01.31.07
There’s Nothing We Can Do
I wrote this for the church newsletter in February of 2002 as we prepared for Lent. I hope you enjoy it.
There’s no feeling like waiting for the phone to ring, knowing it’s probably going to be news that a loved one has died. I’ve waited for that call most of February. My step-grandfather, Les, has been in the hospital with serious heart problems, and doctors have spoken that heartbreaking phrase: “There’s nothing we can do.”
Les is a great guy, one of the sweetest and most humble people I know. When we have dinner at their house, he is always pushing food on us (“C’mon, Kory, don’t you want more mashed potatoes?”) and his generosity is inspiring. Although he and my grandmother have only been married about a decade, we’ve all adopted him as our grandfather. But he’s also in his upper 80s, and his health has been slowly going downhill for years. So he and my grandmother have been suffering through the agonizing wait for Les’ death.
Except, Les’s body hasn’t cooperated. Every time it looks like the end is near, something happens inside him, and he bounces back. I’ve been told three times now over the last few years that “This is it,” only to hear a day later that he’s feeling better. This time, I thought for sure his life was ending. Doctors said he definitely wouldn’t leave the hospital. He was released yesterday. What a feeling he must have, to be released after being given a death sentence.
When you think about it, we’ve all been given a death sentence. Our mortality assures us that at some point, our bodies will give out and we will no longer be alive. The season of Lent is a powerful reminder of that. The stark reality is that from dust we have come, and to dust we shall return.
In the midst of our mortality, someone has signed our release form. Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that we would be released from mortality and given eternal life in God’s kingdom. With his broken body and shed blood, Jesus has nullified the phrase, “There’s nothing we can do.” Because it’s already been done. Jesus has conquered death for us, so that our death will not be the end. In this season of Lent, as I wait for a phone call, I thank God for the gift of Les’ life, and for the gift of Jesus Christ.
Les died in August of 2002, and I was honored to do his funeral service.
01.29.07
Christianity’s Dirty Words – “Sin”
Here’s this past Sunday’s sermon as we try to reclaim the biblical meaning of “sin.” I look forward to your comments!
SCRIPTURE – Romans 3:21-24
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
I John 1:8-2:2
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
SERMON
Christianity’s Dirty Words
#4 – Sin
Jan. 28, 2007
The whole impetus for this sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words” was a conversation I had with a congregation member about the word “sin.” I had just preached a sermon on the concept of sin and salvation, going into great detail to explain the biblical understanding of sin and our need to be saved from it. It wasn’t quite fire and brimstone, but I thought it got the job done with a minimal amount of squirming.
So imagine my surprise when, during Coffee Hour, I was accosted by this church member who said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t even listen to your sermon.” Now, I hear that often enough to not be too shocked, but the vitriol with which she shared her statement startled me.
She said, “As soon as you said the word ‘sin,’ I just stopped listening. I was beaten over the head with that word so much growing up that I just can’t hear it anymore. When I hear it I get very angry, and you said that word 67 times.” At which point she kicked me in the shin and stole my Bible.
Her perspective got me thinking about how biblical words had been co-opted and redefined by the culture – or even by other Christians! – and how we need to reclaim the original meanings so they can inform our faith instead of send us running. And that’s what led to this sermon series. So to the woman who tuned me out last time, please give me another chance.
The word “sin” has truly become a bad word, hasn’t it? The word is pervasive in the Bible appearing over 400 times. In the book of Romans alone, Paul uses the word 77 times. Understanding the concept of sin is fundamental to understanding what it means to be a Christian. If that’s the case, why did this woman, and many, many other people like her, get so turned off by this word? When I told someone about this sermon series, she looked at me and said, “You’re going to preach on SIN?” Why do people react so strongly to this word that’s so fundamental to our vocabulary of faith?
That’s a simple question with a very complex answer. To get to the bottom of it, we need to first see how our culture at large uses the word “sin.” That’s easy enough: it doesn’t. The word “sin” isn’t a part of our larger vocabulary. How often do you hear, “I went to the grocery, stop by the post office, sinned for awhile, then cooked dinner”? In fact, the only time I see it anymore is on the dessert menu: “Sinfully Rich Chocolate Cake.” It’s used to described a guilty pleasure, something you know you shouldn’t have, but you really want. For the most part, the word “sin” is still spoken only in the realm of faith.
But the way it is there spoken is problematic. “Sin” is a word that doesn’t need to be rescued from the culture, but from the church itself. As the woman in the earlier story pointed out to me, some churches and pastors have used to word as a weapon to beat people down into submission. Because the word “sin” has been used in such extreme ways, we’ve come to associate “sin” with only the worst of behaviors like murder and sexual perversion. Webster’s defines “sin” as “any reprehensible or regrettable action or behavior; great fault or offense.” We’d never do anything like that, would we?
