earth, but also the heaven is spelled out in verse 26, and in verse 27 we have a glimpse of the aftermath …

I’m really not a fire and brimstone kind of preacher.  You know that.  While I could keep going here and talk to you about what that second shaking will entail, how the writer spells out that created things will not remain, but only those things that cannot be shaken will remain … however that plays out in our minds and imaginations and in reality is anybody’s guess. 

What I want to focus on in view of that, is who we have standing on our behalf:  I would draw your attention to verse 28: “since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe;”

The question is this:  how do we go about “receiving the kingdom” that the writer is speaking of?  Through Christ.  And who is Christ? 

As believing followers of Jesus, we proclaim that Jesus is God incarnate.  That means the person of Jesus was our very creator, the same God that spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, with all the thunder and lightning, the same God who lead the people of Israel through the desert with a column of fire by night and a column of smoke by day … who provided manna, who showed them where to get water; he is also the God who spoke the words of creation and made everything we can see and blessed it and called it good.  He is also the God who tried to reconcile the world to himself through the centuries, and finally came and made himself a man in order to complete that work.

If Jesus is our best image of God, then we need to examine THAT image to understand the heart of God. 

Jesus came, and didn’t throw his weight around – he didn’t stand on protocol.  Philippians 2 tells us that even though he was in very essence God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but made himself nothing –a slave, and was obedient even to the point of death. 

For us.

Because the relationship God wanted with us was THAT important to him. 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

How do we present God in our daily lives?  If Jesus is the image of God for us, and we are now Christ’s body on earth, what image are we projecting of God? 

Do people see us and see a mountain surrounded by dark crashing clouds and thunder and lightning, or do they see a human being, scarred and beaten, willing to do whatever it takes to be in relationship with them? 

Are we willing?  Do we dare take on that image of God in order to draw the world a clearer picture of a God who is completely about self-sacrificing love, self-denying obedience, and self-giving presence?

Would you pray with me?  

   

For The Sake of The Joy

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Proper 15 C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

²⁹By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. ³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. ³¹By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.  ³²And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— ³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. ³⁵Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. ³⁶Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ³⁷They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— ³⁸of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. ³⁹Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, ⁴⁰since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. 12  Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

I received word on Friday that Phyllis Thomas, a retired missionary from Chile, had passed away after succumbing to cancer.  While I waited to hear about the arrangements, I did a quick search to find out how long it would take to drive from here to Lillington, NC, and found that it is something over a four-and-a-half hour trip.   In my mind, I started reviewing my schedule for this coming week and tentatively rearranging things in case the funeral was going to be on a day that I could feasibly get away.  As it turns out, that service is going to be this afternoon, so I will be with my aunts and uncles in spirit, but not in person. 

I started to reflect again on the number of emails and notices that I’ve received over the last couple of years of the passing of dearly loved people – men and women – who have had a lasting impact on who I am becoming.  It makes me that much more grateful for the ones that I can still communicate with and thank them for what they’ve done and express to them how much they mean to me. 

This shaping that is going on, it’s not all in the past.  I received a book yesterday that I ordered several days earlier, and started reading it.  It is by Greg Boyd, Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.  You may remember me mentioning him a couple of times.  The book is entitled The Myth of a Christian Nation; How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.  I have listened to the sermon series on which the book is based, and it is a compelling and unsettling argument.  Even more so when we take into consideration that Greg preached the series over the course of a couple of months back in 2004, as the campaigns for the elections that year began to heat up.  He shares that, as a result of the series, about a fifth of his congregation decided they would rather go elsewhere to worship.  About a thousand of the then-5,000 member congregation left.  I think I may have shared that bit of information with you before, but it bears noting that discontent with preachers is a long, time-honored tradition, and one that is regularly exercised even today. 

But the reason I bring up the book is that I mentioned it online, on my facebook page, right after getting it out of the mailbox a little after noon, and after getting back home from being out with Jesus and Perla and Judson later in the evening, I had a wonderful, engaging three-way conversation about the premise of the book that lasted about three hours, and realized towards the end of it that that was a conversation that was helping me define and shape how and why I believe what I believe – thanks not only to Greg Boyd, the author, but to David Batlle, a friend from high school, also the son of missionaries, who now lives in Texas, and Alice Barbour Rusher, a woman who was in my journeyman group and who used to work at the Virginia Baptist Board until they had to downsize the staff.

