Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
06.22.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Romans 12:9-21
Christians have a whole bunch of trouble figuring out how to deal with anger. It’s a tough nut to crack, because on the one hand, we know that we follow the Prince of Peace. We are supposed to turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile, and when they asketh us for our cloak, rendereth unto them our shirt and pantaloons also. On the other hand, we’re human beings. When we feel messed with, we get mad. It’s a natural reaction when our desires or our hopes are frustrated. We perceive those frustrations as indicative of a threat, and then our bodies kick into action to respond to that threat.
It’s a hard-wired response, just a part of the way that we human beings were created to deal with things that endanger our existence. Adrenaline starts cranking, increasing muscular response and reaction time. It also puts our heart into overdrive, sending oxygen streaming to our muscles and to our brain. In our brain, hormones start cranking, and we become much, much more able focus on the perceived threat. In fact, we become so focused on the present moment that we lose the ability to see much of anything else. The big picture vanishes, and all we can see through a red-tinged tunnel of fury is that person or object that needs to be smashed.
This is very useful in the jungle. It is not quite so useful in the suburbs.
We get fist-clenching mad at that guy in the line ahead of us who just can’t seem to figure out the self-checkout. Jeeez! C’mon! Your card goes there. No! Don’t press that! No! AAAAH! We get mad at our kids when they attempt to use the vacuum cleaner to clean up a milk spill. You did what?!?! I...just..can’t...believe...you’d...oh! We get mad at our parents when they decide that we can’t stay out until 3 PM with our friends. All of my other friends are going to be there! Why are you so mean?! I hate you! We get mad at that stripped cheap metal bolt that adds another hour to what should have been a really easy installation. Stupid useless piece of...! Stupid! Stupid! Dag ragga frabb it!
Or words to that effect. So how are we to deal with this mismatch between what our faith clearly asks of us and our more natural, instinctual response? Some of us just repress...everything...smiling and saying...it’s nothing... and we...bottle...up...anger...until...we JUST COMPLETELY EXPLODE!!!! Some things, like Jeremiah’s call, just can’t be held in. They’ll burn in your bones, smoldering and sizzling until they claw their way out of you eventually.
Others among us are very much in touch with our anger, even in church. We use our anger as a convenient tool to get whatever we want, attuning ourselves completely to the Dark Side, becoming the one who must be obeyed if you want to escape the raging fires of our white-hot wrath. GO GET ME A CUP OF COFFEE!!! It works really well, right up until the point at which somebody yells back. The challenge with just letting yourself express your anger is that it begets more anger, and the resulting conflict always and invariably ends in someone being hurt. Damage is done, often damage that can’t easily be repaired.
The prophet Jeremiah knew all about conflict. He lived and preached during the last desperate days of Judah, when the Babylonian Empire stood prepared to deal a final death blow to the hopes of Jerusalem. From his knowledge of God’s will, Jeremiah knew...knew with complete certainty...that the time was short. Unless the Jewish people embraced a very different future than they’d hoped for, annihilation awaited. Faced with a people who didn’t want to hear that message, Jeremiah was constantly, endlessly shouted down. He was deeply and fully in the minority, and surrounded on every side with opponents.
But while he didn’t back down, he also recognized that he alone was in no position to fight. His ultimate vindication lay in God, not in his own ability to do battle. Even though he was in conflict, he knew that when push came to shove his own ability to fight was meaningless. He had trust in that, and though at times he despaired at his own seeming helplessness, he managed to keep himself focused on saying and doing what he must. He knew that God was on his side, and it was on God that he would rely for his defense.
From the 12th chapter of Romans we hear the Apostle Paul describing the Christian life, and how it should be lived. Romans, if y’all remember from me talking about it before, is an incredibly complicated letter. It’s filled with twists and turns and deep theology, and needs to be read several times through to even begin to get at what Paul’s trying to say. As we get closer to the end of the letter, though, Paul throttles back a little bit. Instead of going with the hard-core theology of salvation, he gets to the nitty gritty of what it means to live as a Christian. Not “here are the mindbendingly hard teachings you need to memorize be Christian.” This isn’t abstract stuff. It’s a simple, basic, practical answer to how a Christian is supposed to live, to live and breathe, as an embodiment of Christ’s love.