Of course not, at least not that we’d admit, so we’ve trivialized the word “sin” and found more palatable alternatives to it. I was once told by a minister who was reading over one of my sermons that I shouldn’t use the word “sinfulness” because it was too negative. She suggested I used “brokenness” or “shortcomings.” That’s like the doctor who told me he didn’t like to tell family members that a loved one had died; instead, he told them they had “transitioned.” But Paul doesn’t say that all suffer from brokenness and have fallen short of the glory of God; he says all have sinned.
The reality that Paul puts forth is that everyone sins, but because that word has come to mean something depraved and grossly immoral, we do our best to distance ourselves from the word. We’ll go to great lengths to deny the presence of sin in our lives. We call our sins mistakes or imperfections; we will rationalize them by saying, “I’m only human” or “The devil made me do it.” These are ways of avoiding facing the reality of the issue and speaking that dirty “s” word. It’s too frightening to think about. It’s too embarrassing. No one wants to be lumped into the same category as real sinners.
If that happened, if we admitted our sinful nature, people might find out that we’re not the good person everyone thinks we are. Our reputation would be ruined. We’d be kicked out of church, our picture would go up in the post office, people would talk about us in hushed tones: “Remember Kory? Oh, yeah, can you believe it? I thought he was such a nice guy! Who would have guessed that he was really a sinner!”
That’s sounds terrible to say, doesn’t it? Would you ever think of calling someone a sinner? It sounds so judgmental, doesn’t it? That’s where the accepted cultural definition of the word “sin” begins to break down. It’s been given a negative connotation when, in the Bible, it’s spoken of in much different terms.
In the Bible, to be called a sinner was not a judgment; it was simply a factual statement, and assertion about the reality of our human nature and our broken relationship with God. To be a sinner does not necessarily mean you are hypocritical, disgusting or evil. Some of the nicest people I know are sinners, and most of them are sitting in this room right now!
What we need to do is to stop seeing sin as only the most egregious and repulsive acts, and redefine it so that we can all see our culpability. Yes, we are all sinners. I don’t say that to make you feel bad or beat you down; I simply say it because it’s true, and if we are to understand God’s grace and the power of what Christ did for us on the cross, we first have to acknowledge our separation from God and our need for a Savior.
But we are reluctant to do that because we don’t want to think of ourselves as anything other than good people doing our best to live a faithful life. We are hesitant to accept the fact that, no matter how good we are, we still sin. We’re like Charlie Brown when Lucy says to him, “You know what the trouble with you is?” Charlie Brown responds, “No, and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!” and he storms off. Lucy pauses and says, “The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen about what the whole trouble with you is!”
Part of the reason we resist seeing our sinful nature is that we’ve let sin be defined too narrowly. We think of sinning as doing something terribly wrong, and for the most part we haven’t done anything terribly wrong. But there is more than one type of sin. There are sins of commission, which are doing things we shouldn’t do. But there are also sins of omission, which means not doing something we should do.
To many people misrepresent Christianity as a religion full of “thou shalt nots,” and the belief is if you do good and treat people well and say “Please” and “Thank you” and come to church every once in awhile, you’ll go to Heaven. But as I read the Bible, there are a lot more “Thou shalts” than “Thou shalt nots.” James says in his letter, “Anyone who knows the good he ought to do, and doesn’t do it, sins.” Part of accepting our sinfulness is not only admitting what we’ve done, but what we’ve left undone.
So when we redefine “sin,” we have to do so in a way that encompasses all the different forms of sin, because the Bible doesn’t make a distinction between types of sin. That’s hard for some of us to accept. There’s no list in the Bible that says murder is a really big sin but telling a lie is only a little sin. In God’s eyes, they are all sins, and no sin is more or less sinful than any others. Our human laws make these kinds of distinctions, which is good and necessary, but God doesn’t. The Bible doesn’t focus on how we’ve sinned, but that we have sinned, and that we cannot escape our sinful nature by ourselves. We need God’s help.
So, how do we redefine “sin”? I came across numerous definitions this week. But as I read and prayed and talked to people, the definition I heard that I believe fits the biblical understanding of sin most closely is this: Sin is a waste. Sin is when we take what God has given us and we fail to use it to bring glory to God. We waste it. We waste our talents, we waste our bodies, we waste our resources. God has given us all these things to use for His glory and His kingdom, and when we choose to use them selfishly, to fulfill our own desires, we waste them. We sin against God.