Whether they realize it or not, in that engagement, in that struggling and sharing that happened over the course of those three or so hours, they became a part of that cloud of witnesses that the writer here refers to.  The difference is a minor one, in that those that are listed in the letter were all dead by the time their names and stories were being read, and the ones I’ve mentioned are very much alive.  But I could just as easily name some saints who HAVE made an incredible impact on my life and who are no longer with us: Emma Key Stark, Floyd and Lloyd Key, Bill Carter, Bill Andrews, Mary Jo Geiger, Donald Maccubbin, Gordon W. Turner.          

Make no mistake about it.  Baptists have probably just as many saints as Catholics do.  We may not have the formal procedure in place that canonization entails within the Catholic tradition, but we have our saints.  The difference is, since we are a congregational tradition, in our structure, the names of our saints generally don’t go beyond the local congregation.  Some do, of course.  Lottie Moon, Adoniram and Anne Rice Judson, folks like that.  Billy Graham is pretty much a shoo-in.  Others we could argue about, but there would be some in our cloud that would not be in others.  Folks that we could name and even with the smallish group of people that are here, some would nod their heads in agreement, and others would probably sit a little stiller until the next name was called. 

The point is, we can each think back through our lives and call our own roll call of the faithful.  The writer of this letter knew that, but he or she also knew the power that recalling lives that were known to a whole community did more to empower and encourage THESE followers of Christ to face the days ahead with the courage and the strength that they would need to meet those challenges, just as, in their minds’ eyes, they could imagine each of those who had gone on before faced their time of tribulation.

Again I would draw your attention to an almost passing comment that the writer makes about each of these people who have been named – in this morning’s text it is verse 39: Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, … it would seem to be reasonable to expect the litany to end in some way testifying to the fact that those who had gone on before DID receive SOME semblance of … recognition, or acknowledgement, or some kind of … well … I don’t want to put it so crassly, but … reward for their troubles. 

But they didn’t.  And yet they persevered in the faith.  They maintained their course. 

I’d like to draw your attention to a little word in the first verse of chapter 12: 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

That word “also”, what does it do and what does it mean?  It means that those heroes of the faith that were just listed, those spiritual giants whose shoes we don’t dare consider being able to fill, they were just as beset by ‘every weight and the sin that clings so closely’ – in other words, regardless of the differences in time and place, what we are struggling against remains the same across the generations and across the distances.  We are no different from them.  But what we learn from them is that despite those weights and that sin, we CAN move ahead in Kingdom work.

It is a truly outstanding list.  And it ends on a high note.  The list comes down to Jesus himself.  And the writer explains something about why Jesus did what he did.  Verse 2 of chapter 12:

 … Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Most of the people that I mentioned in my list from the cloud are missionaries.  That is only because I drew from those who have preceded us into heaven.  But not all of them were missionaries. Some of the people in the list served as Pastors, others as administrators and some as Sunday school teachers and parole officers, some as homemakers and WMU members.  If I had gone further into my list, I’m sure I would come across people who touched my life in profound ways but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they did during the week.  It was only in that particular space in Sunday School or Training Union that I could tell you what they did that mattered. 

That phrase in verse 38 of chapter 11 – “of whom the world was not worthy” would begin to apply more and more as we explored who they were in the eternal realm. 

Why would anyone want to risk life and limb, health and wellbeing in the face of the persecution – whether in the form of a first-century lion, or beating, or a twentieth-century taunt or rejection, or twenty-first century rebuke or ridicule for the sake of extending the hand of fellowship and grace to someone that ‘the normal crowd’ would consider unredeemable –

For the sake of the joy that was set before him

I think the same could be said for each of the people on my list.  They did what they did for the sake of the joy that was set before them.  They endured separation from family, illness, loneliness; they endured living a life of anonymity in a culture that treasures celebrity for it’s own sake, regardless of what contribution is made or not…

As we ask ourselves what this means to Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, I would invite you to once again look to the example of Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, and imitate HIM, even as our cloud of witnesses sought to imitate him in their routine, quiet, and not-so-quiet lives.

May we all be found as faithful.

Let’s pray.