We hear that we are to bless those who curse us. We hear we need to live in harmony. We hear we need to live at peace and not take revenge, and overcome evil with good. And yet anger is still present, howling and snarling away in our hearts whenever stresses arise or conflict comes. How do we cope with it?
First, both Jeremiah and Paul allow room for anger. Jeremiah certainly didn’t hold back from speaking the truth with a furious love. Right after he tells us that love must be sincere, the Apostle Paul tells us to “hate what is evil.” Anger can alert us to things that are wrong in our lives. Sometimes it can be selfish, true. But at other times it is a response to injustice. At other times, it’s a response to human suffering or the violation of God’s creation by those who seek only their own profit. We are allowed to be angry at what is evil. From that anger, though, we have to be sure that we do not lash out. Do not let rage control your response.
Second, both Jeremiah and Paul make room for God’s action. As you stand against a “foe”, do so understanding that God is just, and that justice is woven deep into the fabric of all creation. You, you the person, you the human being, cannot fully grasp how to balance the scales of God’s justice. Your temptation, your desire, your anger...these things will cause you to press down on your end of the scales just a little harder than you should. Like yesterday, when the enraged guy behind me in traffic yelled an obscenity at me and my family for not making a turn as quickly as I could have. If dealing with him was left entirely up to me at that very moment, it would have involved close air support and uranium-tipped 30mm rounds. But only God knows where that little moment rests in the scheme of things. So I let it go. What’s at the heart of your anger? Let it go. Trust that God is just.
Allow room for anger, but don’t let it overcome love for those who oppose. Make room for God’s action, and trust that God is just.
Christians can come to terms with anger...but only if that anger is guided by love.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Free of Charge
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
6.15.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 9:35-10:8
How do you measure hospitality? There are a bunch of different ways, I suppose. How welcome are you made to feel? How doted upon are you? How much do people put themselves out to receive you?
It’s a tough call, though. How do you measure it? Some folks might use a a standard like the Mobil Travel Guide, which awards restaurants and hotels awards based on the standard of their food and their service. Carefully trained inspectors secretly examine facilities against over 400 criteria. Then they recommend it, and if it passes muster, it gets somewhere between one and five stars. If a place doesn’t get any stars at all, it means that even the roaches don’t know their jobs. If it gets five stars...well...then it’s a place like the Inn of Little Washington.
From what I’ve been told, that place is the shmantziest, most impressively amazing and consistently marvelous place to go that’s anywhere near the Washington area. From the moment you arrive to the moment you step out of your car to the moment that you depart, you’re enveloped in service. Your every need is met. You’re given delectably tasty food in perfectly sized portions, prepared by the most gifted of chefs and served by waiters who have reached such a Zen-like level of skill at their trade that they practically float to your table. All around you, there are folks who are there to make absolutely, completely sure that your every moment is perfect.
That’s certainly wonderful hospitality. It also costs around $170 for the meal, per person, excluding tax, tip, and beverage. A room for the night...a small room...is around $505. For what usually ends up being a thousand bucks a night, the hospitality had better be good.
My family never went places quite like that on vacation. We usually drove to visit the grandparents. There, we just, well, we just were. The food was whatever we cobbled together. There weren’t little handmade truffles on our pillows at night. The waitstaff was nonexistent. You often were required to bus your own table. I think there was one visit when my primary source of calories was Count Chocula. I don’t the Mobil Travel Guide ever even noticed those little establishments.
But there are few places where hospitality is more alive than in the summer on the porch of your grandparents house, spitting watermelon seeds into the bushes while the grownups talk in the cool of the day.
Both of today’s readings tell us something of the meaning and purpose of being hospitable. The first reading, which Pastor Mike shared with us out of Genesis, tells us a little about what hospitality meant in the ancient world. As Abraham encounters three strangers arriving at mid-day, he rushes to provide for them. It’s one of the odder passages in Genesis, because on the one hand, it says that the Lord comes toAbraham. On the other, it says that it’s three guys. And no, it’s not the Trinity. Is it three holy men or prophets? Three angelic messengers? Three wise men? Three stooges? It doesn’t really matter.
What’s clear is that Abraham responds to the arrival of these men by offering up the full hospitality of his house. Why? Because offering up hospitality to a stranger in the ancient world was one of the signs of being a person of worth. If that stranger looked like they might be able to someday repay the favor...all the better. In verse three, we get a hint of that hope for a payback, as Abraham offers up the hope that he’ll be viewed favorably these three strangers. He gives, but there is this hope that somehow, someway, he’ll get something in return. As it happens, he does.