But God loves us so much that He did something radical to help us break the inertia of sin in our lives: He sent us His son, Jesus. We’ll talk next week about the word “salvation” and how we can redefine it. But for now, if there’s only one thing you remember about this sermon, I hope it’s this: God loves you very much. God’s not waiting for you to screw up so he can strike you with a lightning bolt. Sin is not something to be punished, but something to be healed. Paul says in Romans, “For the wages of sin is transitioning…er…death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Instead of denying our sin, we are called to acknowledge it, then turn to the only One who has the power to forgive us, to make us new, the One who came so that we would know, not death, but know life, and know it abundantly.
QUESTIONS
1 – How do you react when you hear the word “sin”?
2 – I defined “sin” as “a waste of what God has given us.” How would you define sin?
3 – Would you say you are more guilty of sins of comission or sins of omission?
Have a great week!
01.26.07
Strengthening the Body
As with many of you, in the past I’ve suffered from back problems. When it it flares up (which thankfully hasn’t been for awhile!), I pay a visit to my chiropractor, Dr. Steve. He and I have determined a combination of poor posture and lack of lower back support usually contribute to my hunched-backedness. The remedy has been to stretch it, ice it, and walk it out. When I do that, I leave the world of Neanderthal Man and am able to stand up straight like a normal human being.
As I talked with Dr. Steve about what kind of things I can do to prevent such episodes, he said that one of the things I need to do is to strengthen my stomach muscles. Stomach muscles? Whoa, Doc, you’ve got the wrong side of my body! The only problem with my stomach is its tendency to grow outward after too many KFC Honey BBQ Wings.
Dr. Steve explained that the strength of the stomach muscles, as well as the flexibility of the hamstrings, plays a significant role in the functioning of the back. The stronger the stomach and legs, the less strain is put on the back. That makes sense, and is a reminder of how interconnected our bodies are, and how each part relies on so many other parts for proper functioning.
It’s the same way with our church. All of its “parts” are made stronger by the strength of the other parts. For our Christian Education to be strong, we must have faithful stewardship. For our fellowship events to be well-attended, we need to efforts of the Membership Development and Public Relations committees to help us grow and thrive.
I could have cited any number of examples of how the church works together; these are simply two of them. What this says to me is that time and talents each of us give to the church is essential to the church’s livelihood. It may be easy to forget that in the midst of long meetings or cleaning up after an event. But don’t take that effort for granted. Everything you do is important not only for direct reasons, but also for the overall contribution you make to the life of this church.
Tim and I are constantly working with you to enhance every aspect of our church family and its life together. Our hope, and hopefully yours, too, is that by strengthen individual areas within the church, we will help build a community of faith that will be standing tall for years to come.
01.24.07
Thoughts on “24″
We’re now 5 hours into the new season of “24.” Once again, let me state as a disclaimer that I am ashamed at how addicted I am to this show. I usually pride myself on the fact that TV holds no sway over me. But I’m hopelessly hooked on “24,” and would definitely not object to having a son named Jack Bauer Wilcoxson. All that being said, here are some random thoughts on the new season…
The first four hours were much slower than last year (nuclear bomb notwithstanding). It seems as if the writers are creating more of an atmosphere this year, and that’s taken some time here in the beginning. This year’s start has been more of a slow burn compared to last year’s flash bang (I still miss David Palmer).
I had trouble getting into the show this year because I recognized so many of the new faces from other shows or movies: Kal Penn (“Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle“), Michael Angarano (“Sky High“) and especially Peter MacNicol (who, to me, will always be the museum stoolie from “Ghostbusters 2“). It was hard for me to see them as their characters on “24,” but now that Penn and Angarano are out of the picture, it should be easier (although I’ve noticed that MacNicol’s Southern accent fades in and out quite frequently). We’ll see how I handle it when the farmer from “Babe” (James Cromwell) shows up as Jack’s father.
As much as the shooting of Curtis shocked me, it seemed very out of character for Curtis to act that way. He’s always been incredibly loyal and a straight shooter, so for him to break protocol (even for such a compelling reason) bothered me. It’s as if the writers had to think of a reason to off an important character just to maintain the shock factor. Unlike Edgar’s death, which fit into the storyline, this one seemed contrived.
Speaking of contrived, I’m not even close to buying the fact that Graham (the Blue Tooth bad guy from last season) is Jack’s brother. That feels very manipulated to me. The writers are going to have to spend a LOT of time on the family backstory to make me believe this connection. Maybe Jack’s father is the missing piece that explains it. And is Jack’s father in cohoots with the bad guys?
I’m having trouble buying Wayne Palmer as president. Gregory Itzin did such a fabulous job last year that anyone following him was in for a challenge. Wayne Palmer was a great sidekick to his brother David, but he doesn’t seem like presidential material to me. There was an interesting article on this in Sunday’s Tribune. You can read it here.