A Better Country

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Ordinary 19C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Hebrews 11:1-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ³By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

⁴By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks. ⁵By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not found, because God had taken him.” For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God.” ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith. ⁸By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. ¹²Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” ¹³All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, ¹⁴for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

I’ve lived in many places in my life.  I’ve lived in the driest desert in the world, where there are areas that have NEVER recorded any rainfall. I’ve lived in a city of nearly 5 million people; all squeezed in against the foothills of the Andes, and thoroughly enjoyed (and still miss) the view of those mountains even today.  I’ve lived in the rain-soaked northern coast of Spain, where I hung my wash out to dry and it took 3 days to get a little less than damp.  I finally brought it inside and rewashed it and found places to hang it and let it dry in a slightly less-damp environment.  I’ve lived on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, looking out over the sea towards North Africa, (which I COULDN’T see) and felt the heat of the wind that blew across from there and sent temperatures soaring to around 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  I washed my laundry THEN, and almost by the time I finished hanging my laundry at one end of the porch, it was dry at the other end. 

I need you to hear me when I say that the living on the Northern Neck is an experience that stands over and against all those previous experiences and holds up well.  In fact, in many ways, the charms of living on this little piece of land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay has surpassed them all.  

It took a while, but I learned some time ago that you should not compare one place to another, if you want to learn to appreciate where you are for what it is. 

I’m sure you’ve seen the local bumper sticker that reads “Virginia’s Best Kept Secret: The Northern Neck.” And I’m also sure you’ve realized that what comes after the colon, the NAME of the place, is changed according to where you live in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  It goes to show, that for whatever reason, people who live in a particular area are partial to where they live, generally speaking, otherwise, they usually find a way to move. 

What we are dealing with in the passage this morning is that the writer of this letter is talking about what we all, as children of God, citizens of heaven, need to remember: that, as attached as we may be to our physical surroundings, we truly are citizens of a better country.  And the writer begins with what has become known as the Roll Call of the faithful.  It is a litany of the faithful – people who have formed that cloud of witnesses that we will talk about next week, who have built up our faith through THEIR faithfulness, who through their example have strengthened ours, who have informed and shaped our understanding of what it means to live BY faith, even while we have been exploring what that means to us – FOR us – in our own context.

This passage begins with a discourse answering an implied question: “What is faith?” And we hear a well-known answer, often quoted when speaking of faith: it is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1, NRSV).

There is no mistaking the importance of faith in Christian community, and it’s good to know what we mean when we use this powerful word. Yet there are two key things to be careful of in reading this passage.

First, “faith” is often invoked as an antidote to reality, belief in spite of the evidence. But this passage does not quite say that. It only says that we trust in, we look towards, and we set our hearts upon things which we know, but which are not yet in view.

There are plenty of things that are invisible whose existence we do not doubt. While 7/8s of an iceberg is under water, we understand that what is unseen is still there. We do not see the wind, but when we feel it on our cheek or hear it blowing through the trees, we know it is real. We cannot see beyond the horizon, but we believe that if we keep walking, we’ll get to a new country.

Faith is itself a mode of perception. Through “the eyes of faith,” we can see things not otherwise visible or clear.

It’s also important to understand the author of this letter is not asking an abstract question or debating a point of philosophy. His people need to know what faith is because they are being tested, not by God to see how faithful they are, but by persecutions, public abuse inflicted upon them, their families, and friends in the gospel (especially Heb 10:32-33). Faith is not an object of academic interest – it is essential for survival.

Their persecutors aimed to make them submit, not to the faith-worthy and faithful God, but to the lesser gods of empire and culture in which these human outposts of good news were embedded.

It might have worked. But there is this little thing called faith...

Faith is linked not to evidence, but to hope. (Perhaps the Apostle Paul was thinking of something similar when he joined faith, hope, and love together in 1 Corinthians 13:13.) Faith looks ahead to things which are not yet in view, but which are real, are known, and are hoped for with urgency.

Perhaps a more recent example may help both our faith and our sight. Looking at Montgomery, Alabama in 1954, not many people could see that bus segregation would soon be ending. But Rosa Parks and a mighty host set out in faith, because they desired a better country, one more in line with a heavenly one (Heb 11:16) – as seen in an integrated bus system.

In 1963 as Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the Lincoln Memorial’s steps and looked out over America, there wasn’t much proof that America would repent its sin of racial segregation. But his dream of an integrated and just America was not based on fact, but on faith. His faith in God’s transformative power was, to him and to many others, the assurance of the things they hoped for. He stepped forward in faith, because he and millions more desired a better country, a land well-watered by justice and righteousness.