The story from Matthew’s Gospel today flips the equation. What we hear is Christ sending out the disciples into Judah, and in the telling of the story we hear Matthew’s unique spin on the tale. Unlike the version of this sending that we get in Luke and in Mark, Matthew’s remembrance of this event has Jesus sending the disciples only to those living in the southern kingdom of Judah, and not to the Samaritans.
Most notably, though, Matthew’s Gospel tells the story has far more details about what is expected of the disciples. What should they take? Jesus tells them...and it isn’t much. How should they respond to the folks who don’t respond to their message or treat them with hospitality? Jesus tells them.
But the passage I’d like to highlight here is verse eight, in which Jesus tells them that as they received without payment, they should also give without payment. Along with verses seventeen through twenty-three, this verse is among the reasons that bible scholars think that Matthew was written at a later time in the life of the church. Those later verses indicate that the church was being actively oppressed, but verse eight seems to speak to a situation that was of much contention in the early church: Should evangelists and pastors be paid?
What Jesus seems to be implying in this verse is that payment isn’t appropriate for sharing the Gospel message, which is, after all, something given free of charge. Again, it’s only Matthew that records this statement, and ultimately, we hear from the Apostle Paul that the early church settled on paying certain members of the community for their service, ‘cause having dedicated pastors and youth pastors is a good thing. I think.
There’s a deeper point here, though. This passage speaks to the way we give. It speaks to the way we serve. And it speaks what we should expect to receive in return. Church...that place where we live and proclaim the Kingdom of God...can’t show the kind of hospitality that comes when you’re looking for something in return.
Yeah, church members want their church to grow. But when you invite that person to come to church, or you set up a new program to give respite care to moms with toddlers...what’s the expectation? When you welcome that new person into the church, and follow up with them...are you expecting anything in return?
It’s the real challenge as you try to build a church. Are you interested in sharing the goodness of the Kingdom message with that new person? Or somewhere, right under the surface, are you looking at all those empty pews and hoping that this person will help fill them? If that hunger for growth and church success starts becoming the reason you’re reaching out to others, are you really showing hospitality? Are you really seeking to give without thought of gain?
All the programs, all the events, all of the activities and outreach strategies and plans...none of those things are real unless they are undertaken from a heart filled with excitement about the possibilities of the church or the movement or the Gospel.
Hospitality...real Christian hospitality...can’t be bought, or rented, or given on credit. It needs to be given free of charge.
6.15.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 9:35-10:8
How do you measure hospitality? There are a bunch of different ways, I suppose. How welcome are you made to feel? How doted upon are you? How much do people put themselves out to receive you?
It’s a tough call, though. How do you measure it? Some folks might use a a standard like the Mobil Travel Guide, which awards restaurants and hotels awards based on the standard of their food and their service. Carefully trained inspectors secretly examine facilities against over 400 criteria. Then they recommend it, and if it passes muster, it gets somewhere between one and five stars. If a place doesn’t get any stars at all, it means that even the roaches don’t know their jobs. If it gets five stars...well...then it’s a place like the Inn of Little Washington.
From what I’ve been told, that place is the shmantziest, most impressively amazing and consistently marvelous place to go that’s anywhere near the Washington area. From the moment you arrive to the moment you step out of your car to the moment that you depart, you’re enveloped in service. Your every need is met. You’re given delectably tasty food in perfectly sized portions, prepared by the most gifted of chefs and served by waiters who have reached such a Zen-like level of skill at their trade that they practically float to your table. All around you, there are folks who are there to make absolutely, completely sure that your every moment is perfect.
That’s certainly wonderful hospitality. It also costs around $170 for the meal, per person, excluding tax, tip, and beverage. A room for the night...a small room...is around $505. For what usually ends up being a thousand bucks a night, the hospitality had better be good.
My family never went places quite like that on vacation. We usually drove to visit the grandparents. There, we just, well, we just were. The food was whatever we cobbled together. There weren’t little handmade truffles on our pillows at night. The waitstaff was nonexistent. You often were required to bus your own table. I think there was one visit when my primary source of calories was Count Chocula. I don’t the Mobil Travel Guide ever even noticed those little establishments.
