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A Cry, A Groan and A Promise

Romans 8:15-27

 

A bereaved person can’t help weeping. A happy person can’t help smiling. The person “tickled” by a good joke can’t help laughing. In all these situations the appropriate response springs forth spontaneously, without reflection or deliberation. The bereaved person doesn’t deduce that since he’s bereaved he should weep. Neither does the happy person conclude that she should smile. The response arises spontaneously as a result of her situation.

 

I: — In exactly the same way the apostle Paul tells us that the Christian can’t help crying, “Abba, Father”. The cry comes forth from us as a result of our intimacy with God. We don’t labour at ten stiff books of theology, note that God is said to be Father to all to whom Christ is brother by faith, ascertain that we are possessed of faith, and finally conclude that God is our Father. On the contrary, whether our knowledge of theology is great or little, our situation – we who cling to Jesus Christ in faith are sons and daughters of God by adoption – moves us to exult spontaneously “Father, my Father”, from the bottom of our hearts. We cry this instantly, immediately, not inferentially.

When Jesus spoke to his Father he used the Aramaic word “Abba”. Aramaic was the language   Jews spoke with each other in First-Century Palestine. When Jews spoke with Gentiles they spoke Greek; but with fellow-Jews they conversed every day and conducted business every day in Aramaic. In First Century Palestine, however, no Aramaic-speaking Jew called God “Abba”. The word was deemed to be too intimate. The person who addressed God in this manner would be deemed disrespectful, over-familiar, presumptuous even. The only Jew found to be using the word of the Father was Jesus. The disciples overheard him using it several times throughout his earthly ministry. They overheard him using it, most pointedly, in Gethsemane on the eve of his terrible trial. Terrible as the trial was, it couldn’t deflect him from the intimacy he had long known with his Father, an intimacy his disciples thought to characterize him. Our Lord was acquainted with his Father at such profound depths of intimacy and warmth and trust and confidence that the word sprang unbidden to his lips.

Yet while it sprang to Christ’s lips it didn’t spring to his alone. Paul maintains that faith binds us intimately to Jesus, and our intimacy with the Son is one with our intimacy with the Father. Christians therefore find themselves crying spontaneously “Abba, Father”. We don’t think about the matter and then conclude that God is – or might be – our Father after all. Instead we are constrained to cry, impelled to, because our intimacy with the Father issues in exultation as surely as the happy person smiles or the bereaved person weeps or the startled person gasps. In the context of our intimacy with him who is our Father our exultation, “Father”, couldn’t be more natural.

 

II: — I have found that when people are informed of all this they assume that Christians are supposed to live ten feet off the ground, never quite touching the earth.   They assume that anyone who genuinely utters the cry, “Abba, Father”, is someone whose faith has elevated her just high enough to be beyond the turbulence and pain and contradictions of life. You see, if we are living ten feet off the ground we are close enough to the earth to observe all the negativities with which life afflicts people, yet also far enough above them all as to remain unaffected by pain and disappointment and heartbreak, and therefore unperturbed. Newer Christians especially are frequently puzzled at first and soon guilt-ridden. They assume that if their faith is real, they should be beyond the reach of life’s turbulence and treachery. Since they aren’t beyond the reach of life’s turbulence and treachery, they begin to doubt the reality of their faith, perchance even concluding that they aren’t Christians after all.

Over and over a pastor meets people who think that God has played a dirty trick on them. They assumed that faith meant riding above life’s “crunches”, and now they find themselves crunched several times over. They feel God has let them down. If they had more nerve, they’d curse him – like Job’s wife. Lacking such nerve, they blame him for deceiving them, or they blame themselves for their insufficient faith. Both responses are wrong.

The apostle who knows that Christians are constrained to cry “Abba” knows that we groan as well. “We who have the first fruits of the Spirit;” he writes, “we groan inwardly.” Paul groans himself. Doesn’t he tell us of his thorn in the flesh that causes him relentless pain and embarrassment? All God’s people groan, for in all of us there are found simultaneously unspeakable intimacy with our Father and indescribable pain over a frustration or a wound that remains unrelieved.

We should note more carefully what Paul says. In Romans 8:15 he exclaims, “We have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba, Father’ it is God’s Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are God’s children now.” Then in Romans 8:23 he says that the whole creation is groaning in labour pains; we are part of the creation and therefore we are groaning too; and we whom God’s Spirit has brought to intimacy with the Father – we are groaning inwardly while we wait for adoption.” Wait for adoption? Eight verses earlier he told us we already had it; already we were sons and daughters of God, admitted to God’s family, knowing an intimacy with him that only family members can know. “Wait for adoption”? More specifically he says we are waiting for the “redemption of our bodies”.

The apostle is always profound. On the one hand by faith we are, right now, sons and daughters of God. We know we are, and our heartfelt intimacy with our Father is as much attestation as we need. On the other hand, there remains much about us that is struggling to be born, struggling to come to the full light of day, struggling for a fulfilment so far denied it. We are gloriously adopted now, and we also wait for the full manifestation of that adoption. Until then, we exult ecstatically and groan painfully at the same time.

[i] The most obvious situation is that of the person who is terminally ill, the person who is dying one inch at a time. He groans, for he is struggling to be released from all that inhibits the fullest expression of his human creatureliness and his spiritual sonship. He’s frustrated.

Worse than the predicament of the person with the terminal disease is the predicament of the person with the non-terminal, neurological disease. Neurological diseases force severe disabilities on people and force people to live with those disabilities, in that the worst neurological diseases leave people alive for such a long time. Meanwhile, the sufferer is longing to emerge into that freedom – “the redemption of our bodies” Paul calls it – when the adoption we already cherish will be made manifest.

[ii] What about the person who is chronically mentally ill? What about her family? We wouldn’t want to be heard saying, “Wouldn’t it be less wearing for everyone if Mrs. X simply slipped away in her sleep? Wouldn’t it bring huge relief to her and to everyone around her?” We wouldn’t want to be heard thinking this out loud. Still, we can’t help thinking it.

My blood runs cold when I think of severely schizophrenic people and their families who are caught up in the round of psychiatrists, pharmacists, ministers, police, the courts, assorted provincial services, and institutionalizations. Both the chronically disturbed and their family are struggling in anticipation of a better day. But until that day, they groan; all of them.

[iv] What parent hasn’t groaned, and groaned some more, concerning an adolescent son or daughter’s emergence into sane, sober, godly adulthood? I’m not questioning for a minute that parents are groaning inwardly, frequently outwardly, through their adolescent’s struggle. I do question, however, whether it’s sufficiently understood that the adolescents themselves are suffering with a suffering worse than the suffering of many adults, if not most.

I often think that older adults regard adolescent stress much too cavalierly. When I was a teenager, moping and moaning, my mother frequently expostulated, “Why the hang-dog expression? Don’t you know these are the best days of your life? You have no mortgage payments to worry about, no car payments.” To be sure, I didn’t have mortgage payments to worry about. So what. Those days were the worst days of my life and I never want to see them again. If older adults were aware of the suicide rate among teenagers, and were aware that the suicide rate has increased 300% in the last 25 years, older adults would sing a different tune.

I’m not suggesting that all teenagers are pained or frustrated to the point of being at risk.   But many are. Neither am I suggesting that all parents feel confused, set upon, unappreciated and helpless.   But many do. In both teenager and teenager’s parent something is struggling for expression, and struggling for an expression denied for now.

[v] And then we groan concerning ourselves. Isn’t there something deep in all of us that longs for expression, or fuller expression, but hasn’t yet found it? Don’t we crave release from intra-psychic wounds, acquired decades ago, whose after-effects have not only scarred us but continue to inhibit us decades later?   What wouldn’t we give to be freed from emotional wounds that remain booby-traps, and too frequently embarrass us as we react in a way that observers find startling, and more than startling, find incomprehensible and sometimes even threatening?

I never make light of mental difficulties. I never joke about them. Think of phobias, for instance. People who aren’t phobic (most of us) are always tempted to make light of the woman who is panic-stricken if she sees a feather or the man who faints if he climbs higher than two feet. Psychiatrists tell us that phobias are virtually incurable. People afflicted with them suffer, and suffer a long time.

And then of course if we are serious at all we groan as we await our ultimate deliverance from the sin that still dogs us. To be sure, it’s only because of our intimacy with our Father, “Abba”, that we are even aware of our lingering depravity. (The spiritually inert, needless to say, are also spiritually indifferent.) Those admitted to the wonder of the light, admitted to intimacy with him who is the light; they are appalled at the shadows within them that his light casts. I’m tired of the burden my sin is to others. I’m also tired of the burden my sin is to myself.

Everyone is groaning somewhere.   Everyone has to be groaning somewhere, since the apostle tells us that “the whole creation is groaning in labour pains”.

 

III: — Then are you and I simply suspended between the ecstatic cry of intimacy with our Father and the groan of our frustration and disappointment? Are we going to be suspended indefinitely?

Our Lord Jesus knew both cry and groan, but he wasn’t suspended indefinitely. He knew an intimacy with his Father that is the foundation of ours, as his disciples found him repeatedly taken up, while at prayer, into an immediacy and intensity before his Father that his disciples subsequently came to know for themselves. He also knew an anguish, in Gethsemane and at Calvary (not to mention at many points throughout this earthly ministry) that we can’t penetrate. He both exulted and groaned simultaneously.

But not forever. He was resurrected. And because he shares his resurrected life with us, we have been appointed to a resolution wherein we shall rejoice, simply exult, without a simultaneous anguish. Within a few verses of Paul’s speaking both of cry and groan he makes two staggering assertions. One, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Two, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Why is it, how is it, that nothing can separate us from God’s love? It’s because God’s power, wherewith he raised Jesus from the dead, is the same power wherewith he binds you and me to the risen One in whose company we are flooded with God’s love.

Why is it, how is it, that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us? It’s because the Son who was borne through everything that made him groan is now glorified and guarantees that our groaning will give way to glorification.

Scripture is fond of obstetrical metaphors. Paul uses them frequently. He uses one in Romans 8 when he says that the entire creation, in the era of the Fall, is groaning in labour. But no woman in labour labours forever. Labour ends in birth.   Jesus uses obstetrical metaphors. He too speaks of a woman in labour. He maintains that however difficult, however protracted, a woman’s labour might be, when her child is born she puts it all behind her, forgets it all, out of the sheer joy of the child she has long awaited and now has in her arms. In exactly this sense the day has been appointed when you and I put behind us, forget without trying to forget, the years in which we exulted and groaned simultaneously just because on that day we are going to be found exulting only, overtaken by our emergence into the bright light of a new day.

Question: Is this a future development? Yes. Is it only a future development, exclusively a future development? No. Already we have tasted it. Already we have glimpsed the Promised Land and have even begun to live in it. Already our exultation outweighs our anguish. Already our experience of our Father’s care assures us that the good work he has begun in us he is unfailingly going to complete.

 

IV: — Today is Communion Sunday. The elements, bread and wine, tell us not merely of body and blood but of a body broken and of blood shed. They remind us then of our Lord’s anguish, the day-by-day anguish which is the human lot in the era of the Fall, as well as his more intense anguish of crucifixion, as well as his most intense anguish of the dereliction when he couldn’t help gasping, “Why have you forsaken me?” He groans.

Yet even from the cross he addresses his Father as “Father”; even from the cross he speaks the word of intimacy that he used every day, especially when he prayed. He exults.

And as he is raised from the dead he enters into promised glory, lives in it forever, and from it promises us a glory that will be the fulfilment of our exultation and the cancellation of our groaning. For on that day, Charles Wesley reminds us, we are going to be “lost in wonder, love and praise”.

 

                                                                                                          Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 July 2005

You asked for a sermon on Hope

Romans 8:22-25

 

 

“I hope it doesn’t rain the day of the picnic.” You and I have no control over the weather. Hoping it doesn’t rain is nothing more than wishful thinking. Is Christian hope wishful thinking in the face of all that we can’t control?

“I hope the Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series.” They might win it; it’s possible to be sure, even though it’s extremely unlikely. Is Christian hope a hankering after what is extremely unlikely?

“I hope we’ll soon learn to get along together, and class hostility, social conflict and financial exploitation will soon be a thing of the past.” Anyone who speaks this way is most naïve concerning human nature and utterly ignorant of human history. Is Christian hope childlike naïveness with respect to our nature and inexcusable ignorance with respect to our history?

 

I: — For Christians hope is a future certainty grounded in a present reality. The present reality is the faithfulness of God. God’s faithfulness is marked out by major landmarks (promises he has kept) in his involvement with his people, an involvement he won’t renounce on behalf of a people he won’t abandon. One such landmark is Israel’s release from bondage in Egypt and its deliverance at the Red Sea. Another landmark is Joshua’s leading the same people into the long-promised land. The landmark that towers over others, however, and gathers them up into itself, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Here all the promises of God find their fulfilment. Here the fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel and to Israel’s greater Son overflows out onto all flesh, Jew and Gentile alike, out onto all whose faith-quickened seeing acknowledges the presence and power and purpose of God in Jesus of Nazareth. God had promised to renew the entire creation in Christ, liberating the creation from its bondage to the evil one, freeing it from its frustration and allowing it to flower abundantly. God’s raising his Son from the dead is the decisive moment of this promised liberation and is therefore the landmark of God’s faithfulness.

Question: how is it that we who are believers affirm this while unbelievers do not? Believers and unbelievers alike live in the same world, suffer the same pain, undergo the same treachery and turbulence and tragedies. Yet believers speak of God’s faithfulness as the ground of their hope while unbelievers see no evidence of faithfulness and no reason to hope. Then why do believers persist in hope while unbelievers don’t? Believers continue to hope, continue to insist on a future certainty despite present contradictions, never feel that their hope is misplaced because “God’s love has been shed abroad in our hearts.” (Rom. 5:5) At this moment believers are aware of God’s love flooding them. Our present experience of God is itself part of God’s faithfulness to us. This too is part of the present reality undergirding a future certainty. In other words there are two aspects to the present reality of God’s faithfulness: one is what God has done for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; the other is what God has done in us as the Holy Spirit has soaked us in the Father’s love again and again. No wonder we look with confidence to the transformation of men and women, nature and universe, as the entire creation is finally healed.

Such hope is certainly a gift from God inasmuch as the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our Spirit-wrought inclusion in that resurrection is a gift from God. While such hope is plainly a gift, however, it isn’t gift only; it’s also a command. God commands his people to hope. To be sure, it’s only as he gives us hope that he commands us to hope, yet command us to hope he most certainly does. For this reason the mediaeval rabbis used to say that the arch sin is despair.

 

II: — Despite the fact that hope is both gift and command, despair remains humanly understandable. Life’s contradictions are just that: contradictions. Life’s frustrations, suffering so very intense and protracted as to leave behind whatever lesson we might need to learn through suffering, life’s unrelieved bleakness for unnumbered people: all of this renders despair humanly understandable.

In 1940, in the little village of Sighet, Rumania there pulled into the railway station the train that would soon take the villagers on their three-day trip to Auschwitz. The people were beside themselves. An old man in the village, Dodi Feig, put on his best suit, the suit he wore only a couple of times a year on extraordinary occasions of celebration. “Why are you putting on your best suit?”, someone wailed, “you won’t need that where we’re going!” “On the contrary”, replied Feig, “because of the unprecedented horror that has overtaken us, the Messiah can’t fail to come. And when the Messiah comes, I want to welcome him wearing my best.” How Dodi Feig felt three days later I can’t imagine. Many like him died praying the ancient prayer of Maimonides, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. And though he tarry, yet will I believe.”

Hope is God’s gift and therefore God’s command. This command, like any command, is to be obeyed. Temptation here is like temptation anywhere: temptation to doubt the goodness of God and allow oneself to violate the command of God. Yet this temptation, like any, is to be resisted. Despite life’s contradictions we are to join prophets and apostles in announcing that day above all days when the world’s wretched neither hunger nor thirst any more, when nation no longer lifts up sword against nation, when God wipes away every tear from every eye. We are commanded to hope.

 

III: — But why? Why are we commanded to hope? Because without hope, Christian faith collapses. Faith is faith in the God who won’t abandon his creation so much as a nano-second before he has restored it so thoroughly as to have all of humankind, Christian or not, ascribe him the praise that he is owed. We say we believe in God. What kind of God? The God who returns the creation to the glory with which it first came from his hand. When? To what end? Paul writes a word of encouragement to the Christians in Philippi, “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6) God has begun a good work (the good work) in them. We know what the apostle means. We like to fend off our critics humorously, “Be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.” Not only has God not finished with us yet, it appears he has scarcely begun and has ever so far to go. Then will he leave us half-recovered? Is he like a transplant surgeon who removes the patient’s damaged heart and then gives up on the surgery, leaving the patient with no heart, or with the new heart improperly connected, or with the new heart properly connected but without the after-care apart from which the heart-transplant is useless? He who has begun a good work in us is going to complete it. And he has promised to do as much for the creation writ large.

Several years ago construction was begun on an apartment building on Bayview Avenue in the Don Valley. The shell of the building was several stories high and gave every indication of eventually providing fine accommodation overlooking the Don Valley, even Lake Ontario. Then there was a dispute, unresolved, between the builder and city hall officials. Construction was halted. Every day motorists driving up and down the Don Valley Parkway nodded knowingly, “It will have to be finished soon. It can’t just stand there.” In fact it stood there for years, as builders and politicians waited for each other to blink. After several years the structure became an oddity, the butt of jokes. Another year or two and it had become an eyesore. Another year or two again and the project was abandoned, the building shell reduced to rubble. Anything that begins full of promise but doesn’t move on to completion becomes an oddity, then an eyesore, and finally rubble. Without hope, without confidence in the completion of God’s transformation, Christian faith follows the same route: beginning with promise it ends in collapse.

You must have noticed that scripture links faith, hope and love, and groups them together again and again. Hope is the middle term between faith and love. Hope keeps faith from collapsing under the burden of disappointment and delay. Hope keeps love from dissolving under the acids of frustration. Hope fortifies love and lends it resilience. Hope stiffens faith and forestalls collapse.

We are commanded to hope, in the second place, in that apart from hope the individual gives up. Apart from hope we give up, quit; quit working, quit struggling, quit sacrificing, quit living, simply quit. Paul urges the Christians in Corinth, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:57-58) Is your work in vain? Is mine? Our kingdom-work can never be in vain. The God whose faithfulness we have known for ourselves is the God whose faithfulness we can trust for our work.

One week ago today Mr. Allen Stretton, a long-time member of this congregation, died. His funeral service was conducted on Wednesday. At the reception downstairs following the service a young woman spoke with me, thanked me for the service just concluded, and then thanked me for the funeral service at which I had buried her brother several years ago. I had driven home from a cottage one afternoon in August inasmuch as I had had to bring Mary home to meet a friend. I was planning on staying in Streetsville for one evening only, then driving back to the cottage next morning. At 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon of our arrival the phone rang. I thought to myself, “I’m on holiday. I need a holiday. I’ve waited all year for a holiday. Another minister is covering pastoral emergencies in any case. I’m not going to answer the phone.” By the second ring I was thinking, “Perhaps it’s my dear wife. I’ve been away from her for three hours and perhaps she has sweet somethings to whisper to me.” And so I answered the phone. It was Carol Stretton. Her 28-year old nephew had died in distressing circumstances. Would I help? I phoned Maureen and told her I’d resume our holiday in a couple of days. Last Wednesday the young woman told me that her parents still talk about her brother’s tragic death, the funeral service, what was said, and how much they were helped. Then she kissed me and moved off to speak with someone else. Can our work ever be in vain?

“What you’ve just related has nothing to do with hope”, someone objects; “it’s improper to speak of hope when concrete results are already evident. Hope is properly hope only where what’s hoped for hasn’t appeared.” The objection is sound. In the midst of his torment Job cries out, “All I can feel is my pain.” At the moment of his outcry he can’t see even the tiniest bit of hope’s fulfilment. So far from being fulfilled, even ever so fragmentarily, hope appears simply futile. His friends think him silly for continuing to hope since there’s no evidence to suggest his hope is anything but wishful thinking; his hope seems as groundless as a child’s wish for the appearance of Mary Poppins.

The apostle Paul has just such a day in mind when he reminds the Christians in Rome, “Hope that is seen isn’t hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24) The apostle is correct. Hope is genuine hope only where what is hoped for isn’t seen. In the next verse the apostle reminds the Roman Christians that an accompaniment of hope so very necessary as to be virtually an aspect of hope is patience: Christians are patient in hope where there is no earthly evidence to support our hope and no apparent ground of our hope. No apparent ground, I must underline, for the ground of our hope is always and everywhere the faithfulness of God, promises he has kept. Possessed of such hope, we never give up, never quit.

We are commanded to hope, in the third place, for if we fail to hope the world is abandoned. Whether we are possessed of hope as scripture speaks of hope is made plain by our answer to one question: does the world have a future? Do we expect it to have a future, or have we concluded that the world can only repeat itself until it finally burns itself out and is consigned to the garbage can?

If I asked you to specify the most dangerous person in any society, what person would come to mind? The psychopath? The most dangerous person to have around isn’t the psychopath. (Besides, how many of them are there?) The most dangerous person to have around isn’t the murderer or the molester or the lunatic. It’s the cynic. The cynic is forever sneering, “What’s the use? Why bother?” The cynic’s noxious breath is breathed out everywhere. Unlike the breath of God that turned dust into life, the cynic’s breath turns life into dust. The cynic claims victories here, there and everywhere. The cynic’s victories, of course, are actually victims, victims whose new-found “What’s the use?” abandons a world that God never abandons. To be sure, the damage done by those who violate God’s creation is no little damage; far worse, however, is the damage done by cynics whose cynicism impedes the healing of the creation and disdains the signs pointing to its ultimate restoration.

In his major theological statement, the letter to the church in Rome, Paul maintains that the entire creation is in bondage as a result of the fall. The entire creation is in bondage to assorted powers that not only enslave it but also corrupt it and disfigure it. Not surprisingly, then, the entire creation “groans”, the apostle says, groans to be freed from that all that now corrupts it and disfigures it. To say that the creation groans at its frustration and longs to be freed is to say that the entire creation has “hope” stamped on it. “Hope” means “transformation and fulfilment guaranteed.” Since God has guaranteed the release, transformation and fulfilment of the creation, the cynic isn’t merely going to be proved wrong; the cynic is also going to proved a blasphemer, for the cynic has continued to say, “What’s the point?”, when there is every point to identifying and identifying himself with that restoration at God’s hand which will unfailingly appear.

Let me say it again: the cynic is a blasphemer. She maintains that struggling on behalf of a groaning world is pointless. She’s a blasphemer inasmuch as God’s struggle on behalf of a groaning world is going to issue in splendour that will redound to his praise. The cynic cruelly worsens the afflictions she could relieve and blasphemously imputes indifference or ineffectiveness to God. The cynic is the most dangerous person on the face of the earth.

What’s the point in helping feed the 4,000 people per month (half of them children) that our foodbank feeds? The point is that a banquet has been arranged for them at which they’ll be eating something besides tinned beans and Kraft Dinner.

What’s the point of resisting arms races, even as we are aware that every single arms race in the history of the world has issued in war? The point is that the day has been appointed when swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.

What’s the point of tireless work on behalf of deranged people? (I trust you are aware that when I came to Streetsville there were 16,000 psychiatric beds in greater Toronto and now there are 4,000.) The point is that like the deranged man in the Gadarene hills who lacerated himself and ran around naked and shrieked appallingly; like that man whom our Lord touched as an instance of the kingdom, the deranged are divinely destined to be found, one day, seated, clothed, and in their right mind.

What’s the point of teaching underprivileged adults and ex-convicts to read? Don’t even ask the question, for blasphemy ought never to be uttered in these precincts.

If ever we abandon hope, we abandon the world. But God won’t abandon it, and I, at least, can’t bear the thought of having him lonely.

Hope, from a biblical perspective, is a future certainty grounded in a present reality. The present reality is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and our vivid experience of him. The future certainty is new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, says Peter. (2 Peter 3:13)

Hope is God’s gift and God’s command. Without such hope Christian faith collapses, the individual quits, and the world is abandoned. Glorying in our present experience of our risen Lord we can’t help crying with Jeremiah, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him.” (Lam. 3:24)

 

                                                                         Victor Shepherd

March 1999

Seeing Ourselves as God Sees Us: Eternally Loved

 Romans 8:29-39

 

I: — “For I am sure that nothing, nothing seen or unseen in the entire creation, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing can separate us from God’s love?   Much seems to. Much intends to. And if we have ever ministered to people whose faith once flamed and has since flickered out, people whose faith catastrophe or torment or bewilderment has extinguished, we shall say that much appears to separate us from God’s love and seems to succeed in separating us from God’s love.

In the course of my work as a pastor in Mississauga I went to the church on a Saturday afternoon to conduct a wedding.   After the wedding I called on a church-member who was dying of AIDS. He was haemophiliac.  He needed thirteen pints of transfused blood per month.  He had acquired HIV-AIDS through the ‘tainted blood scandal’ involving the Canadian Red Cross. (You will recall that the Red Cross collected and passed on blood from people whose sexual history should have disqualified them, as even a child knows, from donating blood.) While I was visiting this man and his wife, Maureen phoned to tell me that Toronto General Hospital was trying to contact me. I phoned TGH, was told what I needed to know, and immediately drove downtown. There I found a 23-year old woman, mother of two children, who in her suicidal desperation had drunk as much bleach as she could get down.  When I saw her (specifically her colour) I knew she was dead.  Her chest was rising and falling, to be sure, since she was wired up to everything that could make her seem alive.  I prayed for her and I prayed with her family, gathered around the bed. (If you are wondering what I was doing, praying for someone I already knew to be dead, we can sort it out later.) As soon as I said “Amen” the nurse turned off the apparatus.  The oscilloscope went flat. Now everyone knew she was dead.

Sally was the dead 23-year old.  Sally’s mother had been raised in one of the poorest areas of England . Sally’s mother had worked exceedingly hard at the most menial, low-paying jobs since immigrating to Canada . She didn’t have a spare dime. Now she was left with having to care for her dead daughter’s two children.  Sally’s husband? He was an improvident alcoholic who had distressed Sally and who would soon cause more trouble for the heartbroken family.

A few weeks later, and it’s Saturday afternoon again in Mississauga ; another wedding. Ten minutes before the wedding commences (I’m about to solemnize the marriage of the Board Chairman’s daughter) the phone in my study rings. I’m told that a couple I married five years ago is dead, together with their two-year old son. Could I go to the family’s home right away? I told the caller I’d be over as soon as possible.  I stepped into the sanctuary and married the couple in front of me wearing my best wedding smile throughout the service.  (You wouldn’t want me to rain on your daughter’s parade, would you?) Then I went to the home that death had harassed.

Five years earlier I had married this couple, both of them schoolteachers. Recently the husband had become depressed. He was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Etobicoke General Hospital . On this Saturday afternoon he had walked out of the hospital, gone home, picked up an axe and decapitated his two-year old son in front of the boy’s mother.  Then he had decapitated his wife.  Finally he had hanged himself in the basement.  The dead mother’s parents, both 65 now, were left caring for their two-year old grandson and his dog.

In the aftermath of all of this I ministered to the grandparents as they were faithful members of my congregation.  One Sunday morning, ten minutes before the service, the grandfather knocked on my study door.         I don’t like being interrupted ten minutes before worship, since leading worship and preaching are awesome matters and I’m getting my head and heart around what I must do.  Still, I couldn’t refuse to speak with this man in his torment.  And what was on his mind, so very important that it couldn’t wait until after the service? It was the dog’s bowel movements. At one time they had been thus and so, but now….

Some of you are fond of dogs.  I’m not. I’m not eager to talk about their bowel movements – ten minutes before I conduct worship and preach.

I knew that what had brought his stammering fellow to my door wasn’t the dog’s bowel movements.  It was his anguish, an anguish that had suspended his judgement.  He was with me because he couldn’t not be there – and I knew it. I spoke with him, prayed with him, and together we went into the sanctuary to worship.  Six months later he came to see me again.  He had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

I’m not suggesting that every Saturday afternoon wedding concludes like the two I’ve mentioned.  But I do agree with Dr Leslie Weatherhead, notable British Methodist preacher and sophisticated psychologist.  In one of his books Weatherhead wrote, “If you were aware of the suffering found in the smallest hamlet in England , the smallest, you wouldn’t sleep at night.”

I can’t speak for you, but my exposure to people’s suffering has found me agreeing with Martin Luther.         Luther maintained that if faith is to thrive we have to shut our eyes and open our ears. We must open our ears because the gospel is heard, heard with our ears and heard in our hearts. We must close our eyes, on the other hand, because what we see whenever we look out on world-occurrence; what we see contradicts the gospel.  The gospel (heard) assures us that God loves us so very much he couldn’t love us more. World-occurrence (seen) shows us that God doesn’t love us at all.

Please don’t think that the incidents from my pastoral ministry that I’ve laid before you tonight are rare.  If you wanted, I could stand here all night and relate stories that would leave you aghast.

So what do you think? Does God love us? Is his love strong enough, and his love’s grip on us firm enough, that nothing will ever be able to separate us from an oceanic love vouchsafed to us in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Tonight my heart resonates with Paul’s.  Like him I am persuaded that nothing can separate us from God’s love. And like him I have every confidence in what I hear (the gospel) even as I am horrified at what I see.

 

II:         — At the same time Paul is aware that much in life aims at separating us from God’s love and may seem to have separated us.

One such thing is tribulation.  According to scripture tribulation or affliction isn’t the same as suffering-in-general. Suffering-in-general is what comes upon us because we are finite, frail, fragile creatures living in a turbulent world. Disease victimizes us. Infirmity threatens us. Pain warps us. In all such cases scripture mandates us to seek relief.  Throughout his earthly ministry Jesus consistently relieved suffering.

Tribulation, affliction, however, is different.  Tribulation is pain visited on us on account of our discipleship.         It’s pain visited on us account of our love for Jesus and our loyalty to him. In short, tribulation is pain arising from our crossbearing, which crossbearing, be it noted, Jesus appoints us to and will not relieve us of until we are in glory. Now we can always rid ourselves of our tribulation; all we need do is apostatise.  All we need do is renounce faith in Jesus Christ, strangle our love for him, withdraw the loyalty to him by which we have been publicly identified. To rid ourselves of the pain of tribulation all we need do is deny our Lord and refuse to be identified with him. As soon as we do this the world will leave us alone.  Since scripture abhors apostasy, however, the Christian response to tribulation is steadfastness.

Let me say it again: the Christian response to everyday suffering is to seek relief; the Christian response to tribulation is steadfastness, since we can’t be rid of it unless we rid ourselves of our Lord.

Then will the torment of tribulation drive a wedge between us and God’s love? We should ask those who have been tormented on account of their love for their Lord.

Ian Rennie, former minister in this congregation and my first academic dean at Tyndale Seminary; Ian Rennie quietly pointed out to me one day that for the last 25 years of his life there was a price on Martin Luther’s head. Anyone at all could have made himself wealthy by killing the man.  No one in the history of the church, Rennie insisted, had lived the truth of Ephesians 6:12 as Luther had lived the truth of this verse: “For we are contending not against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness….”  And amidst it all; on days that were dark, other days darker, and some days indescribable; on all such days Luther stood steadfast.

And then I think of Edmund Campion, Jesuit martyr in Elizabethan England. On the morning of his execution his detractors mocked him on account of his belief in transubstantiation, the notion that Jesus Christ himself, body and blood, is in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.  “How can Christ be exalted in heaven,” his detractors mocked, “and be in the bread and wine at the same time?”   “Heaven is Christ’s palace”, Campion informed his accusers, “and you have made it his prison.”   (Did it ever occur to his accusers that if Christ couldn’t be in heaven and in the elements simultaneously then neither could Christ be in heaven in their hearts simultaneously?)         Campion, like Luther before him, died proving that tribulation cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then Paul speaks of famine and nakedness. Famine is lethal lack of provision inwardly; nakedness (meaning death by exposure) is lethal lack of provision outwardly.  But didn’t Jesus promise his followers adequate food and clothing? In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said his followers won’t lack adequate food and clothing just because their Father knows what they need before they even ask him. Paul is saying here we can prioritize and privilege God’s kingdom and righteousness and still lack what we need. If famine and nakedness overtake us (make no mistake; they have overtaken millions), has a wedge been driven between us and God’s love, and driven twice over, since now we both lack what was promised and have every reason to be anxious?

I have never been hungry in my life, hungry through having nothing to eat day after day. But I’m told that starvation is an exceedingly painful way to die.  When Maureen and I spent a month touring Ireland (Maureen is descended from Protestants in the north, Belfast ; I’m descended from Catholics in the south, Cork) we drove to Stroketown one Sunday morning. We went to church there (and, I must add, were startled to hear the local priest welcome us to the Lord’s Table.)   After the service we visited the famine museum in Stroketown.  We staggered from exhibit to exhibit.  The Irish people who were living in ditches during the famine of the mid-1800s and who hadn’t been allowed to send their children to school; those people attempted to survive by eating grass.  Humans, however, can’t digest grass; grass makes us vomit.  They kept trying, their mouths ringed green, only to hasten their death as their grass-induced vomiting weakened them still faster.

What made the famine all the more horrible was this: the famine victims had to stand by helplessly and watch their social superiors eat sumptuously. While the poor Irish starved by the million (only one crop was affected, potatoes), rich English landowners living in Ireland exported wagonload after wagonload of food to England and the continent. Weakened Irish folk had to languish in roadside ditches while overfilled wagons rumbled past them to feed wealthy people who were already overfed.  Could any cruelty be crueler?

Next Paul speaks of peril and sword.  To speak of peril is to say that life is shot through with danger; life abounds in danger. There is the danger that arises from sheer accidentality. When Jesus spoke of the tower in Siloam that collapsed and killed a dozen men he was speaking of a construction mishap, accidentality that is no less perilous for being unintentional.

And sword? The apostle means warfare. Once again I’m surprised when my students tell me how glad they are that they didn’t live in the Middle Ages.  During the Middle Ages, everyone knows, people were mean to each other: they disembowelled each other with swords; they ‘brained’ each other with battleaxes. They burned people at the stake. They dismembered them on the rack. Weren’t people barbaric during the Middle Ages?

Alas, the students appear to be ignorant of history subsequent to the Middle Ages. All of my students were born in the 20th Century, and they appear to be wholly ignorant of that century. Tell me: do you think Auschwitz was a human improvement on swordfighting?   When atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki human beings were vapourized alive, while survivors were condemned to lethal, lingering agony.

Does the Tyndale Seminary student really think that nerve gas is a humanitarian advance on spear-chucking?         All the major nations of the world have stockpiled nerve gas.  One lungful of it and every muscle in the body contracts.  Immediately there is intense sweating, blindness, uncontrollable defecation and vomiting, convulsions, paralysis, and inability to breathe. In the early 1980s a whiff – only a whiff – of nerve gas escaped in Colorado . Two thousand sheep perished on the spot, having undergone everything I’ve just mentioned.

Can nerve gas, nuclear explosion, you name it – can any one of these, or all of these together, separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Neither can “life or death”, Paul announces next.