Today we’re telling faith stories of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. much the way Hebrews recalls Abel and Abraham. And that old letter-writer knew that the hope of heaven was not separate from the hope for a transformed earth. The trials of today are connected to the Promised Land just across the horizon. We step forward in faith not because we’re sure everything will work out in the next few days – but because we put our hope in God’s beautiful dream for creation.

(thanks to Paul Bellan-Boyer, at

http://citycalledheaven.blogspot.com/2010/07/they-desire-better-country.html)

We are ultimately drawn to the question: what does it mean to live by faith? What does it mean for us here, today, this morning, at Jerusalem Baptist Church, in Emmerton, on the Northern Neck Peninsula of Virginia, on August 8^th, 2010?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is still much work to do.  It seems that we manage to address one injustice and another falls in right behind it, we are able to uncover one hidden evil and mostly eradicate it, and another takes it’s place even before we can turn around.  Many days it feels like a losing battle.  Imagine what it felt like for those early Christ-followers.  Surrounded by a culture that was not quite so subtle as ours at hiding it’s idols. 

While we may reside here, we do not belong here.  We do not draw our way of life, our impulse and our inspiration from what is around us, but from the one who is inside us. 

So, brothers and sisters, remain strong in the faith, remembering that we live in the certainty of what we cannot see – we live towards the hope – looking forward with eager anticipation to that day when our trust – our faith – becomes sight.

Let’s pray.

If You Have Been Raised

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Ordinary 18C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA
Colossians 3:1-11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. ⁷These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.

⁸But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

It always seemed like an … unreachable goal… until I thought I had reached it. 

^“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth”

It was always something others were doing too much of – this setting their minds on things that are on earth – I walked around with a sincere look of concern and preoccupation for the hundreds – nay, THOUSANDS who slogged through their day without a moments thought to those things that are above. 

Until I was slammed with an onslaught of … LIFE that forced me to spend some time paying attention to what I had heretofore considered bothersome – things that are on earth. 

The trouble, I discovered, was that for whatever amount of time was needed, there were some things here on earth that needed tending to.  Relationships.  Friendships.  Responsibilities.  Duties. 

Paul’s drawing the distinction between what is earthly and what is worldly had haunted me because I was taking his words at full force from the inception.  I was considering any level of though regarding earthly things – and not just the things he lists here in the passage – but just about ANYTHING having to do with earthly existence – to be something to shun, to run from, to close off. 

In taking Paul’s words into consideration this morning, I need to balance them against the actions of Jesus during his earthly ministry.  In those instances, I see that Jesus spent an awful lot of time concerned with what I had at one point considered ‘earthly’:  He fed the hungry, he cared for and healed the sick.  He confronted injustice.  He called people out who were NOT involved in making this worldly existence a lighter one, and challenged them to engage with those around them in such a way as to MAKE a difference IN their earthly existence.

So what does Paul mean when he says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly”?  We can go through the list: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry) and it is amazing how quickly we can grow an extra elbow in our arms so as to make it that much easier to pat ourselves on the back.  We’re no fornicators, we are no longer impure, or allowing our passions to control us, or flooded with evil desires or … greed…?  Or are we?  We would just as soon stop thinking about this stuff and close our minds to the possibility that there is more going on here …

It has to do with how we view things.  The clue is in the parentheses.  In the NRSV it comes right after the word ‘greed’ and seems to be clarifying just what that word means.  He has written, “Which is idolatry”.  Looking it over, it does seem to be pretty clear that the worship or the acquisition and retention of wealth is idolizing money and the power it brings.  I think we can all agree that that is a bad thing.  But if we start to work our way back through the rest of that list: evil desire, passion, impurity, fornication … ultimately, there is in each of those something that has placed a higher value on something OTHER than God in our lives.  They all seem to have a connection to the sensuality of the human experience – not strictly sexual, but to any part of us that revels in the senses with which we inform our existence here on earth: that treasures and holds that sense so dear that we don’t even realize the power it has over us.  Yes, in many cases it IS sexual, but it can easily be something else:  the sense of hunger – or it’s opposite – the feeling of satiation – satisfaction from having eaten a well-prepared and delicious meal – that gets morphed into this obsession with food – with having enough on our plates to feed two or three people, or to hide behind phrases like “comfort food”, “momma’s cooking.” 