But there are few places where hospitality is more alive than in the summer on the porch of your grandparents house, spitting watermelon seeds into the bushes while the grownups talk in the cool of the day.
Both of today’s readings tell us something of the meaning and purpose of being hospitable. The first reading, which Pastor Mike shared with us out of Genesis, tells us a little about what hospitality meant in the ancient world. As Abraham encounters three strangers arriving at mid-day, he rushes to provide for them. It’s one of the odder passages in Genesis, because on the one hand, it says that the Lord comes toAbraham. On the other, it says that it’s three guys. And no, it’s not the Trinity. Is it three holy men or prophets? Three angelic messengers? Three wise men? Three stooges? It doesn’t really matter.
What’s clear is that Abraham responds to the arrival of these men by offering up the full hospitality of his house. Why? Because offering up hospitality to a stranger in the ancient world was one of the signs of being a person of worth. If that stranger looked like they might be able to someday repay the favor...all the better. In verse three, we get a hint of that hope for a payback, as Abraham offers up the hope that he’ll be viewed favorably these three strangers. He gives, but there is this hope that somehow, someway, he’ll get something in return. As it happens, he does.
The story from Matthew’s Gospel today flips the equation. What we hear is Christ sending out the disciples into Judah, and in the telling of the story we hear Matthew’s unique spin on the tale. Unlike the version of this sending that we get in Luke and in Mark, Matthew’s remembrance of this event has Jesus sending the disciples only to those living in the southern kingdom of Judah, and not to the Samaritans.
Most notably, though, Matthew’s Gospel tells the story has far more details about what is expected of the disciples. What should they take? Jesus tells them...and it isn’t much. How should they respond to the folks who don’t respond to their message or treat them with hospitality? Jesus tells them.
But the passage I’d like to highlight here is verse eight, in which Jesus tells them that as they received without payment, they should also give without payment. Along with verses seventeen through twenty-three, this verse is among the reasons that bible scholars think that Matthew was written at a later time in the life of the church. Those later verses indicate that the church was being actively oppressed, but verse eight seems to speak to a situation that was of much contention in the early church: Should evangelists and pastors be paid?
What Jesus seems to be implying in this verse is that payment isn’t appropriate for sharing the Gospel message, which is, after all, something given free of charge. Again, it’s only Matthew that records this statement, and ultimately, we hear from the Apostle Paul that the early church settled on paying certain members of the community for their service, ‘cause having dedicated pastors and youth pastors is a good thing. I think.
There’s a deeper point here, though. This passage speaks to the way we give. It speaks to the way we serve. And it speaks what we should expect to receive in return. Church...that place where we live and proclaim the Kingdom of God...can’t show the kind of hospitality that comes when you’re looking for something in return.
Yeah, church members want their church to grow. But when you invite that person to come to church, or you set up a new program to give respite care to moms with toddlers...what’s the expectation? When you welcome that new person into the church, and follow up with them...are you expecting anything in return?
It’s the real challenge as you try to build a church. Are you interested in sharing the goodness of the Kingdom message with that new person? Or somewhere, right under the surface, are you looking at all those empty pews and hoping that this person will help fill them? If that hunger for growth and church success starts becoming the reason you’re reaching out to others, are you really showing hospitality? Are you really seeking to give without thought of gain?
All the programs, all the events, all of the activities and outreach strategies and plans...none of those things are real unless they are undertaken from a heart filled with excitement about the possibilities of the church or the movement or the Gospel.
Hospitality...real Christian hospitality...can’t be bought, or rented, or given on credit. It needs to be given free of charge.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Charge To The Congregation
Installation of Rev. Lisa Rzepka
John Calvin Presbyterian Church
06.01.08; Rev. David Williams
Romans 10:13-15 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
--------------------------
A few years ago, I wandered through those doors back there as a stranger. I needed to intern somewhere to meet one of those pesky seminary requirements. My friends were getting churches five zip codes away, but I had two very young kids, and didn’t relish the thought of having to spend more time away from them. I thought to myself, there’s a church right across the street. Maybe if I asked really nicely, they’d be willing to take me on. So after a very pleasant worship, I sidled up to Bruce after the service, and asked. He immediately said, sure, and we launched into a talk about all the different things I might be able to do here. On my way home, I thought to myself, “Wow. What a great church.”