Obviously, there’s still a bad guy pulling Fayed’s strings. My early candidate is Assad. Yes, he’s supposed to be working for peace, but it would be just like the writers to take a character they work hard to make look good, and then turn him bad. The writers have a knack for making the most convincing characters do a switch (Nina Myers, Pres. Logan).
My vote for favorite couple so far? Wayne Palmer’s sister and that snippy FBI agent. Worst couple? Chloe’s ex-husband and Milo.
So, what do you think?
01.22.07
This Week’s Sermon – Redefining “Obedience”
Hi everyone! We’re continuing the sermon series called “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” where we look at some of the less attractive words in the vocabulary of faith and try to recapture their biblical meaning. This week’s word is “obedience.” I look forward to your comments!
SCRIPTURE
Deuteronomy 6:1-3
1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.
Matthew 5:17-20
17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
SERMON
Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #3 – Obedience
Jan. 21, 2007
I heard the story once about a professor who was leading a seminar on Christian counseling. In a room full of Christians in the pastoral care field, he wrote this on a flipchart: “I can’t do anything by myself. I can only do what my dad tells me to do.” He then asked the folks in the room to analyze the man who said this.
The professor got the expected responses: “This person obviously has no willpower.” “He needs to grow a spine and get a life.” “I bet he still lives at home.” “He needs to get out from under his dad’s shadow and become his own person.” Then the professor revealed the identity of the man: It was Jesus who said this in John 5:19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
The responses to Jesus’ words is typical for how today’s society views the issues of independence and individuality. In our sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” we’ve been looking at words from our vocabulary of faith that have been redefined in negative ways by the larger culture. Today we’ll look at the word “obedience.”
The first thing I think of when I hear that word is a dog obedience school, a place where we send a pet so they can learn to behave correctly and become socially acceptable. If that’s the justification for sending our pets there, I think a case could be made for a human obedience school, where people are sent to learn to behave correctly and become socially acceptable. In fact, we all probably know some people for whom we’d gladly pay their tuition if they would enroll.
But we balk at the idea of this concept for one very simple, very human reason: we don’t like anyone telling us what to do, and for us, obedience has come to mean “doing what someone tells us to do.” And that goes against the very essence of what it means to be an American. Our country was founded specifically because someone tried to tell us what to do. I saw a sign from the Colonial era in an antique store once, and the sign read, “We will have no King to rule over us!” In England, we were used to having a king and calling someone “Your Lordship.” When we got to America, when we got on our own turf, we bucked that oppressive trend. No one is going to tell us what to do!
That independent spirit didn’t start in the Colonies. It started a little further back, with a couple of people named Adam and Eve. God blessed the first couple with this idyllic paradise called Eden. It was full of beautiful plants and wonderful animals and all kinds of food-bearing plants and trees. And God said to them there was only one condition: They could not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eat anything else you want, but don’t eat from that tree. And Adam and Eve said, “You can’t tell us what to do!”
From that point on, disobedience and rebellion have been woven into our DNA. Anyone who has a teenager can attest to this. When I was a teenager, my mom married my stepfather. Up to that point, because my mom had been a single parent, I had a lot of freedom about what I did, how late I stayed up, and things like that. My new stepfather was a Captain in the Army, and his approach to parenting was a little different. Structure. Order. Discipline. Chores.
From that point on, I went out of my way to disobey him, simply because I didn’t like being told what to do. One of my chores was to walk our dog right after school each day. To monitor whether I did this or not, my stepfather would check the leash each day to see if it had been moved in the drawer. So when I got home from school, I would take the leash, shake it a few times, and then put it back. I didn’t care that my poor dog was walking around with his legs crossed; I was determined to show my stepfather that he couldn’t tell me what to do.
Webster’s defines “obey” as “to comply with or be submissive to authority.” There’s a definition crying to be disliked. Submission? Authority? Those words are definite turn-offs in our culture that places value on individuality and nonconformity. “Obedience” has become a word that implies weakness, oppression, subservience. There’s a reason that wedding vows no longer ask for the couple to love, honor and obey each other. Obedience is a bad thing.
That’s why we bristle when the Bible talks about obedience. Scripture calls us to submit to the ultimate authority, but because it’s out of fashion to do that in every other part of our lives, we have great difficulty doing so in our faith. If Adam and Eve, living in the Garden of Eden, can’t even toe the line, how are we supposed to be obedient in this modern day and age that encourage us to “seize the day” and question authority?
What we need to do is to recapture what the Bible means by “obedience,” especially in relationship to our faith. When you couple the word “obedience” with church, the first thing we probably think of are restrictions: no dancing, no drinking, no playing cards, no R-rated movies, no smiling, no having fun. Who wants to live a life filled with all those restrictions? So we rebel against what we perceive to be the tyrannical and joyless aspects of an obedient faith.