Please hear me when I say that the first toes I am stepping on when I get into this are my own.  In my lifetime of being the son and grandson of good, church-going, bible-reading, covered-dish serving Baptists, I can MAYBE count on one hand the number of messages I’ve heard regarding gluttony. 

I’m not saying, “Starve yourself”.  I AM saying “be mindful of what you eat, and realize that if it is going on your plate and doesn’t get eaten, someone else is going without” … Yesterday we were up in Fredericksburg, and decided to eat supper at Ryan’s Steakhouse.  As you may know, it is a buffet style restaurant.  You can eat as much as you are able for one fairly reasonable price.  In fact, last night’s tab was comparable to yesterday’s lunch tab at McDonald’s – for much better food, if you ask me, but that is beside the point.

As we were drawing the evening to an end, Caleb spoke up and asked me what happens to the food that doesn’t get eaten.  I answered that I hoped that Ryan’s does what many restaurants do – they donate food that has been prepared but not eaten to an organization called Second Harvest – that takes the food from restaurants and distributes it to homeless shelters and soup kitchens to feed folks who may not know where their next meal is coming from.  But to be truthful, there are maybe just as many restaurants who don’t bother, who discard uneaten food and consider the loss to be the cost of doing business. 

My point is this:  Idolatry, in one way or another, ultimately makes us the arbiter of that which holds ultimate importance in our lives.  We retain the option to decide what WE consider to be of utmost importance in our existence.  So idolatry in essence is placing ourselves ahead of God, rather than the other way around. 

We hear a lot about idolatry as the worship of statues, or images, things that in our immediate experience are rare.  But idolatry can be as insidious as thinking of something harmless, something in fact, helpful, like eating, and being so caught up in that, that we lose sight of the repercussions that are left in our practice of eating. 

So we put ourselves ahead of God, and not the other way around, and that ‘other way around’ is what the life of Christ was all about – IS all about – it is putting God first and ourselves last.  It would seem to be a fairly easy proposition, until we look at the nitty gritty of it:  do I spend time in prayer today or do I take a nap?  Do I read the Bible passage and meditate on it, or do I watch television or a movie?  Do I offer to help teach Sunday school or do I sleep in and just make it for morning worship? 

I don’t want to put a “guilt trip” on anyone.  That’s not what this is about.  I understand and honor the fact that there is a time where rest is needed and required to maintain health and to reap its benefits.  What I am looking for is an openness to God’s calling us each out to do a little something extra, something a little out of our comfort zone, something selfless, like visiting someone who is sick, or homebound.  Something that communicates that our care for THAT person outweighed our desire to do something for ourselves long enough for us to actually DO that selfless thing. 

I want to show you something (turned the page up and around for the congregation to see)

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

(This is where the original manuscript ended)

You’ve heard me ask that question before.  But notice, I didn’t write anything else.  You see, I could name things that we idolize, but it wouldn’t be a complete list.  Because each of us does our own idolatry.  We are each, all of us, including myself, guilty of that.  We don’t like to call it that, but that’s what it is. 

Putting away the old life, the dead life, and putting on that new life that we have in Christ means taking on the point of view, taking on God’s view of the world.  That doesn’t mean looking at it from a distance and seeing, for example, that from space there aren’t any geographical lines, there aren’t any political boundaries between nations. We are all one people. 

Taking God’s view of the world is taking on what God did.  God didn’t stay up “there” away far away.  God came down and lived right alongside us.  So we are called to live in this world, we are called to live from a standing, from a place in our hearts and in our minds that is informed, that is marked, that is FROM … heaven.  That is God’s view of the depth of the love that God has not just for US, but everybody.  It is a love that we can tap into, and we can understand to a degree, but we cannot fully comprehend until we are face to face. 

I would challenge us all to open ourselves to being a full moon (no jokes, please!) – a full moon that reflects as much light from God as we can, into the deepest, darkest corners of this existence, that we be as concerned and as troubled by earthly existence as God was, as Jesus was.  He didn’t call us out, he called us TO live in him.  Be in this world, but not of it.  It’s about staying here, but living into an existence that we will one day see completely.  Paul’s words, “we see through a glass darkly, dimly, but then we shall see face to face.”  It is a hope and a promise that can lighten our load, even as we strive to lighten the load, the burden that others around us carry. 

Would you pray with me?