For two years, I got to know you folks. You endured my first efforts at preaching with both grace and encouragement, which..if you’ve listened to many seminarians preach...is really saying something. I had the privilege of leading a cadre of your kids through confirmation class, and was amazed at their creativity and intelligence. I got to lead Bible studies, and found folks to be open-minded and accepting and thoughtful. I listened with pleasure to the choir and the musical gifts of the members. I saw the commitment of folks in the church to justice and to the community. As I left seminary, and moved on into the ministry, I left this place thinking, “Man, what a great church.”
Now, Lisa has responded to God’s call to serve here with you and you begin this new phase of your journey together. As that new period begins, there are two questions you need to answer.
First, do you realize that this is a great church? Yeah, you don’t have three thousand four hundred forty three point five members. You don’t have eighteen paid pastors on staff. You don’t have four choirs and a praise team and a forty member Christian maraca ministry. You do not have a Hi Def Jumbotron Screen, upon which you can see every pore and follicle on the face of the liturgist of the day. You lack those little trolleys to take people to and from their cars across your hundred acre expanse of asphalt-covered former farmland. But American Christianity now has plenty of those churches, thank you very much. Some of those churches are great, but none of those characteristics have anything to do with being a great church.
What makes for a great church, an unusually great church, is warmth. It’s openness of heart and mind. It’s kindness. It’s thoughtfulness. It’s graciousness. It’s a community in which people are accepting of difference, and where they show Christ’s love in everything they do. You guys have that here at John Calvin. I knew it the whole time I interned here. But do you realize it? Sometimes it didn’t seem that you saw that in yourselves.
Second, and this is where that little snippet of a quote from the Apostle Paul comes in, do you realize you have to actually TELL other people that this is a great church? By that, I don’t mean that you have to go on a monomaniacal prosthelytising spree, in which you whip out your prescripted Jesus sales pitch every time you see one of your neighbors. That’s not very you.
No, what each of you needs to do is be aware of the ways you manifest Christ’s grace here. Be aware of all of the good things that happen at John Calvin. Be aware of the music. Be aware of the outreach to ACCA. Be aware of the love and care that goes in to teaching the kids here. Most importantly, be aware that out there is a world full of people looking for a place where they can be accepted, a place where they can find meaning and support, a place where they can put the gifts that God’s given them to use, a place just like this. But how are they going to hear unless you tell them?
As you and Lisa move forward together, as you listen to one another and learn from one another, she’s going to have a big part to play in telling the world about everything JCPC is and will become as you share your journey. Let hope and openness to the new things God is working here guide you. But always remember that God’s calling isn’t just about one person. It’s about a whole church.
So don’t be shy. Be called.
The feet that will bring the good news of John Calvin Presbyterian Church to the world belong to all of you. AMEN
John Calvin Presbyterian Church
06.01.08; Rev. David Williams
Romans 10:13-15 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
--------------------------
A few years ago, I wandered through those doors back there as a stranger. I needed to intern somewhere to meet one of those pesky seminary requirements. My friends were getting churches five zip codes away, but I had two very young kids, and didn’t relish the thought of having to spend more time away from them. I thought to myself, there’s a church right across the street. Maybe if I asked really nicely, they’d be willing to take me on. So after a very pleasant worship, I sidled up to Bruce after the service, and asked. He immediately said, sure, and we launched into a talk about all the different things I might be able to do here. On my way home, I thought to myself, “Wow. What a great church.”
For two years, I got to know you folks. You endured my first efforts at preaching with both grace and encouragement, which..if you’ve listened to many seminarians preach...is really saying something. I had the privilege of leading a cadre of your kids through confirmation class, and was amazed at their creativity and intelligence. I got to lead Bible studies, and found folks to be open-minded and accepting and thoughtful. I listened with pleasure to the choir and the musical gifts of the members. I saw the commitment of folks in the church to justice and to the community. As I left seminary, and moved on into the ministry, I left this place thinking, “Man, what a great church.”
Now, Lisa has responded to God’s call to serve here with you and you begin this new phase of your journey together. As that new period begins, there are two questions you need to answer.