But a closer reading of Scripture shows us that the Bible doesn’t define “obedience” as restriction, but as freedom. That may sound peculiar since we’ve been taught to believe that obeying means giving up your freedom. But obeying God actually gives us freedom. Freedom from something is in turn freedom for something else.
We think we can be independent from God, and that this independence brings us freedom. Actually, it’s obedience that brings freedom, because it frees us up from trying to figure it all out ourselves. The opposite of obedience is selfishness. When we rebel against God, when we say to God, “You can’t tell me what to do!” we leave ourselves to our own devices. We put our desires above anyone else’s. We claim that we don’t need God because we’ve got it all figured out. And when life is going well, it probably feels that way. But the reality of life is that we will always be someone’s or something’s servant. Bob Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
God calls each of us to obedience, but not because we are being punished or because God wants to show us who’s boss. Listen again to Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.” In other words, when deciding whether to obey God or your own selfish desires, keep in mind which one of you has a better chance of knowing what’s going on. Creation obeys the Creator, not the other way around. God gave the Israelites the law so that they would know what God wanted to them to do, and by doing so they would be blessed. Christ came as the fulfillment of the law, so by following Christ we honor God and keep his commands, commands meant to give us life in abundance. John writes, “The world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever.”
It may not always feel that way to us, which is why we need a redefinition and reminder. Remember “Karate Kid”? After getting beat up a few times, Daniel tells Mr. Miagi that he wants to learn karate. Miagi reluctantly agrees to teach Daniel-son, and has Daniel come to his house for the first lesson. Do you remember what that first lesson was? “Wax the cars.” Wax on, wax off. The next lesson? Daniel had to sand Miagi’s huge deck. Then paint his fence. Then paint the house! Daniel-son finally throws a fit and is ready to quit, because while he’s given Mr. Miagi’s property an extreme makeover, he hasn’t learn how to do one good karate chop.
Just as Daniel-son is about to throw down his brush and walk away, Mr. Miagi says, “Show me wax on, wax off.” As Daniel demonstrates these motions he’s learned while painting and waxing and sanding, Miagi shows him that he’s been learning to protect himself from an attack. Had he done it his way, Daniel probably would have learned how to kick and chop his way right into a knuckle sandwich. But through his and obedience of Mr. Miagi, Daniel has learned the crucial elements of self-preservation.
God does not call us to obey his commands to punish us. God is not trying to take the fun out of living. To the contrary, God is trying to make our lives joyful by unburdening us of the responsibility of getting it right by ourselves. When we submit ourselves to God, we free ourselves to live the life God has called us to live, which is infinitely better than anything we could dream up on our own. We have a king to rule over us. May his will, not ours, be done.
QUESTIONS
1 - Was there one chore you had growing up that you hated doing?
2 – What keeps you from obeying God’s commands?
3 - What’s one command from God you feel you obey well?
Have a great week, everyone!
01.16.07
This week’s sermon – “Suffering”
Hi, everyone! Here’s the second sermon in my series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” as we try to recapture the biblical meaning of words that have been redefined by the larger culture. This week’s word is “suffering.” Hope it is helpful!
SCRIPTURE – Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
SERMON
Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #2 – “Suffering”
Jan. 14, 2007
Well, I was really expecting a packed house today. I thought we might have to break out extra folding chairs. When you let people know that you’re preaching on as uplifting a topic as suffering, you’d expect they would beat down your door to hear it. “Get up, honey, that sermon on suffering is this morning!” I only hope that one of you doesn’t say to me on your way out, “You know, Kory, I never knew what suffering was like until I heard you preach today.”
“Suffering” has very much become a dirty word in the vocabulary of faith. It casts a negative shadow on the experience of believing. You know how, when you go to visit someone’s house for the first time, and they’re showing you around, there’s always that one room where the door stays shut and they say something like, “Oh, that’s just a guest bedroom” or “We use that for storage”? Actually, that room is where they threw all the junk from all the other rooms so the house would look clean. Do you have a room like that in your house?
That’s what the concept of suffering is for Christians; it’s that part of our faith that we don’t want to open up and show to others. Jesus says things like, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” And we say to our guests, “Um, have you heard the verse about love your neighbor? That’s a good one. Let’s read that one instead.”
But suffering is a key part of the Bible, especially in the New Testament, where the words “suffer” or “suffering” occur 86 times. That’s mainly because the people who were reading and hearing the New Testament when it was first being shared knew what suffering was all about. They were experiencing it on a daily basis, and it was much different than our modern definition of suffering.