Death we’ve already said enough about.

Life? How could life, life at full tide, ever threaten to separate us, ever separate our faith in such love? Let me ask you a question. How many marriages do you think I’ve seen thrive when a couple was financially challenged, only to fail when the same couple was financially flush?  How many people have you seen appear to possess ironfast faith when they were needy for any reason only to jettison such ‘faith’ when they were no longer needy? We should admit that life at its best is no less a spiritual threat than death at its worst.

Finally Paul speaks of principalities, powers, angels, things present, things to come, height and depth.  He has in mind cosmic powers; any and all cosmic powers, some of which we can identify and some of which we never shall.         Paul’s point is this: regardless of the nature, scope and virulence of cosmic forces, no one of them, nor all of them together, will ever be able to separate Christ’s people from Christ’s love.

 

III: — What reason does Paul have for his exuberant exclamation?  What’s the ground of his impregnable confidence?         His ground or reason is twofold; namely, what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and what God is doing in us through the Holy Spirit.  What God has done for us in Christ is the ‘outer’ foundation of his confidence; what God is now doing in us is its ‘inner’ ground.

Now every Christian is aware that the work of Christ for us and the work of the Spirit within us are always to be distinguished but must never be separated. Therefore the one ground of Paul’s confidence is the one work of God in its twofold nature as outer and inner.

Let’s look first at the outer aspect of Paul’s confidence.  In this regard the apostle puts five unanswerable questions to us.

 

Question #1:  “Since God is for us, who can be against us?”  Plainly, nothing and no one can be against us finally, conclusively, effectively, because nothing and no one is going to overturn the Creator himself.

If Paul had simply said, “Who or what can be against us?” we’d be ready with a hundred replies: famine, peril, sword, disease, death, betrayal, treachery, accident.  If we thought a minute longer we’d also mention intra-psychic booby traps, those psychological fissures and deformities that distress us and pain others. If the apostle had simply said, “Who or what can be against us?”, and we thought two minutes longer, we’d mention sin, the old man/woman who continues to haunt us, even Satan himself.  Not only can Satan be against us; he is; he is by nature, and therefore is without let-up.

Paul, however, doesn’t ask, “Who is against us?”  He asks, rather “Since God, the living, lordly sovereign creator of heaven and earth; since God is for us, who or what could ever rival him or threaten us?” Nothing, obviously.

 

Question #2:   “Since God didn’t spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God also give us all things with him?”   Note that Paul hasn’t simply asked, “Won’t God give us everything (i.e., everything we need)?”  If he had asked that, I at least would be ready with my retort: “I’ve seen countless people live and die who appeared not to be given everything they need.”

The apostle’s question, however, is more profound than this.  “Since God didn’t stop short of giving up his Son, would he ever stop short of giving us what we need to be his people, the apple of his eye?”

There’s an allusion here to Abraham of old; Abraham and Isaac; Abraham and Isaac trudging with leaden foot and breaking heart up Mt. Moriah . Abraham’s faith is to be tested by the summons to offer up Isaac, his long-awaited son, his only son, only son, (the text in Genesis drives home to us.) And then, when obedient Abraham raises the knife above Isaac, a ram appears and Abraham’s son is spared.

Does God love you and me less than Abraham loved Isaac?  He loves us more. After all, when God’s love for us met our profoundest need God’s long-awaited Son, his only Son, wasn’t spared but rather was given up for us all.         Abraham’s love for Isaac was ultimately spared the most terrible heartbreak. God’s love for you and me didn’t spare God heartbreak.  Instead God loves you and me at the price of incomprehensible anguish.

 

Question #3:   “Since it is God who justifies us, who is going to accuse us?” Justification is one of Paul’s favourite descriptions of God’s people.  Here’s what he has in mind.

You and I are sinners. We are covenant-breakers. We repeatedly, characteristically, break our promise to God that we are going to live as his people. Instead we live as if we were sons and daughters of another parent, the devil.         In his mercy God has given us Jesus of Nazareth, the covenant-keeper. Jesus of Nazareth is the only instance anywhere in the world of a human being who keeps humankind’s covenant with the Father.

As you and I cling by faith to Jesus Christ, our faith binds us to him. In fact our faith binds us so very closely to him that we are identified with him.  Identified as we are with him, when the Father now looks upon that Son with whom he is ever pleased, he sees you and me included in the Son. When the Father looks upon the Son with whom he is pleased he looks upon you and me as those with whom he is now pleased too.  Humans who are wrongly related to God and chargeable as such; humans wrongly related to God who now cling to Christ in faith are deemed rightly related to God and therefore are beyond accusation.  Formerly capsized in our relationship to God, in Christ we are turned right side up, ‘rightwised’, rightly related to God.  God now declares us righteous in Christ; we are now ‘justified’ and can’t be charged.

 

Question #4:     “Since Christ died, was raised, sits at the right hand of the Father, and now intercedes for us, who is going to condemn us?”  Will Christ condemn us? He went to hell and back for us. His ongoing intercession for us is effectual.  He pleads on our behalf the ongoing efficacy of his atoning, pardoning sacrifice. Since the efficacy of his sacrifice he pleads effectually, nothing and no one can negate his forgiveness and find us condemned.

 

Question #5:         “Then who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” We’ve already answered this question.

In these five unanswerable questions we have dealt with the outer aspect of Paul’s confidence. “Since…, since…, since…, since…therefore no one can be effectively against us; no will deprive us all that we need to be God’s people; no one can lay a charge against us, and no one will condemn us.

 

We must look now at the inner ground of Paul’s confidence; namely, the Spirit, and the Spirit’s work within us.

The Holy Spirit is God, God in his utmost immediacy, intensity, intimacy. The Spirit is God in his immediacy, intensity and intimacy surging within us, rendering us certain that we are God’s child now and shall never be forsaken.  The Spirit is God within us making us vividly aware of his presence and power and purpose.

Paul, we know, was angered at the congregation in Galatia . The Galatian Christians were warping the gospel into an anti-gospel legalism.  When Paul cools off enough to begin correcting them, he doesn’t begin by developing a theological argument against legalism.  Instead he appeals to their Christian experience; specifically, to their experience of the Holy Spirit.  Bluntly he asks them, “Did you receive the Spirit through hearing and believing the gospel or by submitting to legalism?”   When he asks, “Did you receive the Spirit…?”,  he’s referring to their experience of God, experience that they can no more deny than they could deny a headache if they had one, since no one can deny experience. If we were in intense pain right now it would never occur to us to deny that we were.

“Did you receive the Spirit through….?”   It’s as if Paul were asking the Galatian Christians, “That raging headache you have: did you get it because a brick fell on your head this morning or because you drank too much red wine last night?”   They could then answer the question as they saw fit.  Any answer they gave, however, would presuppose their present headache, undeniable experience. “Did you receive the Spirit through embracing the crucified in faith or by slavishly adhering to rule-keeping?”  The apostle knows two things: one, their experience of God they can’t deny; two, they came to it through faith in the gospel.

In Romans 5 Paul exuberantly exclaims, “Since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ….”   He concludes his exuberant exclamation with “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” When Paul says “Spirit” he has mind believers’ experience of God’s love flooding them.

 

When we bring together the outer and inner grounds of Paul’s confidence we understand why he is able to say with conviction that nothing will ever separate us from God’s love.  The outer ground of his conviction is the truth and reality of all that God has done in Christ for him.  The inner ground of his conviction is his experience of what God the Spirit is doing in him.

The experience of the simplest Christian is identical with Paul’s. It all leaves us exclaiming with the apostle in Galatians 2:20, “He loved me, and gave himself for me – and I know it as surely as I know my own name.”

 

IV: — “Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The immediate ground of Paul’s confidence is his awareness of what’s been done for him and his experience of what’s being done in him.  The ultimate ground of his confidence, however, is God’s eternal purpose for his creation.

[a]         First Paul says God “foreknew” us who are his people.  Everywhere in scripture, when God is said to ‘know’ someone (Amos, Jeremiah, Abraham, Hannah) it means that God has put his hand on someone and singled out that person for a special purpose and made that person the beneficiary of a special promise.

When God not merely knows you and me but even ‘foreknows’ us it means that God’s purpose and promise come before he has even created the world. In other words, God wants a people for himself even before he has fashioned the universe. In Ephesians 1:4 Paul declares that God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Even before he created anything God wanted a people who live to glorify him.

[b]         Then Paul says in Romans 8:29, “Those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”  God’s people are to glorify him by being conformed to Jesus Christ, our elder brother. In Colossians 1:15 Paul maintains that Jesus Christ is the image of God. You and I were created in that image. Sin has marred it. Now, however, the image of God in you and me is to be re-engraved because God had pre-appointed his own people to resemble his Son incarnate.

[c]         But God’s plan and purpose to know us, foreknow us, bring us to resemble his Son; God’s plan and purpose in this regard has to be implemented in time and space. Therefore God now calls men and women; he invites them, summons them. We who are Christ’s people have heard and heeded that call; we have ‘RSVPd’ the invitation; we have fallen in love with someone who long ago fell in love with us.

[d]         Next, says Paul, those who have responded to God’s call God has justified. We’ve already seen this word. To be justified, righteous, is to be declared rightly related to God through faith in the Son who is rightly related to his Father.

[e]         And such people, the apostle declares, God has glorified.  Has glorified ? Has already glorified? We aren’t going to be glorified until we are ‘in glory’, in heaven, and we manifestly aren’t there yet. (We are in Knox church on a summer Sunday evening.)

But, you see, so very confident is Paul that God’s undeflectable plan and purpose and promise are going to be realized that he speaks of a future event as though it had already happened just because it’s ‘as good as happened.’         Christ has already been glorified, hasn’t he?  Then his people, whose future glorification is certain, are as good as glorified now. It’s as good as done.

 

V: — And then, lest we be so thoroughly swept up in Paul’s exuberance that we’ve lost touch with our present existence, Paul brings us down to earth by insisting that on the basis of everything he’s said we are right now, at this moment, “more than conquerors.”

It’s wonderful to be a conqueror – i.e., victorious, resilient. But it’s always possible to be a conqueror (we haven’t been defeated by anything) yet be grim or sour or bitter or resentful or suspicious or simply as “edgy” as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  To be more than a conqueror is surely to be victorious, resilient, yet also radiant.

I had listened to African-American spirituals for years, had enjoyed them (as everyone seems to) but had never reflected on them at any depth.  Then one day a man in the small, rural congregation I was serving pointed out to me that that there was no trace of bitterness in the spirituals. Think of it: slavery, with its brutality, degradation, suffering, and seeming hopelessness – and yet no bitterness in its music, no incitement to revenge, no zeal for vicious vindictiveness; only a patient waiting for God’s vindication and his people’s victory. The music is radiant.

A woman with advanced neurological disease began to tell me of an incident that had recently befallen her and her husband, himself ill with the same neurological disease.  Her story sounded grim. My face sank. She saw my face and laughed, “Oh, it’s really quite funny.”   Here’s her story.

Needing to use the toilet in the night, she transferred herself from bed to wheelchair to toilet.  In attempting to pull herself up from the toilet she lost her balance at the same time as she jammed her arm between the handrail and the wall. She fell down onto the floor with her arm up, wedged between the handrail and the wall.  Her husband heard the commotion.  He transferred himself from bed to wheelchair and set off to help her. In his excitement he capsized his wheelchair. Now he was on the floor too (in a different room), couldn’t get up, and therefore couldn’t get to a phone.         “What on earth did you do?” I asked the woman weakly.  “I knew no one was going to come along to help us until morning”, she said, “and so I spent the night reciting over and over again Psalm 34: “I will bless the Lord at all times.         His praise shall continually be in my mouth.  Look to him and be radiant.”

Just because nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord (we are loved eternally), we are certainly conquerors. More than conquerors, however, we may ever look to him and be radiant.
                                                                                       Victor Shepherd                                      
                       
24th June 2009

Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto

Knox Church Summer Fellowship 2009

 

Concerning the Nature of our Lord’s Victory

Romans 8:37                        Romans 12                          Revelation 5:6

 

If we spent our childhood in Sunday School and church then we were raised on a hymn that is one of the “golden oldies”, Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War.  Now it’s hard to find a recent hymnbook containing this hymn.  The hymn is deemed too militaristic, too violent.

In the days of empire-building and colonial expansion war and victory were celebrated.  But they aren’t now, and for good reason.  people in Latin America don’t pronounce the word “Conquistadores” with affection.  They can’t forget the depredations of the Sixteenth Century victors in the new world. The Conquistadores arrived with their brand new firearms and blew the head off anyone who so much as raised a spear.

At the height of the Cold War with the USSR , several years ago, one of the deadliest missiles in the nuclear arsenal of the USA was named Nike. Teenagers associate Nike with running shoes. But in fact Nike is the Greek word for “victor”, “conqueror.”   In view of the fact that such missiles are equipped with multiple nuclear warheads (i.e., one missile only delivers many nuclear devastations to many different targets), the name Nike seems more obscene than the more common four-letter word.  And of course everyone who has seen the movie “Apocalypse Now”, with its depiction of horribly burnt children, thanks to jellied gasoline; we shall never forget the military commander sniffing the dawn air as he declaims “I love the smell of napalm in the morning; it smells like victory.”

Nike: victor, conqueror – the word is used over and over in the New Testament. It’s used of our Lord. He, Jesus Christ, is victor. It’s also used of his followers. You and I are victors.

Early-day Christians were enormously comforted and strengthened every time they grasped afresh that Jesus Christ is victor, conqueror. They were comforted just because they knew that danger harassed them on every side. The book of Revelation speaks pictorially of these dangers in terms of the four horses and their riders. The white horse represents tyranny, like the brutal tyrannies of totalitarian regimes whether of the left or the right: China , North Korea , Islamic extremism, and several nations in Africa . The red horse, whose rider carried a sword, represents civil war.  There is nothing bloodier than civil war.  The American Civil War was the most atrocious spectacle the world had ever witnessed, as citizen slew fellow-citizen at the rate of thousands per hour. The black horse represents famine, together with everything humanly destructive that malnutrition brings with it.  The pale horse represents death; not “Now I lay me down to sleep” sort of death, but that death which is the power and purpose of tyranny and starvation and war. Yet even as the book of Revelation speaks loudly of these threats, it speaks more loudly still of Jesus Christ as the victor over them.

Nevertheless, the book of Revelation never suggests that Jesus is conqueror because he can out-tyrannize the tyrants or out-brutalize the brutes.  On the contrary, it speaks of our Lord as lamb, the lamb slain.  The power of the victor, then, is the efficacy of the freely-offered self-sacrifice. At the same time, let us make no mistake: the self-offered sacrifice isn’t useless, ineffective, feeble. The lamb slain, Revelation tells us, is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, God’s strength.   As this lamb is raised from the dead he comforts and encourages and fortifies his people, now harassed themselves.

 

I: — The apostle Paul shares the conviction of the early-day Christians.   He reminds the believers in Rome that because they belong to Christ, they too are conquerors.   Ironfast in his conviction and confidence here, Paul tells the Roman congregations that they are more than conquerors; coining a Greek word for his own use, he tells them that they are superconquerors.

Superconquerors?   Let’s start simply with being a conqueror.   By way of preface Paul insists that dangers and diseases and difficulties and discouragements pour down relentlessly on us.  These dangers, diseases, difficulties and discouragements appear to drive a wedge between us and God’s love for us.  Appear to; want to; conspire too; but can’t, ultimately; they can’t finally separate us from God’s love.  To be bound to Jesus Christ in faith is to be included in his victory. For this reason Paul exclaims “Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”   This is what it is to be a conqueror.

[a]         Then what is it to be more than conqueror, a superconqueror?   After all, we can’t be any more victorious than victorious.   Then what does Paul mean when he insists Christ’s people are supervictorious?

At the very least it means that our Lord’s victory does more than merely keep our heads above water; does more than get us through our dying, however miserable we might seem to be.   It means that Christ’s victory lends us resilience.   We haven’t merely survived (although survival is nothing to be made light of.) We are rendered resilient.

Following a funeral service, one never-to-be-forgotten day, I stood at a grave alongside the 65 year-old man whose 34 year-old daughter had just been commended to the care and keeping of God. His daughter, mother of two children, had committed suicide.   The man’s heartbreak was heartbreaking to see.   Family and friends consoled him briefly and moved away from the grave, leaving him and me alone. Slowly he turned to me and said, triumphantly, “Shepherd, at the funeral service today we sang the hymns in defiance of the devil.”   I could feel the resilience in the grief-stricken man who yet could thumb his nose at the cosmic powers of evil.

Speaking of defiance: have you ever noticed the defiance in the all-time favourite Psalm, Psalm 23?   “Thou preparest a table before me – where? – right in the presence of my enemies.” In the valley of the shadow of death; in the midst of harassment from all sides, the psalmist knows not only that he’s going to be sustained (the table); he’s going to be equipped to defy everything and everyone who wants to take him down. Isn’t it grand that Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, sustains his people?   It’s wonderful. We’re conquerors. Yet he does even more: he fortifies his people so that we can defy whatever wants to take us out of the orbit of God’s love.

It is the lamb whose enemies trampled him only to find him raised from the dead in the presence of his enemies; it is this conqueror who equips us with more-than-conqueror resilience.

[b] Yet there’s more than resilience in being superconquerors; there’s also radiance. It’s possible to be victorious (we haven’t been separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord); it’s even possible to be victorious and resilient (we can go on defying everything that assaults us) and yet be grim, be suspicious, be sour, be as edgy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Elie Wiesel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and author of Night, the 1960 book that Oprah Winfrey endorsed this year (thereby selling 500,000 copies of the new translation); Wiesel was 17 when he was liberated from Auschwitz. His mother and his sister had already been executed; his father had died in Auschwitz from slave labour and malnutrition.   Ever since the death of Martin Buber, Wiesel has been the spokesperson for worldwide Jewry. He’s a writer whose profundity and anguish and inspiration have been recognized repeatedly. Wiesel says, “Do you know why I am a Jew?   I like to sing. However bad their lot, the Jewish people can always find reason to sing.”

Speaking of singing: I had listened to African-American spirituals for years, had enjoyed them (as everyone seems to) but had never reflected on them at any depth.   Then one day a man in the small (smaller than Schomberg) rural congregation I was serving pointed out to me that that there was no trace of bitterness in the spirituals – and this fact was surely a triumph of grace and a manifestation of grace.   Think of it: slavery, with its brutality, degradation, suffering, seeming hopelessness – and yet no bitterness in its music, no incitement to revenge, no zeal for vicious vindictiveness; only a patient waiting for God’s vindication.   More than mere resilience, the music breathes radiance.

A woman with advanced neurological disease began to tell me of an incident that had recently befallen her and her husband, himself ill with the same disease.   Her story sounded grim. My face sank. She saw my face and laughed, “Oh, it’s really quite funny.”   Here’s her story.

Needing to use the toilet in the night, she transferred herself from bed to wheelchair to toilet.  In attempting to pull herself up from the toilet she lost her balance at the same as she jammed her arm between the handrail and the wall. She fell down onto the floor with her arm up, wedged between the handrail and the wall.   Her husband heard the commotion.   He transferred himself from bed to wheelchair and set off to help her. In his excitement he capsized his wheelchair. Now he was on the floor too (in a different room), couldn’t get up, and therefore couldn’t get to a phone.         “What on earth did you do?” I asked the woman weakly.   “I knew no one was going to come along until morning”, she said, “and so I recited over and over again Psalm 34: ‘I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.   Look to him and be radiant.’”

Karl Barth, the best theologian of the 20th Century, was a Swiss national teaching in Germany when the Gestapo removed him from his classroom at gunpoint in 1935.  Barth points out that while the New Testament says much about the harassments and assaults and afflictions that are visited specifically upon God’s people, nowhere in the New Testament is all this spoken of in terms of protest or complaint or self-pity.   “Look to him and be radiant.”

Resilience and radiance are alike part of being more-than-a-conqueror.

 

II: — The Greek verb that corresponds to the noun Nike, “victory”, is Nikan.   In several places our English bibles have the verb “overcome”. To conquer is to overcome. Paul uses Nikan in his letter to the Christians in Rome . “Don’t be overcome with evil”, he says I Romans 12; “you be sure to overcome evil with good.” We all agree.   Still, there’s little point in being told to overcome evil with good unless we are also told how to do it. And in fact the apostle tells us several times over how we are to overcome evil with good in several different situations.

For instance, we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.   And what has this to do with overcoming evil?   If we don’t rejoice with those who rejoice then we plainly envy them. Our envy in turn sours us. Sour petulance born of envy diminishes the joy of whose who are rejoicing.   This is evil enough. Envy – our mediaeval foreparents were correct in naming it one of the “seven deadly sins” – always moves from envy to nastiness to hatred. At this point we have moved beyond resenting the joy of those who rejoice; at this point we are quietly determined to slay them.   By rejoicing with those who rejoice we don’t give this dynamic any chance to start. By rejoicing with those who rejoice we overcome evil with good.

On the other hand, if we fail to weep with those who weep, then plainly we have no sympathy for those in distress, and we have no sympathy in that our hearts have grown hard.   Our hard-heartedness is evil enough.   Worse, by failing to weep with those who weep, we isolate them.   As we isolate those who have reason to weep we magnify their distress. Once again, in weeping with those who weep we overcome evil with good.

Another clue from the Romans letter: “Associate with the lowly; never be conceited.”   If we associate with those who aren’t lowly; if we associate with the snooty and snobby and the self-important we shall have to play their game in order to remain in their company.   Soon, however, the game will cease to be a game; it will simply be who we are. The conceited are those who lack humility. Humility has everything to do with humus, the Latin word for earth. The conceited are those who have falsified themselves to the point that they are forever denying their ordinariness, their earthliness, even their earthiness. The conceited are the self-inflated whose hot air keeps floating above the earthly, earthy ordinariness of everybody else.   At least this is what the self-important, self-inflated think – in their pathetic self-delusion. Only as we associate with the lowly do we avoid all such silly self-misperception ourselves. Only as we associate with the lowly do we overcome evil with good.

The apostle’s most obvious directive in this matter (we are still probing Romans 12) we must hear and heed: “Don’t repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” It’s easy to repay evil for evil. When we are victimized by evil our knee-jerk response is to retaliate with evil, if only to think that this is the only way we can protect ourselves.   But the Christian knows she doesn’t have to protect herself ultimately, and can’t protect herself ultimately in any case.   When our Lord was reviled, Peter tells us, he didn’t revile in return. When he was spat upon, he didn’t spit back.

Still, it’s easy to repay evil for evil.   It’s easy to do it stealthily, privately, quietly.   If we are well-practised at repaying evil for evil, we can disguise the repayment so cleverly that no one else sees it; no one else, that is, except the person whom we have paid back in the coin of evil. But in the life of Christians there are to be no devious, dark corners that cloak treachery and venom. For we are always to keep before us, always to keep hung up in our mind, what is noble in the sight of all. We are always to act in such a way that public scrutiny would find us unashamed.

Since life isn’t nearly so much a matter of occasional large items as it is the daily accumulation of smaller items, each and every day provides no end of instances where evil is to be overcome by good, resulting in what is noble in the sight of all.

 

We began today by noting that no one admires the conqueror who is cruel or coercive. We noted too that Jesus Christ isn’t this kind of conqueror.   He is first the lamb slain. He has been raised from the dead and therein vindicated as victor.   By faith we keep company with him.   As we are made the beneficiaries of his victory we are made conquerors ourselves. Therefore we can overcome evil with good. Made more than conquerors, as we overcome evil with good we shall do so resiliently, even radiantly.

 

                                                                                                 Victor Shepherd             

October 2006

You asked for a sermon on What Is Evangelism

Romans 10:9-17

 

[1] What is evangelism? It is commending Jesus Christ to others; specifically, commending him to others who are indifferent or hostile to him. Evangelism is pointing to our Lord and pointing others to our Lord; specifically, it is pointing on behalf of those who have not yet seen him, cannot locate him, may not even know he’s around.

John Wesley, upon announcing the good news to those who were ignorant of God, indifferent to his truth, and often so spiritually unconcerned as not able to care less; Wesley wrote in his journal come nightfall, “I offered them Christ”. I like that expression: “I offered them Christ”. Needless to say, as often as we use it we don’t pretend for a minute that Christ is “ours” to offer; we don’t possess him or own him or handle him. We don’t offer him in the same sense that we offer our favourite compact disc to someone who wants to listen to music. Jesus Christ isn’t ours to dispense.

At the same time, there is a profound sense in which we do offer him. Scripture insists that God can be known only as he is declared. It is the vocation of the prophet to announce that truth of God which God then owns and honours so that the prophet’s announcement of truth becomes God’s vehicle for imparting truth; and more than God’s vehicle for imparting truth, God’s vehicle of God’s own presence and person and penetration. Conversely, where the prophet falls silent, there is no penetration of stone-hard heart and darkened mind. In this vein the apostle Paul writes, “Everyone who invokes the name of the Lord will be saved. How can they invoke one in whom they have no faith? How can they have faith in one they have never heard of? And how can they hear without someone to spread the news? And how can anyone spread the news without a commission to do so?”

Evangelism is someone with a commission spreading the news of Jesus Christ so that those who hear may call upon him and find themselves blessed with the blessing: intimacy with the God who forgives us and forges unbreakable bonds with us and cherishes us and holds in the palm of his hand all who want to be nowhere else.

In the profoundest sense, then, we do “offer” Christ. In commending our Lord we do “make him available”, as it were; as we do this he promises to render himself vivid. Vivid himself, now, and vivifying others, he looms up before those who have been unaware of him and surges over them in his truth, his love, his persistence, his winsomeness. This is evangelism.

[2] If this is what evangelism is, why do sober, sensible, sensitive people like us react instinctively, react viscerally, as soon as we hear the word? Why do we react negatively?

(i) It’s because we associate evangelism with emotional manipulation. To be sure, we all recognize that guilty people (people who are guilty before God, that is) should feel guilty; nonetheless, we suspect that guilt-feelings are often fostered artificially, magnified cleverly, exploited unscrupulously.

(ii) Then again we associate evangelism with anti-intellectualism. The evangeliser frequently strikes us as someone who offers embarrassingly simple solutions to complex questions (if he is even aware of the question); too often it seems to us that the evangelist doesn’t appreciate the tangles with which life becomes tangled; he doesn’t appreciate the struggle some people have in wrestling with matters of faith and their unbelief; he doesn’t seem bothered by the many who profess repentance and faith at evangelistic services only to be found, six months later, sunk in skepticism or cynicism or contempt towards the very event that induced their response. While it is true that we should never pander to intellectual pride, we must always accommodate intellectual difficulty. Too often the evangelist appears not to do this, not to care to, and not to be possessed of intellectual subtlety himself.

(iii) Once more, we associate evangelism with unconscious compartmentalization. Faith is compartmentalized in one box of life, thinking in another, money in another, sex in another, education in another — with the result that faith appears to have nothing at all to do with life. Evangelism is then identified with a mindless “inwardness” while life has to do with thoughtful “outwardness”.

For all these reasons we cringe upon hearing the word “evangelism”.

[3] But we shouldn’t cringe. The word is noble. The English word “evangel” comes from the Greek word “euaggelion”, when the Greek word simply means “good news”. Strictly speaking, it means not merely “good news”, but also “the announcing of good news”; “evangel”, then, is good news announced, good news making hearers joyful. If the gospel is the announcing of news so good as to make hearers rejoice, then we shouldn’t feel negative about the word, and shouldn’t apologize for using it. Instead we should reclaim the word; we should take it back from those who have pirated it and besmirched it. When something is tarnished anywhere else in life we don’t throw it away; we reclaim it, shine it, and display it.

Several years ago when I was a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto one of my students in sixteenth century theology told me that whenever he went to a dance or a party he disguised the fact that he was in theology. He said that as he pirouetted his dance-partner around the floor and the inevitable question came up (“What are you studying?”), he always said, “Geology; I’m in geology.” To speak the truth — “theology” — would have meant no dance-partner (he felt).

I have noticed that when the word “evangelism” should be used some people substitute “church growth” or “outreach” lest the “dance” with their conversation-partner end on the spot. But we should use the right word. Church growth may (or may not) be an outcome of evangelism. Outreach is important, but we can reach out to people for any number of reasons yet never intend to offer them Christ. We should reclaim the word and never attempt to disguise it. The word is noble.

Then let’s display its inherent nobility. The student who told his dance-partner that he was studying geology; doesn’t he know that geology is the study of ancient inert rocks, while theology is the study of the activity of the living God, always contemporary, the maker of the only genuine future there can ever be? If someone doesn’t want to dance with that, too bad for her!

[4] Why do we evangelize? Because the good news is good; in fact, the good news is the best news there could ever be. In everyday life wouldn’t we rejoice at the good news of someone, sick unto death, who had been restored to health? Jesus says that the spiritually healthy don’t need a physician, but the sick do; and he is that physician whose cure is sure.

Aren’t we pleased when someone whose reasoning is unreasonable is restored to sanity? God’s verdict on our reasoning in matters of faith and life is (to quote scripture) “futile in their thinking”, “senseless minds darkened”, “claiming to be wise they become fools”; moreover, spiritual derangement is accompanied by degrading conduct — the bottom line. Then isn’t it wonderful news to hear that Jesus Christ can restore reason to reason’s integrity so that our thinking (with respect to spiritual matters) is no longer “dark”, “senseless”, “futile” or “base”?

Surely we would all describe as “good news” the announcement that a blind person — particularly someone born blind — was finally rendered able to see. Then to come upon someone who has been made able to see the kingdom of God, and to see it shine more brightly and more invitingly than the kingdoms of this world; this is good news magnified one-hundredfold.

What better news could there be than the news that someone, deaf to the living God for decades, has heard him, and heard him call her by name, and heard him speak truth that she had always regarded as antiquated religious opinion? She will henceforth spend the rest of her life in a dialogue that isn’t presumptuous chatter but is rather an ever-increasing fusing of her heart to God’s.

Every few weeks someone approaches me quietly and says, “Victor, several Sundays ago you said, `…………………..’ I went home and thought about it. Then I did it. I have been doing it ever since. And do you know what, Victor? It works!” Precisely what has “worked”? The grudge that had festered like the foreign body that it is; the grudge whose festering had gone from low-grade infection to blood-poisoning; someone went home and by the grace of God and by the grit that grace supplies put the grudge behind him and found a new freedom to get on with life. What is this but to receive fresh confirmation that in the kingdom of God the lame are made to walk? There are many different kinds of lameness that are made good in the kingdom of God! What news could be better?

The long-term grudge; envy that has clung to us like fly-paper; a quest for social superiority that amounted to an obsession; bondage to a besetting sin that has been so well hidden that no one else has even suspected — and then release!. The gospel offers nothing less, promises nothing less, delivers nothing less. Good news? It couldn’t be better!

We evangelize because we are stewards of the priceless good, the gospel itself. Like Wesley of old, we can only say, “We must offer them Christ.” We evangelize too inasmuch as we aren’t merely persuaded of its truth; we are possessed of him whose gospel it is. This isn’t to hold ourselves up as spiritual giants; it isn’t to indulge ourselves in a spiritual snobbishness as revolting as it is ridiculous. But it is to say with a man born blind who is now sighted, “I was blind, I can see, I know who did it for me.” In his brief letter to the Christians in Philippi Paul speaks, out of his overflowing heart, of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Is he boasting, or otherwise parading himself as spiritually superior? Immediately he adds, “Not that I…am already perfect.” Unless we say the first we have nothing to say; unless we say the second we should say nothing at all. At the end of the day evangelism is one beggar who has found bread telling another beggar where there is bread; it is inviting anyone at all to join us on a venture.

[5] Part of the sermon you asked for was, “How do we evangelize in Streetsville?” We do it here the way it’s done anywhere else.

(a) There is always the evangelism of the evangelist, the evangelism of the person whom God has called and made fruitful in addressing large crowds. Billy Graham does it, John Wesley did it, Jonathan Edwards did it, William Sangster did it. Peter did it on the day of Pentecost when he “offered Christ” to them and 3000 people closed with the offer.

(b) There is also the evangelism of the local congregation. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, British cardiologist-turned-clergyman, ministered for thirty years to a large congregation in downtown London, England. Tirelessly Lloyd-Jones insisted that it must never be assumed that all who come to church have in fact closed with the gospel-offer. For this reason he always insisted that one service in three be slanted toward helping someone onto the road of discipleship. This still left two services out of three to encourage and instruct and edify believers who are already on the road.

(c) In the third place even those services that aren’t slanted toward securing a new commitment to our Lord; even these services, any service at all, can function as a vehicle of evangelism. The theme of the service can be anything at all: doctrine, prayer, faith, ethics, some aspect of church history, music, biography, the fact and nature of evil, the installation of the UCW executive; the theme can be anything at all. What then renders any service an occasion of evangelism is the mood of the service, the indefinable “plus” of God’s Spirit, the expectancy of the congregation, the confidence that on this occasion, Sunday morning at 10:00, we are face-to-face with him whose splendour is indescribable; on this occasion God is going to surge over us afresh and we are going to offer ourselves to him anew; today, now, we are eager once more to obey him whose claim upon us we gladly acknowledge. The mood of worship — its spirit, its brightness, its joy and its solemnity, its expectancy, its warmth, its thoughtfulness — surely this moves the “almost-disciple” to wonder, seek, find, know.

When Paul speaks of the worship-services of the congregation in Corinth, the plain, ordinary, Sunday event at St. Matthew’s-By-The-Gas-Station, he doesn’t suggest that it’s boring or “old hat” or pointless because not novel. To be sure, the congregation in Corinth does what congregations do everywhere: sing hymns, read scripture, pray, preach, listen, and receive an offering. In the midst of all of this, says Paul, when an outsider enters the service, she is convicted, the secrets of her heart are disclosed (to her), she falls on her face, she worships God, and she declares that God is “really” among the Corinthian Christians. And it all happens at the most ordinary service of worship! We must never undervalue what is going on when we gather to worship. We gather; God graces us and our service; the atmosphere is rendered Spirit-charged — and throughout it the newcomer is convicted, is confronted with the truth about his innermost self, falls on his face, worships God, and goes home saying to himself, “There really was something going on there in Streetsville today!” We must never undervalue any service of worship as a vehicle of evangelism, for God himself can, and will, render any such service such a vehicle.

(d) Lastly, we must understand that the commonest vehicle of evangelism is the one most readily overlooked: casual conversation that is not deliberately evangelistic at all, yet casual conversation about matters of the Spirit that are both ever so deep in us and also on the tip of our tongue, and on the tip of our tongue just because ever so deep in us.

A few weeks ago Maureen and I and two parishioners spent an evening at Convocation Hall (University of Toronto) listening to John Updike read from his latest novel and answer questions from the audience. The evening was electrifying. Anyone who is attracted to literature would have been rendered exuberant at Updike’s knowledge of the history of literature, his profundity, his grasp of the English language, and his ability to acquaint hearers with all of this in words that anyone can understand. In the car on the way home we talked about nothing else. For days afterward the four of us were on the phone to each other; newspaper articles that spoke of Updike’s visit to Toronto were clipped and passed around; future radio broadcasts featuring Updike were marked on calendars. It’s easy to talk about something that is rooted deep in us and enthuses us. We don’t have to look for ways of talking about it; what is dear to us springs unbidden to our lips and we speak of it unselfconsciously.