First, do you realize that this is a great church? Yeah, you don’t have three thousand four hundred forty three point five members. You don’t have eighteen paid pastors on staff. You don’t have four choirs and a praise team and a forty member Christian maraca ministry. You do not have a Hi Def Jumbotron Screen, upon which you can see every pore and follicle on the face of the liturgist of the day. You lack those little trolleys to take people to and from their cars across your hundred acre expanse of asphalt-covered former farmland. But American Christianity now has plenty of those churches, thank you very much. Some of those churches are great, but none of those characteristics have anything to do with being a great church.
What makes for a great church, an unusually great church, is warmth. It’s openness of heart and mind. It’s kindness. It’s thoughtfulness. It’s graciousness. It’s a community in which people are accepting of difference, and where they show Christ’s love in everything they do. You guys have that here at John Calvin. I knew it the whole time I interned here. But do you realize it? Sometimes it didn’t seem that you saw that in yourselves.
Second, and this is where that little snippet of a quote from the Apostle Paul comes in, do you realize you have to actually TELL other people that this is a great church? By that, I don’t mean that you have to go on a monomaniacal prosthelytising spree, in which you whip out your prescripted Jesus sales pitch every time you see one of your neighbors. That’s not very you.
No, what each of you needs to do is be aware of the ways you manifest Christ’s grace here. Be aware of all of the good things that happen at John Calvin. Be aware of the music. Be aware of the outreach to ACCA. Be aware of the love and care that goes in to teaching the kids here. Most importantly, be aware that out there is a world full of people looking for a place where they can be accepted, a place where they can find meaning and support, a place where they can put the gifts that God’s given them to use, a place just like this. But how are they going to hear unless you tell them?
As you and Lisa move forward together, as you listen to one another and learn from one another, she’s going to have a big part to play in telling the world about everything JCPC is and will become as you share your journey. Let hope and openness to the new things God is working here guide you. But always remember that God’s calling isn’t just about one person. It’s about a whole church.
So don’t be shy. Be called.
The feet that will bring the good news of John Calvin Presbyterian Church to the world belong to all of you. AMEN
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Deeds of Power
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
06.01.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 7:21-29
How do you know you have power? There are powerful people out there, but how do you know they’re powerful?
Here’s how I think most of us determine the answer to that. We look for things that are easy to see. How much influence does the person have? Is this someone who can get things done? Then they’re powerful. How do we human beings get things done? Well, everything we do in our lives as human beings can sorta kinda be split out into two categories of power. There’s social and political power, and then there’s economic power.
Social and political power has to do with how we relate to one another. In a little group, it’s who has the most influence, and who has the least influence. Hey! Go get me a cup of coffee! Hey! Clean up! Hey! My car needs polishing! If you’ve got influence for whatever reason, be it force of personality or seniority or “hott-ness” or an unusually stylish haircut, folks will respond.
If you don’t have influence...well...you may as well just be talking to yourself. In a big group, the politics seem more complicated, but they’re much the same. The networks of social influence all revolve around who you know, and how much pull you have with them, and how useful you are to them. In that way, we’re not that far off from bands of chimpanzees. So that guy can get you a great job with benefits? How, in the infinite vastness of God’s creation, is that much different from the alpha female who teaches you how to fish tasty termites out of a hole with a stick?
Economic power is another way human beings relate to one another. Unlike lower forms of life, we use money to get things, and money is just a way of representing our power to get what we want. It would mean, in chimp terms, that instead of having to spend an hour a day picking bugs from the back of the mistress of termite stick fishing and grooming her hair, you can just give her a pretty rock. For human beings, that means that you can give that guy cash for fixing your roof, or for a car, or to groom your hair. Wealth means influence.
Influence means being able to get done what you want done. And being able to get done what you want done is power.
That is the baseline standard...of worldly power. In Matthew’s Gospel today, we hear how Jesus wrapped up the Sermon on the Mount, which stands as the highest and most significant of all of Christ’s teachings. Throughout the sermon, he makes a point of consistently challenging the way his listeners thought about the world. Throughout his teaching, he constantly told all who heard him that what mattered most was how we responded to the knowledge that God’s kingdom was at hand. He reminded his disciples and the crowds that gathered to listen that what mattered was that perfect fusion of faith and action. That means going above and beyond the demands of the law, and living a life loving ones enemies, being humble, and refusing to be hypocritical or judgmental.
Here at the end of the sermon, though, Jesus looks beyond the moment during which he speaks, looks past the dust and the throng and the smell of that sun-baked Judean hillside. He sees the future of what will rise up in response to His Gospel, and he lays out a warning.