First of all, we use the word “suffering” today to describe any kind of inconvenience. Webster’s defines “suffer” as “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” But that definition has been fudged a bit when we read that a basketball team suffered its first loss, or when someone says, “I had to suffer through that 3-hour movie after drinking an extra-large Diet Coke.” For us “suffering” is an appropriate description for anything that even slightly threatens our comfortable state of existence.
In fact, you could argue that we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that to suffer is an unnecessary interruption of our normal life. We’ve done our best to eliminate any form of suffering from our lives. We surround ourselves with conveniences and luxuries that minimize the amount of suffering we must endure. We buy chairs that massage and cars with heated seats and flavored coffees until “suffering” no longer has anything to do with “undergoing or feeling pain and distress.” “Suffering” becomes sitting on a cold car seat or drinking plain old black coffee or sitting in a chair that does nothing but give you a place to put your fanny. We’ve diluted the meaning of “suffering.” It no longer means “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” It now means “to do without an expected luxury or to have our sense of entitlement disrupted.”
This is a far cry from what the Bible defines as suffering. While there are many different forms suffering takes in the Bible, there’s a common thread that runs through all of them: suffering, as defined in the Bible, occurred as a result of a person’s faith. Because Christianity was an underground movement with few supporters and many detractors, believers were often persecuted for their faith in an effort to get them to renounce their faith in Christ. Suffering and persecution were the norm for believers. Peter writes, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
We have the luxury of the freedom of worship today. We define “suffering for our faith” as getting home late from church and missing kickoff. We here in America have no idea what it means to suffer for our faith. We may at times have felt awkward or uncomfortable because of our faith, but we’ve never been beaten because of our faith, never lost our homes because of our faith, never fed to the lions because of our faith.
Christians in first century understood that suffering was simply part of proclaiming Christ as their Savior. Because Christ suffered, they too expected to suffer. When Christ tells them to “take up your cross and follow me,” he is inviting them into a life of discipleship that will put them in harm’s way because of their faith. Like Jesus, his followers will be cursed, spit upon, and killed, simply because of what they believe. We are blessed to never have experienced the biblical meaning of suffering.
That is not to say we haven’t suffered. We all have, in one way or another. As spiritual writer Joyce Rupp says, “We are finite human beings living on an earth where natural disasters occur, where genetic conditions exist, where we sometimes make poor or sinful choices, where life does not always work as we had planned and hoped it would.” Not everyone suffers the same amount, but no one can go through this life without suffering.
One of the ways the word has been redefined by our culture is the exclusively negative connotation it has been given. Even though suffering is inevitable, no one wants to go through it and a lot of people are on the lookout for someone to blame. I can’t tell you how many books are out there that try to address one simple question: Why does God allow suffering? Wouldn’t life be more fulfilling if everything was easy and pain-free?
What’s happened is we’ve lost sight of the redeeming qualities of suffering. That may sound like an oxymoron, but listen again to Paul’s words: “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.” At some point, Paul says, we have to move from asking “Why?” to asking, “How?” How can God use this experience to strengthen me? How can God work through this suffering to shape my character and fill me with hope?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.” And French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “Our spiritual character is formed as much by what we endure and what is taken from us as it is by our achievements and conscious choices.” In other words, we are who we are today not in spite of our suffering, but because of it.
There was a character on “Saturday Night Live” named Stuart Smalley, a self-help coach who’s motto was, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” But the reality of life is that we’re not always good enough, we’re not always smart enough, and doggone it, not everyone is going to like us! It is through our suffering that we recognize our weakness and our need. Our suffering often brings us to our knees, which is where we are most likely to find God.
The worldly definition of suffering leads us to believe that suffering is an end in and of itself. We suffer, we endure, we move on. But the biblical understanding of suffering sees it as a means a greater end. Let’s take the story of Lazarus, for example. Jesus gets word that his good friend Lazarus is very ill. Now, Jesus had it in his power to heal Lazarus instantly, but instead Jesus waits two days before journeying to Lazarus. IN the meantime, Lazarus dies, causing much suffering for his sisters Mary and Martha.
When Jesus finally arrives, the sisters struggle to understand why Jesus didn’t come sooner and spare them this suffering. But Jesus does something even they couldn’t have imagined: he calls Lazarus out of his tomb, resurrecting him from the dead, and Mary and Martha’s sorrow is turned into great joy.
God doesn’t cause our suffering, but I believe God can work through it to bring about resurrection. As Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Through our suffering, God can bring about new life greater than we ever imagined. J.V. Cheney once said, “The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” It is our tendency to dread suffering, to run from it, to avoid it at all costs. But life is simply full of too many troubles to avoid it for very long. In the play “Shadowlands,” about the life of Christian writer C.S. Lewis, Lewis says, “We are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of the chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering in the world is not the failure of God’s love; it is that love in action.”