Then what is dear to us? Who is dear to us? Who enthuses us? There’s no need (and no place) for artificial conversation; there’s no contriving a hidden agenda. Naturalness is what matters.

John Bunyan, the best-known Puritan author (Pilgrim’s Progress), came to faith in Jesus Christ when he accidentally overheard four impoverished women talking naturally among themselves while taking a break from homemaking tasks. He overheard them speak of what it meant to them to be bathed in God’s love for them, what it meant to know Jesus. “They sounded to me as though they had found a new world”, Bunyan wrote later. The four women had. He came upon them when they were talking as unselfconsciously as we talk about — about what? about what matters to us.

So what matters to us? Who matters to us? The commonest kind of evangelism is never planned or programmed; it just happens as surely as Christ’s people are aglow with their Lord.

                                                                      Victor Shepherd

March 1996

What Is Evangelism, and How Do We Evangelize in Streetsville?          

A Note on Romans 12

Romans 12     Genesis 50:15-21      Matthew 5:43-48

 

I: — The risen Lord Jesus Christ apprehended Paul in the year 30, a short time after Jesus himself was raised from the dead. Thereafter Paul always insisted that this staggering apprehension on the road to Damascus both made him a Christian and commissioned him an apostle. Three years later he went to Jerusalem and conferred with Peter, no doubt recognizing Peter as the leader of the mother-church in that city. For the next fourteen years (33-47) Paul was in Arabia (present-day Syria). We don’t know what he was doing there. No record of what he was about exists. At the end of these fourteen years, in the year 47, he returned to Jerusalem and laid “his gospel” before the apostolic leaders there; he wanted them to see that the fellow who had once persecuted Christians was now a bona fide Christian himself. In addition the apostolic leaders in Jerusalem knew that Paul was the chief gospel-witness among the gentiles, and they wanted to be sure that the gentile mission, now swelling rapidly, was informed by the gospel and not by a distortion of the gospel or a dilution of it. From 47-57 Paul evangelized relentlessly, planting numerous congregations in four different Roman provinces. Some of the congregations he planted are known to us; e.g., those in Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, Thessalonica.

Paul spent the winter of 56-57 at the home of his friend and convert, Gaius, in the city of Corinth. He planned to go to Jerusalem in the spring with money he had been collecting for starving Christians (Jewish Christians) there. In addition he felt that the money which gentile Christians had raised for this purpose would strengthen the bonds between the mother-church in Jerusalem and the largely gentile churches throughout Asia and Europe.

Paul regarded it his peculiar vocation to announce the gospel where the gospel had never been heard before. He didn’t like to build on someone else’s foundation, as he put it. He preferred announcing the good news where the name of Jesus Christ was unknown. Since the gospel had not yet been declared in Spain, Paul decided to go Spain. He was sure that the harvest there would be substantial.

What’s more, on the way to Spain he could stop in Rome. He had always wanted to visit the capital city. After all, it was the most influential city of the most powerful empire in the world. Any fruit the gospel bore in Rome would spread throughout the empire. Moreover, Paul was a Roman citizen by birth, and naturally enough he wanted to visit the city which had accorded him this rare privilege.

Accordingly, he wrote a theological treatise to the Christian people of Rome (the letter we call “Romans”), acquainting them with his theological convictions and allaying any misgivings they might have had about him.

Then it happened. While he was in Jerusalem religious authorities ganged up on him and had him charged. His trial dragged on and on. Finally he had had enough and told the Roman officials in Jerusalem that he was a citizen of Rome and it was his right to have his trial heard in Rome. Three years after he had written his theological treatise he arrived in the city, in chains. He remained under house arrest for two years. We don’t know for sure what happened to him next. Almost certainly, however, he perished in the terrible persecution of Emperor Nero, together with his friend Peter.

II: — Romans 12 is crucial. It deals with the application of Paul’s gospel to life. In the earlier chapters of the book Paul has expounded the riches of the gospel: how God makes sinful people right with himself, why all humankind needs to be made right with God, the manner in which the gospel quickens faith in people and binds them to Christ, and so on. Then beginning in chapter twelve he tells his readers how this gospel is to be lived in their day-to-day affairs. It is never enough that the gospel be understood and believed; it must always be lived. In fact, we understand and believe the gospel in order that we might live it. Truth has to be done.

III (i): — The first thing Paul puts forward in his section on what the Christian is to do is the ground of our doing anything at all. What moves the Christian to live like a Christian, to want to live like a Christian? The ground of all that we do is simply God’s mercy. Our motivation is gratitude for this mercy. J.B. Phillips, the best paraphraser of the NT, writes, “With your eyes wide open to the mercies of God.” Christians are those who have intimate acquaintance with the mercy of God. We know ourselves freed, renewed and invigorated at God’s own hand. I know that I am the beneficiary of God’s mercy. I have known since I was nine years old that as sinner I merited only condemnation; that the amnesty which God fashioned and pressed upon me I didn’t deserve at all. Therefore it had to be rooted in his mercy alone. Mercy is love poured out on those who merit no love at all and never will. That I live at all is a manifestation of God’s mercy. That I have been rendered a new creature in Christ Jesus, am sustained in this newness every day by God’s Spirit, and am destined for eternal glory; this is an even greater manifestation of mercy. It is this greater mercy which will always be the rock-bottom truth and reality of my life. And ceaseless gratitude will ever be the only worthy motivation of my Christian conduct.

Our awareness of God’s astounding mercy certainly sobers us and frequently silences us; but it never immobilizes us. On the contrary, says the apostle, our awareness of God’s mercy moves us to offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice.

Our bodies? How do I offer my body to God? Paul means my self: to offer my body is to offer myself. I don’t offer not this or that about myself, as though I were trying to get off cheap with God; I offer my self, all of my self. Then why does the apostle say “body”? Because he is a Jew, and the Hebrew mind knows that there is no human self apart from a body. I have no self apart from my body. If my friend phones me up and asks, “Would you like to play baseball this afternoon?”, I don’t reply, “Sure, I’d love to play baseball; I’ll bring along my ball and glove; I’ll bring along my body too.” It would be nonsensical inasmuch as “I” can’t play baseball apart from my body; there isn’t even an “I” apart from my body. Neither can I honour God without my body; neither can I obey God without my body. My personhood, my identity, my innermost “I”, while not reducible to my body, is nonetheless inseparable from my body.

The last fifteen years have acquainted us with notorious scandal among television preachers who thought that they could honour God and serve God apart from their bodies. The last year has acquainted us with notorious scandal among Roman Catholic priests who thought as much too. “They” themselves could serve God while their bodies were off doing something else. Those men disgraced themselves. Our gratitude to God for our salvation must ever move us to offer God our body, our “self”, all of “us” without qualification or reservation.

My offering all of “me” to God is “spiritual worship”, says Paul. Some translations of the NT say “reasonable service”, others, “spiritual worship”. The Greek expression means both, and I am sure that Paul had both meanings in mind. It’s reasonable in that my obedient service to God is the only reasonable response to that mercy of his which has saved me. At the same time, my obedient service to God, my aspiration to live the gospel, is the only sign that my worship of God is born of his Spirit. “Reasonable service” and “spiritual worship” mean the same thing.

What it all adds up to, says the apostle, is that we are not to be conformed to the world. We are not to let the world squeeze us into its mould.

In the latter part of the twelfth chapter Paul tells us that our Christian existence unfolds in the world. Christians are committed to the world. We are not to try to live in a little religious ghetto which shuts out the big, bad world. At the same time, the very world which we are to live in and struggle for is a world to which we are not to conform.

(ii): — Now between the latter part of chapter twelve and the earlier part comes the middle part. In the middle part Paul speaks of our Christian service to the church. You see, before you and I are qualified to serve the world we must serve the church. Of course! Surely our fellow-Christians have first claim upon us. After all, it is our fellow-Christians who nurture us and encourage us and sustain us. They have to have first claim upon us, since we don’t hesitate to look to them for whatever we need whenever we need it. Furthermore, if we are unable to serve our fellow-Christians in the church (where we share a common Lord, common faith, common hope) how shall we fare in the wider world (which is meaner, tougher, more resistant, and utterly unforgiving)? The first sphere of our service is always the church.

In our service to the church Paul insists first and foremost that we not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. (“Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance…”, he says.) Paul makes this point first because he knows the church gives people the chance to be a big toad in a small pond; and not merely a big toad, a totalitarian toad. There are two reasons for this. One, compared to where our lives unfold during the week the local congregation is small. The person who has no clout at all in his place of employment (how much clout can any employee have at General Motors or CNR?) finds that he has immense clout in a congregation. Two, congregations tend to be docile in the face of someone who speaks loudly or shrilly. Most church people have grown up with the idea that they should be nice inasmuch as Jesus was nice. Now Jesus was many things, but “nice” wasn’t one of them. (C.S. Lewis maintains that according to the New Testament Jesus is tender and terrifying in equal parts, but never “nice”.) Still, he is thought to have been nice. When a powerplay unfolds in congregational life or someone browbeats another member or brings forward a not-so-hidden agenda, others decide quickly they should acquiesce in order to keep things nice. (Surely this is what has happened over and over in meetings of presbytery and conference and general council in The United Church of Canada since 1988 — never mind before.) The noisy browbeater or the powerplay specialist wins the day. The big toad in the small pond is now even bigger.

The apostle is aware of this. For this reason the first thing he says to us who are who we are only by God’s mercy is this: “Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” We are not to cherish exaggerated ideas of ourselves or our importance. This is foundational. Without it church life either fragments or becomes the fiefdom of the local tyrant.

Having made his point here Paul next tells us that each of us is to exercise, for the good of the congregation, whatever ministry we have been given to exercise. Our ministry here, our service, is simply the exercising of the gifts which we have.

Paul is careful to note three things here. One, every Christian has a service to render the believing community, just because every Christian has a gif, a talent. Two, we should exercise only those gifts which we have; we should not attempt to exercise gifts which we don’t have. This is why he says, “If your gift is teaching, then teach (don’t attempt carpentry or accounting); if your gift is exhortation or encouragement, then exhort or encourage.” Very often in church life we expect people to exercise gifts which they manifestly don’t have. Then we are surprised when an important task in church life goes undone, or is done poorly; surprised again when the person who attempted to do it feels guilty at having done it so poorly. We are to do only what has been given us to do. We should never feel guilty for not doing what we have no gift for doing. In the third place Paul says something about the service which mercy-made Christians are to render that we must take to heart: whatever our service is, we are to render it wholeheartedly, generously, zealously, cheerfully. We are not to render it stingily, resentfully, grudgingly, miserably. “Whoever contributes, liberally; whoever gives assistance, enthusiastically; whoever does acts of mercy, cheerfully” — is how he speaks of it. There is nothing as destructive as “doing good”, so-called, which is done reluctantly, resentfully, grudgingly. Congregational life thrives when everyone’s service is recognized and encouraged; when whatever service is rendered the congregation is rendered as people have gifts with which to render it; when all of this is done with magnanimity of spirit. Not only is congregational life made to thrive, says the apostle, Christians are at this point qualified for their service to the world.

(iii): — Our service to the world Paul discusses beginning with verse 14 of chapter 12. Right off the bat he says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless them, don’t curse them.” Doesn’t that wake you up? His first point is that the service which the Christian renders the world for the sake of the world, the world throws back in the Christian’s face! But this is because of something I mentioned ten minutes ago: the world which the Christian must serve is precisely that world to which the Christian must not conform. Right off the bat, then, there is going to be a collision between the Christian and the world.

At this point the Christian is always tempted to protect himself by turning his back on the world and huddling in a corner with a blanket pulled over his head. The apostle forbids this. He forbids it because he knows his Lord forbids it. (After all, says St.John, it is the world which God so loved that he bled to death for it.) We are not to stand aloof. In fact, says Paul, we are to stand so close to the world, in such solidarity with other people, that we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We weep with those who weep inasmuch as we are sensitive to their hurt and we care for them in the midst of their pain; we rejoice with those who rejoice inasmuch as we don’t envy whatever it is which has made them rejoice, and therefore we don’t dash cold water on their elation jealously.

The apostle insists as well that we are not to be haughty, but rather we are to associate with the lowly. J.B Phillips again: “Don’t become snobbish, but take a real interest in ordinary people.” Nothing has the capacity to foster pride, secret arrogance, like belonging to an elite. It can be an academic elite, a professional elite, an athletic elite, a religious elite. Now there is certainly nothing wrong with belonging to such elites. Why shouldn’t the academically gifted person enjoy the company of other academics, the athlete the company of fellow-athletes, and so on? At the end of the day, however, everyone who belongs to the most elevated elite is in exactly the same condition as those who belong to no elite at all: everyone is a suffering human being, fragile, lonely, sinful, facing bodily and mental dissolution — and aware of all of this together as well as aware of spiritual impoverishment. Everyone, whether elitist or not, is subject to the same heartaches, guilt and apprehension. The Christian is to “take a real interest in ordinary people” inasmuch as everyone is ultimately ordinary. At bottom our need is the same and the gospel is the same. We are alike sinners and sufferers who stand empty-handed before God and need what he alone can give us.

The last thing Paul tells us in Romans 12 about our participation the world’s life is this: we are never, but never, to seek revenge. Once we have recognized our enemy as our enemy, we don’t launch a vendetta against him which will only ruin us before it ever ruins him. Vengeance is never our responsibility simply because as soon as we are “stabbed” we lose perspective. Judgement must be left in the hands of him who is always the just judge. Our responsibility is to mirror that truth and mercy which have made us who we are. To do anything else is to be overcome by evil when, says Paul in the very last sentence of Romans 12, our task is always, and only, to overcome evil with good.

 

                                                                                                    Victor Shepherd     

June 2002

The Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony

Romans 12:9-13      Genesis 18:1-8        Luke 15:1-7

 

Did you come to church today expecting me to lambaste fat people?  It isn’t my task to lambaste anyone.  Besides, not all fat people are gluttons.  The truth is, many skinny people are gluttons.  The last thing I want to do is get into an argument over how fat is “fat” and how skinny is “skinny.”   We’re not going to point a finger at anyone today.         We’re going to do something much more profound and helpful.

 

I: — First of all, we have to understand that it’s good to eat.  According to Genesis God provides food, looks upon what he’s done, and then pronounces it good. According to Genesis God provides food not once only, not merely initially, but continuously as he promises seedtime and harvest, harvest and seedtime, the never-failing provision of our elemental bodily needs and all that our body supports. The writer of Ecclesiastes insists, “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart.”   Then the same writer adds, “For bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life.” Eating, he tells us, is God’s gift.

Stained glass pictures of mediaeval “saints” often depict those folk as tubercular, malnourished, emaciated, seemingly in the last stages of starvation or wasting disease. Unfortunately, there are people who starve and there are people who suffer from wasting disease, but there’s nothing virtuous about this.  There’s nothing commendable about looking like a death camp prisoner.

Scripture extols the goodness of God’s creation. Scripture commands us to delight in whatever God has made to sustain us.  John the Baptist ate the plainest food, to be sure, if not the bizarrest food: honey and grasshoppers (high energy and high protein); but he ate. Jesus maintained that John the Baptist was anything but an anaemic wisp or frail wimp, anything but a reed trembling in the wind.  “Eat your bread with enjoyment” says the writer of Ecclesiastes; “for bread is made for laughter.”  Jean Vanier, who has spent his life on behalf of developmentally challenged men (those whom we used to call “retarded” but whom Vanier prefers to call “defenceless” – “Why do we label a man ‘retarded’ just because he can’t defend himself?” Vanier asks us) insists throughout his L’Arche communities that the food be good, the food be abundant, and a light-hearted tone, even a rollicking tone, accompany each meal. Vanier knows there’s nothing God-honouring about eating sawdust in a dismal mood. Jesus ate with relish and ate enough to be accused of gluttony.

 

II: (i) – Then what is gluttony? Here’s the surprise: gluttony isn’t eating too much food; gluttony is being preoccupied with food, regardless of how much or how little we eat. Gluttony is that preoccupation with food that distracts us from profounder aspects of life. At some point we’ve all sat by someone at a wedding reception who couldn’t have cared less about the happy occasion.  He had no interest in the joyful send-off of the happy young couple and the future opening out before them.  He wasn’t even interested in the party that would take up the evening. Instead he was wholly preoccupied with three matters:

What’s for supper?

Will there be enough?

Is the bar free?

 

Gluttony, remember, isn’t a matter of eating too much.  Gluttony is a matter of according food a concern that’s entirely inappropriate.

Not so long ago I attended meetings of a higher court of the denomination. The issues concerned were important: how the denomination might stem its haemorrhaging and thrive again; how younger people might be reached; what sorts of challenges the next decade or two are likely to bring us.  Throughout these meetings there was sober reflection, searing pain, and ardent enthusiasm. On the way home I said to my travel companion, “What did you think of the meetings?”   “The food was sure good” he replied.  Being fifteen pounds overweight isn’t the lethal aspect of deadly-sin gluttony. The lethal aspect, rather, is being so very preoccupied with food as to lose sight of the kingdom’s collision with the world, lose sight of the spiritual contradiction all of us are, lose sight of friends and neighbours whose suffering is simply atrocious.

Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were three young men of great promise in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar.         Nebuchadnezzar recognized their talent and wanted to make them the highest-ranking civil servants.  There was only one problem: the three young men knew whose they were, and therefore who they were. They knew, honoured and obeyed the God of Israel.  As long as they obeyed him, they were of no use to Nebuchadnezzar and his self-promotion in Babylon . Nebuchadnezzar would have to re-program them. He offered to feed the three fellows at the royal table.  They could have caviar, goose-liver pate, pheasant under glass, wine costing a thousand dollars per bottle.  Nebuchadnezzar was aware that once he had quickened a taste for elegance in the three young men; once he had introduced them to ever-ascending social elites, they would forget they were Israelites.  Faith and obedience would shrivel.  They would retain their immense abilities, of course; but now their abilities could be bent to serve Nebuchadnezzar’s purpose as he re-programmed people who were as plastic as all of us are.  Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego saw in an instant what was about to happen. They told the king they would eat cabbage soup.

It happened only in 586 BCE?  It hasn’t happened since? In 1781 John Wesley saw what was happening to the Methodist people.  Newly rendered sober, industrious and thrifty by the power of the gospel, they had spare cash that they had never had when they were drunken and dissolute. They began to frequent – not the gin shops; that was behind them – the coffee shops where both coffee and tea were consumed.  Coffee and tea, imported from halfway around the world, were enormously expensive in 18th Century England (far more expensive than liquor.) Soon the Methodist people were hob-nobbing with other social climbers; soon the Methodist people had a cultivated, refined taste for items they couldn’t have afforded when they were face-down in the gutter.  They became preoccupied with what Wesley called “genteel tasting.” The men and women now infatuated with “genteel tasting”, Wesley noticed, gave up all sacrificial service on behalf of the suffering neighbour.  They became increasingly self-important, snobs in other words.  As they became more self-important, they became touchier, more readily affronted, quicker to take offence.  As they became quicker to take offence they became more vindictive. The spiral down in one’s character, noted Wesley, begins with that genteel tasting born of social privilege, and it ends in cruel vindictiveness born of super-sensitive snooty touchiness. Wesley’s advice? His people should get out of the coffee shops and shed their snootiness.

(ii) I am persuaded that gluttony is found among food-faddists, as well as among those who are extremists in any respect where food is concerned.  The food-faddist hears there’s something wrong with oats.  Only horses should eat them.  Or there’s something wrong with eggs.  No one should them. I’m always amused when people tell me that today’s food processing is harmful in this respect or that respect.  Do they have any idea how many more people, vastly more people, sickened, even died, decades ago when food processing was much less sophisticated? My father told me many times that when he was a boy he could remember seeing in grocery stores tins of food where the tin bulged because of the rotting underway in the sealed tins. Do we really want to go back to the days when roast pork from scrap-fed pigs gave people trichinosis if they happened to undercook it?  People tell me I shouldn’t drink Mississauga ’s tap water. I happen to think that billions of people in other parts of the world would give anything to have access to Mississauga ’s tap water.

I’m convinced that this preoccupation with food-fads is rooted in one thing: fear of dying. The health-food faddists unconsciously think they can eat their way into immortality. But we are mortal creatures. Death is inescapable. The provision God has made for our death, both physical and spiritual, is the sin-bearing Son whom he has raised from the dead and whose righteousness becomes ours through faith. Food-preoccupied people unconsciously think we can transcend our frailty and fragility.  Eating so very carefully is supposed to overturn our mortality.         Food faddism is gluttony not because these people overeat (they never overeat) but because this kind of food-preoccupation keeps us feeding ourselves lies about ourselves.

(iii) What about skinny people? Let’s be honest: many skinny people count calories as though calories were germs. Remember, a preoccupation with food-avoidance is still a preoccupation with food.  Our Lord couldn’t care less if we are ten pounds overweight.  He knows that an obsession with slenderness is a form of pride.  When the Duchess of Windsor remarked, “One cannot be too rich; one cannot be too slender,” she was touting social superiority.         A preoccupation with slenderness points to a pride that has ballooned.

(iv) The worst feature of our preoccupation with food, by far the worst feature (I’m convinced) is this: it destroys fellowship.  Food ought to be the occasion of fellowship. Even the slightest bit of food brings people together.         Think of how many people gather profitably at our weekly coffee hour following worship, where the cost of the food is pennies per person. Food is supposed to function like this; it’s supposed to be the occasion of human meeting.

But something dreadful has happened.  I have found so very many people reluctant to invite others into their homes for a meal. They are simply afraid to bring others in.  After all, the person they invite might be a better cook.         Whatever happened to the meal where food was a side issue, almost a pretext for meeting others, while the real issue was opening ourselves to others and inviting them to open themselves to us as our intertwined lives became richer than anything we had imagined?

If we are afraid to open our homes, we are also afraid to open our hearts. And we are afraid because of three preoccupations concerning food.  The first has to do with novelty: is our dinner different or unusual? The second has to do with quantity: will there be enough?  The third has to do with quality: is it cordon bleu? In no time we are so very anxious that we can’t invite others to share a meal with us.  Now our homes are closed, and with our homes, our hearts.   When food is given a false value it loses its real value.  Its real value is that it fosters friendship.

 

IV: — All of which brings me to the last point of the sermon.  In fact I introduced the last point a minute or two ago; namely, the place of hospitality in Christian discipleship.  Hospitality looms large with God’s people.  Jesus ate with many different people in many different homes on many different occasions.

On one occasion a woman off the street (today we’d describe her as a “streetwalker”, and everyone would know she wasn’t walking the street because she felt like exercising) ended up at a meal with him. Jesus had been invited to the meal; she had not.  When she arrived at the venue of the meal, the host, the homeowner, didn’t say to her, “I invited him; I didn’t invite you.”   Instead the host welcomed her when he saw that she had invited herself. Plainly his home was open.

In the course of the meal the host mentions that the woman has shown poor taste in wetting our Lord’s feet with her tears and wiping them dry with her hair. Jesus doesn’t disagree with him. Instead he uses the occasion to speak the parable of the two debtors, the point of the parable being the more we are forgiven, the more we love.  At the conclusion of the meal at least two things have happened.  The woman has been confirmed in her love for Jesus as her expression of gratitude is received and honoured, while the homeowner, the host, has come to know what he would otherwise never have known; namely, the more we are forgiven the more we love.  And it all happened just because one man opened his home to the Nazarene by pre-arrangement, and opened his home to a dubious woman on the spot. The result of it all was that Jesus was fed, a woman was honoured, and a man learned what would alter his life forever. This is what is gained all around whenever you or I offer hospitality.

The biblical word for hospitality is philexonia.  Literally it means “love of strangers”.  Hospitality is a huge item in scripture.  In the Pastoral Epistles hospitality is one of the qualifications for leadership in the Christian community.         Not only must leaders be honest; not only must they be maritally faithful; not only must they be schooled in the gospel; they have to be given to hospitality.

In ancient Israel a householder was obliged to extend hospitality, obliged to extend it to his enemy, even his worst enemy. Once his enemy had accepted the hospitality, then had taken his leave and gone on his way, the householder couldn’t pursue him for four and a half days. Jesus goes one step farther. He insists that as we accord hospitality to anyone, that person ceases to be our enemy. Hospitality scatters strangeness and overcomes enmity.

For many years I have thought that loneliness is the affliction wherewith people are afflicted. Several years ago I mentioned this in casual conversation to a congregant, a physician who, along with his wife, was born into social circles that I shall never penetrate and who has the medical fraternity as well as society’s glitterati at his feet.         In other words, he’d never be lonely, would he?  When I casually mentioned that loneliness afflicts so very many he remarked soberly, “The whole world is lonely.”         He meant, of course, the he is lonely.

A woman whose husband left her served on the same presbytery committee as I.  One evening at the presbytery committee meeting she mentioned casually that she might drive east for her holidays.  I told her, equally off-handedly, that Maureen and I and the children were going to spend ten days at Shining Waters Cabins on Prince Edward Island . Nothing more was said.  I forgot about the conversation.  Several months later she appeared, unannounced, on our doorstep at Shining Waters Cabins. She had driven from Mississauga to Summerside , PEI , in one day – to visit us. Loneliness is the affliction of our society. Yet Christians know that food is meant to foster fellowship.  And therefore we know what is required of us.

My mother was only 51 years old when my father died. She remarked to me, “The pattern of my life will change now, because I’m single again and single people are marginalized in a couple-oriented society.” “Oh no, mother”, I disagreed in my 23-year old unwisdom; “the couples with whom you and dad were friends won’t drop you now.”         I was wrong. And since then Maureen and I have made sure that we never overlook people who are not married for any reason.

Hospitality, philexonia, love of strangers, food. They all hang together. As soon as we rid ourselves of the false value of food we perceive its real value: an open home, open hearts, strangeness dispelled, enmity overcome, loneliness alleviated.

How important is hospitality?  Paul says we should pursue it, make it a priority.  Peter says we should practise it ungrudgingly.  The author of Hebrews maintains that as we show hospitality to strangers we entertain angels unawares.  Angels are messengers of God who convey God’s blessings.  In other words, in according hospitality we shall find that some of the people we receive will bring with them a word from God or wisdom from God or his comfort and consolation – all of which we should otherwise never know and enjoy.

 

Our Lord ate with anyone at all at homes, parties, weddings, anywhere.  He couldn’t care less whether we are ten pounds overweight or not. He does care, however, that we delight in the food he has given us.

Equally he cares that we avoid the preoccupation with food that gives food a false value.  Instead he insists on the real value of food.  Food fosters fellowship. Food facilitates hospitality. And hospitality dispels strangeness, overcomes enmity, alleviates loneliness. Food is even the occasion where angels are entertained; which is to say, when we eat together God himself visits us and presses upon us what we should otherwise have to do without.

 

                                                                                               Victor Shepherd

March 2006

 

A Note Concerning Our Enemies: Loving Them, Understanding Them, Asserting Ourselves in the Midst of Them

                 Romans 12:14-21        2nd Kings 6:8-23                    

 

[1]         “Everyone liked him”, the person speaking of the departed says at the funeral, “everyone liked him; he didn’t have a single enemy.” I feel dreadful whenever I hear this, because if Mr. X didn’t have so much as one enemy, then he wasn’t identifiably Christian.  Jesus had enemies without number.  Insofar as we are identified with our Lord we shall never lack enemies ourselves, and shall never lack them just because he never lacked them.

“If only we were more loving, we’d have no enemies”, someone of much sentimentality but little understanding adds.   Jesus loved without limit, patiently submitted to slander and contempt, endured torment and death for the sake of any and all, and still had enemies. It simply isn’t true that love invariably fosters love in others, that love invariably undoes the enmity strangling someone else’s heart.   The same sun that melts ice also hardens clay.         Love poured upon some people hardens their resistance into hostility.

While we are debunking myths we should debunk another one; namely, that the world is a nice place, punctuated by enmity only occasionally. Jesus never said the world is a nice place; Jesus said the entire world lies in the grip of the evil one. Jesus insists that three features characterize the evil one: absence of righteousness, absence of love, absence of truth.   The absence of righteousness is sin; the absence of love is murderous enmity; the absence of truth is falsehood and delusion.  Since Jesus insists that this is what riddles the world, I’m not about to say that the world is nice.

Let’s be honest. It isn’t only the world that seethes with enmity; the church does too.   Scripture reminds us that the church is infiltrated with enemies of the gospel. Peter speaks of false teachers who have sneaked into the church.         Paul speaks of those who mutilate the gospel.  John speaks of those who stand within the Christian fellowship but whose hearts are far from the truth.   And Jude? Jude’s entire epistle is a white-hot denunciation of those who posture themselves as church leaders yet pervert the faith and discipleship of others within it. Jude’s language (“worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, waterless clouds, fruitless trees” — he stops only because his pen ran out of ink) is so very vivid just because enemies of the gospel harass the church relentlessly.

In a world characterized by enmity we shouldn’t be surprised that to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ in his exposure of the world’s depravity means we shall find his enemies harassing us as well. Think for a minute of our Lord’s healing of the man born blind.   Who would ever oppose it? No one thinks someone suffering the tragedy of blindness should be left blind. Still, when Jesus restores sight to a blind man some people are enraged because he did it on the Sabbath. Others fume and spew because they resent his manifest authority.  Still others hate him because he looks them in the eye and says, “This man who has been blind from birth; his physical condition is an illustration of your spiritual condition.”   Now they are incensed. But our Lord hasn’t finished. “Because you think you can see, because you insist you are spiritually perceptive, your guilt remains.  And on the day of judgement you will be without excuse.”   What is utterly unobjectionable — enabling a blind person to see — quickly becomes the occasion of murderous enmity.  After this, “Bad Friday” can’t fail to arrive.  Since the world is steeped in hostilty, Jesus both asserts and proves, the apostle Paul’s reminder to young Timothy is unarguable: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Tim. 3:12)

 

[2]         Contrary to what most people think, Christians don’t inhabit a Pollyanna world. Christians are the most realistic of all people.  Therefore we are going to admit that our enemies are just that: enemies. Enemies aren’t friends in disguise. Enemies can hurt; they’re dangerous.

Since enemies are dangerous, they can’t be trusted.  Yes, we are to love them and pray for them.  We are to love them, says Jesus, as he loved them to the end. But nowhere does our Lord tell us to trust them. He didn’t trust them himself.

While we are talking about the danger that our enemies are, we should carefully delineate the different kinds of danger they are.  One kind of danger is what our enemies can do to us outwardly.  They can slander us, cheat us, exploit us, ruin our chances for promotion at work, turn our friends against us, and so on.  None of this is to be discounted.  At the same time, however, our enemies are never as great an outward danger to us as they are an inward danger.  While they can do much to us outwardly, what they can do inwardly is far worse; namely, warp us, disfigure us, poison us.  It’s one thing for our enemies to do some one thing that hurts us; it’s another thing (and far worse) for them to turn us bitter, sour, caustic.

We need to think about this at greater length.  It’s one thing for us to be hurt; one thing and no small thing.         Yet a much greater matter is our being rendered embittered people whose cynicism and joylessness render us as welcome as bird ’flu.  It’s only wisdom to want to recognize our enemies; but it’s only folly to think that everyone is now our enemy.  A measure of paranoia may be humorous in others for a while, but only for a while; paranoia in ourselves is never funny.  And paranoia beyond the smallest measure is nothing less than tragic.

The worst kind of damage that our enemies can inflict on us is to turn us into haters. Becoming slightly paranoid means we’ve been rendered a minor psychological casualty; becoming a hater, however, means we’ve been rendered a major spiritual casualty. We must be sure we understand this point. Regardless of what kind of threat our enemies may pose to us (loss of opportunity, loss of reputation, whatever), there’s a spiritual threat they always pose: that poisonous hatred which tells everyone that our spirit has been curdled and every word we utter, every gesture we make, thereafter contradicts our profession of Jesus Christ.

The Greek word peirasmos means temptation, trial and testing all at once. When we are victimized by our enemies we are immediately tempted to hate.  But because hatred is sin, the temptation to hate is a trial before God. To succumb to the temptation and fall into hatred is to have the trial finding us guilty. On the other hand, to resist the temptation and fend off the hatred that laps at us is to be exonerated. The hatred that laps at us is also a form of testing.  Testing in scripture is a metaphor taken from the refining of precious metals. When metallic ore (ore being clumps of ugly-looking rock) is refined it is subject to intense heat and pressure.  Impurities, worthless accretions, are burned off so that only what is valuable and useful and attractive is left.  Any temptation is at the same time a testing; any temptation is that process, under God, by which the worthless accretions that besmirch our character have been brought to our attention and can now be burned out of us. When next temptation whispers to us that we have the right to hate just because we’ve been hurt, we must remember that we are in the gravest spiritual danger. We must pray to resist the temptation, and therefore to have the judge exonerate us at our trial, and thereafter to emerge with our character tested, refined, more nearly like our Lord’s who prayed for his enemies.

While we are pondering this point we should consider that text from the older testament that is quoted so often and is often juxtaposed with the teaching of Jesus. The text, of course, speaks of “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” People assume (incorrectly) that the older testament countenances vindictiveness while the newer does not. People assume (incorrectly) that the Hebrew mind is bloodthirsty and insists on limb for limb.

Not so. Just the opposite, in fact.   The force of “eye for eye” is no more than an eye for an eye.  In other words, punishment for a crime must never be more extreme than the crime itself. Punishment for a crime must never be the pretext for indulging one’s own nastiness. If someone shoplifts a garden hose in Canadian Tire we don’t jail that person for 25 years. If a teenager joyrides in our car we don’t insist on solitary confinement.  The purpose of “eye for eye” (that is, no more than an eye for an eye) is to cut off the spiral of violence before it can even begin. We know how the spiral of violence spirals: you insult me, I punch you, you stab me, I murder you. The purpose of “no more than eye for eye” is to ensure that the initial violation doesn’t precipitate a spiral of violence.

 

[3]         While we are on this topic we should understand that we are always tempted to escalate violence because we fear that we are outnumbered or outgunned. We fear that our foes are greater than our friends; we fear that we are in danger of annihilation. When someone aims his shotgun at us and we feel our puny slingshot is no match for it, we then load up our rocket launcher to make sure we aren’t outgunned. Alas, by this time we’ve lost sight of something that all biblically-informed people should never forget: God’s people are never outgunned.

The prophet Elisha tells us as much in one of the grand, old stories about him. The king of Syria , having suffered repeated military losses at the hands of Israel , concludes that his military plans are being leaked to Israel . He thinks (ridiculously) that the prophet Elisha is the source of the leak.  He decides to kill Elisha. He orders chariots and horses to surround the city of Dothan where Elisha is staying. In the morning Elisha’s youthful helper looks out, sees Syrian charioteers everywhere, knows that the city can’t defend itself, and melts down, wailing, “What are we going to do?”  Elisha cries out, “Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” The young man looks out a second time. This time, however, he’s looking through visionary eyes; he’s seeing visionary sights. He sees the mountain nearby aflame with even more horses and chariots of fire protecting Elisha. The enemies of God’s people never outnumber or outgun God’s people. The psalms in particular are full of this conviction.