There will be people, Jesus says, who will come in my name. They will use my name as they shout out their own judgments about the future. They will do some things that will amaze you. They will do great deeds of power. But none of that will matter. None of that means a thing to God. He then tells a little story, a familiar parable, about two men who build. One builds on a rock, rooting his actions in the Gospel. A storm comes, and what he has built endures. Another builds...on something else. But that other thing is not a sure foundation, and his work is torn apart in the storm.
Jesus is here warning all of us about our tendency to confuse worldly power with the Gospel message. It’s easy for us to look at social power, or look at the power that comes with a six-figure credit limit, and imagine that this is somehow reflective of the kind of power that God shows us in Jesus.
There’s a movement in Christianity now that presents just such a message. It’s called the Word Faith movement. It’s an offshoot of the Pentecostal church, it’s growing like wildfire in America, and it’s got it’s own very special way of looking at the Gospel. Some folks call it the Prosperity Gospel, mostly because Word Faith churches talk endlessly about getting money. Their members tend to think that pastors should fly around in corporate jets and live in 10,000 square foot mansions. You’ve heard me preach on that part of the movement before, usually right around the time y’all have to start thinking about my salary for the next year. Ahem.
But underneath Word Faith’s teaching about making sure your pastor’s 2009 Audi R8 has the new optional $5,000 full LED headlights, there’s something more troubling about Word Faith. There’s this basic idea, you see, that if you have real faith, God will do whatever you want. Just ask, and ye shall receive, they say. God in heaven gives gifts to those who ask him, so if you’re really faithful, you’ll get whatever you want. You want to prosper? Just ask. You want to get a better job? Just have faith. You want to get ahead in the world? Seek, and ye shall find.
Word Faith basically claims that the Bible teaches that God has to obey the faithful. If you ask, God will give. If you are truly faithful, if you truly believe, then God must do whatever you ask. Having faith becomes sorta like owning the lamp with the genie inside, although Word Faith makes no mention of whether or not God is voiced by Robin Williams.
Of all the many problems with thinking that way, the greatest comes when you actually get past all your daydreams about God finally getting you all the wealth you’re sure will make you happy. Because if having faith means having your dreams all come true, then if you suffer...it must be because you just don’t have enough faith.
If you pray and you pray and you pray over someone you love...and they die anyway...it must mean you don’t have enough faith. If you pray and hope over someone who just can’t seem to get their lives together...and they never do...it must mean you don’t have enough faith. If you try your hardest to do what’s right, and that relationship just comes apart anyway, it must mean you didn’t have enough faith. If you put in long hours at work, and do your best, and don’t get ahead...it must mean you didn’t have enough faith. Just believe a little harder, they say. Just pull yourself up by your Jesus bootstraps, they say.
But faith doesn’t work like that. It’s not measured in the same way as worldly power. It’s not social. It’s not economic. It’s not a question of being able to do whatever you want, and impressing people with your power. That kind of power is a house built on sand. No matter how much of it you have...it will fail when the storm comes.
Seek other things.
06.01.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 7:21-29
How do you know you have power? There are powerful people out there, but how do you know they’re powerful?
Here’s how I think most of us determine the answer to that. We look for things that are easy to see. How much influence does the person have? Is this someone who can get things done? Then they’re powerful. How do we human beings get things done? Well, everything we do in our lives as human beings can sorta kinda be split out into two categories of power. There’s social and political power, and then there’s economic power.
Social and political power has to do with how we relate to one another. In a little group, it’s who has the most influence, and who has the least influence. Hey! Go get me a cup of coffee! Hey! Clean up! Hey! My car needs polishing! If you’ve got influence for whatever reason, be it force of personality or seniority or “hott-ness” or an unusually stylish haircut, folks will respond.
If you don’t have influence...well...you may as well just be talking to yourself. In a big group, the politics seem more complicated, but they’re much the same. The networks of social influence all revolve around who you know, and how much pull you have with them, and how useful you are to them. In that way, we’re not that far off from bands of chimpanzees. So that guy can get you a great job with benefits? How, in the infinite vastness of God’s creation, is that much different from the alpha female who teaches you how to fish tasty termites out of a hole with a stick?