Roget’s Thesaurus offers an interesting insight into our understanding of suffering. Here are some of the synonyms it lists for “suffer”: to endure, undergo, put up with, go through. All of those imply movement forward, don’t they? All of them imply that suffering is not an end, that we won’t stay there forever, that God is in the midst of our suffering, working to bring about resurrection. Will we follow the world’s definition and keep asking “Why?” or will we ask “How?” and look for God at work?
QUESTIONS
1 – Have you ever experienced “suffering” because of your faith?
2 – How would you define “hope”?
3 – What keeps us from being hopeful in the midst of difficult circumstances?
Have a great week!
Kory
01.10.07
This week’s sermon – Christianity’s Dirty Words – “religious”
This week I started my new sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” in which we’ll be looking to reclaim someof our vocabulary of faith that’s been contaminated and redefined by the larger culture. This Sunday’s word was “religious.” I look forward to your comments!
SCRIPTURE – Matthew 7:15-23
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
SERMON
Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #1 – “Religious
Jan. 7, 2007
As you probably know I teach a public speaking class at CLC each semester, and in each class the students are required to give four speeches: a speech on something or someone they value, an informative speech that involves some research, a persuasive speech, and a speech that uses visual aids.
This last speech I used to call a deMONstrative speech, but several of my students made fun of me because they said I was pronouncing it wrong. They said it’s actually called a demonSTRATive speech, because they were demonstrating something. I assured them in a very gentle way they were wrong and would fail my class miserably. I told them their problem was they were putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.
I think a lot of people are guilty of putting the emPHAsis on the wrong part of a lot of our vocabulary of faith. We take a word or phrase’s biblical meaning and we distort it or focus on only one small part of it, thereby changing the meaning of the word and its relevance for us.
Let me give you an example of this that comes right from the Bible. You all have heard of Peter. Peter was a disciple and one of the closest confidantes of Jesus. Although he had his shortcomings, Peter was one of the leaders of the early Christian movement. And yet even he wasn’t immune to putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.
One day, Jesus was telling the disciples about what was going to happen to him. Jesus said that he must go to Jerusalem and suffering many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life.
Now, if you were listening to Jesus’ words, what would catch your ear? I find his whole statement very troubling and compelling, but that part of about being raised to life would jump out at me. But not for Peter. He took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying “Never Lord! We’ll never let them kill you.” Do you think Peter missed the point? It’s like going to the zoo and saying, “I can’t see the elephants because that blade of grass is in the way.” Peter put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.
Down through the centuries, biblical words and phrases have been co-opted by the surrounding culture and redefined until they lose their original meaning. That’s ironic, because Christians could be accused of doing the same thing. Did you know that we don’t really know on what day Jesus was born? Unfortunately, all the computer hard drives from that time period have been erased. According to Laurence Hull Stookey, when the observance of the nativity began to be kept in the fourth century, it was inserted into the calendar at a place where people celebrated what was called “the return of the invincible sun,” as the shortest day of the year passed and the days began to lengthen. Christians co-opted this time for their own celebration, and thus we have Christmas on Dec 25, four days after the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. We took the emphasis off the sun and placed in on the Son. The irony is, of course, you could argue the culture has once again reclaimed Christmas as a secular holiday.
In this dance of sacred and profane Christianity has had with the culture around us, it’s time to make some things sacred again. Too many of our words of faith, words that are essential to our understanding of Christianity, have been given alternative meanings that not only dilute the word of its power, but have also become the prevailing definition over and above the sacred definition. The Roman philosopher Epictetus said, “What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.” So in this sermon series, I hope we can look at a few of these words and reclaim them for what they are, not what people think they are.
I want to start with a word that carries a lot of baggage with it. That word is “religious” and its other forms, like “religion.” I wonder how many of us, if someone asked us if we were religious, would answer positive? “Are you religious?” “Well, I’m a Christian, and I go to church, but I don’t know if I would call myself that.”
Why not? Webster’s defines “religious” as “pious, devout; scrupulously faithful; conscientious.” I think we’d all like to be thought of in those ways, right? But when we hear the word “religious” used today, it is rarely said in such noble terms.
First of all, I believe that to be labeled as “religious” carries with it some high expectations. I’ve heard non-believers express disappoint in a “religious” person who’s cursed or smoked or cut them off in traffic. To be called “religious” implies that you are perfect, and none of us want to walk around with that kind of responsibility on our shoulders. If you’re religious, you’re not allowed to do anything that could be remotely fun, because, well, you know, “religious” people just don’t do that.