In the wilderness Jesus is assaulted by the tempter, apparently alone, apparently defenceless, apparently resourceless.  When Mark narrates this incident he adds a line we customarily read past. Mark adds, “And the angels ministered to Jesus.” In fact our Lord wasn’t alone or defenceless or resourceless.   Months later, perhaps years later, when he was in Gethsemane , beside himself at the prospect not of dying but of the spiritual horror that awaited him, sweating so profusely that he dripped as though he had been gashed, Luke adds, “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.” What is given our Lord is given every one of his people.  For this reason John sums it all up most succinctly: “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.”

 

[4]         Everyone is aware that Christians are commanded to love their enemies and pray for them. Obviously it’s important for our enemies that we love them and pray for them.  (It’s important for them, plainly, since as long as we love them and pray for them we shan’t kill them.)   We are often slower to understand, however, that it’s important for us as well, for otherwise we are going to kill ourselves.  To pray for our enemies is to be taken out of ourselves, away from ourselves, away from our injuries and resentments and grudges.   To be taken out of ourselves, away from ourselves, is to see that the enemy who causes us to suffer is suffering far more himself.  Think of the person who bullies us, or who tries to.  Bullies cause people to suffer.  Yet bullies suffer enormously themselves, for deep inside every bully there beats the heart of a coward.   Now a coward isn’t a fearful person.  All of us are fearful in different circumstances.   The bravest person is fearful, for bravery occurs only in the midst of fear and has no meaning apart from fear.   The coward, on the other hand, is the person who is controlled by his fear. Can you imagine the suffering of the person who is fear-controlled day-in and day-out?

Think of the person whose hostile rage immobilizes us and silences us. Her terrible rage is born of terrible frustration, and frustration is nothing more than helplessness. It’s only as we pray for her that we can get beyond our own upset and see that she is so frustrated herself that she can’t cope.  Someone who can’t cope, and can’t help humiliating herself by her blow-up over inability to cope; this person merits our pity.

There are many ways of being underprivileged.  One way of being underprivileged is having too few tools in one’s tool box. The person whose vocabulary is so meagre he can only swear at us; the person whose explosive temper tells everyone he’s a four-year old dressed up in a man’s business suit; the person whose envy shrivels her own heart more than it damages anyone else; these people have virtually no tools in their tool box. Underprivileged?         They are so very underprivileged as to be pitiable.

At the same time, however much the nastiness of our enemies arises from their own suffering, I should never deny that some of their nastiness (like ours) arises from their perverse heart.  It arises (like ours) simply from their deep-dyed sinfulness.  But this is no reason to stop praying for them.  After all, the person who is unaware of her sin is in a dreadful way; the person who is aware of her sin and remains indifferent to it is in worse spiritual condition.         Then pray for our enemies we must, for their spiritual condition is crucial.

When we pray for our enemies our own wound, while gaping perhaps, is no longer in danger of infecting.  And when we pray for our enemies we understand as never before the prayer of our Lord concerning his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they are blind to their own heart-condition.”

 

[5]         One aspect of a Christian approach to our enemies is how we are to regard them; another aspect of our approach is what we are to do in the midst of them. To love our enemies and pray for them never means that we are to render ourselves doormats. We should assert ourselves. Jesus declares, “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord.” To love our enemies never means that we are to invite additional assaults; it never means that we subtly send out the message, “Step on me again.”   Most important, to love our enemies never means that we abandon the conviction or the truth or the integrity that called forth someone else’s hostility in the first place.  To love our enemies never means that we are to acquiesce in their evil.

In Romans 12 Paul warns us about being overcome by evil even as he urges us to overcome evil with good.         There are many ways of being overcome by evil.  One way of being overcome by evil is so to fear the assault of our enemies that we acquiesce in their evil just to avoid their assault.  We must never do this. We must always resist evil, even as we strive to overcome evil with good.

 

[6]         We all know that we live in a fallen world where enmity abounds.  Christians know too that Jesus Christ has brought with him a renewed world that has eclipsed a fallen world destined to disappear.  Therefore the final truth for all of God’s people is voiced for us by the psalmist in Psalm 56:

“This I know, that God is for me.

                                                          What can man do to me?

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 April 2006

 

You asked for a sermon on Wisdom

1 Corinthians 1:18, 25

Acts 7:22,  Matthew 10:16,  Proverbs 9:10,  Psalm 111:10,   James 3:13-15,

 

A zoo in modern-day Israel houses all the animals mentioned in the bible. One exhibit features a lamb and a wolf in the same pen. When my friend, Rabbi Larry Englander, visited this zoo he asked an attendant how this could be: a lamb and a wolf in the same pen! Without looking up or missing a broomstroke the attendant replied, “Every day, a new lamb.” Lambs don’t last long among the wolves.

When Jesus sent out his missioners he told them that their task would not be easy. “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves”, he said. Then he added the caution, “So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” You and I (together will everyone else) live in a wolfish world. Wisdom is needed merely to survive. Greater wisdom is needed if, beyond surviving, people and communities are to thrive. Greater wisdom still is needed if Jesus Christ is to be discerned and honoured and obeyed, and his kingdom pointed out.

 

I: — Let’s think first about the wisdom needed if people are to survive, even thrive. We must never assume that such wisdom is found among Christians only. Such wisdom is found among different peoples in every era. Luke tells us that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Two things stand out here. One, there was genuine wisdom in Egypt; two, the wisdom Moses acquired in Egypt was surely put to good use when he led the Israelite people (who were non-Egyptians) out of Egypt and then led them through the wilderness years.

Scripture maintains that wisdom is especially needed in any society in the arts of government and justice. Unless a society possesses wisdom with respect to governing, that society will collapse into chaos. Since social existence is impossible amidst chaos, people will rush to end the chaos by submitting to tyranny. Tyranny may be unpleasant, but at least it permits survival. In a word, unless some people in any society are wise in the art of governing, oppression will ensue.

In the same way the Hebrew bible insists on the necessity of justice. Unless the courts are seen to be just inasmuch as they in fact are just, individuals will attempt to redress injustices themselves, with the result that social existence is a desperate scramble where even the scramble is foreshortened for many.

But of course wisdom is needed — and found — in many areas besides government and justice throughout many different cultures. The Chinese, native Africans, Amerindians: they all possess a wisdom in areas of life where we white North Americans appear to lack it; we should be silly to discredit it or ignore it. John Wesley, having understood the importance of that Egyptian wisdom which Moses acquired, used to urge his 18th century Methodist followers to “plunder the Egyptians”. By “plunder the Egyptians” Wesley meant that sensible Christians will be grateful for wisdom they come upon anywhere. To be sure, the wisdom we come upon anywhere at all we shall modify and adapt in light of the light which Jesus Christ is. Nonetheless, since wisdom, everywhere in scripture, has to do with how to live, we shall not disdain any help with living which we gain from any quarter. Remember: when Jesus urges us to be wise he prefaces his urging with the reminder that we live in a wolfish world. In other words, lack of wisdom is fatal.

 

II: — As we think together about wisdom today we should understand that more focused than the wisdom which can be found among the “Egyptians” is that wisdom which is reflected in the discipleship of Christ’s followers. This wisdom starts with the fear of God: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. “Fear” in the sense of awe, reverence, respect; acknowledgement that God is God and is not to be trifled with. God is creator; he has fashioned the creation in such a way that we can live in harmony with his plan and purpose and will, or we can try to live against it. But to try to live against it is to find ourselves rubbed raw, and rawer still, until life is gratingly painful, miserable, useless, and even abbreviated. In short, to try to live against the Creator’s plan and purpose and will is to die.

We have no difficulty understanding all of this in the physical realm. The person who neglects nutrition, shortchanges herself on sleep, eats what is known to promote gastric distress, goes boating in icy waters without a lifejacket; when it all finally catches up to such a person and disaster overtakes him we shake our heads and say, “What did he expect? What else did he think was going to happen? Has he no wisdom?”

Yet as soon as we move to our total existence under God we seem uncomprehending with respect to wisdom. We pretend that concerning wisdom in our life under God there is a deep, dark mystery. Nonsense! Our Hebrew foreparents always knew that the Ten Commandments, for instance, so far from being arbitrary and confining, onerous and oppressive; the Ten Commandments mark out the boundaries inside which there is blessing and freedom and contentment, outside which there is curse and bondage and misery. The Sermon On The Mount is our Lord’s characterization of his followers. This characterization is to imprint itself so deeply into us that its hidden presence within us will make us glow with it as surely as the electric current in a Christmas tree lightbulb renders the tree unmistakable. The weight and pressure of our risen Lord upon the apostles impelled them to speak his mind and heart; for this reason the apostolic injunctions on how to live bespeak the mind of Christ. The author of Hebrews, for instance, maintains that as soon as Christ’s people find the rank weed of bitterness growing up within them they are to uproot it lest they (and others) become defiled.

Last September I preached a sermon, “Touched Again”, in which I spoke of my deliverance from several things which had haunted me and twisted me for the last two or three years. One such matter was bitterness. The struggle which has claimed so much of my time and energy and anguish had subtly embittered me. And then by God’s grace I was relieved as Maureen put her finger on the unsightly pus-point which I had managed not to see. Within a few weeks of that sermon half-a-dozen people here spoke to me quietly of how they had been victimized at some point in their lives, and how they too had struggled with deep-seated resentment and acidified heart until they too were delivered (or, in or two cases, now understand that they must seek deliverance.) To recognize the apostolic injunction concerning bitterness as the mind and will of Jesus Christ is near-wisdom, but only near-wisdom. Near-wisdom becomes wisdom as and only as we move from recognizing the mind and will of Christ to abandoning ourselves to it.

For years I have maintained that the Christian life is simple. I didn’t say easy; I said simple. Simple in the sense of plain, transparent, unmistakable. For example, when Paul speaks of lurid immorality as unwise we instantly reply, “Of course”; yet when he says in the very same sentence that covetousness is unwise to the same degree and with the same effect we don’t say anything! We find it far easier to avoid lurid immorality (who wants community-disgrace as well as an incurable S.T.D.?) than we do to avoid covetousness. I never said the Christian life is easy; I said simple, simple in the sense that we cannot pretend, we who are Christ’s people, that we do not know what it is. We cannot pretend that we do not know what it is to be wise in a wolfish world. We become genuinely wise; that is, we do the truth, in John’s splendid phrase, as we fear God. The starting point of wisdom, for God’s people, is the fear of God himself.

 

III: — Wisdom, in scripture, becomes even more narrowly focused. Now it is focused not on life in general, but on congregational life in particular. Wisdom, here, is not merely how to live, but how to live together; more to the point, how to live together as Christ’s people.

Because we are fallen human beings we can always offend others deliberately, and to offend others deliberately is to be guilty of sin. But even if we do not offend others deliberately, we frequently offend them inadvertently. On numerous occasions people have been offended at something about me and told me (told me off) about it, even as I protested that intended no harm. To say I intended no harm, however, is not to say that I did no harm; not to say that I was harmless. Merely to intend no harm is not to be guiltless. One day a woman told me she was offended at my sarcastic speech. I told her I was not aware of it and told here as well that I meant no harm. “I never said that you meant not harm”, she continued, “I’m telling you that did harm, and do it often, since sarcasm is the colour your speech assumes whenever you feel yourself criticized.” I went to the floor with that one, and stayed on the floor for a while. The woman was right. The fact that I haven’t intended harm does not mean that I haven’t done harm. Offence has been given inadvertently, and I am as guilty of sin as much as if I had given offence deliberately.

And then beyond the matter of giving offence, genuinely giving offence, you and I also take offence where in fact no offence has been given at all, neither deliberately nor inadvertently. Some “offenses” are purely imaginary; still, imaginary offenses corrode our life together as much as actual offenses.

Unquestionably some people are more mature and more secure than others. Nevertheless, the most mature, most secure person still has an Achilles heel of immaturity and insecurity. Usually it comes to light accidentally. When it does, the 90% mature, 90% secure person will react exactly like the immature, insecure person. Of course! The Greek figure, Achilles, was vulnerable only through a very small part of his anatomy; yet through this very small part he was entirely vulnerable! To be vulnerable only through our individual Achilles heel is to be as vulnerable there as other people are in large areas of their personality. For this reason the person whom we are not expecting to take offence is prodded, one day, in a sensitive spot unknown to us; suddenly he ignites, or sulks, or retaliates with a counter-prod, or simply quits. At this point “we” — whether those who constitute the “we” are the smallest subcommittee of the congregation or the entire congregation; “we” are on the road to fragmentation.

As a matter of fact the congregation in Corinth had already fragmented. Church-members were lining up behind their favourite leader, bickering among themselves as to which leader was the ablest. Some drank so much wine at the Lord’s Supper that they became disorderly. Some maintained that their talents were superior to the talents of anyone else in the congregation. To be sure, all Christians, said Paul, all Christians are moving towards the unity of the faith, towards maturity, towards the measure of the full stature of Jesus Christ. We are moving towards this, but we aren’t there yet. For this reason the apostle writes to the congregation in Corinth and asks with much anguish, “Isn’t there someone among you who is wise enough to settle disputes?”

The wisdom needed to settle disputes is not a technique. Neither is it duplicity or manipulation. Nothing enrages people so much as feeling that they have been manipulated. They resent being taken advantage of. They resent feeling powerless. What’s more, the person who is reduced to powerlessness quickly becomes the nastiest person around. Nastiness is the final coping-mechanism of the powerless. The wisdom needed in congregational life is not a technique; manipulation is only counter-productive; duplicity, when discovered, will only worsen fragmentation. The wisdom needed to move stand-offs past the impasse; the wisdom needed to get wounded church-members preoccupied not with their wounds but with the kingdom-work to which they have pledged themselves; this wisdom is a gift from God which must be found in several people within a congregation or else the congregation will soon be little more than a collection of people clamouring to have their wound bandaged.

I am aware that I have gifts, which, by God’s grace, are useful in God’s kingdom. I am also aware that there are gifts which other people in vastly greater supply. I am aware that there are people in this congregation who have the gift of wisdom, in the sense of that wisdom needed if a congregation is to thrive, in vastly greater supply than I. In fact, concerning this gift I have often felt like someone attempting watch-repair with a crow-bar; why not let the most skilful jewellers do the watch-repair?

It is the apostle James who has the most to say about that especial wisdom needed to keep a congregation moving ahead in its kingdom-work, not getting sidetracked or stalled by contentions and controversies. With his customary down-to-earth practicality James insists that there are two huge impediments to wisdom’s effectiveness in a congregation: “bitter jealousy” and “selfish ambition”. Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition create a spiritual vacuum which is filled with “disorder and wickedness of every kind”.(NRSV)

Now some of you people have told me that you regard my vocabulary somewhat exaggerated, with the result that some of my pulpit-statements are overstated. “Disorder and wickedness of every kind”: these are not my words. Then is the apostle’s vocabulary exaggerated? I think not. Selfish ambition and bitter jealousy will negate the wisdom which any congregation must have if it is to thrive. It is a sign of wisdom that we recognize the truth of what James says and never doubt it.

 

IV: — So far we have talked about wisdom from the standpoint of that wisdom which we must exercise, the wisdom needed to live godly lives amidst a wolfish world. Now it is time to talk about God’s wisdom. Paul insists that God’s wisdom is demonstrated in the cross. The cross is that outpouring of God himself by which God has reconciled the cosmos to himself and has pardoned our offenses. No one in the ancient world looked upon the gallows as an act of wisdom; no one in the modern world does either. People with a philosophical turn of mind, says Paul, assume that wisdom comes out of high-brow philosophy. People with a messianic expectation assume that a dramatic occurrence in world history will dazzlingly display eternal wisdom. Paul insists that the act of God’s outpoured sacrifice, the humiliation which tops all of the humiliations he has endured, is alone that wisdom which is the world’s only hope.

Then the apostle says one thing more. The opposite of being wise is being a fool. And we are Christ’s people are most profoundly wise, with God’s wisdom, precisely when we appear most stupidly foolish; namely, when we are fools for Christ’s sake. We are fools for Christ’s sake when we cling to his cross and shoulder our own.

The older I grow the more aware I am of how great a sacrifice congregational leadership exacts. I have been stunned at the self-outpouring and the humiliation which devoted congregational leaders have sustained one hundred times over and will yet.

Beyond congregational life as well, I am aware of weighty crossbearing which is done so very quietly, to be sure, and will prove to have been so very effective on the day of our Lord’s appearing. My friend Bob Rumball, minister of the deaf congregation in Toronto for 35 years; his entire life has been given over to deaf people, especially deaf children who are multi-handicapped (that is, deaf children who are also blind or mute or brain-damaged). One day one of Bob’s five children said to him, “Daddy, can’t we have any friends who can hear?” Then I think of the people whom I meet through the Peel Mental Health Housing Coalition as it attempts to find accommodation for schizophrenic-sufferers. The people in the support networks are usually parents or relatives. The agony they have borne for years, and borne when they could have washed their hands of it all and moved to Vancouver; the burden of their crossbearing you and I will never know.

The wolfish world regards these people as fools. They are fools — but precisely fools of him whose wisdom appears foolish but in fact is the guarantee of the creation’s restoration.

It is as I cheerfully shoulder that cross which has been appointed to me, cheerfully giving up myself forgetfully and undergoing humiliation forgivingly, that I am going to be wise with the wisdom of him who was wise before me and whose foolishness is the world’s only hope.

 

F I N I S

                                                                            Victor Shepherd

 

In Honour of the Irish

 

[1]  Studia adulescentiam alunt.  “Studies nourish youth.”  It was — and is — the motto of my high school, Riverdale Collegiate, in Toronto.  In 1958 I was a 14-year old, grade nine student at RCI.  I was beginning my study of Latin.  I noticed how lovingly my Latin teacher, Katherine Hoey, pronounced the words studia adulescentiam alunt.  I wondered how or why anyone would ever fall in love with Latin.

I soon found out.  Language, we know, admits us to a world.  The world to which my study of Latin admitted me was the world of ancient Rome.  One feature of ancient Rome was the Pax Romana, the Roman peace.  The Pax Romana spread from Rome as far north as Germany, as far east as India, as far south as Africa, as far west as Britain.  The Pax Romana lasted almost a thousand years.

Years later I learned that it was the Pax Romana that had allowed the spread of the gospel.  Without the stable social order of the Roman peace, the gospel wouldn’t have moved out of Palestine and the church would have remained a tiny Jewish sect in the Middle East.

Years later still I learned that I very nearly didn’t get to study Latin; and for the same reason I very nearly didn’t get to hear the gospel.  The reason?  In the 5th century A.D., barbarian hordes had swept out of northern Europe and trashed everything they could find in the civilized world.  Virtually all classical learning appeared to be lost, even as the gospel of Jesus Christ appeared to be snuffed out.

 

[2]  Where had the barbarians come from?  They had come from northern Europe, east of the Rhine and east of the Danube.  They had lived there for centuries in their illiterate, wild-eyed ferocity.  Having observed their neighbours living in Roman outposts, however, the barbarians had seen that the settled existence of agriculture was safer, easier, and more productive than hunting with its ceaseless nomadic wanderings and relentless dangers.  Agriculturalists now, their productivity swelled.  As their foodstuffs multiplied, so did their numbers.  Soon the barbarians wanted more land.

On 31st December, 406, the Rhine river froze solid.  The barbarians crossed the ice-bridge and poured down into civilized lands.  The Roman army couldn’t stem the rush.

Wasn’t the Roman army supposed to be able to stop anything?  But the Roman empire had grown faster than the Roman army.  As the empire grew, the empire required a bigger army than Rome’s tax-revenues could sustain.  For years Rome had been trying to maintain the Pax Romana with an army too small for the job.  In addition, since many Romans didn’t want to serve in the army, the army had been filled up with semi-barbarian mercenaries who didn’t appreciate Rome’s achievement and had no interest in preserving it.

Nine hundred years earlier (390 B.C.) barbarians (Celts) living in what is now France had descended upon Rome and wasted the city.  Climbing up out its ruins, Rome had step-by-step built itself into the world’s sole superpower.  For 900 years Rome had done everything it could to avoid putting the city itself and its treasures at risk; any war Rome had to fight it endeavoured to fight on borders as far from Rome as possible.  Then in 406 A.D. barbarians had crossed the Rhine in Germany and crossed the Danube in Romania.  In four years they were in Rome itself, devastating everything they could.  At the same time unprincipled Romans were themselves looting the city, aware that social order had broken down and they couldn’t be punished.

In the year that Rome was sacked (410 A.D.), the Roman garrison had already been withdrawn from Britain, as the soldiers were needed elsewhere in the empire.  The barbarians who crossed the North Sea landed unopposed on the eastern shores of Britain.  Meanwhile Irish barbarians, terrifying in their pitiless ferocity, landed on the western shores of Britain (as they had done for centuries) and carried off as many Britons as they felt like enslaving.  The Irish barbarians (Celts) most often felt like carrying off British children, since children were the easiest to transport and the easiest to train as slaves.

 

[3]  What was lost in the barbarian invasions?  Countless lives were lost.  Lost as well was the literature of antiquity, the content of classical civilization.  Latin literature had been developing for 1200 years.  Now it appeared to be lost forever.  (Much Greek drama, we should note, has been lost forever.)  Lost as well was the living civilization that the literature nourished.  Had every last book actually been trashed we should have lost eversomuch that universities treasure today: the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the poetry of Homer and Virgil, the history of Herodotus and Tacitus, the oratory of Demosthenes and Cicero.

 

[4]  Seven hundred years before the barbarians crossed the Rhine in 406 they had crossed it for the first time and then had settled wherever they could.  By 350 B.C. this particular wave of barbarians had spread throughout Ireland.  These barbarians were the people we now call the Irish.  They were an illiterate, semi-nomadic, war-waging people who measured wealth in terms of the animals they owned as well as the slaves.

When the Irish waged war (this they did frequently) they stripped themselves naked, equipped themselves with sword, shield, sandals and neck jewellery, and then howled piercingly as if they were deranged.  Roman soldiers were jarred when confronted with men whose seeming insanity (including the most grotesque facial distortions) left them feeling no pain and sensing no danger.

One day such an Irish raiding party landed in Britain and carried off as a slave a 16-year old whose name was Patrick.  Immediately Patrick was turned into a shepherd-slave.  Underfed, underclothed, underhoused, he never forgot the cold and hunger and loneliness of his sojourn in a strange land.  For the rest of his life his heart ached whenever he was among people who were deprived in any respect.

Patrick had been uprooted from his home in a civilized town of Roman Britain.  Now he was living in wildest Ireland.  He began to pray.  To whom?  To the One whose gospel he had learned from Christians in Roman Britain.  Patrick endured six years of isolation, six years of faithful devotion to the One who himself had had nowhere to lay his head.  Then in 407 he knew himself addressed as surely as Abraham and Moses and Jeremiah had known themselves addressed: “Your hungers are rewarded; you are going home; your ship is ready.”  Ship?  He was tending sheep, 300 kms from the seacoast!  Nevertheless, because, as he was to say later, “The Spirit in me was ardent”, he walked 300 kms across terrain he had never seen before.  He reached the southeast coast of Ireland and there he saw — a ship!  His one comment on the entire undertaking was, “I came in God’s strength…and had nothing to fear.”

The ship was leaving for the continent.  He persuaded the captain to add him to the crew.  Eventually he found his way back to Britain, was reunited with his family, and planned to stay home.  But then he was addressed again: “We beg you to come and walk among us once more….He who gave his life for you; he it is who speaks within you.”  As surely as Patrick knew who was calling him he knew what his vocation was.  Immediately he left Britain for France and pursued a theological education in preparation for ordination.  No sooner was he a clergyman than the French bishops made him a bishop too and sent him with their blessing back to Ireland.  Whereupon Patrick became the first missionary to barbarians beyond the protection of Roman law.  (The apostle Paul had been a missionary to “both Greeks and barbarians”, but Paul had never moved beyond the protection of Roman law.)  Patrick’s unprotected missionary step into Ireland was as daring as the first astronaut’s step into outer space.

Patrick immediately schooled his first converts and appointed the more able ones among them as bishops throughout Ireland.  Ireland had no cities at this time; its people lived in scattered settlements where cattle and sheep were raised.  Since the Irish kings (so-called) at this time were little more than rustlers, Patrick always placed the bishops adjacent to the kings, hoping to subdue the latter’s cruelty.

When it came to cruelty Patrick was convinced there was nothing more cruel than slavery, especially in the manner it tormented women.  For the rest of his life he would campaign against the slave-trade.  And within a few years after his death, the Irish had forsworn it.

Patrick consistently announced and embodied the gospel for 40 years.  For decades he lived and worked among fierce people, brave people, warrior-people.  He persuaded them that the gospel is real; so very real, in fact, that they didn’t have to slay rivals to prove their bravery; they didn’t have to think that peace-making was a sign of weakness; they didn’t have to compensate for their fear of death by visiting violence on others — for now their fear of death evaporated as they came to know that Christ’s resurrection had defused death itself.

Most tellingly, perhaps, Patrick’s gospel-influence persuaded the Irish to give up the practice of human sacrifices.  For centuries the Irish had sacrificed prisoners-of-war to the war-gods; they had sacrificed newborn babies to the harvest-gods.  Under Patrick’s ministry the Irish came to see that the sacrifice had been made on behalf of the whole world, friend and foe alike.  No longer did the Irish use the skull-tops of slain enemies as drinking bowls, and no longer did the Irish proudly display severed heads.

Under Patrick’s ministry the chaos in Ireland gradually gave way to peace, while everywhere else peace was giving way to chaos.  In 476 A.D., fifteen years after Patrick’s death, the last Roman emperor died.  Now the barbarians had the field to themselves everywhere – everywhere, that is, except Ireland.

 

Needless to say, while the gospel was Patrick’s most important gift to the wild Irish, learning-in-general was important too.  The gospel was recorded in the written gospels; these had to be read; and therefore people had to be able to read.  Once they learned to read they read everything available.  But what was available, in view of the barbarian destruction of books?  It so happened that a few books from antiquity had been hidden or otherwise preserved accidentally.  The Irish knew how important these books were.  They became painstaking copyists, copying out by hand book after book from antiquity, regardless of whether the book to be copied was Christian or classical.

Patrick’s missionary work had catalyzed Irish scholarship.  Through Patrick the Irish renounced illiteracy and became lovers of learning, regarding learning of any kind (like the Jewish people before them) as a sacred obligation.

Before we leave Patrick we should note one thing more: Ireland is the only land into which Christianity has been introduced unaccompanied by bloodshed.  (We need only think of Canada where the French and the English introduced the Christian faith amidst the shedding of each other’s blood, not to mention the blood of the aboriginals.)  Because the Christian faith was brought to Ireland without bloodshed, there are no Christian martyrs in Ireland; at least there is none for 1100 years after Patrick, none until the reign of Elizabeth I in England.  Queen Elizabeth I (of whom John Wesley said, “She was as Christian as Mahomet and as kind as Nero”) broke the tradition as she made martyrs of many Irish folk.

 

[5]  It was the Irish monks specifically who kept alive both Christian learning and classical learning when the barbarians had rendered both virtually extinct everywhere else.  Since Ireland had no cities, the monastic centres became centres of learning, with towns growing up around them to serve the students who were now coming from all over Ireland, England and continental Europe.

The students who came to these Irish monastic universities were commoners as well as nobles; they were welcome as long as they were serious about studying even if they weren’t preparing for vocations in the church; and while they read only scripture and the church-fathers at first, soon they were reading all of the ancient Greek and Latin works that others were copying diligently.   It was this Irish monastic learning that spread out from Ireland and subsequently generated what we know today as Western culture.

Irish learning was important in yet another respect.  The Irish were the first people with classical educations who weren’t ashamed of their vernacular tongue.  Because the educated Irish weren’t ashamed of their vernacular language but continued to speak it, they learned to write it — with the result that the Irish were the first non-ancient people to develop their own literature.

 

[6]  In 521, sixty years after the death of Patrick, another never-to-be-forgotten Irishman was born: Columba.  Columba was educated in Ireland, became a monk, visited several monasteries in France, and then returned to Ireland where he established 41 monasteries before he was fifty years old.  In 564, 100 years after the death of Patrick, Columba sailed with twelve companions to Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland.  Now Irish learning was being exported by an Irishman, just as Irish learning was being imported into European centres by the continental students who had studied in Ireland and then returned home.  Columba, a man with an extraordinarily strong personality (a modern French historian has spoken of him as “un homme de fer” — an ironman), created a literate Christian society among the Scots and Picts (both barbarians, the Picts being barbarians who painted pictures on their naked bodies whenever they went on the warpath).

Soon Irish monks were following the example of Columba.  Leaving Ireland behind, they fanned out across Europe, announcing the gospel wherever they went and establishing centres of learning in Auxerre, Liege, Wurzburg, Regensburg, Vienna, Salzburg, plus so many others.  It was the Irish who kept alive both the gospel and classical learning, the mainstays of Western civilization, in the face of barbarian efforts at extinguishing gospel and learning.  At one time virtually every professor in Europe was either Irish or a national trained by the Irish.  Never had the Irish had the influence they had at this point in their history; never would they have it again.

 

[7]  Because – in the 11th century the Vikings invaded Ireland but were driven out.

In the 12th century the Normans invaded Ireland and weren’t driven out.  Still, they recognized the superiority of Irish culture and joined themselves to it.

In the 16th century Elizabeth I planted English and Scottish colonies in Ireland, and subjugated the Irish.  Before long there were Irish martyrs.

In the 17th century the English civil war broke out, moved over to Ireland, and left scores of thousands of Irish slain.

In the 18th century the anti-Roman Catholic penal laws crushed the Irish.  It was illegal for a Roman Catholic Irishman, for instance, to own a horse worth more than five pounds.  Anyone who did was hanged.

In the 19th century famine killed one million Irish folk.  Throughout the famine, however, food was harvested on Irish farms and exported in huge quantities to England.  English overlords owned the farms and exported the food.  Irish people worked the farms but were denied access to the crops; they were made to starve – one million of then – when their own little potato-patches became beetle-infested.

In the early 20th century Irish people emigrated in huge numbers, fleeing the island for any place that held out a better life.  Indeed, by 1910 there were more Irish folk in New York City than in Ireland.

In the latter half of the 20th century — who cares to comment on the tragedy of the “troubles” that began in 1969 and have festered more or less ever since?

 

[8]  The fact remains, however, that Ireland became the first European country to possess a written literature.  More importantly Ireland preserved classical learning, the foundation of Western culture.  Most importantly, Ireland preserved the gospel – without which no one would be at this service today, and without which we would still be in our sins.

 

My high school Latin teacher loved to pronounce the words Studia adulescentiam alunt — “Studies nourish youth.”  When the class had advanced to the point of learning Latin participles and third-declension nouns and other grammatical exotica she would smile coyly at us and say Omnes amantem amant — “All the world loves a lover.”   She didn’t say, but she could have said out of Christian conviction, devout believer that she was, what Heinrich Bullinger wrote in the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566: Praedicatio verbi Dei verbum Dei est – “The preaching of the Word of God is itself the Word of God.”  Above all, my dear, godly high school Latin teacher endorsed without qualification what the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 5:25 and what this sermon is ultimately about: Christus ecclesiam dilexit — “Christ loved the church.”

 

Victor Shepherd                                     Penetanguishene                                                       March 2018

Of Wisdom, Power and a Vacuum Filled

1 Corinthians 1:18 – 2:5

 

I used to wonder how politicians (many politicians, at least) manage to survive the sharp questions aimed at them. Little by little I came to see that they have two survival techniques. One, they don’t answer the question they’re asked. Question: “Is it true that your party plans to increase personal income taxes?” Response: “My party has the interests of all Canadians at heart.” No one can object to the response, but neither does it answer the question.

In the second place, when politicians respond to a question, they like to speak on and on. As long as they are talking, no one else can talk. Many words are used; very little is said. The better one is at talking, the more readily he can fool someone into thinking he’s saying something. Excess verbiage is either a dodge to mislead people or else it’s a smokescreen to cover something up. Let’s never forget that “bafflegab” is the word Toronto’s newspapers coined to describe a former premier’s legislature utterances.

The ancient world had its talkers too. Ancient rhetoricians spoke eloquently, at great length, with much passion and no little sophistication. “Nevertheless”, said the apostle Paul, “beware of them. Their many words don’t say much. More profoundly, however much or little they say, what they say can’t save. What they say can’t orient women and men to God, can’t replace apathy with gospel-zeal and alienation with ardour; can’t have icy unbelief yield to throbbing faith. So beware. Rhetoric doesn’t save.”

The apostle refuses to try to beat the wordsmiths at their own game. He refuses to compete with them, refuses to play on their field. Instead he announces succinctly where he stands and what he’s about: “I’ve decided to know nothing among you Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2) The people in Corinth love flowery, florid oratory. Yet the apostle knows this won’t help. People don’t need their ears tickled; they need saving. Furthermore, he continues, that wisdom of the “wise” which so readily entrances so many, God is going to destroy; and that cleverness of the “clever” which so quickly bedazzles so many, God is going to frustrate.

 

I: — “But surely there’s a genuine human wisdom”, someone objects, “and therefore there has to be a place within the Christian understanding for such genuine wisdom.” Of course there’s a place. The Christian faith doesn’t pretend anything else. Faith neither presupposes nor implies stupidity or wilful ignorance or prejudiced blindness. There is a genuine, creaturely, humanly produced wisdom irrespective of faith.

Think of the wisdom embodied in the sciences, the science of agriculture, for instance. The “Green Revolution” has yielded foodstuffs on a scale our foreparents couldn’t have imagined: new grains, resistant to blight, not to mention hybrids that thrive in adverse soils and climates.

Think of pharmacology and how developments like antibiotic drugs altered the practice of medicine and relieved distresses so quickly as to seem miraculous when the antibiotic drugs first appeared. (For that matter think of the relief accorded millions by something as lowly as the aspirin.) I’m convinced that in a few years we are gong to see developments in laser surgery (or a comparable surgical technology) that will make much contemporary surgical “cutting” appear as primitive as the application of leeches.

Think of the wisdom articulated by a writer like the late Robertson Davies. His grasp of the convolutions of the human psyche, of the manifold dimensions of human nature, of the social dynamics of the smallest hamlet; his grasp here is remarkable and always helpful. (While we are on the topic of literature, let me say that I think the skilful novelist or poet much more penetrating, much more profound – and therefore much more helpful – than the sociologist.)

There’s a human wisdom that is genuinely wise.

In addition, however, there’s a pseudo-wisdom as well. Pseudo-wisdom is clever-sounding shallowness. Never think that because the shallowness is so very shallow it’s also harmless. Pseudo-wisdom can be lethal. The sexual revolution was supposed to bring human fulfilment. It didn’t. Instead it brought sterility (on account of pelvic inflammatory disease), AIDS, psychological jadedness, and worst of all, the inability to form long-term committed relationships.