Economic power is another way human beings relate to one another. Unlike lower forms of life, we use money to get things, and money is just a way of representing our power to get what we want. It would mean, in chimp terms, that instead of having to spend an hour a day picking bugs from the back of the mistress of termite stick fishing and grooming her hair, you can just give her a pretty rock. For human beings, that means that you can give that guy cash for fixing your roof, or for a car, or to groom your hair. Wealth means influence.
Influence means being able to get done what you want done. And being able to get done what you want done is power.
That is the baseline standard...of worldly power. In Matthew’s Gospel today, we hear how Jesus wrapped up the Sermon on the Mount, which stands as the highest and most significant of all of Christ’s teachings. Throughout the sermon, he makes a point of consistently challenging the way his listeners thought about the world. Throughout his teaching, he constantly told all who heard him that what mattered most was how we responded to the knowledge that God’s kingdom was at hand. He reminded his disciples and the crowds that gathered to listen that what mattered was that perfect fusion of faith and action. That means going above and beyond the demands of the law, and living a life loving ones enemies, being humble, and refusing to be hypocritical or judgmental.
Here at the end of the sermon, though, Jesus looks beyond the moment during which he speaks, looks past the dust and the throng and the smell of that sun-baked Judean hillside. He sees the future of what will rise up in response to His Gospel, and he lays out a warning.
There will be people, Jesus says, who will come in my name. They will use my name as they shout out their own judgments about the future. They will do some things that will amaze you. They will do great deeds of power. But none of that will matter. None of that means a thing to God. He then tells a little story, a familiar parable, about two men who build. One builds on a rock, rooting his actions in the Gospel. A storm comes, and what he has built endures. Another builds...on something else. But that other thing is not a sure foundation, and his work is torn apart in the storm.
Jesus is here warning all of us about our tendency to confuse worldly power with the Gospel message. It’s easy for us to look at social power, or look at the power that comes with a six-figure credit limit, and imagine that this is somehow reflective of the kind of power that God shows us in Jesus.
There’s a movement in Christianity now that presents just such a message. It’s called the Word Faith movement. It’s an offshoot of the Pentecostal church, it’s growing like wildfire in America, and it’s got it’s own very special way of looking at the Gospel. Some folks call it the Prosperity Gospel, mostly because Word Faith churches talk endlessly about getting money. Their members tend to think that pastors should fly around in corporate jets and live in 10,000 square foot mansions. You’ve heard me preach on that part of the movement before, usually right around the time y’all have to start thinking about my salary for the next year. Ahem.
But underneath Word Faith’s teaching about making sure your pastor’s 2009 Audi R8 has the new optional $5,000 full LED headlights, there’s something more troubling about Word Faith. There’s this basic idea, you see, that if you have real faith, God will do whatever you want. Just ask, and ye shall receive, they say. God in heaven gives gifts to those who ask him, so if you’re really faithful, you’ll get whatever you want. You want to prosper? Just ask. You want to get a better job? Just have faith. You want to get ahead in the world? Seek, and ye shall find.
Word Faith basically claims that the Bible teaches that God has to obey the faithful. If you ask, God will give. If you are truly faithful, if you truly believe, then God must do whatever you ask. Having faith becomes sorta like owning the lamp with the genie inside, although Word Faith makes no mention of whether or not God is voiced by Robin Williams.
Of all the many problems with thinking that way, the greatest comes when you actually get past all your daydreams about God finally getting you all the wealth you’re sure will make you happy. Because if having faith means having your dreams all come true, then if you suffer...it must be because you just don’t have enough faith.
If you pray and you pray and you pray over someone you love...and they die anyway...it must mean you don’t have enough faith. If you pray and hope over someone who just can’t seem to get their lives together...and they never do...it must mean you don’t have enough faith. If you try your hardest to do what’s right, and that relationship just comes apart anyway, it must mean you didn’t have enough faith. If you put in long hours at work, and do your best, and don’t get ahead...it must mean you didn’t have enough faith. Just believe a little harder, they say. Just pull yourself up by your Jesus bootstraps, they say.
But faith doesn’t work like that. It’s not measured in the same way as worldly power. It’s not social. It’s not economic. It’s not a question of being able to do whatever you want, and impressing people with your power. That kind of power is a house built on sand. No matter how much of it you have...it will fail when the storm comes.
Seek other things.
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