The word “religious” has gained popularity with a lot of faith-based political movements. Terms like “the religious right” and have become a part of our political vocabulary, and are used in that context to describe a group of people with a certain set of beliefs, motives, and behaviors, usually of the more conservative nature. Whether those descriptions are accurate or stereotypes is not for us to solve today, but we can say the word “religious” conjures up such images in political arenas. That may be another reason we balk at being labeled “religious.” I’m a Christian, but I’m not all religious about it.
That’s part of the issue with the word itself: “religious” can mean more than Christian devotion. Abraham Lincoln once said, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” The word has come to mean faithfulness to anything. “I work out religiously.” “I root for my sports team religiously.” Can an atheist be religious in his unbelief? Of course. To do something religiously can have nothing to do with faith.
And that’s where we can get into trouble, because those two words – faith and religion – are often used synonymously. Let me give you an example. Last year I had a minor surgical procedure done, and during the pre-op visit the doctor asked me what I did for a living. When I told him, he hemmed and hawed a bit and said that he and his wife didn’t attend church, but they tried to do a lot of good things for people. Then he said, “That’s a kind of faith, isn’t it?” And I wanted to say, No!” but I didn’t want to contradict a man who would soon be holding a scalpel.
Religion and faith aren’t the same things. Religion, as I understand it, is the human attempt to organize around a common set of beliefs about a higher power. Religion is how we humans come together to make sense of our faith. Religion, while based on divine principles, is a human construct, and therefore will always be imperfect. What my doctor and his wife had created in their minds was the belief that doing good things was equal to having faith. But it had nothing to do with faith, which Webster defines as “confidence or trust in a person or thing,” in our case, in God as revealed through Jesus Christ.
Our religion is an extension of our faith. We try to live religiously – devoutly, piously – because of our faith. That’s the foundation of why we do everything we do as Christians: not because we think we should or because we want to make ourselves feel better, but because we are responding to what we believe about Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us.
Listen again to how James defines it: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” To be religious is to live out our faith in Christ. As The Message translates Jesus’ words from Matthew, “Knowing the correct password – saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance – isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience – doing what my father wills.”
And that’s the challenge: living out our faith by doing what God wills. Someone defined a religious person as someone who is committed to Jesus Christ and then spends their whole life trying to figure out how to do that. I’ve heard trying to live a life of faith compared with trying to simultaneously build a boat and sail it. I don’t know about you, but my faith has sure sprung a few leaks over the years. And yet, despite my faith’s bobbing and listing, I’m still religious in my belief. As preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says, “I have faith. I lose faith. I find faith again, or faith finds me, but through it all I’m grasped by the possibility that it is all true: I am in good hands; love girds the universe; God will have the last word.”
Being religious from a biblical perspective is believing that God has the last word in your life, then living like you believe it. That may be a challenge, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. May we all continue to be religious in our devotion to God as we live as Christ has called us to live.
QUESTIONS
1 – What do you think of when you hear the word “religious”? Would you feel comfortable being labeled a “religious person”?
2 – What do you find to be the hardest part of living out your faith “religiously”?
2007 Non-Resolutions
I gave up on making resolutions awhile ago because I would become too depressed when I’d break them at 3 p.m. on New Year’s Day. It’s hard to stay resolute when there’s a plate of Christmas cookies calling your name. So I figure, “Why set myself up for failure?” Instead of resolutions, I have a list of hopes for 2007. Here they are:
After a rocky 2006, I hope for good health in 2007. I hope my MS stays quiet this year, and that nothing else unexpected crops up.
I hope Sydney continues to excel in school, and that she doesn’t develop an interest in boys.
I hope Molly decides to use the potty sooner rather than later so she can start preschool in the fall.
I hope Leigh’s interest in photography “develops” into more than a hobby – she’s AMAZING!
I hope Community Christian Church continues to experience growth in both numbers and spiritual depth.
I hope the Reds get a decent starting pitcher.
I hope God surprises me somehow this year – hopefully in a good way!
I hope my love for my job only grows stronger and richer.
I hope I am able to do a better job trusting God.
I hope for peace.
I hope a cure for multiple sclerosis is finally discovered, and I hope it involves eating Reese’s Cups.
I hope this season of “24″ is as good as the last one.
I hope my family stays healthy and happy.
I hope “Lost” provides more answers than questions.
I hope to spend more time on golf courses this summer.
I hope for more Date Nights.
I hope to cross paths with friends I haven’t seen in too long.
I hope my relationship with God grows deeper and stronger each day.
I hope scientists discover some redeeming nutritional qualities about Krispy Kremes.
I hope God continues to be so patient with me.
So, what do you hope for in 2007?
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
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