The drug culture was supposed to give us a heightened consciousness through which we could apprehend the universe more profoundly. It gave us something else.

Pseudo-wisdom tells us that each era of world history is peopled by human beings who are advancing, ever moving toward a cumulative human superiority. Yet the twentieth century has seen slaughter after slaughter: fifty-five million dead in the last Great War alone, “ethnic cleansing” in Cambodia and Yugoslavia and Central Africa that rivals the horror of the holocaust. Anthropologists have uncovered clusters of battered bones and cracked skulls that indicate repeated Amerindian genocides ten thousand years before any Caucasian set foot in the new world. Plainly the murderous outbreaks that we like to regard as epidemic (and rare epidemics at that) are in fact endemic to fallen humankind. Pseudo-wisdom mindlessly repeats such social assumptions as the notion that athletics develop character and forge stronger links among nations. Really? Do you know anyone whose moral stature improved through playing in the NHL? Is there any international sporting event that isn’t immediately co-opted by jingoistic propaganda?

Pseudo-wisdom is just that: pseudo.

There’s a third item to be considered in our discussion of wisdom, what I label “life-smarts.” By “life-smarts” I don’t mean formal academic training. I mean an intuitive grasp of how to handle life: what is evil or dangerous and is therefore to be shunned, what is helpful or wholesome and is therefore to be welcomed, how profound simple pleasures are and are therefore to be cherished. It’s difficult to hoodwink people who possess life-smarts. These people intuitively recognise smokescreen speech and distrust it. They intuitively identify simplistic cure-alls and reject them. Even if they lack tools and training to refute arguments formally they aren’t going to be “fished in.” There’s real wisdom at the level of “life-smarts.”

 

II: — The apostle wouldn’t deny any of this. Nevertheless, he reminds us, however genuinely wise human wisdom may be it doesn’t save. It doesn’t immerse us in God’s own life. God has made “foolish” (i.e., futile) the wisdom of the world, futile in the sense that however much worldly wisdom can do, it’s stymied with respect to what most needs to be done: set us in the right with God, soak us in the truth of God, enfold us so deeply in the Holy One himself that human speech can only stammer before the wonder of it all. Worldly wisdom, marvellously effective elsewhere, is ineffective here.

Over and over the Hebrew prophets speak with urgency of “knowing God.” Hosea exhorts his people, “Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” Jeremiah overhears God say, “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord.” Isaiah: “You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Saviour and Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” To know God isn’t to have our head furnished with religious notions, whether adequate or inadequate. To know God is to find ourselves rendered different on account of our engagement with him. This is knowledge of God. Wisdom, however wise, can’t yield this.

Then what can? The gospel can; the gospel, whose core is Christ crucified. Yet the gospel is precisely what everyone wants to step around. Paul realistically divides the world of religious questers into two camps. Those in camp “A” look for bizarre occurrences, dramatic signs that will dispel unbelief, dramatic signs, be it noted, of the sort that Jesus always refused to give throughout the course of his earthly ministry and refused at the outset when he refused to leap from the roof of the temple and float down unharmed like Mary Poppins. Those in camp “B” want a complex intellectual formula, a brainteaser. Brainteasers may divert us as after-dinner amusement but they don’t save. Yet for those whom God has wooed, those who now embrace the One given the world, Jesus Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Wisdom: God’s plan and purpose for us.

Power: God’s capacity to achieve his plan and purpose for us.

What is God’s plan and purpose for us? It’s to reconcile us to himself, to ignite our heart from his, to equip us with truth from the mind of him who is Truth, to render us reflectors of his light into every nook and cranny and corner of life. Power, we must be sure to understand, isn’t the capacity to coerce. (The capacity to coerce isn’t power; it’s violence. While power is commonly regarded as the capacity to coerce, such coercion or violence, so far from being synonymous with power, is actually its antithesis.) Power is the capacity to achieve purpose. The paradox of Christian truth is that God’s power is operative in the face of apparent powerlessness; in fact, God’s power is operative, from a human perspective, in the midst of actual powerlessness.

In the crucified One, God’s judgement against us is rendered and is seen to be rendered. Yet in the crucified One too our sin is borne and borne away.

In the crucified One arms are opened wide and an invitation is issued to any and all without distinction and without exception.

In the crucified One the wisdom of God is made manifest and the power of God is rendered effective. For it is in the efficacy of the cross that our sin is dealt with, our defiance crumbled, our faith quickened, our gratitude awakened, our obedience freed. Jesus Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God, proof of which is wave after wave of rebels like us surrendering to that love which is the source and measure of whatever love we have known from whatever quarter in life.

 

III: — Where does the word of the cross leave the three kinds of wisdom mentioned earlier?

Pseudo-wise people don’t grasp the seriousness of the human condition. They assume a little patching up here, a little tinkering there, a little more government funding everywhere, and everything will be all right. They don’t grasp what God has done and why it had to be done and how it’s effective. The pseudo-wise need to be shaken up by the explosive word of the gospel.

The genuinely wise admit that humankind has a problem. They know that the problem is deep-seated. The genuinely wise, not surprisingly, marshal the collective wisdom of philosopher, scientist, anthropologist, and literary icon. Yet the genuinely wise can’t make a proper diagnosis of the root human ailment. They can describe it, describe its symptoms, and do so very impressively. But however well they may describe it, they can’t diagnose it; can’t diagnose the nature of humankind’s self-frustration and self-contradiction; can’t penetrate to the ailment itself.

Those possessed of “life-smarts”; these people come closest to intuiting what the problem is and why the event of the cross is effective. They viscerally intuit that something major is out of order, that the disorder goes deeper than any explanation they’ve heard to date. They know that the disorder isn’t even touched by the cavalier “bromides” of the pseudo-wise; they know too that the disorder goes ever so much deeper than the descriptions of the genuinely wise. Yet even the intuitions of those with “life-smarts” can’t penetrate to the diagnosis of a ruptured relationship with God, the consequent incursion of systemic ungodliness, and the innermost self-scuttling – not to mention God’s means of setting all of it right.

I feel I have spoken of the three classes somewhat artificially. It’s not so much that there are three classes or kinds of people; it’s rather that all three types are found mixed up in every one of us. In all of us there are elements of the genuinely wise, the pseudo-wise, and the “life-smart”; which is to say, the fact that all three are found in us at once still can’t do what the gospel alone can do and has done as the gospel has surged throughout the world.

 

IV: — My highschool science teacher was fond of intoning “Nature abhors a vacuum.” The presence of a vacuum means that anything and everything is drawn into it. Clutter and debris and litter and junk get mixed up in a farrago that is neither attractive nor fruitful. A spiritual vacuum is no different. A spiritual vacuum never remains a vacuum for long.

A few years ago when the cults seemed possessed of eerie militancy it was found that Jewish young people from the most ideationally liberal homes and synagogues were most readily seduced and captured. These young people had had enough religious exposure to render them amenable to “religion”, but not enough substance to equip them to recognise ersatz substitutes. The most dilute religious upbringing – devoid of substance by definition – simply didn’t equip these young people to discern the approach of what could only damage them. While the cults seem relatively in abeyance now, there are still psycho-religious fads that repeatedly “take in” those whose spiritual formation is insufficiently rigorous. Out of concern to exemplify all that the ideationally liberal hold up – the notion that everybody is good at bottom, everybody can be trusted, and everything is to be tolerated (intolerance being the “unforgivable sin” among liberals) – the families of these young people left them with insufficient exposure to that undislodgeable density, that burning luminosity which confronted Moses and Miriam, Rachel and Rebecca, Joel and Jeremiah. There was insufficient acquaintance with the God who possessed such people, whose truth infused them and whose way guided them. Jewish young people devoid of spiritual substance headed the list of North America’s seducible.

There is a dilute churchmanship in Christian circles that leaves people, especially young people, in exactly the same predicament. No vacuum remains a vacuum for long, including a spiritual vacuum. For this reason the church ought not to be puzzled at finding itself facing younger and older people alike who are open to religion but closed to the gospel.

A friend of mine (now dead), an Anglican clergyman and superb Greek scholar, volunteered as a military chaplain during the last Great War. His initial interview didn’t go well. He was told that military chaplains under fire didn’t have time to cross every scholarly “t” and dot every minuscule “i”. “Can you paint the message on a fence?” military authorities asked him. Tell me: have I painted the message on a fence here in Streetsville? Or have I etched it in minutest detail on the head of a pin?

Paul was haunted by the spiritual condition of the congregation in Galatia. With anguish of heart he wrote the people there, “I am in pain until Christ be formed in you.” Christ is going to be formed in any of us only as the message is painted on a fence. “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” – painted on a fence in Corinth this time.

Regardless of the degree and depth of the wisdom we possess and regardless of the richest human resources we have appropriated, no such wisdom and no such resources can ever substitute for him from whom we come, from whom we can’t escape, to whom we must soon render account and therefore to whom we ought to surrender ourselves. Then regardless of how genuinely wise we may have come to be none of our wisdom fills that vacuum which everything else otherwise fills.

The spiritual vacuum must be filled by Jesus Christ crucified, and by him alone.

 

                                                                                              Victor Shepherd

August 1999

You asked for a sermon on Spiritual Discipline

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 

 

1] It was always the last thing we did in the gymnasium, when we were so tired we could barely remain upright. We stood with our feet together, looked at a spot on the wall, and then rotated our head in as wide a circle as we could, over and over, all the while concentrating on that one spot on the wall. At first we all became dizzy and lost our balance. Gradually we were able to keep standing and keep looking at that spot in front of us, regardless of our dizziness.

We were boxers in training. The coach told us that the point of the exercise was to have us trained to keep looking at our opponent instinctively after we had been staggered by a blow and the lights were going out and we were dizzy. “This little exercise will keep you alive one day”, he told us, “and you will thank me that I insisted you do it.” He was proved right. The day came for all of us — and came more than once — when the training we had undergone kept us looking at our opponent after we’d been hit and the ring was reeling and we had to get through the round.

Boxers aren’t the only people who get “rocked.” Everyone does – which means that Christians do too. One day temptation hurls itself upon us so violently that we can only call it assault. Another day misfortune hits us when we aren’t expecting it at all. Or disappointment sickens us like a skyscraper elevator plummeting out of control. The worst blow of all, the body blow that can leave us in terrible pain, conscious yet helpless, is betrayal: there is no blow like betrayal.

It’s plain that Christians need training. The apostle Paul calls it “training in godliness”. (1 Tim. 4:8) From his exposure to athletic contests he has seen how important training is for athletes. He refers several times in his epistles to the rigorous preparation which the boxer and the wrestler and the runner undergo. “They can’t afford to be soft or self-indulgent or ill-prepared”, he says; “Does anyone think that Christians can afford to be?”

You have asked for a sermon on spiritual discipline. You want to know why training in godliness is necessary, for whom it is necessary, and to what end it is undertaken. You want to know why we have to keep at it until that day when, says Peter, we are crowned with that “crown of glory which never fades”.

 

2] Perhaps it all sounds a bit too intense for you, even a bit grim. Training in godliness isn’t grim, but it is intense, and it is necessary. Why is it necessary?

Because of our fallen human nature, in the first place. Christians are those in whom the “new creature in Christ” and the “old creature in Adam” war with each other. To be sure, Christians are those who are “born of the Spirit”, in the vocabulary of the New Testament. As Jesus Christ embraced us in his grace we embraced him in faith. We were reconciled to God, given a new standing before God, and given a new nature as well — or as scripture speaks of it, a new heart. None of this is mere pietistic verbiage. We are possessed of a new name and a new nature. Nevertheless, as Martin Luther liked to say, the old man, the old woman, doesn’t die readily, doesn’t die without a struggle; the corpse twitches. We mustn’t forget that Jesus instructs disciples — disciples — to ask for forgiveness every day, just because sin still clings even to disciples. To say that Christians are identified before God as new creatures isn’t to say that the old creature has disappeared; while the old creature isn’t our identity, it is a twitching corpse which can still trip us up.

When I was younger I thought that my depravity was relatively slight, was always in sight, and was therefore easy to keep at bay. Much older now, I am sobered upon being confronted with the arrears of sin that remain in me. As sin-riddled as you have undoubtedly found me to be, can you imagine how I’d look if I were devoid of spiritual discipline? Spiritual discipline will be needed for as long as you and I are Spirit-born children of God whose identity in Christ is contradicted by the hangover of our sinnership. Then spiritual discipline will be needed until we are released from the conflict. Please don’t tell me that all of this sounds too intense. Paul insists that without the most intense training the athlete will find himself disqualified.

Spiritual discipline is needed, in the second place, not only because of what remains “in here”; it is necessary in the second place because of the spiritual conflict which rages “out there”. Let us make no mistake. Our Lord insists that he came to wrest the creation out of the grip of a spirit-opponent whose range is nothing less than cosmic. In the words of the apostle John, he came to “destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8) To no one’s surprise, then, throughout his public ministry Christ is opposed. To be sure, he’s opposed by political authorities, religious authorities, family, friends, and even disciples. At bottom, however, regardless of the form in which opposition comes to him or the quarter from which it comes, he’s ultimately opposed by the evil one himself. He contends with his foe for every inch of ground that his foe has illegitimately occupied. No occupier retreats willingly; an occupier must be routed. In other words, Christ’s ministry is unrelenting conflict.

Now Christians are those whom the master has enlisted. We are soldiers of Christ, as the NT is unashamed to say. But what use is a frontline soldier who has never been trained? Not only what use is he; how long is he going to last?

During the last war there were two aspects to the training of a submarine commander. One aspect was becoming schooled in the technicalities of submarine warfare: when to launch a torpedo, how close to the target one should be, what to do in assorted emergencies. The second aspect was much more subtle; it was more of the order of intuition. This aspect was more a matter of equipping a submariner with a sixth sense: whether to surface or remain submerged; whether to fight or flee; whether to wait for moonlight or wait for cloudcover. The first aspect, the technical aspect, could be learned out of a book and learned quickly. The second aspect, however, the subtle, intuitive, life-and-death aspect was much harder to come by; it couldn’t be learned out of a book, and it took far longer to acquire. At the beginning of the war inexperienced submarine captains had time to learn the latter aspect. Towards the end of the war there was no time. Not having acquired the subtle intuitions that a submarine commander needs to survive, these fellows didn’t survive; neither did the crews entrusted to them.

So it is with the Christian life in the midst of spiritual conflict. It’s easy to acquire a Christian vocabulary, easy to gain a rudimentary grasp of Christian doctrine. But it takes far more time, far more diligence to gain a spiritual sixth sense; to intuit whether what has been thrust in front of us is an opportunity to be seized or a danger to be avoided, whether what is proposed in the document before the official board is kingdom-building or kingdom-destroying.

Since keeping company with Jesus Christ means that the venue of his ministry is the venue of our ministry, and since the venue of his ministry is ceaseless spiritual conflict, then we need spiritual discipline. Without it shall be of no use to him; without it we shan’t even survive ourselves.

Spiritual discipline is needed for a third reason. The world in which we live is a tough place. The world resists truth, resists righteousness, resists integrity, resists honesty; the world, I have found, perversely resists even love. The world is populated by billions of people, every one of whom is fallen; which is to say, the world seethes with concentrated self-interests, clamouring, competing self-interests, even cut-throat self-interests.

I was asked to attend a meeting in support of a non-profit housing organization that was to build a facility to accommodate eight (count them: eight) head-injured adults. The people to be accommodated would be recovering from head-injuries sustained chiefly through automobile accidents and industrial accidents, as well as through the occasional athletic mishap. The injured would be housed in the facility for approximately six months; after that they would be able to function without special provision.

I went to the meeting. Many people went to the meeting. No doubt in other contexts they would appear decent, considerate, even moderately compassionate. But not on this night; on this night they were determined that the head-injured of Mississauga could freeze to death before they were going to be housed in “our” neighbourhood. If you had ever doubted that the world is a tough place you wouldn’t have been doubting at the conclusion of that meeting. Some people implied that those who have suffered head-injuries (concussions) are slobbering ogres or rapacious molesters around whom no one is safe. Others said that whether dangerous or not, head-injured people are unsightly and would detract from the handsomeness of the Streetsville neighbourhood. Whereupon I asked these people if they thought they could spot a concussion walking down the street. I wasn’t thanked for my question. The woman beside me complained bitterly that the increased traffic would be a huge nuisance. “Increased traffic”, I remarked, “there are only eight people to be accommodated, and none of them is allowed a driver’s licence!” She turned on me in her fury: “So what if they can’t drive. Would you want them living on your street?” One of Mississauga’s councillors had called the meeting. He spoke in support of the scheme. A few days after the meeting a representative from the housing organization told the councillor that since the housing organization had already spent $75,000 on preparatory work, it had to know, before it committed any more money, whether the councillor was going to support the scheme formally at city hall as he had supported it informally at the neighbourhood meeting. “Not only am I not going to support it”, the councillor said in the most startling about-face, “I am going to bury it!”

The Christian life, Christian service, every aspect of our discipleship; it all unfolds in a world which is tough, even treacherous. Spiritual discipline is needed if we are going to do anything besides give up.

I’ve already anticipated the fourth reason for spiritual discipline: to forestall discouragement and capitulation. It mustn’t happen! It won’t happen only as long as we have anticipated it, prepared for it, and stand equipped by the training or discipline which keeps us looking ahead even when we have been rocked.

 

3] Then in what does spiritual discipline consist?

The first item is prayer. John Calvin was fond of saying, “Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.” He’s right. Prayer is the chief exercise of faith. God commands us to pray. Faith recognises the command of God and is eager to obey him. Not only does faith recognise the command of God; faith understands the command of God, faith knows why prayer is the chief exercise of faith, knows why God can impart to his people through this exercise what he can impart in no other way, knows that God wills only our blessing. Then God’s people must pray consistently, pray habitually, pray believingly.

Even if we were slow to understand that what God commands he commands only for our blessing, it would still be difficult for us to overlook the example of our Lord himself. He prayed, and prayed, and prayed some more. He prayed in marathon sessions before major developments in his life (e.g., the calling of the twelve). He prayed with others in public in the synagogue where he worshipped every Sabbath. He prayed alone on countless occasions. The written gospels depict him going away to a “lonely place a great while before day”, in the words of the gospel-writers, in order to be alone and to pray. What our Lord knew to be essential we can’t pretend to be optional. Since prayer is the chief exercise of faith, believing people are equipped chiefly through prayer.

Remember, you have asked for a sermon on spiritual discipline; not a sermon on ethical rigour or intellectual strictness or psychological resilience. To be sure, spiritual discipline includes all of these, but they, of themselves, will never equip us spiritually. Then if spiritual discipline is what we need above everything else we must pray. Apart from it our Lord himself would plainly have had no ministry, even no life. We cannot do without the very thing that he knew to be his lifeline.

 

(ii) The second item in spiritual discipline is self-honesty; utter self-honesty. The older I become the more sobered I am at humankind’s capacity for self-deception. As soon as we are tempted, our most rigorous logic becomes the most rigid rationalisation. The logic is still there, all right, but now the logic serves our self-justification. The very thing we were counting on to safeguard us against the seduction of temptation now reinforces the seduction. Thinking that our logical rigour would safeguard us against being dragged into sin, our logical rigour now prevents us from being argued out of sin. Our capacity for self-deception is bottomless.

No doubt you have a question to put to me: if self-honesty is essential, and yet our capacity for self-deception is bottomless, how are we are going to arrive at the self-honesty we need? We shall arrive at it with the help of two instruments. One is scripture. Scripture is the normative witness to Christian faith and life. Scripture is the normative witness to what we must believe and what we must do. Scripture is also a mirror. When we look into it we begin to see where and why and how we have deceived ourselves with respect to our faith and our discipleship. Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch woman who survived Ravensbruck, a women’s camp that few survived; Corrie managed to smuggle a small pocket-bible with her when she was incarcerated. She read to her fellow-inmates night-by-night, and expounded the text as well. After a while a woman who wasn’t a believer (or at least who hadn’t been when she was incarcerated) said to Corrie, “That book of yours; it is the only book that tells us the truth about ourselves.”

A friend spoke to me of the Air Canada pilot he invited to his cottage for a weekend. The pilot, of course, was on holiday. Holiday or not, right after breakfast the fellow took out his pilot’s and read it for half an hour. He had already mastered it or else he’d never have qualified as a pilot. He had passed an examination in it every year for years. Still, he steeped himself in it every morning. He wanted to keep his instincts razor-sharp in the event of any unusual development. He knew that an in-flight emergency had to be met with instincts trained by relentless study. Now no one is going to say that the pilot is neurotic; no one says he’s obsessive-compulsive; no one even says he’s nervous. All his passengers are glad that he spends half an hour every morning, even on his holidays, with the book he knows inside-out anyway.

For years I have endeavoured to do as much with scripture. Does anyone here want to call me neurotic or obsessive-compulsive or even nervous? Knowing my heart as well as I do, I know that unusual spiritual assault or temptation can be met only with spiritual instincts that have been kept razor-sharp. Only the scripture-normed and scripture-shaped pastor is going to help a congregation. Only the scripture-normed, scripture-shaped Christian is going to help the world.

The second instrument by which we penetrate our self-deception is the company of Spirit-sensitive friends. For years I thought I had privileged access to my own heart and mind. I thought I necessarily knew more about myself, invariably knew more about myself, than anyone else could know about me. When it was suggested that this was not the case I became very defensive and insisted that it was. It was only after much embarrassment and much anguish that I came to admit that there are some settings in which other people know me far better than I know myself. In such settings these people have something to tell me about myself which I should be a fool to ignore; and a fool not chiefly because in ignoring them I shall embarrass myself, but rather because I shall endanger myself. For this reason I shall always need, as you will too, one or two or three soul-mates who are spiritually sensitive, spiritually attuned; friends who are willing to tell me truth about myself to which I am blind; friends from whom I can hear this without knee-jerk defensiveness.

The last item in spiritual discipline is service, especially service in a venue that appears to contradict the truth of God and the reality of his kingdom. Three decades ago the students of the Oxford University Humanist Club hung a huge banner over the doorway of a theological college: “For God so loved the world that — last year 37,000 thalidomide babies were born”. A low blow? Not really. There are developments without number that appear to contradict the truth of God. Why shouldn’t these be drawn to our attention? Spiritual resilience has to be tested; it has to be tested in the midst of developments that appear to contradict the God for whose service our discipline is preparing us.

Such testing will always be essential. A military unit can train and train and train some more. Yet as necessary as training is, no amount of training can substitute for combat experience. The soldier really becomes a soldier only when he’s under fire. Spiritual discipline bears fruit and proves itself fruitful when we are under fire. We are then of even greater usefulness to God in the service of that world which he will not abandon however much it may contradict him.

You asked for a sermon on spiritual discipline. Our enthusiasm for such discipline is the measure of our seriousness as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

                                                                     Victor Shepherd

March 1999

John Newton

1st Corinthians 6:9-11

 

John Newton began school when he was seven years old.  He left school two years later.  At age eleven he went to sea with his father, who was captain of a merchant ship. He wasn’t long finding out how rough life was at sea, among sailors, in the 1700s.  Samuel Johnson, English man of letters, knew well the horrible state of English prisons, yet Johnson insisted that life on a ship was worse than life in a prison: the food was worse, the company was worse, the accommodation was worse, and in addition there was the constant danger of drowning.

Sailors ate food in various stages of rot (thanks to the dampness) from the moment the ship put to sea.  If their biscuits were only moderately rotten, the biscuits contained insects called weevils that tasted bitter.  If the biscuits were more rotten, they contained large maggots with black heads, and these tasted fatty and cold.  During one seven-year period in the mid-1700s, the British Navy raised 185,000 men for sea duty. Two-thirds of them died of disease, often disease related to malnutrition.  Many died also from syphilis.

Not surprisingly, sailors were regarded as the scum of the earth. They were brutal, vicious, morally dissolute.         Newton , we should note, felt entirely at home with these fellows.  He prided himself on being without moral restraint.         What’s more, he never missed an opportunity of urging such lack of restraint upon others. He was especially proud of the fact that that he was so very vile and vulgar that other sailors, scarcely paragons of virtue themselves, couldn’t stand him.

When Newton was nineteen or twenty years old a British press gang captured him – kidnapped him, in other words – and took him on board a warship.  At this point in the history of Britain , warships always needed men. Volunteers were few, with the result that the government paid roving gangs of thugs to kidnap any unwary young men (the latter were usually found in taverns) and deliver them to Royal Navy warships.

Newton quickly learned that while living conditions on board merchant ships were deplorable, living conditions on board warships were worse.  A common sailor could be beaten for smiling at an officer.  Every officer carried a small whip with which to strike sailors.  If a sailor ever struck an officer, however, the sailor was hanged immediately before the entire crew.

After several months’ service on a warship Newton waited until the ship was in port; then he deserted.  He had walked only a few miles when another press gang overtook him and dragged him back to the ship.  The captain had him flogged mercilessly.  He was carried below decks where the ship’s doctor poured vinegar into his wounds, along with alcohol, salt water and hot tar.  Newton lapsed into a coma and nearly died.

By now the captain of the warship was fed up with the twenty-year old incorrigible, and transferred him to a merchant ship engaged in the slave trade.  Soon Newton was working for a European slave trader on the African coast.   Before long the trader suspected Newton of dishonesty. Whenever the trader went inland for several days (usually to unload trade goods and procure slaves from inland regions), he chained Newton to the ship’s deck, leaving him with one pint of rice per day, fresh water, and a pile of chicken entrails. Newton baited fish-hooks with the entrails, caught a few fish, and ate them raw. One day a passing merchant ship unchained him and hired him on as a sailor.  Newton was at sea once again.

At age twenty-five he became captain of a slave ship. Over the next four years he made three round trips.         A round trip consisted of three legs: first leg, from England to Africa, the ship stocked with trade goods for the African natives, as well as with chains, neck collars, handcuffs and thumbscrews (a torture device) that were to be used by African natives (be it noted) who were selling into slavery fellow-Africans from rival tribes who had been defeated in tribal warfare and were now, in effect, prisoners of war. The second leg of the trip was the voyage from Africa to the Caribbean with slaves in the hold. The third leg was the trip back to England with molasses and rum. Each round trip took a year and three months.

Needless to say, the most reprehensible part of the trip was the long middle-passage from Africa to the Caribbean . The slave holds on ships were pens only two feet high. The slaves were laid out side-by-side like fireplace logs, then chained to one another, 600 per ship. There were no toilet facilities and no ventilation.  The stench was indescribable.   It was said that if you were downwind of a slave ship you could smell it twenty miles away. In good weather the slaves were brought up on deck (still chained to one another), hosed down with sea water, then rinsed lightly with fresh.   Corpses were dumped overboard as instant fish food.  Occasionally ship captains threw healthy slaves overboard in order to collect insurance. As a means of keeping sailors reasonably content, captains allowed them to rape black women at will. Newton himself was no stranger to this activity.  As captain of the slave ship, he had his pick of any African woman and his pick of any number of them.  Concerning his slaving days he later wrote laconically, “I was sunk into complacency with the vilest of wretches.”

How did it all end?   Six years before he was to leave the slave trade (i.e., two years before he had even entered it) Newton ’s ship had been caught in a violent storm off Newfoundland . He and his crewmates pumped until they nearly collapsed.   Their ship barely made it back to England . He began to think about the manner in which his life was unfolding.   He became aware that as repugnant as he was to many people, he was vastly more repugnant to God. He tells us that at this point he prayed for the first time in years.

Six years, including all his slaving days, were to pass before the seed sown during the near-fatal storm was to bear fruit. Six years it took for the seed to germinate, grow, mature, become fruitful.  But when the fruit appeared it was magnificent.  He came to throbbing faith in Jesus Christ, and never looked back. Now his long-cherished cynicism, vulgarity and unbelief fell away from him like filthy clothing that one never wants to see again.

Having had only two years of formal schooling, Newton set about educating himself. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac: he taught himself them all and mastered them.  In no time his written English was the envy of those who appreciate fine prose. (While living in Africa he had mastered the first six books of Euclidean geometry, tracing the geometric figures in the sand.) And of course the public quickly discovered that his poetic gifts – he had never done anything with them, never having had anything to poeticize about – soon found expression in hymns the church will never be without. (We should note that the hymn Newton wrote in gratitude for his wife, Mary Catlett, on their first anniversary contained twenty-six stanzas.)

Newton applied to the Anglican ministry, but was turned down on the grounds that he lacked a university degree.         A sympathetic bishop, however, recognizing Newton ’s faith, brilliance and abilities, ordained him.  By now he was thirty-nine years old and had been away from the slave trade for ten years.

People flocked to hear him preach, but not because he was an outstanding speaker. In fact his preaching was clumsy. They sought him out, however, inasmuch as they knew him to be transparent to the grace and power and purpose of God. In short, they knew he could help them in their own venture in the Christian life. His modest-sized book (now in paperback), Letters of Christian Counsel, has guided earnest Christians for 200 years.

Newton spent the rest of his life campaigning against the slave trade.  Until he died he remained haunted by the misery he had unleashed in the world. He came to speak of the slave trade as “a business at which my heart now shudders.”

Towards the end of his life Newton was blind and forgetful, senile in fact, frequently forgetting in mid-sentence where it was supposed to end, and unable to recover the thread of his sermon. Several people suggested that he give up preaching.  “What?” he hurled at them, “Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?” In 1806 he preached his last sermon at a benefit service for widows and orphans of the Battle of Trafalgar.  He died on 21st December 1807 .

 

What can we take home today from our acquaintance with John Newton?

[1] First, we must understand that there is such a thing as ungodliness, and it does result in human degradation; and such degradation ought not to be disguised or labelled anything else, for the sake of truth.

We used to live in a truth culture.  A truth culture asks two questions: What is? (i.e., what’s the nature of ultimate reality) and What is right? (i.e., what ought we to do in light of what ultimate reality is.)  Now, however, we live in a therapy culture.  A therapy culture asks one question only: How does it feel?  A therapy culture disdains any discussion of truth and the claims of truth. Christians, however, will never endorse a therapy culture to the detriment of a truth culture.

In a therapy culture the gospel is merely a matter of feeling, a matter of taste.  Some people have a taste for “religion”; others have little or no taste for “religion.” And in any case there’s no disputing taste.

Christians know, however, that where truth is denied the claims of truth are ignored.  Where God as the ens realissimum is disdained then there is no obligation on anyone; all we need do is indulge ourselves since the only consideration is how it all feels.

Consider the following.

FIRST GENERATION: people are possessed of authentic faith and they do attempt to honour claim upon them of the God they worship.  They may not always do what is right, but they know what is right.

SECOND GENERATION: living faith has disappeared.  Jesus Christ is too specific, too concrete, too relentless and too demanding. Faith is jettisoned, but a sincere moral concern is upheld.  If you ask these people why humans in general ought to be ethically concerned they can’t answer profoundly.  They can only say something unhelpful such as “Because we should; that’s all.”

THIRD GENERATION: here both living faith and moral concern have disappeared.  All that remains is narcissism: everything in the universe exists to serve me, my pleasure, and my comfort.  What doesn’t serve me, my pleasure and my comfort has no claim upon me.

The guiding principle here isn’t “What ought I to do?” Rather it’s “What can I get away with?”  The most glaring feature of this outlook is an enormous sense of entitlement. I am entitled to, have a right to, anything and everything that’s going to maximize my pleasure and comfort.

Friederich Nietzsche, the philosopher whom every first-year university student wants to read, said “If God is dead (and for Nietzsche God was dead) then everything is permitted.”  Narcissistic entitlement can’t wait to get God dead.

God, however, refuses to die.  Instead he acts. In the first chapter of his Roman letter the apostle Paul asserts that God gives people who repudiate him the consequences of that repudiation.  Three times in Romans 1; in verses 24, 26, and 28, Paul writes chilling words: “God gave them up; God gave them up to their impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves; God gave them up to dishonourable passions; God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.” We must be sure to note that Paul never says “God gave up on them.” God doesn’t give up on people. The truth is, because God doesn’t give up on them; because God cares about them more than they care about themselves, God gives them up.  Gives them up to what? Gives them up to, hands them over to, the consequences of their repudiation of him.

Many folk, I have found, dismiss as infantile all notions of God’s anger, God’s judgment.  They assume that the church upholds the notion that something innocent in itself – card-playing, for instance – is deemed to be “sin”. Sin is said to mobilize God’s judgement. Therefore God’s judgement is mobilized by something trivial.  People snicker.

The point to be remembered is that it isn’t something trivial that mobilizes God’s judgement.  It isn’t even that conduct which we rightly label “sins” that mobilizes God’s judgement. It’s human defiance of God, disobedience to God, contempt for him, facile dismissal of him – this is what mobilizes God’s judgement.  What we label “sins” is the consequence of God’s judgement.  It’s our prior, deep-seated unbelief that provokes God and precipitates his judgement. Once his judgement is operative, God hands us over to the consequences of our unbelief: “sins”.   His purpose in handing us over; his purpose in giving us up to “sins”, the consequence of our unbelief; his purpose here is a wake-up call.

And didn’t his wake-up call wake up John Newton? In his shallow years of unbelief Newton boasted that he could out-gross the grossest; he could out-debauch the most debauched. His doing so, of course, occurred just because God had given him up to… ­­ – without ever having given up on him.  The wake-up call worked. One day Newton became as disgusted with himself as many others were with him.  Because God had given him up to the disgusting consequences of his unbelief he knew that God had never given up on him.  He repented, repudiated his repudiation of God, and “came home.”

What does Newton teach us? – that ungodliness ends in degradation; that degradation doesn’t arouse God’s anger but is rather the consequence of God’s anger visited upon unbelief. We must understand that just because God doesn’t give up on us he does give us up to the consequences of our repudiation of him, and all of this for the sake of jarring us awake to the nature and scope of our folly.

 

[2] Finally, and pre-eminently, Newton recalls us to the truth that Jesus Christ can re-start, revolutionize any person’s life. Newton didn’t finish his adult life as he began it.  The degradation into which he plunged he didn’t splash around in for the rest of his life. He proved that the grace of God is “amazing” just because there is no one, however, wretched, who can’t be put on her feet, pointed down a new road, knowing a new Lord, living from a new relationship, singing a new song, and facing a new future.

In a few minutes Rachel Miller is going to sing “Amazing Grace” for us. I don’t care to hear it sung – usually. It’s not because I disagree with anything in the hymn.  I endorse the theology of the hymn without reservation.  I don’t care to hear it sung, rather, because it’s been sentimentalized. It has become folk music, sung mindlessly out of social familiarity without any appreciation of what it’s about. It’s usually sung in contexts that have nothing to do with faith – like the halftime show at a football game. It pains me to hear Newton ’s wonder at God’s amazing grace reduced to entertainment.

But of course here in Schomberg, at worship, we aren’t singing it as entertaining folk music. We are singing it because we have been sobered afresh as we have pondered the truth that God’s grace is amazing just because it is God’s.  Grace isn’t our invention, our prescription, another human attempt at self-medication that ends in self-poisoning.  We extol God’s amazing grace just because we know that his grace, and his grace alone, can do what nothing else and no one else can accomplish; namely, transmute, transplant the human heart.

Everything we do in church-life; every cent we donate; every jab we cheerfully absorb: we do it all for one reason.         We want to continue holding up that amazing grace whereby anyone’s life can begin again; anyone can be turned around, now victorious where she had always known defeat.  Everything we do here we do for the sake of this.

I often think that the church today has largely lost confidence right here.  It hasn’t always been so. Whenever the church has surged ahead it has always done so riding the wave of its experience of God’s grace and the capacity of that grace to make the profoundest difference to life.

When the apostolic church surged ahead, one of the places its surge appeared was in Corinth , a city infamous for its debauchery.  The Christians in Corinth had emerged from that background. Paul reminded them, “Don’t be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God . And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1st. Cor. 6:9-11) “Such were some of you.” Were, but are no longer; were, but are not now; were, and need never be again.

I see no reason to doubt or dispute that such a grace-wrought turnaround can happen instantaneously.  I also see no reason to think it has to happen instantaneously.  It took six years for Newton ; six years from the time he was stabbed awake until he had repudiated everything that contradicted his grasp of the gospel.  And if it takes sixty years for some of us?  All that matters is that it occur.

For then our children, or our children’s children, will say of us, “They were washed; they were sanctified; they were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

 

                                                                                                Victor Shepherd 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

November 2006

 

You asked for a sermon on The Authority of Scripture

1 Corinthians 10:11

 

I: — Everyone is aware that technology is forever depersonalising life. As technology reaches farther into our daily lives, it is felt that spontaneity, freedom, self-expression decrease. We don’t like this. We object to technological domination. We seek to recover what is authentically human. We look for an oasis in life, a luxuriant space in life where the aridity of technology can’t overtake us. We want to find some aspect of life where spontaneity and freedom and self-expression can flourish.

One such oasis, safe from technological dehumanization, has been thought to be sex. Sex is one glorious oasis where we can be free of technology, one oasis where our humanity can thrive, one place where freedom can blossom. Let’s just “do it” and enjoy it and glory in it.

With what result? With the result that in no time at all we have technicized sex! Technology is invoked to help us have better sex. Now there are lotions, potions, pills, foods, underwear, body-paints – all of them sure-fire technologies. Every popular magazine from Reader’s Digest to Chatelaine has a “how-to” article per issue on better sex.

Better sex was supposed to result as we fled from technology. Now better sex is supposed to result as we pursue technology. What’s more, better sex is supposed to rehumanize us.

The truth is, the preoccupation with better sex makes us rely on technology even as we are supposed to be fleeing technology. The contradiction here renders sex dehumanizing.

Furthermore, while technology and sexual expression are supposed to be antithetical, it is plain that they feed off each other: after all, sex is being technicized increasingly, while technology is being sexualized increasingly. (Don’t we use sex to sell such technologies as computers, outboard motors and kitchen appliances?)

It seems that we are caught in a vortex we can’t escape. Our protest against technology intensifies our addiction to technology. Our attempt at recovering the authentically human causes us to forfeit the authentically human. Our efforts at rehumanizing ourselves end in dehumanizing ourselves.

How are we ever going to get beyond our imprisonment here and its self-contradiction?

 

Think for a minute about labour-saving devices. Technology is supposed to spare us the dehumanization of drudge-labour. But does labour-saving technology mean that we work any less? Does it mean that our work is any less distressing? Does it mean that work is any less the occasion of frustration or futility? A farmer with a tractor doesn’t work less or work less frustratingly than a farmer with a horse; he manages to get more acres ploughed. A fisherman with a steel-hulled trawler doesn’t work less than a fisherman with a wooden dory; he manages to catch more fish. In all of this human existence is made more human! (A footnote about the fisherman: technology has enabled the fisherman to catch so much fish that now – in Newfoundland at least – there are no more fish for him to catch. The result is that a cherished way of life has disappeared and the fishing community is more dehumanized than ever!)

 

Think for a minute about the mass media. The mass media do many things. For one, they create the illusion of personal involvement. As people watch news clips about victims of earthquakes in Haiti or victims of urban overcrowding in Mexico City they unconsciously delude themselves into thinking that they are personally involved. They now think that passivity is activity. They equate their boob-tube passivity with activity, and talk thereafter as if they were involved!

In the second place the mass media persuade us that we are all on the edge of a new society. President Lyndon Johnson kept talking about the “Great Society”. Where is it? What was great about it? He meant that his presidency was the cutting edge of greater a society. Greater than what? Better than whose? Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau kept talking about “The Age of Aquarius”. His pet cliché was “The land is strong”. He meant that the land was newly strong, strong in a way it never was before.

Why would anyone think we are on the edge of a “new society”? What is the evidence for it? As long as the image is created of a “new society or a “great society” or a “land that is strong”; as long as the image is created the reality will never have to be delivered! What conscienceless falsification! What cynical exploitation of gullible people!

While we are talking about dehumanization we might as well mention the mass media and trivialization. The mass media bring before us pictures of starving children with protruding bellies together with pictures of mint-scented mouthwash. Doesn’t this juxtaposition trivialize starvation and the suffering born of it? Recently I was listening to the radio. The news broadcast (supposedly a broadcast of events of immense human significance) was preceded by three back-to-back advertisements: a new kind of candy, pita bread sandwiches now available in Severn-Eleven stores, and Astroglide (Astroglide being a super-slippery vaginal lubricant). What is the human significance of the news when the news is preceded by such trivia? Trivialization? What do the mass media do better?

In American newspapers the Donald and Ivana Trump hanky-panky displaced reports on the reunification of Germany. Where is our humanity in the midst of such trivialization, which trivialization has so thoroughly victimized most people that they cannot recognize it?

Where is our humanity? In view of the fact that everything which claims to augment it and preserve is appears only do diminish it, what are we going to do? Where, how, are we going to be authentically human?

 

Since we have been thinking about news we might as well ask ourselves whether the news is even new. Recently the lead item in the newscast described the shooting of nine people in British Columbia. Is this new? There are dozens of multiple shooting every year.

The depredations in Bosnia are front-page news. But are they new? At the turn of the century the Turks slew the Armenians and the British slew the Afrikaners. Later everybody slew everybody in Europe. More recently the Americans ignited Viet Namese children with jellied gasoline and gloated as the torment couldn’t be assuaged. So what’s new about Bosnia?

The apostle Paul tells us (Acts 17:21) that the people of Athens “spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” The Athenians were “news junkies”. But none of it was new! After all, what can the depraved heart and mind, turned in on itself do besides reproduce itself?

 

Neither is there anything new in the microcosm of the individual. When we look into individual human hearts we find people accusing themselves (as surely as they are accused by others), sinking all the way down into self-loathing. When they can no longer endure their self-loathing they “wake up” and exclaim, “Hey! I’m not that bad! I’m no worse than anyone else! In fact, after a moment’s reflection I’m sure I’m better than most!” Fleeing from self-loathing now, they flee into self-righteousness. Self-righteous people regard themselves as fine company. The problem is, their company can’t stand them. After a while the self-righteous begin to ask themselves why no one else can stand them. Soon they get the point: others can’t stand them just because they are thoroughly obnoxious. Then they begin the slide down into self-loathing – and the cycle starts all over.

How do we break the cycle? How do we learn the truth about ourselves and get off the teeter-totter?

 

When people are jabbed they feel they have to jab back. Their honour is at stake. Their ego-strength is at stake. Their identity is at stake. If someone uses a flame-thrower on them, they have to retaliate with their own flame-thrower. If they don’t, they will be regarded as wimps, will come to regard themselves as wimps, and in any case may feel themselves to be wimps already. But at all costs they mustn’t appear to be wimps. Therefore the retaliatory flame-thrower has to be fired up.

But of course whenever different parties are wielding flame-throwers there are many seared hearts and many smouldering hears. Isn’t there a better way to live? Where is it? How do we find it?

 

II: — There are those who have exemplified a better way. Jacques Ellul was a professor of law at the University of Bordeaux when German forces occupied France. Ellul immediately joined the French resistance movement. Working underground by night, he did all he could to aid the cause of the resistors: he sabotaged German military vehicles, disrupted communications, and so on. Then one of his law-students betrayed him to the Gestapo. Friends learned of the betrayal and whisked him out of Bordeaux to the French countryside where farmers hid him as a farm-labourer. He continued his resistance activities from the new “home”.

Any member of the French resistance who was caught was tortured unspeakable. (All of this made famous by the notorious Klaus Barbie.) In fact, French resistors were tortured so badly that the British government pleaded with the French resistors to quit: the effect of their efforts was very slight (the German war-machine scarcely inconvenienced by it) while the penalty for being caught was atrocious. Ellul refused to quit. He said that to quit (even though not quitting was terribly dangerous) would mean that he had acquiesced in the struggle against evil; to quit would mean that he had surrendered to Satan; to quit would mean that fear of pain had triumphed over vocation to the kingdom; to quit, he said, would mean that he had forfeited his humanity. And so he didn’t quit, despite terrible risks.

After the war Ellul learned of the treatment accorded war-time collaborationists. (Collaborationists were those French men and women who cooperated with the German occupation in hope of saving their own skin. When Germany didn’t win, French citizens howled for the scalps of the collaborationists.) The French government treated these people brutally. Whereupon Ellul stepped out of his law-school professorial robes and became the lawyer representing the collaborationists. He defended the very people who would gladly have consigned him to torture and death during the war. All of a sudden Ellul went from being a wartime hero (brave resistance fighter) to a peacetime bum (public defender of French scum).

Why did he do this? How was he able to do this? He declared that he lived in a new creation; he lived in a new order where standards, expectations, assumptions were entirely different from those of the old order. He noted that virtually everyone clung to the old order even though God’s judgement had doomed it, while virtually nobody dwelt in the new order, even though God’s blessing had established it.

Then Ellul said something more. He said he was tired of hearing people discuss faith in terms of belief. Faith isn’t a matter of what we believe or say we believe or think we might believe; faith is what we do by way of answering the questions God puts to us. When God questions us we have to answer. Verbal answers won’t suffice. Verbal answers are so far from faith that they are an evasion of faith. When God draws us into the light of that new creation which he has caused to shine with startling brightness, then either we do something that mirrors this new creation or we are possessed of no faith at all, regardless of how piously we talk or how religiously we behave. Either we do the truth or we have no use for Jesus Christ at all and we should stop pretending anything else.

And so brother Jacques provided a legal defence to spare the people who would never have spared him a year earlier.

 

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul says – what does he say? “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature” (KJV). The RSV text reads, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. (This is better). Better yet is the NRSV: “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation“. The difference between “creature” and “creation” is significant. I am certainly a creature, but I am not the creation; I am not the entire created order. The Greek word for “creature is KTISMA; the word for “creation” is KTISIS. Paul uses the latter work, KTISIS, creation. The NEB captures it perfectly. “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun…”.

The truth is, Paul has written an elliptical sentence, a sentence without a verb. Literally the apostle says, “If anyone in Christ – new creation! – the old has gone…”. Paul would never deny that the man or woman who is united to Christ is a new creature; he would never deny this. But neither is this what he is saying in 2 Cor. 5:17! Paul would never deny J.B. Phillips’ translation of the verse: “If a man is in Christ, he becomes a new person altogether.” He would never deny the truth of this; but this isn’t what he’s saying in this text. The apostle is declaring that to be bound to Jesus Christ in faith is to be aware of a new creation, a new order; to see it, glory in it, live in it, live from it, live for it.

Unquestionably Ellul lived in this new order. Do we? Whether we do or don’t is never indicated by what we say, insists Ellul; whether we do or don’t is announced by what we do. What we do is how we answer the questions God puts to us. Needless to say the pre-eminent question God puts to us is, “Where do you live?”

 

Centuries before Ellul the apostle Paul, plus so many others in the primitive church, knew where they lived. For this reason the apostle had startling advice to give to Philemon concerning Onesimus.

Onesimus was a slave. He stole from his master, Philemon, and then ran away. In the days of the Roman Empire a runaway slave was executed as soon as he was discovered. Onesimus surfaced in the Christian community in Rome, no doubt assuming that Christians wouldn’t turn him in. Under the influence of Paul, Onesimus came to faith and repented of his theft.

To Onesimus Paul said, “you had better high-tail it back to Philemon before the police department catches up with you, or else you will be hanged.” To Philemon (who had earlier come to faith under Paul’s ministry in Asia Minor) Paul said, “I am sending Onesimus back to you, sending my very heart.”

People today excoriate Paul, “Why did he send Onesimus back at all?” For the simple reason that either Onesimus went back or Onesimus was going to be executed. Let’s hear what else Paul wrote to Philemon “I am sending Onesimus back to you, sending my very heart. Take him back. But don’t take him back as a slave; take him back as a beloved brother…. Receive him as you would receive me.” As Philemon would receive Paul? Paul was a citizen of Rome! Then Philemon must receive his runaway, light-fingered slave as he would receive a citizen and a free man.

On the one hand the legal status of Onesimus was still “slave”, since his slave-status was something only the Roman government could alter. On the other hand, Onesimus was going back to Philemon not as a slave but as a family-member. “Take him back no longer as a slave”, wrote Paul, “take him back as brother in the flesh and in the Lord.” Because Onesimus was a brother in the Lord he was therefore to be cherished as a “brother in the flesh”, as a blood-relative, a family-member.

Inasmuch as the primitive church lacked political “clout” it couldn’t do anything about overturning slavery as an institution. Yet because the primitive church lived in the new creation, a new order, it disregarded the institution of slavery and looked upon Philemon (aristocratic) and Onesimus (low-born) as blood-brothers. And so the institution of slavery (unquestionably a feature of the old order) was subtly sabotaged as Christians held up the new order.

 

Let us never forget that Aristotle – whom some regard as the greatest philosopher of the ancient world – maintained that a slave was merely an animated tool that had the disadvantage of needing to be fed. Aristotle maintained that as well that a woman was an odd creature half-way between animal and male human. Yet Jesus addressed women as the equal of any male! Luke especially cherished this fact about Jesus, and so Luke’s gospel contains thirteen stories about women found nowhere else. Paul insisted not that wives subject themselves to their husbands, but that husbands and wives subject themselves to each other “out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:20) The gospel annihilates male dominance!

Jesus Christ brings a new order with him. He is Lord of this new order. And he makes us new by calling us into it.

New? How new? What do we mean by “new”? When I was in India I was startled by the good condition of the countless 1956 Fiat automobiles that scooted everywhere. Then someone told me that these cars were not forty years old. Many were brand new. The car manufacturers in India have never changed the machinery that makes 1956-model Fiats. Every car that the factory produces is a brand-new copy of the same old car!

A brand-new copy of the same old thing. Ellul maintains that this is what the world mistakenly calls new: a recent copy of the same old thing.

There are two Greek words for “new”: NEOS and KAINOS. NEOS means quantitatively new, chronologically new, merely more recent; KAINOS, on the other hand, means qualitatively new, genuinely new, new in substance.

Scripture insists that the qualitatively new, the genuinely new, is found only in Christ. Jesus Christ is new (kainos) creature himself; he brings with him a genuinely new creation; he is Lord of new creation and new creature; he summons us to join him under his Lordship and live in a new order as new people.

 

Of all the verses in scripture that move me few move me more than 1Corinthians 10:11, where Paul speaks of Christians as those “upon whom the end of the ages has come.” The apostle uses “end” in both senses of the word: end as termination, and end as fulfilment. In Jesus Christ the fulfilment of the creation has come; and because its fulfilment has come, the old creation, old order is now terminated. Since the fulfilment of the creation has come, and since the termination of the old is underway right now, why aren’t we living in the new instead of in the old? Paul says that Christians live in the new by definition. Then the only thing for us to do is to live out what we already live in.

 

III: — You asked for a sermon on the authority of scripture. Scripture is the normative witness to all that we have pondered this morning. Scripture is not the new creation itself; not the new creation, not the new creature, not the Lord of new creation and creature. Scripture is merely the witness to all of this, yet the indispensable witness to it. Apart from scripture’s testimony it is impossible for us to know of new creation, new creature, and Lord of both; apart from scripture it is impossible for us to see the truth , to grasp the reality, to glory in a new world, to repudiate the old, to live out what we are called to live in. Because scripture uniquely attests what is genuinely new, apart form scripture the best that human existence can hold out for us is the most recent copy of the same old thing.

But to hear and heed the testimony of scripture is to refuse to settle for this; to hear and heed the testimony of scripture is to hear and heed him to whom it points: Jesus Christ our Lord. To hear and heed him is to find ourselves knowing, cherishing, exemplifying that new “world” which he has brought with him.

 

Jacques Ellul wouldn’t settle for the most recent copy of the same old thing. The French government and the French citizenry hailed him as hero one day and bum the next. Ellul couldn’t have cared less. He know what’s real. The apostle Paul wouldn’t settle for the most recent copy of the same old thing. He knew that to be united to Christ is to live in that new order which Christ brings with him. The Roman government condemned Paul. He couldn’t have cared less. He knew what’s real.

I too know what’s real. What’s real is the end of the ages now upon us. What’s real is a new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells (to quote Peter now instead of Paul). I know too that it is only through the testimony of scripture, only as the Spirit of God vivifies this testimony and illumines my mind and thaws my heart, that the really real will continue to shine so luminously for me that I shall never be able to pretend anything else.

Ellul died in 1996. Peter and Paul died 2000 years ago. All three have joined the “great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us now. All three cherished scripture as the normative testimony to “that kingdom which cannot be shaken”. (Hebrews 12:28)

Faithfully they kept that testimony. And now the Lord of that testimony keeps them.

 

                                                   Victor A. Shepherd

 

 

 

A Note on The Lord’s Supper

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

 

“All my life I have been confused about the Lord’s Supper”, the parishioner told me at the door of the church.         I felt better right away. I had just finished preaching on this very topic.  Surely she would tell me with her next breath that the sermon she had just heard had evaporated her likely confusion as surely as the morning sun dispels fog. “And I am still confused!”, she said as she moved away.  Since I have been in Streetsville for one and one half decades it is fitting that I try again.

I understand why people are confused.  They have always been confused.  Do you know how the expression “hocus pocus” arose?  The Latin for “This is my body”, the words our Lord pronounced at the Last Supper; the Latin equivalent is, “Hoc est meum corpus”.  In the middle ages most people didn’t know what they were mumbling; they mumbled the words so quickly that “Hoc est meum corpus” came out as “hocus pocus.”  And when Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper was celebrated in that era, it was hocus pocus for most of the people.  The truth is, many people today continue to look upon it as hocus pocus.

We want to move beyond this. In order to get beyond the hocus pocus we should begin with the writings of Dr. Luke. In Luke’s writings ordinary meals loom larger than anywhere else in the New Testament.  (Ordinary meals; not ritual meals, ordinary meals.)  One-fifth of Luke’s gospel and his Acts of the Apostles have to do with eating; that is, one-fifth of Luke’s material concerns events in the life of Jesus where Jesus eats with others, where they eat following something he does for them or where parables and sayings have to do with food. If we are to understand what the Lord’s Supper is about, we should begin with the everyday, ordinary meals which Jesus shared with so many different people.

I: — The first point Luke makes about all this food appears obvious yet is profound; namely, WE EAT IN ORDER TO LIVE.  Food is essential to bodily existence.  Human beings are not disembodied spirits.  We need to eat and should eat.  Only a false spirituality, an unbiblical spirituality, an unchristian asceticism disdains food.  To be sure we do not live by bread alone; at the same time, without bread we do not live at all.

There are furthest-reaching physical consequences to food — or its absence. Without food people develop bone disorders and diseases proliferate.  Without nourishment the human brain does not develop and the undernourished child risks permanent mental impairment.

There are also psychological consequences to food — or its absence.  The thinking of hungry people is very different from the thinking of well-fed people. Hungry people are much easier to prod into drastic action.  It’s understandable that underfed people are much quicker to embrace totalitarian governments. It’s understandable that underfed people — now desperate — are ready to do anything, however extreme.

One of my acquaintances was an officer in the Canadian army during the last great war. One day he and his driver were eating tinned fish when a group of wretchedly poor Italian children gathered around the jeep, eyes fixed on the two men, waiting. The Canadians didn’t know what the children were waiting for.  When the two officers finished eating they flipped the empty tin out of the jeep. Whereupon the children savaged each other in order to get a trickle of fish oil from an empty tin. I have no difficulty understanding the hungry people will readily exchange political freedom for food, exchange virtue for food, exchange simple decency for food, exchange loyalty for food, exchange anything for food.

A hungry body twists the mind’s thinking, and therein twists the entire person. Luke knows this.  He reminds us that we are to pray for food every day.  He recounts the story of the feeding of the multitudes.  We eat in order to live. The Lord’s Supper reminds us constantly that without food, ordinary food, people are warped. It reminds us that God has promised to provide food.

 

II: — Yet Luke knows too that food does not meet all human needs.  There are deeper needs which can be met only by fellow human hearts and minds. And there are deepest needs which can be met only by God himself.

Everywhere in Luke’s writings people whose hearts ache with a hunger only God can satisfy find their heart-hunger met in Jesus Christ.  When people do find their heart-hunger met in him, they eat; that is, they eat as a celebration.         Now they are not eating in order to live; they are living in order to eat, in order to celebrate, in order to party.         Food facilitates festivity, and the festival is in order because they rejoice in their fellowship with the One who has blessed them.

We who know ourselves grasped by our Lord can only celebrate.  Zacchaeus illustrates this transparently.  Jesus revolutionizes the man’s life.  As Zacchaeus finds his life moving in a new direction, sustained by his new friend, Jesus exclaims, “Today salvation has come to this house!” And then they go off to eat together. Wherever Jesus eats with people; wherever these people eat with him, the meal is a visible declaration of Paul’s announcement, “Now is the day of salvation”. Note: the meal Jesus eats with Zacchaeus is an ordinary meal.  And this ordinary meal, because graced by Jesus himself, announces “Now is the day of salvation”.

We must be sure to give the word ‘salvation’ its full weight.  It doesn’t mean that people have been made to feel better or helped a bit. IT MEANS THAT WE HAVE BEEN DELIVERED FROM REAL PERIL. If We are not delivered from real danger, then the word ‘salvation’ is a silly exaggeration. If a non-swimmer overturns a canoe in twelve inches of water and is helped to her feet by a kind friend, we would never say that her friend save her.  But if a non-swimmer overturns a canoe in one hundred feet of water, the vocabulary of being saved is no exaggeration.  let us not deceive ourselves.  Ultimate loss is possible.  if it weren’t, then dozens of our Lord’s parables would have no point. The name “Jesus” is a Greek form of the Hebrew name “Yehoshuah”, and “Yehoshuah” means “God-to-the-rescue”.  Jesus is friend of sinners only because he is first saviour of sinners. In clinging to him I shall be spared a condemnation which both he and his Father endorse.  Because of the provision made for me in the cross I can be spared it. And because I entrust myself to the crucified One I am spared it.  As a believer who knows he has been spared final loss I shall surely find myself moved to heart-felt gratitude and glad obedience for as long as there is breath in me.

Food is eaten when the younger son comes home from the far country.  His father cries, “Dead! – and now alive!         Lost! – and now found!”.  And people feast just because they know that the father’s exuberant declaration is no exaggeration.

That ultimate death which is spiritual annihilation is anticipated in that everyday death which is biological cessation.  And so when the daughter of Jairus is raised from the dead people eat. Death which is biological cessation is itself anticipated in everyday sickness.  And so when Peter’s mother-in-law is healed of her sickness people eat. In Luke’s writings eating is a festival which celebrates deliverance at the hand of God. We live in order to eat, in order to celebrate, in order to party.  Yes! We live to party.

 

III: — Despite the theological heavy-going of the last few minutes the mood of that meal which praises God for the gift of the Saviour is not heavy at all.  The mood is one of joy. It’s like an underground stream of water which bubbles or gushes up to the surface from time to time when people are together.  Sometimes this joy erupts in howling merriment.  Jesus is asked why his followers don’t fast in view of the fact that John the Baptist’s followers do fast.         “Tell me”, replies Jesus, “have you ever been to a wedding reception, however cheap, where there was no food at all?         Have you ever been to a wedding reception, however sober, where no jokes were told at all? Well I’m the bridegroom”, Jesus continues, “the party’s mine, and I say we feast and frolic!”

You have heard me say many times that the English translations of the bible tend to flatten out the vividness of the Greek text.  For instance the English translations tell us that Jesus was stirred with compassion when he came upon people who were spiritually leaderless. He was stirred? moved? The Greek text tells us that their predicament knotted his bowels.  In Acts 8 Peter says to a voodoo-specialist, “Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” In the Greek, however, Peter says, “To hell with you and your money!”  The English text of Acts 2 tells us that the early-day Christians “partook of food with glad and generous hearts”.  Glad hearts? The Greek word means to break forth spontaneously in great joy — like the sudden clap of laughter when the punchline of a joke is a humdinger.  I understand why bystanders were puzzled if not shocked at the meals which Jesus shared. Not only was he eating with the wrong people, the mood of the meal wasn’t sombre enough. It was too uninhibited, too happy, to be holy.  “Not so!”, Jesus says, “no one goes to a wedding reception with the face of an undertaker!”

I am still bothered at the mood which has traditionally characterized the Lord’s Supper. It is too introspective,too bent on having us fish around in our spiritual innards until we dredge up something about which we can feel bad.         Some communion hymns are especially morbid, I feel.   “Look on the heart by sorrow broken, look on the tears by sinners shed.” As if the words weren’t lugubrious enough, the tune would depress anyone.  I much prefer the glad and grateful amazement of Charles Wesley’s fine hymn, “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood?… My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee”. The only reason I am at the Lord’s Supper at all is that I know I am the beneficiary of an inexhaustible mercy and a glorious promise.  “My chains fell off, my heart was free.  I rose, went forth and followed thee”.   Over and over the book of Deuteronomy insists, “You shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice.”

 

IV: — There is one last item we must look at. Who eats and drinks with Jesus? Who?  Many different people do. Yet they all have one thing in common. They love him and want to be with him. When his heart went out to them theirs went out to him, and still does.  It is not the case that everyone eats with Jesus, simply because not everyone wants to.  Not everyone without exception loves our Lord: but it is true that all kinds and classes without distinction love him.  That is, all classes and kinds and types of people are found rejoicing in his presence among them.

And so we have the woman who poured out on his feet that jar of perfume which cost a year’s wages. In giving up her perfume, however, she gave up more than her bank balance; she gave up her livelihood. You see, people of that era rarely had a bath.  This woman was a streetwalker, and all such women used perfume to hide body odour and keep themselves purchasable.  When she poured out her perfume she rendered herself unemployed.  Does my love for our common Lord approach hers at all?

And then there are the twelve whom Jesus called to train as shepherds.  Shepherds? They were so fickle that they did not even arrange for his funeral!  Yet underneath their fickleness and fear they loved him and ate with him repeatedly.

And then there are what the gospels call “publicans and sinners”.  Publicans were Jews who worked for the Roman department of taxation. They were hated by all self-respecting Jews. “Sinners were the religiously indifferent who sat loose to Jewish custom and couldn’t have cared less. And then there were the poor. All these people had one thing in common:  they knew the blessing, thrill and assurance of a great deliverance. Their hearts were knit to their Lord’s and they wanted only to be with him and serve him.

Their longing to remain with him outweighed their fear of being shunned.  Their longing to remain with him outweighed their nervousness at the sidelong glances of family-members and former friends who wondered what on earth possessed anyone to follow an itinerant preacher, an itinerant preacher who claimed to speak and act with the authority of God, whose own family was embarrassed at him, and whom church authorities alternately feared and despised.

Then who eats and drinks with Jesus? All who have found in him a great deliverance, a wonderful companionship, and a trustworthy way to walk; in a word, those who find his yoke easy and his burden light; those who know their loyalty to him, to be sustained by his faithfulness to them.

Not only do men and women of different classes and kinds and types eat and drink with Jesus before the Gethsemane “crunch”.  After he has been raised from the dead; that is, between his resurrection and ascension, he eats and drinks with those who had fallen down and forsaken him only a short time ago.  He seeks out those who have faltered on the way and have failed him for any reason. He restores them to him and equips them to be trustworthy witnesses to his risen life, witness to his risen life risen in them.

In the Lord’s Supper there is no hocus pocus.  We eat and drink ordinary foods.  Our Lord blesses us with his presence (as he blessed Zacchaeus), suffuses us with his strength, informs us with his purpose. We glow in it all, even if we don’t have words to articulate it.

 

Remember: because we are creatures who need food in order to survive, we praise God for bread — as we eat in order to live.  And yet because we are creatures who need more than bread we also praise God for him who is the bread of life — and so we live in order to eat, and drink, and feast with our Lord until the day of his glorious appearing when faith gives way to sight,

our journey is over,

and we are at home with him forever.

 

                                                                                                       F I N I S

 

Rev. Dr. Victor A. Shepherd

April, 1993

 

Gifts, Ministries and the Growth of Faith

 1 Corinthians 12:14-26 

Part I:

 

I: — I remember the night Joe Theismann, quarterback for the Washington Redskins, broke his leg. It was just another play in a football game, with several opponents breaking through the Washington line and tackling the quarterback. As the players unpiled themselves, one of them waved urgently at the Washington bench, calling for the team-physician. The T.V. camera zoomed in on the stricken player. He was lying on his back with one leg extended normally in front of him. The other leg was extended normally from hip to knee; below the knee, however, between knee and ankle, this leg jutted out at a 45 degree angle. The referee walked over to Theismann, raised the broken limb slightly, and moved it parallel to the uninjured leg.

Three things stood out in this incident. One, the injured player was in much pain. Two, his broken, displaced leg was unsightly. Unsightly? It was ghastly! Three, the broken leg was nonfunctional; Theismann couldn’t use it for anything. There was only one thing to do: get the broken leg set as soon as possible. Once the leg was set, pain would be reduced, the ghastly spectacle would disappear, and usefulness would be restored.

It’s always important that broken limbs be set. The word in secular Greek for bone-setting is katartismos. Paul uses this word in Ephesians 4:12 when he tells the congregation in Ephesus that the saints have to be equipped “for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” The gifts that Jesus Christ distributes among his people within a congregation are gifts meant to set the broken limbs of any and all Christians within the congregation in order that the congregation can then exercise its ministry. Broken limbs that aren’t set remain painful to the bearer, unsightly to everyone else, and useless for the congregation’s ministry. The congregation is to be “equipped” for ministry in the name of Jesus Christ. Katartismos, equipped.

When Paul uses the word in Ephesians 4:12 he draws on yet another meaning in secular Greek. Katartismos also means to mend, not a broken bone this time, but a fishing net. An unmended net won’t catch fish; a mended net will. Didn’t Jesus appoint his people to be fishers of fellow-humans? Plainly, the church of Jesus Christ is going to catch fish only if its nets are in good repair.

When Christ’s people are “equipped” through the gifts of their fellow-Christians, two things happen. The congregation has its own broken limbs set so that pain is reduced, unsightliness disappears, and usefulness is restored. In the second place, the congregation’s work beyond itself is assisted, for nets mended means that others will be “caught”; that is, they will be brought into the fellowship of Jesus Christ as they are brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ.

Then regardless of whatever gifts or talents or abilities we have, we need to offer them to our Lord himself by means of offering them to the congregation. As we offer our gifts to the congregation, our gifts will “equip the saints”: set the broken limbs within and mend the fishing nets without, with the result that the congregation honours its appointment to be fishers of others and see them added to the body of Christ.

 

II: — “It all sounds fine”, someone objects, “but I don’t happen to have any gifts; I don’t have anything that is significant to anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. I’m simply not talented.” The modesty is unquestionably sincere; unquestionably it is also without foundation. There is no one without a gift; in fact, there is no one without several gifts, many gifts. To be sure, when we speak of someone as “gifted” in the context of church life we commonly mean two sorts of gift only: speaking and music-making. Victor speaks, Maureen makes music, the Shepherds are gifted. Then others aren’t gifted, or are less gifted?

We must be sure we understand what is meant by “gift.” A gift or talent or ability is anything we do. I say “anything we do” rather than “anything we can do” simply because people most often think they can’t do very much. Whatever it is that they are doing right now, however, they plainly can do or they wouldn’t be doing it! I’ve noticed that the people who tell me they aren’t gifted nevertheless do something throughout the day; most are gainfully employed, while others work in the home or do volunteer work. Whatever we do is obviously gift. Since everyone does something, no one is ungifted. The people who claim they lack gifts tell me this as they continue preparing the evening meal, or they tell me this as they take a break from painting their house or mowing the lawn. Right in the midst of doing something, and doing it well, they expect me to believe they can’t do anything! They don’t intend to be ridiculous, but something’s wrong with the picture nonetheless.

Not only are all of us gifted at something, all of us are gifted at a great many things. When the Shepherd family visited the Iona Community in the Hebridean Islands of Scotland, we were assigned daily tasks for our sojourn, as were other visitors to the community. Needless to say fulltime resident-members of the community already knew what their tasks were and performed them diligently. One fellow I chatted with was a lawyer. Unquestionably lawyering was a gift he possessed. But was it his one and only gift? Was free legal assistance the only service he could render the community? During the seven days that I lived at Iona I noticed that this fellow cleaned the toilets every day. (Remember: everyone has many different gifts inasmuch as everyone can do many different things.) Now we must be sure to understand that toilet-cleaning is important. It’s important because the work of the Iona Community — its worship, witness, evangelism, social outreach, hospitality to international travellers — this work is most important, and this most important work will stall if the toilets aren’t kept clean. The only consideration here is whether or not toilets need to be cleaned every day and whether or not someone who is able to clean them is available. Whether or not a lawyer should be cleaning them isn’t a consideration. Jesus washed feet, didn’t he? (No doubt you are itching to find out what my short-term assignment was. It wasn’t to preach or teach or lecture; it was to clean the fireplace in the common room each morning.)

There are as many ministries for us to exercise, both individually and collectively, as there are things that we can do. The gifts we have — all of them — are services we can render.

 

III: — Then does the mere fact of a gift or talent or ability qualify the bearer for a ministry? Certainly not. Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and Sir John A. MacDonald were gifted public speakers. Does this mean they should have been allowed into pulpits? Certainly not. Alan Eagleson has a talent for eliciting the trust of all sorts of people. Does this mean he should become our pastoral visitor? (I cannot forbear mentioning that Alan Eagleson has spoken (i.e., “preached”) from the pulpit of Kingsway Lambton United Church. Why was he invited to do so? Is it thought that Jesus Christ wins disciples [whom he appoints to crossbearing] by means of the world’s “glitz”?)

If more than gift or talent or ability is needed, precisely what is needed? Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is needed; so is love for his people, even love for those not yet his people. Without faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, people can do eversomuch but it won’t be a doing consecrated to the purposes and truth of the kingdom of God. Without faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, people can do eversomuch, but it won’t be done in the confidence that he will own it and honour it and use it. Without love for his people (as well as love for those not yet his people), the motive for doing whatever is done may be the motive of self-congratulation or public recognition or personal superiority born of envy; but in any case it won’t be the motive of love for Christ’s people, the motive of equipping the saints for their ministry, the motive of building up the body of Christ.

It is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, together with love for those whom he claims for himself, that renders any gift or talent or ability that ministry which serves him by serving his people.

When Joe Theismann broke his leg so very badly he himself was in much pain; everyone who saw him found the spectacle off-putting; and his dysfunctional leg really diminished the team’s effectiveness. Everyone was glad his leg was set as soon as possible.

Katartismos — equipping Christ’s people for ministry; that is, setting broken limbs, as well as mending fishing nets.

 

Victor Shepherd
January 1998                

 

 

Gifts, Ministries and the Growth of Faith

Part II: David Clarkson

Dr. Albert Schweitzer, addressing a graduating class of an English public school decades ago said: “Young people, I do not know what lies ahead for you, but this I do know: you will not truly be happy until you have learned to serve.” This morning’s sermon is in many ways about service and specifically about service to one another in our congregation here, as we exercise our collective ministry as a congregation.

There are many examples of the Lord at work in this congregation. There is much to celebrate. We gather and worship. There is support for mission locally and word wide. There is Bible study, Sunday School and special presentations, all in the context of Christian education. There are Christmas baskets and there are volunteer window sash painters. There is youth work and there is book publishing. There is a strident defense of Christian doctrine and there is quiet nurturing. There is sacred music, and there is practical financial management. There is weekly confirmation that we are fallen sinners and there is a weekly holding up of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

And yet, I think it is important to speak this morning about service, and I have two themes to develop. I shall call them the lesser and the larger. I shall call them the merely important and the utterly crucial.

First, the lesser theme, the one I call the merely important. Each of us here has spiritual gifts to offer congregational life and its ministry. Each has some obligation to the congregation to share such gifts. I do not speak here of misery in such obligations. We are told that our yoke is easy, our burden is light – that is, if we are working in God’s service. John Milton is quoted as saying, “They too, serve, who also stand and wait.”

I don’t think this is true in congregational life. In church work there is an immediacy, a need to get on with the work of the Kingdom. We are not to consider options forever. We are to act.

A brief summary of church government for those not yet immersed: The Official Board and its committees administer the work of this congregation. We support our clergy, we try to put some order into the chaos so that Christian life can occur within this congregation. The Official Board does its work through committees. These committees are responsible for finance and proper accounting of our money, for property and maintaining a place to worship and celebrate church life, for outreach and mission, for Christian education including the Sunday School, for worship organization including music, for pastoral care and organizing our support of each other.

There is added immediacy at this time because four of the Board’s committees have an outgoing Chair – and with no successor in place. All committees but one are critically understaffed. And yet, just supplying names and writing them on a piece of paper called an organizational diagram isn’t adequate either. We may be at a point where much of our church work has to be done differently, re-engineered as they say. I grew up in a congregation of farmers, small businessmen, mothers who did not work outside of the home, and some others who always seemed to me to be a little strange. Some things have changed . . . . The gifts of those people are often different than those gifts we have here this morning – a farmer with a snow plow who, unasked, just sent it off to the church parking lot on winter Saturday afternoons to clear the snow. But gifts unknown then are common place today – keyboard and computer skills, nursing skills, teaching skills, music talent – and especially, compared to those congregations of yesteryear in rural Ontario we have much more cold, hard cash.

 

And yet last Spring we were wrestling with a financial problem. We were not making our budget, and an embarrassingly modest budget at that. How could this contradiction be? We have learned about a God who wants to have a profound relationship, a profound relationship with us, but also the God who rules the cosmos, a power beyond our comprehension, who created us for no other purpose than to have a profound relationship with himself! We know this. Victor has said so a thousand times from this pulpit. We’ve prayed it. We’ve sung it. And yet, we had (and have) a financial problem. And at the same time, in this congregation, on average, we know that a household gives less on Sunday morning than it would have spent the Saturday evening before at the Swiss Chalet and the movies. How does one figure this?

In an attempt to answer this question, let me move on to my second theme, the one that I call the larger, the utterly crucial, about becoming involved in church work, about sharing our spiritual gifts amongst ourselves as a congregation.

I think we need to share our gifts in service. I think we need to do so for our own salvation. Some may think that’s a bit of a stretch. How would one suffer through dull meeting after dull meeting to achieve salvation and what’s the link, and if I really have to do this, is salvation worth it? But here’s the link: We have heard Victor, also a thousand times form this pulpit, patiently explain how Paul states we can’t get our relationship with God right by ourselves. Right relatedness to God is God’s gift to us. We call it grace. We’ve heard nothing else more frequently in this church for the last two decades.

But remember the paradox: the free gift of grace does not imply we sit by and wait for the transfusion. Paul is ready with one of his agricultural examples – he speaks of sowing seeds in the spirit and harvesting eternal life. Seeds, which a farmer or gardener sow, germinate and mature in relation to the forces of nature, which God created. But the farmer must still work. The land must be tilled, the weeds must be kept at bay, watering must be done, young plants must be nurtured. That is, according to Paul, we are to put ourselves in the place where we can be blessed with grace.

There is much about church work that doesn’t at first appear to be pleasing to God, or that doesn’t appear to put us in the posture to receive grace. But the disciplines we more commonly think of as serving that purpose – prayer, worship, fasting, study, submission, confession – these are activities also, that sometimes when they are practiced by us, God may not find particularly pleasing. We are presumptuous if we presume to tell God which postures will nurture grace and which will not. The hymn tune “trust and obey to be happy in Jesus” is relevant. If we haven’t yet participated through service in the life of this congregation, we may not yet be too far down the road in the more contemplative spiritual disciplines either.

In music, it is often very difficult to get a child to practice the piano. And do you wonder? It sounds terrible. And it is hard to refute the child’s position that attempting to play the piano gives no pleasure. But Pablo Casals, master cellist, even as a very old man, said how he just needed to ‘scratch away’ at his cello every morning to feel right with the day.

Christian service begets the desire to do more. Christian service can be like a learning curve. Contribution of your gifts can get you on that curve. Or perhaps a learning curve isn’t the right example. For some it is more like a staircase. Periods of growth and amazing insights can be followed by a plateau before the next jump forward. Be it a learning curve or a stair case, I think it’s important to get on it.

At this point I was searching for just the right word to describe how, having once felt God’s pleasure, one wants to all the more feel such again and again. It is the sort of thing that, the more of it, the more we want. Consider the concept of addiction. As we meet the word addiction in our society, we think of stealing to achieve it, hurting others to satisfy the addiction, and climbing over others in our greed. But in striving to satisfy our addiction to achieve God’s pleasure, all of the opposite is exactly true. I can think of no other example where such a stark opposite exists. There is much wonderful mystery here.

And so back to the financial crisis last spring. We correctly diagnosed that we had less a financial crisis and more a spiritual crisis, a problem of the spiritual temperature among us. I suggest that financial commitment flows from commitment of our gifts to one another as we worship and serve as a congregation.

 

To the extent that I had two themes, I have two conclusions. First, let me conclude the theme that I have called the lesser, the merely very important. We need help, we need big time help, in the administration of our congregation. There is no limit to the number of gifts that are available to work for the coming of the Kingdom here on earth and every Sunday we pray just that, “Thy Kingdom come”. Here is an example of one that is about to open up. It is one of the biggest unpaid jobs in the church. It is the job of the rental coordinator. Our budget receives $25,000 per year from rentals. To achieve this without chaos, some person from this congregation must organize and schedule, negotiate leases, keep track of keys, keep track of accounts payable, protect the essential requirements which the congregation requires for worship and congregational life, allocate space, have back up plans, assess clean up needs, monitor the load on the wear and tear of our facilities. I suppose this job could be divided up, but think of it for now as a single job. Quite in addition to the way in which service makes it possible to become right with God, the doing of this job makes it possible for the church budget to receive an annual cash infusion larger that the five highest envelopes givers all added together!

I have a disclaimer as I finish the first part of my conclusion: that the existing leadership will match people and gifts to appropriate service, and we may not always get a perfect fit. Sometimes feelings will be hurt. This is because our church work and methods are changing. There are absent talents that we used to rely on. There are talents available that we haven’t yet learned how to use and haven’t used well in the past. However, as we read in scripture, we find that the disciples were getting it wrong all the time. So the existing church leadership will try to do as well as the disciples!

But that is not quite the end. I still have the larger theme to conclude, the theme I call absolutely crucial. If I end here, I’ve done little more than make it more difficult for you to offer excuses to avoid service and to make a coherent argument because I’ve had years of church committee work in order to refine my pitch, and besides, it’s just not done to argue back during the sermon. Instead I’ll conclude with a paragraph from Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline. This paragraph is why we do church work. Do you need a vision? Here it is. This is why we offer our services to one another because we are trying to achieve something. Richard Foster writes:

“The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with Himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. Such a community lives under the immediate and total rulership of the Holy Spirit. They are a people blinded to all other loyalties by the splendor of God, a compassionate community embodying the law of love as seen in Jesus Christ. They are an obedient army of the Lamb of God living under the Spiritual Disciplines, a community in the process of total transformation from the inside out, a people determined to live out the demands of the gospel in a secular world. They are tenderly aggressive, meekly powerful, suffering, and overcoming. Such a community, cast in a rare and apostolic mold, constitutes a new gathering of the people of God. May almighty God continue to gather such people in our day.”

 

                                                                      Victor Shepherd

January 11, 1998

 

Gratitude for “First Fruits”

1 Corinthians 15:20   Psalm 24:1    Exodus 23:16    Romans 8:23

 

I: — Megalomania is a psychiatric illness wherein the ill person has ridiculously inflated views of himself, regards himself absurdly self-important, thinks himself to be the centre of the universe, assumes that everyone else exists to serve him. Isn’t it good that we aren’t like that?

The truth is “we” are; “we”, that is, in the sense of collective humankind. The environmental crisis — critical in the sense that we can render our environment lethal — the environmental crisis demonstrates that a kind of collective megalomania has possessed us for longer than we think. Collectively humankind has assumed that the earth is ours to do with as we please; after all, the earth is “ours”, isn’t it? (It doesn’t belong to martians or moon-dwellers!) Then it is ours! In fact to speak of the earth as ours, to have precipitated the environmental crisis, is to give evidence that humankind, collectively, has a ridiculously inflated view of itself; we regard ourselves as self-important, the centre of the universe; we feel that everything exists to serve us. We are collectively self-deluded.

The ancient psalmist knew better. “The earth is the Lord’s”, he wrote, “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein. (The earth is the Lord’s; the earth’s fulness is the Lord’s; everyone who lives on the earth and is sustained by the earth is the Lord’s.) We are his; we don’t even belong to ourselves. It is both childish and silly for me to say, “I’m my own man”; even worse to say, “I’m a self-made man”. The earth is the Lord’s, everything in it and everyone upon it: all his.

Our Hebrew foreparents always knew this. One of their oldest festivals was the Festival of the Harvest. “You shall keep the feast of the harvest” (this is the command of God) “you shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labour.” The Festival of the Harvest was a sharp reminder that the earth is the Lord’s, and this earth brings forth the food we need by his goodness and his providence. Obviously, our Hebrew foreparents were startlingly aware of several matters which we have managed to forget:

 

ONE: Because God is creator, because God has fashioned the universe out of nothing, it is his alone. Everything in it is his, whether mineral, vegetable, animal or human. Not only is it not ours to do with as we please, it isn’t ours at all.

 

TWO: Because everything belongs to God, our assumption that we have a right to it amounts to presumption. Our presumptuousness is a violation of God’s right, and God regards us as impertinent.

 

THREE: Because God, in his goodness, has created all things for our blessing, of his kindness he allows us access to his creation, even appoints us stewards of it.

 

FOUR: Because God is generous, his creation brings forth fruit abundantly, superabundantly. The first fruits which we offer to him are his pledge of more to come; in fact, they are the first instalment of the “more” that is already on the way.

 

FIVE: In recognition of God’s sovereign creativity, and out of gratitude to him for his blessing, we offer to him the “first fruits” of the harvest, in the language of our Hebrew foreparents; we offer the first fruits to God. Our offering of it is a sign of our offering ourselves to him in gratitude and reverence.

 

Some people tell us that if God is the author of blessing, particularly the author of the blessing of foodstuffs, then God has distributed his blessing very inconsistently, even unfairly. Just look at the pictures of children with bow legs, deformed ribs and misshapen skulls. These children have rickets, a vitamin-deficiency disease. We have seen the grossly distended tummies of children who are malnourished. Less evident at first glance is the brain damage of malnourished children, damage sustained in childhood which cannot be overcome in adulthood; these people are intellectually impaired for life.

Some people tell us that God is a sadist in view of the fact that hungry people (starving people, in fact) are not only hungry but tormented through knowing of the sumptuous foodstuffs which we non-hungry people have in abundance. But let us not blame God for this state of affairs. Remember, the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof. The “fulness thereof” is full enough. At this moment there is enough food grown throughout the world to give everyone — without exception — 3,000 calories per day. (Most people need only 2,300.) In addition there are vast tracts of land that could produce food which are not under cultivation. We see the emaciated victims of hunger in India, and hope that a few dozen people of the millions there will get to Mother Teresa for a little tender loving care in their last hours. India, however, has the same number of people per cultivated acre as France, and France is the breadbasket of the European Common Market. With no more than existing agricultural techniques the land under cultivation at this moment in India could feed the entire world. Without strain the arable land of Black Africa could feed ten billion people, twice the world’s present population. Land already under cultivation in the world can support thirty-five billion people on an American diet, or 105 billion people on a Japanese diet, assuming no improvement in food-producing technology. Zaire has the lowest protein intake per person in the world; but Zaire has so few people per cultivated acre that its people could be drowning in food. The masses of Brazil are wretchedly underfed, yet Brazil has more land under cultivation per person than the USA. In South America the poorest people struggle to grow food on 45 degree slopes of rocky soil, while the wealthiest, owning the best soil, grow carnations for export as dining-room table decorations.

“But there have always been famines”, someone replies, “and God is responsible for the weather. Greedy, exploitative, heartless tycoons can’t be blamed for those aberrations in the weather which produce famines.” My comment here will be brief. India is one of the most famine-afflicted countries in the world. In 1870 the Suez Canal was built. Immediately India became a major exporter of wheat to England — while India’s people starved. (Their starvation had nothing to do with famine.) In the worst years of famine India has exported record quantities of grain. Plainly God has remained generous. The Festival of the Harvest should not be set aside, for God deserves to be thanked and honoured.

It’s clear that the fault does not lie with that earth which is the Lord’s; the fault lies, rather, with “those who dwell therein”; the fault lies with us. Humankind, collectively, is deadly. We are deadly. We deaden our fellow human-beings. What is the problem?

 

II: — We have a clue — more than a clue — when we look once more at the expression, “first fruits”; this time from the pen of St.Paul. “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” The problem, of course, is the Fall of humankind. There isn’t time today to explore thoroughly the biblical understanding of the Fall and all its consequences. In the time we have I can say only this much: in the wake of the Fall death is the ruling power of the world. Death is a power which infiltrates all things, undoes all things, brings all things to nought. God created all that is out of nothing; death reduces all that is to nothing. Death deadens. And in a fallen world, death dominates.

The acid rain which kills lakes is an instance of death’s domain. The economic crisis in North America is another instance. We must never forget that the economic “gravy train” which we have always enjoyed in North America has depended, historically, on the availability of cheap labour and cheap land. There was no cheaper labour than slavery — and what is slavery but a living death? There was no cheaper land than land taken at the point of a gun — and what is genocide but largescale death?

The racism which bedevils a fallen world is another instance of death’s domain. Racism says to someone, “You don’t exist humanly. You may exist bodily, in a sub-standard, sub-human way, but you don’t exist humanly.”

Death as dominant power can be profitable, as the tobacco companies demonstrate. As more and more people quit smoking the tobacco companies redouble their efforts to get teenagers to start. Adults who smoke invariably started in their teens. (Nobody starts to smoke at age 48.) As the North American market declines the tobacco companies intensify their efforts to have the poorest people in underdeveloped countries become habituated. Death is marketable.

With the example of tobacco-marketing in mind — that is, the engineering of death — it is easy to understand how death is engineered through food-marketing when there is food enough for everyone. Remember: according to scripture death is the ruling power of a fallen world.

WITH ONE GLORIOUS EXCEPTION! Jesus Christ has been raised victor over death. To behold him raised is to know that in him death has been bested. Because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, death has no dominion over him, and no dominion over his people. To be sure, death has not disappeared; it remains potent; but it is not omnipotent. Death is a defeated power which doesn’t have sense enough to give up, quit. It continues to lash out in its final, futile frenzy.

St.Paul reminds us that our Lord’s resurrection is a kind of first fruits. The first fruits are always a pledge of more to come, in fact the first instalment of something massive and grand. The “massive and grand” is the kingdom of God. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of God’s kingdom. And God’s kingdom is God’s creation healed.

Because God’s kingdom, God’s creation healed, is guaranteed Christ’s people are free to spend themselves in kingdom-work. Because we now see through that optic heart which Christ himself has healed in us, we are free to spend ourselves on those whom the world ignores or disdains as losers, not worth our time and effort because unable to advance us or enhance us. Chronically mentally ill people do not appear likely to advance my career or enhance me personally, at least enhance me in any sense that the world would recognize. Then why do I bother with them and why are they so dear to me? Because I see them through that optic heart which Jesus Christ has restored in me. I see them as only a hair’s breadth away from that glorious restoration to which they have been appointed in God’s kingdom. You recall the gospel-story of the deranged fellow who ran around in the Gadarene hills, naked, cutting himself with stones, saying over and over, “My name is legion, there are so many of us.” At the touch of our Lord he appeared before the townspeople seated, clothed, and in his right mind. In God’s kingdom that is the future of all who are like him now.

We who are Christ’s people are free to spend ourselves for any and all who appear hopeless, just because there is no hopelessness in that kingdom which is even now pressing itself upon us.

The disadvantaged child whom the conscientious schoolteacher sees for nine months and then will never see again; whatever kingdom-love and kingdom-truth she envelops the child in will not to be lost eternally, and therefore her time and energy and even anguish are never wasted. The homemaker who feels so helpless before the beaten neighbour-woman who wants advice yet doesn’t follow it inasmuch as she can’t seem to leave the husband who beats her; the homemaker who wonders whether her patient listening has point and weight and substance need wonder no longer. As a pastor I have often attended death-beds where the person I have gone to see is unconscious and breathing only four times per minute. But I don’t say to myself, “He is comatose and my presence is pointless; I have come in vain and might as well go home right away.” On the contrary, he should still be surrounded in the comfort of the One who is resurrection and life. Besides, the patient in the adjacent bed notices whether I care about the apparently hopeless; so do hospital visitors; so do the nurses.

Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. His resurrection means that he is the rightful ruler of the cosmos; to be sure death has butted in and attempted to extend its domain. It is still a power to be reckoned with, but not a power to be feared. It is a power to be resisted, but not a power to stand in awe of, for it is defeated now and will disappear shortly. In the defeat of death the kingdom of God has come to the fore. The risen one is the first fruits of it. He is its guarantee. He is the leading edge of it. And his people are free to spend themselves in kingdom-pursuits which others may find ridiculous or silly; but we, Christ’s people, see through a restored optic heart. For us this kingdom is so substantial, so concrete, that it fills the horizon of our lives.

 

III: — And yet however strongly we believe this in our heads, it’s easy to get discouraged, isn’t it. I believe,with no shadow of doubt whatsoever, all that I have said about our Lord’s resurrection and the defeat of death and the coming kingdom of God and our living in anticipation of it. I believe it all in my head. Yet there are days when my step is slow and my heart is heavy and my zeal wanes. On those days I look again to another instance of “first fruits” and find myself refreshed and supplied with new vigour. In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul says, “The entire creation is groaning; and we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we are groaning too as we wait for the redemption of our bodies.”

It is plain the creation is groaning; the environmental crisis is its groan, at least one of its groans. You and I groan too, for we are frustrated that we have been disciples for so long yet appear so immature; we use proper Christian vocabulary about faith and hope and love, yet our faith seems fragile and our hope diminished and our love undermined by our residual nastiness. Is it all ever going to get better? Are we ever going to get the monkey off our back? Will the day ever come when a spectator sees the imprint of Christ upon me without having to be told that I am a Christian? Yes! The day is coming when I shall stand forth as that new creature in Christ whose newness is apparent instead of merely professed. One day I was wearing a necktie with the outline of several fish on it. A woman asked me why I was wearing a tie with fish-silhouettes on it. Now I was not having a good day on this occasion (in fact I was having a terrible day) and somewhat morosely I told her that my necktie was the only thing about me that was identifiably Christian. I trust I was exaggerating. Still, I know there are days when you feel like that too.

But we aren’t like this all the time. The apostle tells us that we, Christ’s people, are possessed of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the first fruits, the guarantee, of something bigger and grander.

For early-day Christians the Spirit — the pulsating, intimate presence of God himself, that surge of God within our own hearts — for early-day Christians the Spirit was that which rendered them Christian. If you had asked those people where they differed from their non-Christian neighbours and friends they would not have said, “Oh, we believe certain things which they don’t believe.” They would have said, “We have come to know a new relationship as our lives are taken up into God’s own life; deep down inside us our heart throbs with our new-found life in God. Before “God” was only a word, and a word we didn’t use very often. Now God is a presence we could no more deny than deny our breathing.” God intimate, God present, God indwelling is the Spirit. And it is our present awareness of the Spirit which is the first fruits of our completed deliverance when the residues of our sinnership are finally shed and we stand forth as men and women whose appearance no longer contradicts our profession of Christ.

This is what invigorates me on those days when my foot is heavy and my reputation is tarnished. My awareness of the Spirit within me is a pledge, even the first installment, of my final deliverance when I shall stand before God without spot or blemish.

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. My gratitude was never greater than it is today. I want only to thank God for the first fruits which he has given us. Food in such abundance that his generosity cannot be doubted; the resurrection of his son from the dead in such power that death has been bested and the kingdom of God guaranteed; the Spirit within us in such assurance that discouragement over the slowness of our Christian growth can be put behind us. I trust that your heart swells with the same gratitude as mine.

F I N I S

                                                                        Victor A. Shepherd                                                                                       

  October 1992

THANKSGIVING SUNDAY, 1992

 

 

“If Christ Be Not Raised From the Dead . . . .”

1st Corinthians 15:12-20

 

In the course of my holocaust studies I frequently come upon accounts of heartbreaking delusion. I read, for instance, of Jewish people in the 1940s who hear of something dreadful said to be on the point of befalling their people.  They look at each other in horror — but only for a few seconds — and then console themselves, “But of course it isn’t going to happen; it couldn’t happen here; we live in a civilized nation; this is the land of Beethoven and Schubert and Goethe and Heine and Schiller; this is the country whose appropriation of the Enlightenment gave Jewish people recognition and opportunities unparalleled anywhere else in Europe. What we’re told is about to happen could never happen here.”  But it did happen, and when it happened the delusion was exposed as lethal – albeit exposed too late.

Our hearts go out to anyone we find living in a delusion.

The newscast tells us of yet another elderly person who opened her door to a man in a fine business suit, and who told her he was a bank official bent on uncovering a fraudulent bank employee.  In order to help the bank in this important task would she kindly cooperate and temporarily withdraw her savings as well as her late husband’s life insurance benefits.   We all know the rest of the story: another trusting eighty year old who has been swindled out of all her material resources.

Perhaps the most extreme form of living in a delusion — and therefore the one to which our hearts go out the most — is the delusion of the mentally deranged person. He tells us he is Napoleon fighting in the American Revolution, pursued alternately by the RCMP and Admiral Nelson.   The psychotic person’s delusion appears to extend everywhere and comprehend everything. He appears most to be pitied.

 

What did I say? Extend everywhere and comprehend everything, most to be pitied.   The apostle Paul insists that if Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead then those who believe in him are deluded, overtaken by hallucination. Since those who believe in him believe that he is the one through whom and for whom everything has been made, that he is sovereign over the entire cosmos, then the delusion in which such believers are sunk is no little delusion. This delusion extends everywhere and comprehends everything.   “If Christ be not raised from the dead”, says Paul, “we believers are of all people most to be pitied, for we are in the grip of a hallucination that’s total.”

 

I: — “If Christ be not raised”, the apostle begins, “then our preaching is in vain.” Of course it’s in vain. Preaching is always a matter of pointing to Jesus Christ as the living one who not only lives now but whom death will never be able to overtake again.   What could be more futile, vain, than commending as living, living eternally, someone who is at this moment deader than a dinosaur?   This is not to say that such a preacher herself is fraudulent or hypocritical; merely to say that such a preacher is deluded.   And because she is deluded with respect to the truth about Jesus, what she urges upon others is unsubstantial, groundless, ineffective; in short, utterly unreal.

Preaching is never merely a matter of setting forth a cluster of ideas or notions on a religious topic. Preaching the gospel to the yet-ungospelized is not the same as commending capitalism to communists, or commending the Prime Minister’s platform to those who support someone else’s, or commending the monarchy to republicans, or commending sobriety to the substance-habituated. In every situation just mentioned someone is placing one set of ideas alongside another set, at the same time assuming that the other party will see the inherent superiority of the contrasting set of ideas.   The western capitalist assumes that the notion of capitalism is transparently better than the notion of communism.   The Chinese communist, needless to say, assumes the exact opposite.

Preaching isn’t this; preaching isn’t articulating notions whose inherent superiority is self-evident.         Preaching, rather, is testifying to the living person of Jesus Christ as he is clothed with his truth.   In the course of this testimony the living one himself emerges from the sincere but garbled utterance of the preacher and stands forth as living person to be seized and trusted and loved and obeyed.  Preaching is a matter of uttering many words about Jesus when, in the midst of these many words, the Word himself steps forth in such a way that hearers are no longer assessing words; hearers are confronted with that Person whom they cannot evade and concerning whom they must now decide. But of course the one spoken about can loom up out of the many words about him and stand forth as the world’s sole redeemer and sovereign and hope only if he is alive. Unless Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and is now alive, preaching is nothing more than an exercise in comparing idea with idea, notion with notion, even bias with bias.

When next you hear a sermon ask yourself this question: does the preacher exude confidence in the promise of the risen Lord, confidence that he will startle hearers as witness is borne to him?  Or does the preacher exude no such confidence, with the result that the sermon has to resort to shrillness, exaggeration, or manipulation? Preaching that resorts to such devices is already in vain, since these gimmicks attest the absence of any conviction that Jesus Christ is alive.

On the other hand, preaching that rests its confidence in the promise of the living one to manifest himself; rests its confidence in the one spoken about to speak for himself; rests its confidence that he who is pointed to as if he were far off in truth is here to meet us now; preaching that exudes the preacher’s experience of Christ; namely, that he can unstop deaf ears and open blind eyes and thaw frozen hearts — such preaching is never in vain just because the risen one himself will always honour it and use it to confirm himself alive as he puts another new-born on the road of lifelong discipleship.

 

II: — “If Christ be not raised from the dead”, the apostle continues, “then your faith is in vain.” Of course it’s in vain. Faith is our glad, grateful, adoring embracing of the one who has first embraced us. But the dead don’t embrace. Then if Jesus hasn’t been raised what we thought to be our faith (we thought we were embracing him) is the ghastliest delusion.  Little wonder the apostle says we would then be the most pathetic, pitiable creatures on earth.

Think of it this way. Faith is always faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate One, the Son of God.  On Good Friday it appeared that his Father had abandoned him to contempt and cruelty. What if Easter hadn’t occurred? What if the Father had abandoned his Son forever to contempt and cruelty? Faith in such a God would be ludicrous, and if ludicrous then surely in vain, for such faith (so-called) would be nothing more than the desperation of naïve people in the face of a snickering deity.

Or think of it this way. Faith in Jesus is faith that he is the one in whom God routs the tyranny of evil and renders the strongholds of Satan the kingdom of God . Faith in Jesus is faith that the mighty deeds of his earthly ministry were signs and instalments of that kingdom where only God’s will is done.  But if Jesus isn’t raised from the dead then his mighty deeds, so far from being signs and instalments of the kingdom, were nothing more than transient, sideshow amusements.

What about his teachings? His teachings, he insisted, are the manufacturer’s manual to that kingdom which cannot be shaken. Are they? Or are they merely the exaggerated expostulations of an extremist?   Let’s be honest: of themselves, our Lord’s teachings do resemble the exaggerated ranting of an extremist.  Just listen to him. “Either you love God — profoundly love God — or you are more surely addicted to money than a junkie is to cocaine.”   On the face of it this assertion is ridiculous.  Why did he juxtapose God and mammon, God and money in this way?   Why did he assume that God and money are the rival powers, jointly exhaustive, in the entire universe?   His assertion is categorical, without qualification.  He offers no argument, no explanation, just a bald, bold assertion. “Do you lust after someone to whom you aren’t married?  Then you are an adulterer, just like those promiscuous types you despise in your heart and warn your children against.”  “Either you forgive from your heart the person who has violated you or you have invoked the death sentence upon yourself, for either you pardon the person whose treatment of you is inexcusable or you forfeit God’s pardon of you.” “You won’t give up anything that inhibits your spiritual growth?  Then you aren’t fit for the kingdom of God and you might as well depart for the outer darkness right now.”  Our Lord’s teaching sounds so very extreme.  It is extreme. Then is it wildly exaggerated and for that reason false?  If he hasn’t been raised from the dead then his teachings can be dismissed as the raving of a zealot we do well to forget.  If, on the other hand, he has been raised and now lives eternally, then we should pause and ponder his teachings, for they are the manufacturer’s manual to that kingdom which cannot be shaken.

 

III: — “If Christ be not raised…you are still in your sins”, the apostle continues.  Of course we are. We are still in our sins in two senses.  In the first place, if Christ be not raised then his Father’s ratification of his death as the effectual sacrifice for sin hasn’t occurred. The death of Jesus is then no different from the deaths of the two terrorists who died alongside him. Concerning the deaths of these two terrorists Charles Wesley never wrote, “God and sinners reconciled.” Concerning their deaths another hymnwriter didn’t write, “In the cross of terrorists I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.”  When John the Baptist was executed his friends lamented that a good man had been bushwhacked; his friends never exulted that the sin of the world had been dealt with definitively.

The resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, is the Father’s declaration that this execution is unique in all the world; this execution isn’t defeat but victory.  This execution isn’t finally martyrdom but amnesty.  This execution isn’t finally ultimately to be lamented but celebrated. Because Christ has been raised from the dead we know what his death means.  Because Christ has been raised the Father has declared to the world that the Son’s sacrifice is sealed, accepted, honoured, made effective for all men and all women everywhere.

 

There is a second sense in which the Corinthian Christians, to whom Paul wrote these words, would still be in their sins if Christ had not been raised.  If Christ had not been raised then Christ could not seize the people in Corinth and claim them for obedience and righteousness.  Had they not been seized, claimed for obedience and righteousness, they would still be stumbling in disobedience and wallowing in unrighteousness.

Make no mistake. The reputation of the people of Corinth was known the world over. It resembled the reputation of present-day Thailand . Everyone knows what the major tourist attraction is in Thailand . Everyone knows that the business of venereality is so lucrative in Thailand that the government there won’t do anything about it, won’t even protect the twelve and thirteen year olds who are exploited by it.  The ancient world had a word for all this, a verb: “Corinthianize”.  In the ancient world if you wanted to speak of every kind of degenerate human sexual activity from the shamelessly immoral (but not perverse) all the way to the unmentionably perverse, you needed only one word: “Corinthianize”. If Christ had not been raised from the dead, he wouldn’t have — couldn’t have — seized and startled and claimed those who came to faith in him and were added to the congregation in that city.  Those people would still have been doing what they had been doing before the risen one had arrested them.  In this sense they would still be in the midst of their profligate sins.

You and I are less dramatic sinners than the people of Corinth . To say we are less dramatic sinners, however, is not to say we are any less sinners. Yet because Christ has been raised from the dead we too are no longer in our sins; no longer in our sins in the sense that we are now endeavouring to repudiate sin as quickly as we recognize it, endeavouring to put it behind us, never so much as to entertain it or flirt with it.  We want only to triumph over it and praise God for the victory, like any authentic disciple.

 

IV: — “If Christ be not raised”, the apostle says in conclusion, “then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”   Of course they have perished.  Only the deluded would think anything else.  Christians have always known that death is death.   Romantics may disguise death romantically and pretend any number of silly things about death, but Christians know that death isn’t sleep. (Jesus didn’t sleep on the cross.) Death is death.

It is the presence of Jesus Christ — and only the presence of the risen one – that renders death sleep for his people.  When Paul speaks of “those who have fallen asleep in Christ” he means Christians who have died and who have trusted the resurrection of Christ to be their resurrection too.  But if Christ has not been raised then there is no resurrection for them to trust to be theirs. They died trusting a phantom; they died deluded.

Yet Christ has been raised from the dead. Their trust in him has not been misplaced, has not been in vain.         What it all means is that we can entrust our departed loved ones to the care and keeping of the God who will preserve them and us as surely as he has preserved his own Son.

 

Christ has been raised from the dead. Preaching is not in vain. Faith is not in vain. We are not still in our sins. And our friends in Christ who have died have truly “fallen asleep in Christ”, for his resurrection is theirs — and ours — as well.

Christ has been raised from the dead.  We are not deluded folk who are briefly living out a giant fantasy. We live in truth.  We shall never have to be pitied, let alone pitied above all others.

                                                Christ has been raised from the dead.

 

                                                                                         Victor Shepherd  
Easter 2007                                        

 

 

Steadfastness

1st Corinthians 15:58

2nd Corinthians 1:3-7       Lamentations 3:22-24     Mark 4:14 -20         Revelation 14:12

 

It’s easy to mistake a personal defect for Christian character.  For instance, it’s easy to mistake low self-esteem or self-belittlement for humility. It’s easy to mistake financial self-advertisement for generosity.  It’s easy to mistake calculated lechery for affection.  And it’s easy to mistake rigidity for steadfastness.  The rigid personality is unbending.  It won’t move an inch, often because it can’t move an inch: it’s rigid because brittle, and if it moved at all it would break.  Therefore it won’t budge. Even if someone is wrong, knows he is wrong, and knows he is known to be wrong, he still won’t budge.

When it was proved that the earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth, some authorities shot back, “It can’t be.” When the earth was shown to be much older than commonly thought, many still covered their ears and eyes. And then there’s the story of the dear old gentleman who regarded anything new as belonging to the devil. When he prayed aloud in church he cried, “Lord, you don’t change — and we don’t change.” Rigid.

Steadfastness, however, is different.  We must never confuse steadfastness with a rigidity or a narrowness or an inflexibility born of fear or obstinacy.  Our steadfastness ought always to be formed and informed by God’s. And God is steadfast in that he keeps his promises.  God’s steadfastness is neither more nor less than this: God keeps the promises he makes. God keeps his promises regardless of what non-rigid adaptations he must make in order to keep them. As a matter of fact, so determined is God to keep his promises to us, and so very faithful is God in doing so, that he will do anything consistent with his character to adapt himself to us and our needs.  Inflexible? On the contrary, he will flex himself until he resembles a pretzel.  God’s steadfastness never means he’s frozen, immobile. God’s steadfastness means, rather, that he’s endlessly flexible, adaptable, accommodating in remaining faithful to himself and to us.

We in turn are to be steadfast inasmuch as we remain true to our promises to God; namely that we are going to think and do and live as the child of God he has made us by his grace, as the child of God we in turn are determined to be through our gratitude.  We shall ever render God, at least aspire to render God, our loyalty, our love, our faithfulness, our obedience, our public acknowledgement in worship and witness that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.

There are many situations in life where such steadfastness is sorely needed. What are they?

I: — Affliction is one; suffering, difficulty, distress, pain, confusion, everything that can be gathered up in life’s relentless anguish. Job’s wife watches her husband suffer even as he declares his unswerving confidence in God. Job suffers still more, and only intensifies his trust in God and loyalty to him.  His wife, helpless before her husband’s suffering and angry at God’s seeming indifference, shouts at her husband in exasperation, “Curse God and die.” And what does Job say in reply? “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” Many people wouldn’t fault Job if his steadfastness evaporated in the heat of his suffering, and Job himself became either a theoretical atheist (someone who declares that God isn’t) or a practical atheist (someone for whom it makes no difference whether God is or isn’t.)         Who would blame Job if he told friends and family that his pain had driven away his confidence in God, his love for God and his obedience to God? Nevertheless Job remains steadfast.

The apostle Paul urges the Christians in Corinth to remain steadfast in the midst of their afflictions, for as they remain steadfast in faith and hope and love, he says, they will know the mysterious comfort of God. Countless Christians from his day to ours have come to know it too.

Every couple of years I re-visit the Huron encampment at Midland . The reconstructed Huron village and the Jesuit mission change very little between visits.  In other words, there’s nothing new to be seen, but I go anyway. I go because I find my own faith fortified and therefore my steadfastness stiffened as I tramp around the precincts of the Jesuit martyrs.  Just how difficult life was for those men we can scarcely imagine. The winters; the black flies; the longhouse lack of privacy; the isolation; the twenty-two day canoe trip to their headquarters in Quebec City; the final bloodletting at the hands of hostile natives.  Yet when I read about Lalemant and Brebeuf and the others I find no bitterness, no resentment, not even resignation; certainly no cursing of God or fate or misfortune. Those men were comforted with the mysterious comfort of God.

Mysterious? Sure.  Just as there is a peace that passes all understanding; i.e., a peace that only God can give in situations where there is no earthly reason for peace, so there is a comfort that passes all understanding, an innermost comfort with which God comforts those who remain steadfast in their love and their loyalty and their confidence concerning him.  If we are asked to explain this, we can’t.  Mystery, by definition, admits of no explanation.  Yet the reality of it is undeniable.

What I have learned from the Jesuits in 17th Century Midland I have found repeatedly in godly men and women whose lives have touched mine. Their steadfast love for their Lord, even in situations where they hadn’t a clue as to where the difficult developments in their life were going to come out; their steadfast love for him and their confidence in him — all of this was as great as, greater than, the affliction harassing them.

Approaching this topic from a slightly different angle Paul urges the Christians in Corinth to remain steadfast not merely because they will know the mysterious comfort of God, but also because their steadfastness will comfort others. Their steadfastness will be the instrument God uses to bring comfort to other sufferers.

“Just how does this occur?” the sceptic queries.  “How does someone’s steadfastness in the face of her affliction comfort another person in the face of his?”  At the very least the first person’s steadfastness will reassure us profoundly: just as her suffering hasn’t issued in a bitterness that corrodes her heart and embitters anyone near her, so ours need not. Just as her difficulties haven’t eroded her certainty concerning that brighter day when God’s people are going to be released and relieved definitively, so ours need not erode our certainty of that day either.  Among suffering Christians, steadfastness is contagious.  Someone else’s steadfastness amidst her pain and perplexity will lend us at least this much comfort amidst ours.  And where human pain and divine comfort are concerned, to say “at least” is to say “a lot.”

 

II: — Not only is steadfastness associated with suffering throughout scripture, it’s associated as well with temptation.         We are to remain steadfast when we are tempted.  The book of Revelation speaks of “the steadfastness of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

We must remain steadfast in the face of temptation, because steadfastness keeps our heads thinking aright.         Please note what I said: “Steadfastness keeps us thinking properly.” I didn’t say, “Proper thinking keeps us steadfast.”         Most people don’t understand what John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and countless other giants in the history of the church, as well as all of scripture, have understood; namely, our heart governs our head. We post-Enlightenment types appear not to understand this.

We post-Enlightenment people maintain the opposite; we think our head governs our heart. But the Christian tradition is sound: our heart, what we love (whom we love), controls what we do and how we think in the long run.         In the short run, to be sure, we can always love one thing but will ourselves, steel ourselves, to do something else.         But in the long run invariably our heart, our love, controls what we do and how we think. Steadfastness is simply our persistent love for our Lord whose steadfast love for us never diminishes. Steadfastness is love for him whose love for us can never be discouraged or deflected.  As long as we love him, we shall obey him; and as long as we obey him, our thinking will proceed aright.

If, on the other hand, steadfastness crumbles as love for our Lord collapses, then we do now what previously we declared to be wrong, and do it now announcing to everyone that it’s right.  As soon as our heart leaks away love, our reasoning becomes blatant rationalization. Such rationalization the sober alcoholic calls “stinking thinking.”         “Stinking thinking” is thinking, so-called, that the addicted person regards as the soul of logic and common sense but which everyone else recognizes as the shabbiest, self-serving rationalization.

The heart governs the head. Steadfastness governs thinking. Insofar as we remain steadfast our rationality retains its integrity.  But as soon as steadfastness falters our “thinking” becomes “stinking”; that is, rationality becomes a logically consistent rationalization that we can’t recognize to be rationalization.

The embezzler. He spins a tale 65 pages long justifying what everyone else sees instantly to be self-serving corruption. The abuser of wife or child or workmate: his story is perfectly sound to him, but to him only. The chemically habituated. (We’ve said enough about her already.)  The “paper hanger.” “Paper hangers” are those who write worthless cheques.  Do they have a “reason” for what they’ve done? an explanation? Of course they have. And no one believes it, least of all the judge who sentences them.  The vindictive. The “stinking thinking” that a pastor hears as to why someone at work or at home or in a community organization should be speared, must be speared, had to be speared, is — is what, when even the pastor may find himself tempted to spear disagreeable folk in church life and display the “stinking thinking” that now he can’t recognize.

Just in time we recall the faith of Jesus: when he was reviled, he didn’t revile back. Just in time we recall the commandment of God: “See to it that no root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled.”

Steadfastness, the persistent love of our heart for our Lord Jesus Christ; this stiffens our resolve to keep the commandments of God; this preserves the integrity of our reason and prevents reasoning from turning into a rationalization that legitimates sin and sinks us ever deeper into it.

The question that has to be on someone’s lips is, “If steadfastness keeps our thinking and our doing from degenerating, then what keeps steadfastness steadfast?  What fortifies it?” There’s one thing for sure: when temptation assaults our steadfastness we shall never fortify it by staring at the temptation, as though by staring at it we could stare it down and make it go away. The longer we stare at temptation, even with the best intentions, the more it fascinates us, the more it doesn’t go away, and the more likely it is to collapse us.

We remain steadfast, in the face of temptation, by the simple yet profound, God-ordained device of distraction.         A friend of mine, a physician, waggishly tells me that when patients come to him complaining of minor, niggling, half-imagined aches and pains, the best medical cure is a swift kick in the knee.  He means, of course, that distraction works wonders.

People in the grip of besetting temptation ask me if they shouldn’t pray about it, pray more about it, and I always answer (to their surprise) “No. The more you pray about it the more you are preoccupied with it.         Let someone else pray about it for you.  You need to go to a baseball game.”

There’s a distraction that’s even better than a baseball game. Paul speaks of “steadfastness in love.” Love is self-forgetful concern for someone else’s good.  Love always directs us away from ourselves to someone else.         Now we are profoundly distracted for the sake of someone who needs us. Steadfastness in love orients us away from ourselves and thereby allows us to remain steadfast in the face of our own temptation.

 

III: — Lastly, scripture speaks of our steadfastness in our work for God’s kingdom. “Be steadfast, immoveable,” says the apostle, “always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

We read these words at the service of committal as someone’s remains are lowered into the ground.  Well, was that person’s “work of the Lord” in vain finally? After all, he lived only 37 years, or 57, per chance 87.  But against the immensity of human history (never mind eternity) the difference between 37 and 57 or 87 is radically relativized.  And however helpful his “work of the Lord,” how much help could it have been in view of the enormity of human need?

A year or two ago the undertaker in Mississauga asked me to conduct a funeral for a man whose clergyman had refused to bury him. (The 35 year old married man, father of a six year old child, had gone to New York City, had explored sexually what is better left unexplored and had died of AIDS.) There was to be visiting only one hour before the service, my only opportunity to meet the family. I went to the funeral home one hour early.  Already those gathering for the service had rock music roaring through a “boom box” perched on the organ: “Thumpa thumpa thumpa.”  While I was speaking with the widow whose husband I was to bury, a man approached me, introduced himself and told me he was going to speak at the funeral. “That’s odd,” I replied, “I thought I was.”  Next he told me how long he was going to speak: three times as long as I have ever spoken at a funeral.  Defiantly he told me he wasn’t going to abbreviate his address.  I knew right then that this situation was out of my hands.  One hour later the funeral service began.  Halfway through it the widow walked in.  (I hadn’t seen her in the first row or two, but I had assumed she had to be in the chapel somewhere.)  She made a grand entrance, sashaying down to the front row, waving to all and sundry as she paraded herself, grinning from ear to ear as if her ship had just come in.  When she reached the front row she looked at me, and waved and grinned even more ardently. I didn’t know what was going on. I simply did “my thing” and went home.

Tell me: in view of the fact that I had gone to the funeral to hold up the gospel in its truth and reality amidst the power of sin and death in their deadliness, had I gone in vain?  What I went there to do was plainly an unwelcome intrusion in a rock concert. Was it also a “work of the Lord” that couldn’t be in vain?

And then there’s what you people do.  Sunday School teaching. To what end? How much strikes home in the little fidget-bottoms? The never-ending church committee meetings.  To what end? The same question can be asked of any kingdom-work to which we give ourselves.

And while we are at it let’s think of the smallest details of our lives, such as the quiet, unremarkable help we try to render needy people. The harried mother we smiled at in the grocery store as we picked up and rearranged the shelf of breakfast cereal boxes one of the four children she was contending with had strewn on the floor.  The distraught neighbour we spoke with gently just because he seemed so very fragile. Think of any one of these tiny, daily details.  Then think of them accumulated over 75 years and gathered up into one big bag. The one big bag is labelled “My Life.” What does the bag amount to? We know that on the day that the earth and the heavens pass away the bag is going to be consumed. “Be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

And therefore we won’t quit.  We won’t give up. If we have even a glimmer of fruitfulness about our work, we shall thank God for allowing us to see this much.  And if no fruit is yet visible, we are going to remain steadfast in it anyway.

I am sure that when the Christian missionaries were driven out of China in 1948 they felt that the sacrifices they had made were now dribbling away like water running through sand.  For not only had they been expelled; the deadliest anti-Christian campaign was mobilized and enforced by a communist government.  The campaign was maintained for years, only to be intensified by Chairman Mao during The People’s Revolution.  It was an extermination policy.  But today there are congregations, thriving congregations, throughout China . The seminaries have students. Labour in the work of the Lord wasn’t in vain.

Then you and I must ever be steadfast in such work, even as we are steadfast amidst temptation, and steadfast amidst our suffering as well.

                                                                                           Reverend V. Shepherd                           

                              

March 2009

St. Bride’s Anglican Church, Mississauga

A Little Sermon In A Nutshell

 

“Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Live like men. Be strong. Let all you do be done in love.”

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (J.B. Phillips)

Caesar is lord.” “Jesus is lord.” Both can’t be true. Both Caesar and Christ, the state and Christ, can’t have ultimate claim upon the Christian’s obedience and loyalty and devotion. Only one can finally be sovereign. Because only one could finally be sovereign, early-day Christians were never found saying, KAISAR KURIOS, “Caesar is lord.” Christians refused, on principle, by conviction, to say “Caesar is lord.” For this reason Christians weren’t admitted to the civil service. (Civil servants had to swear ultimate obedience to Caesar.) For the same reason Christians weren’t permitted to serve in the Roman army.

Think about that. No Christian could serve in the Roman army. It’s all the more startling, then, that the apostle Paul compares Christian discipleship to soldiering over and over again. Paul is endlessly fond of military metaphors. “Fight the good fight of the faith.” “Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” “What soldier on active service gets entangled in civilian pursuits?” Since there was every reason for the apostle not to speak of soldiering in a favourable light, the fact that he finds admirable so much about soldiering is breathtaking. We should pay extra-close attention, then, when he compares discipleship to soldiering. Paul knew that a soldier’s lot was rigorous, to say the least: hard training, exposure to elements, relentless discipline, a measure of suffering, more than a little danger. He also knew that a soldier’s lot was rewarding: warm camaraderie, profound bonding, endless adventure, and above all the sheer privilege of serving under a superb leader. Paul knew too that soldiering produced much in soldiers themselves: courage, loyalty, persistence, resilience, dependability.

At the end of his first letter to the congregation in Corinth Paul interjects his little sermon in a nutshell. It’s a ten-second sermon. In ten seconds Paul utters five imperatives, five commands, the first four of which are drawn from military life. Remember, no Christian could serve in Caesar’s army; yet every Christian had to live like a soldier in Caesar’s army.

I: — “Stand firm in the faith.” “Stand firm.” The apostle means, “Don’t vacillate, don’t compromise, don’t capitulate, remain resolute.” We are to stand firm in “the faith”. The faith. Here Paul is not referring to an individual’s act of believing. He is referring instead to what all Christians believe, the substance of faith, the truth of God, the core of the gospel that the church of Jesus Christ has always upheld.

I know what someone is itching to say: the church of Jesus Christ hasn’t always agreed on “the faith”, as the proliferation of denominations attests. Do Baptists and Anglicans agree on the faith? Do Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals? In other words, is there such a thing as “the faith”?

Yes, there is. There is the catholic faith of the church catholic. Be sure to spell “catholic” with a lower-case “c”. (Upper-case “C” means Roman Catholic.) When the Apostles’ Creed speaks of the “one, holy, catholic church” it doesn’t mean the denomination with its bureaucracy in Italy. The word “catholic” means “universal”. The catholic faith is the substance of the faith, the truth of God, which all Christians have held at all times, in all places. When placed alongside the catholic faith, what all Christians have held at all times in all places, denominational peculiarities are radically relativized.

Take the matter of baptism, for instance. Some Christians have said that only a little water need be used; others, much water. Some have said that baptism can be administered to children as a sign that God’s promise of mercy surrounded them before they were even born, which mercy is meant to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ, who is mercy incarnate. Others have said that adult believers should undergo baptism as a public confession of loyalty to Jesus Christ in the face of an unbelieving, hostile world. But all Christians, of every era, have been one in acknowledging that the ultimate issue is baptism in the Spirit. Baptism in water points to baptism in the Spirit. Only the Spirit of God can illumine our mind and warm our heart; only the Spirit of God can move us to repentance; only the Spirit can quicken what is now dead; only the Spirit can enliven us for discipleship. Christians may not agree about the quantity of the water and the timing of its application. No matter! Christians do agree about the need for Spirit-baptism at the hand of God himself.

Think about the doctrine of the Incarnation. All Christians are one in confessing Jesus Christ to be the Son of God (or what amounts to the same thing, God-Incarnate). This distinguishes Christians from Unitarians, Muslims, Zoroastrians. All Christians uphold the Incarnation. There are no exceptions. Roman Catholics are as fervent here as Quakers.

Speaking of Roman Catholics and Quakers. These two denominations appear to be at opposite ends of the liturgical spectrum. The Presbyterian Church is more-or-less in the middle. We all know how ornate a Roman Catholic church appears to us. A Quaker meeting-hall, on the other hand, is as barren as an empty cardboard box. A Roman Catholic who entered our sanctuary on Sunday morning would say to us, “Why is the place so plain?” A Quaker, upon entering, would say, “Why is the place so cluttered?” The Quaker would also have questions about our service of worship: “Why is there no protracted silence?” The Roman Catholic would wonder about our service too: “Why is your service almost entirely oriented to what the worshipper hears, only slightly oriented to what the worshipper sees?” At the end of the day, however, the Roman Catholic and the Quaker are one on the catholic substance of the faith: Jesus is the sole, sovereign, saving Son of God.

What about the atonement, the Good Friday achievement of our Lord? Christians may disagree as to whether one should “cross” oneself when entering church or when receiving Holy Communion, but all Christians agree that our Lord’s cross is that divinely-wrought act removing all impediments to our access to the Father. The atonement has brought unholy sinners into the orbit of the all-holy God, with the result that nothing now inhibits us from responding to the gospel-invitation and finding ourselves “at home”, “at one”, with the Father. The Pentecostal in his 4,000 seat auditorium and the Mennonite in her horse-drawn buggy agree without qualification or reservation.

Some Christians think we should forego meat during Lent as an exercise in self-denial. Other Christians think self-denial should assume another form. Yet all Christians agree that Lent ends with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – vindication of our Lord himself and of his people too.

Paul urges us to “Stand firm in the faith”, for the catholic faith is the anchor which keeps the ship (the church catholic) from breaking up on jagged rocks when the winds of heresy howl upon it. The catholic faith is the ballast in the ship’s keel without which the first tempest will capsize the ship for sure. The catholic faith is a fort that unfailingly repels all would-be invaders, whether they are frontal raiders or sneaky commandos. “Stand firm in the faith”. The catholic faith of the church catholic is the only place where we can stand. Then stand we must, without vacillating or compromising or capitulating.

II: — “Be on your guard”, the apostle continues. The Greek verb for “be on your guard” means “be watchful”, “give studied attention to”, “take heed”. “Be on your guard.” It doesn’t mean we are to be anxious or suspicious or paranoid. It doesn’t mean we are to go looking for threats or imagine assaults. Nevertheless, it does mean we should be ready, equipped, whenever genuine threat is detected or genuine assault is unleashed. “Be on your guard”. It means “Don’t be caught lounging; don’t be caught drowsing; don’t be caught unprepared.” It’s another military term.

A few years ago a conference was held in the USA where God was re-named “Sophia”. At this conference Delores Williams, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at Union Theological Seminary (a prestigious institution, and Presbyterian as well), New York City, said, “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all.” (Plainly she has no grasp of sin.) “Atonement has to do so much with death…. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.”

Let me say right now: the atonement is the heart of the gospel. Peter cries, “He bore our sins in his body on the tree.” If our Lord hasn’t borne our sins in his body on the tree, then we are condemned before God now, without hope of reprieve. According to Ms Williams, however, the heart of the catholic faith is now no better than “weird stuff”.

Then it was Melanie Morrison’s turn to speak. “What does it mean for us to be in solidarity with lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual women in this decade? And how can we together re-imagine our churches so that every woman may claim her voice, her gifts, her loves, her wholeness?” Is the bisexual or multisexual woman whole, from a Christian perspective? (I’m not denying a psychological perspective, or social or legal; neither am I denying human rights. I am, however, speaking from a gospel-perspective.) Is the transsexual whole, from a Christian perspective? Transsexualism is surgical alteration rooted in gender-confusion, gender-dysphoria and self-rejection; and it is accompanied by a horrific incidence of suicide.

Does any love legitimate any relationship? No. The fact that Mr ‘xy’ loves Ms ‘ab’ in an adulterous relationship never legitimates an illicit relationship.

The United Church of Canada endorsed the Sophia conference and sent 47 delegates to it. The Presbyterian Church, USA, managed to send more than a few delegates as well. Then the second Sophia conference was held. Same story. Once again major denominations sent their delegates to the conference. It is plainly a frontal assault on the faith of the church catholic. Then is it, or an updated version of it, a spiritual threat to this congregation? I like to think this congregation is well equipped theologically to recognize and repudiate all such assaults.

Then need we never be on guard? If we are wise we shall admit that being on our guard, being watchful, is rarely as easy as Sophia suggests just because spiritual threat is rarely this stark; more often spiritual threat is much more subtle and therefore much more likely to undo the saints in any congregation.

The verb “be on your guard, be watchful”, occurs in many different contexts in scripture. Peter maintains that sin is so relentless in its approach and so alluring in its appeal that we must be watchful without letup. Jesus rebukes the drowsy disciples in that during his worst hour of spiritual torment (Gethsemane) they couldn’t so much as “watch” with him for one hour. (In other words, spiritual discipline must not relax.) Paul uses the word in Acts as he warns the congregation that smooth-talking teachers will infiltrate the congregation and seduce it with false doctrine and corrupt practice.

We must never forget that it is our Lord himself who urges his most intimate followers, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Temptation is subtle. If we can’t be tempted to say outright that theft is good, we are tempted to whisper to ourselves that the little bit of creative bookkeeping needed to get past the cash-flow-squeeze isn’t wrong. (Even though Canada Revenue Agency insists it’s wrong.) If we can’t be tempted to say outright that self-indulgence is good, we are tempted to whisper to ourselves that at our age we’ve paid our dues and need not respond to any claim upon us whether for time or energy or money or prayer. (Even though anyone looking at us would say that our selfishness reeks.) “Be on your guard”, says the apostle, “be watchful.” He doesn’t mean we are to be anxious or paranoid. But he does mean our spiritual antennae are to be tuned in to genuine spiritual threat, whether frontal or subtle.

III: — “Live like men” is his next imperative. Please don’t bristle; he isn’t urging us to live like males rather than like females. He is urging us to live like humans rather than like — rather than like what? rather than like subhumans? But there are no subhumans! Hitler and others have thought there to be, but as long as all men and women are created in the image of God there can be no subhumans. Still, while it isn’t possible to be subhuman, it’s possible to live like a subhuman.

You must have noticed that we never say to an alligator, “For goodness’ sake, be an alligator!” An alligator can only be an alligator. An alligator can never live like a sub-alligator. It is as much an alligator right now as it will ever be. But we do say to someone whose behaviour is less than exemplary, “For goodness’ sake, be a man!” If someone is acting maliciously we often say, “Show some humanness!” But we never say to a mean dog, “Show some dogness!” Dogness is all a dog can show. We know, however, that human beings can show everything but humanness. We have all read of too many human beings who haven’t seemed human. They have appeared savage because evil; or they have appeared stone-like, frozen by fear or laziness; or they have appeared animal-like, governed by instinct. When the apostle says, “Live like men”, he means at the very least, “Live like and look like what you are!”

The only issue to be decided, then, is what we are. We are the noblest item in God’s creation. Then we are to live nobly. At the same time the apostle certainly means more than this. When he says, “Live like men”, undoubtedly he has in mind what it is to be a man in Christ, a woman in Christ. It’s not enough that we live like noble humanists (preferable as this is to living like subhumans). We are to live like what we are: men and women whose Spirit-birth has plunged us into a new world. We are impelled by a new motivation, draw every day on new resources, eagerly move toward a new future, see the world with corrected eyesight. We know that the kingdom of God is the rule of God through the truth of God superimposed on a world that rebels against the rule and contradicts the truth. Christians live precisely where the kingdom of God collides with this present age. We are citizens of the kingdom (this is our identity); but we are mere sojourners in the world (this is where Christ’s soldiers have to campaign for now).

Live like men.” Minimally Paul means, “Don’t even flirt with the subhuman.” Maximally he means, “Live like what you are: citizens of that kingdom which cannot be shaken.”

IV: — The last of Paul’s military metaphors: “Be strong.” What is it to be strong? It isn’t to be superhuman. Merely to try to be superhuman is to make oneself sick. Then what is it to be strong? Scripture understands strength chiefly in terms of steadfastness. The Roman armies of old weren’t noted for their capacity to crush the enemy at one blow. (The capacity to do this is a function of size; any army can crush another army that is much smaller.) Roman armies of old were noted rather for their steadfastness, their resilience, their persistence, their dependability. To be steadfast is to be immovable, not given to flight or frivolity. To be steadfast is to be resolute, not able to be intimidated or routed.

The peculiar sort of strength that scripture upholds is known as meekness. Meekness is strength exercised through gentleness. In classical Greek the word “meek” was used to describe a wild horse that had been tamed but whose spirit hadn’t been broken. Because the horse had been tamed its strength was useful; because its spirit hadn’t been broken its strength was relentless.

Christians are never called to be strong in the sense of strong-armed, coercive. We are called to be strong in the sense of steadfast, single-minded, unflinching, unswerving. In short, as we uphold the kingdom of God before the world we are to be resistant and resilient, consistent and constant. “Be strong.”

V: — Paul is finished with his four military metaphors; still, he isn’t finished. The last word can’t be from the military; it has to be from what is uniquely Christian. “Let all that you do be done in love.” The apostle knows, at the end of the day, that if anything we do isn’t done in love, then so far from exalting our Lord it contradicts him and his kingdom.

Yes, we must stand firm in the faith. But unless we stand firm in love as well, our contending for the catholic faith will degenerate into contempt for those who appear to undermine it.

Of course we must be on our guard, be watchful. But unless love soaks us we shall soon ridicule those who succumb to the temptations we think we have resisted. (I say “think we have resisted” in that plainly we have succumbed to the worst temptation of all, pride.)

There is no one here who doesn’t wish to “live like men”, to “be strong”. But unless we are also living in love our strength is little more than grim determination to outlast those who disagree with us. “Let all that you do be done in love.”

It’s a sermon in a nutshell. It seems to come out of nowhere in the midst of Paul’s anguished correspondence with the congregation in Corinth. Really, it’s a ray of sunshine, an encouragement to the parishioners in Corinth, a tonic.

The nutshell sermon makes use of four military metaphors (startling, since military service was forbidden Christians in the first two centuries). The fifth exhortation concerning love is not startling, merely costly. For to do all that we do in love is not going to cost us less than it cost our Lord. Nevertheless, the cost isn’t greater than the reward, for our Lord’s sacrifice has issued in a fruitfulness which no one can calculate now, just as no one will be able to deny it on the day of his glorious appearing.

Victor Shepherd               September 2016

Promises, Promises, Promises

2nd Corinthians 1:15-22       Isaiah 55:6-11

 

It’s startling to find the word “promise” hundreds of times over in the English translations of the Hebrew bible.             It’s startling for one reason: the word “promise” isn’t found in the Hebrew language.  In biblical Hebrew the verb that the English translators render “promise” is simply the verb to speak or the verb to say. In ancient Hebrew if someone merely said he would do something his saying it was a promise.

We are far from this attitude today.  Today we ask someone if he will do something; he says he will; then we come back, “Do you promise?”  Plainly we are asking him to promise he will do what he has said he will just because we can’t trust him; we can’t trust that his simple, unadorned word is trustworthy.  We can’t count on him inasmuch as he has spoken.

Our fellow-Christians who are Quakers noted all of this as early as the 1600s. Everyone knows that Quakers have consistently refused to take an oath in court to tell the truth; they will not swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — for one reason: Quakers believe that Christians tell the truth at all times and in all situations.  Why, then, would they make a special promise to tell the truth in one situation? For 400 years Quaker Christians have said, “To promise to tell the truth in court is to admit that we do not or may not tell the truth out of court; it’s to admit that our word can’t be trusted day-in and day-out. But our word can be trusted: what we say we perform.  Our simple word is our promise.”

In ancient Israel someone’s word was her promise for one reason: God’s word was his promise. What he said, he did. Promise guaranteed performance.

Since the characteristic of the living God is that he speaks, we can just as readily say that the characteristic of the living God is that he promises; and not only promises, performs.  Everywhere in the Hebrew bible God’s promise guarantees fulfilment. If the promise is made, performance is sure. Nothing describes God more characteristically than the fact that he is the promise-maker and therefore the promise-keeper.

 

I: — Then we should pay closer attention when we read in the newer testament (Romans 9:4-5) that the promises (of God) belong to Israel . Note the present tense: to Israel belong (there continue to belong, there belong right now) the promises. It isn’t suggested that the promises used to belong to Israel but do no longer.

It’s important to acknowledge this truth for several reasons, not least because of a remark that was made concerning my ministry in Mississauga . The remark was, “Why doesn’t Victor shut up about the Jews?  There is no place in Christian worship for his repeated references to the Jews. If Victor thinks so highly of them, why doesn’t he move over to the synagogue and join them?” I find it odd that no place is to be given to Yiddishkeit in Christian worship when Christian scripture insists that the promises belong to Israel still. According to Christian scripture (what we call the “New” Testament) Israel continues to have a place in God’s economy by God’s ordination.           Could it ever be appropriate to deny this truth in a service of worship?

My repeated insistence on Israel ’s ongoing place in the plan and purpose of God doesn’t mean for a minute that the Jewish people alone of all the peoples on earth have been spared the Fall. It doesn’t mean that they alone have pure hearts while we Gentiles are treacherous. After all it is a Jew, Jeremiah, who insists that the hearts of his own people are “deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.”(Jer. 17:9)  Jew and Gentile are alike creatures of the Fall.

It doesn’t mean that every last Jewish person is loveable or trustworthy — just as no one is silly enough to pretend that every last Gentile is loveable or trustworthy.

It doesn’t mean that every political move of the modern state of Israel is to be approved. The political moves of the modern state of Israel must be evaluated in accord with the moves of any nation-state.

It doesn’t mean that the history of ancient Israel has been whitewashed. The Hebrew prophets were tormented by a spiritual unfaithfulness in Israel that they described as harlotry; the same prophets were angered by a hypocrisy that they spoke of as a stench in the nostrils of God.

But — and it’s a huge “but” — while God’s next-to-last word to Israel (spoken through Hosea) is “Lo-ammi” (“Not my people”), “Lo-ruchamah” (“Not pitied”), God’s final word to Israel is, “How can I give you up?  And because I cannot give you up, I must call you “Ammi” (“My people”), “Ruchamah” (“Pitied”).

Centuries ago Jesus appeared before Pilate.  Pilate didn’t want to bother with Jesus, since Pilate knew that adjudicating Jewish squabbles was a no-win matter for him.  In a voice dripping with contempt Pilate asked Jesus, “Am I a Jew?” — meaning, “The whole world knows that I’m not one of your miserable people.”

When our daughter Catherine was fourteen (fourteen, not four, and not stupid either) she asked Maureen and me at the dinner table one evening in genuine bewilderment, “Are we Jews?”  Maureen and I quickly told Catherine, “No.  At least not exactly, but in a sense, yes, inasmuch as all Christians are honorary Jews; all Christians are guests in the house of Israel .”

Let us never forget the words of the apostle: “Until you Gentiles had embraced Jesus Christ in faith you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel .”(Eph. 2:12) Since we have embraced Jesus Christ we now belong to the commonwealth of Israel .

 

What will happen if we Gentile Christians forget that the promises belong to Israel ? What will happen if we forget that we are guests in the house of Israel ?

We shall neglect Israel ’s book, what we call the older testament (it happens to be 78% of the bible), the first testament; and in neglecting it we shall ruin the Christian faith. Ruin it? Yes, utterly.

(i)           In the first place we shall forfeit the truth that the universe is God’s creation, created out of his oceanic love, ruled by his sovereign mercy, sustained by his incomprehensible patience and finally accountable to him. We shall forfeit this foundational truth inasmuch as the newer testament doesn’t yield a doctrine of creation.

(ii)           In the second place we shall fail to understand ourselves as human beings. It is only in Israel ’s book that we learn we are made uniquely in God’s image, have been made “response-able” to him and “response-ible” for our life with him and with other humans alike made in his image.

(iii)           In the third place we shall no longer know who God is.  We shall forget that
God is not identical with his creation or with any part of it.  (The biggest confusion at alal times is the confusion between God and God’s creation.) To say this is to say that God is holy, and apart from the older testament we can’t understand what God’s holiness means.

Apart from the older testament we can’t understand that God is person. Because God is person, according to Israel’s book, he is heartbroken like a husband whose wife leaves him for another man; he weeps like a wife whose husband won’t come home; he rages at horrors in the world that should find you and me raging too; he grieves over children who would rather be lost than found; he snorts like a labourer or an athlete whose exertion is at its outermost limit; he rejoices like a father whose child is the apple of his eye; he bonds himself to his people like a nursing mother whose breastfeeding brings as much comfort and contentment to her as it brings nourishment to her infant.

When we have ignored — or worse, disdained — our place in the commonwealth of Israel what shall we have left of God? Certainly not God as holy and God as person.  Then what? an abstract idea? a lifeless principle? a projection from our wish-list?

(iv)           In the fourth place unless we keep before us our membership in the commonwealth of Israel we shall invariably magnify the wickedness of anti-Semitism, which wickedness the world may politely denounce out of political correctness but secretly always aids and abets.  Need I say more?

“To them — Israelites — belong (present tense) the promises.” I am unashamed to take my stand with the apostle.

 

II: — In taking my stand with the apostle Paul I thereby endorse his conviction that “All the promises of God find their Yes in Christ.” (2 Cor. 1:20) Whatever God has promised throughout his centuries-long struggle with Israel ; whatever he has promised to Israel , or through Israel to the church, it is gathered up and fulfilled and crowned in Christ Jesus our Lord. In fact all the promises made to Israel , made through Israel , are promised afresh in Christ and performed in Christ.  “All the promises of God find their Yes in him”, says the apostle.

Because the God who incarnates himself in Jesus of Nazareth is the promise-making (promise-keeping) God, there are scores of promises arising from the earthly ministry of Jesus that we could take to heart this morning and sustain ourselves with until our struggle is over too. There isn’t time to probe scores of them; today we shall probe three only.

 

(i)             The first promise is that we are never unaccompanied.  “I am with you always, to the close of the age”, says our Lord.(Matt. 28:20) He has promised that he will never forsake us.  Note: he will never forsake us.  This is the promise. The promise isn’t that you and I shall never feel forsaken.  Christ’s people often feel forsaken.  Think of the sentence Paul writes in his second letter to the congregation in Corinth . He speaks of the affliction that savaged him and others in Asia . He doesn’t tell us precisely what the affliction was.  He does tell us, however, what the effect of the affliction was on him and his friends: “We were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.”(2 Cor. 1:8-10)  How much worse could anyone feel?  “We were crushed. We despaired of life itself.” Remember, our Lord has promised never to forsake us; he hasn’t promised that he will never allow us to feel forsaken.

It’s only fair that we let Paul finish his own sentence: “We felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.  Therefore on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

Our Lord has promised that he will never leave us unaccompanied. Has he kept his promise? How can anyone know whether he has kept his promise?  Plainly there can be no proof.  It’s impossible to prove that Jesus never leaves his people unaccompanied. But lack of proof is no detriment. After all, in the profoundest matters of life there never is proof.  I can’t prove to anyone that my wife loves me.  At the same time, I have never doubted that she loves me ardently. In the profoundest matters of life there never is proof; but there is testimony, witness.

Then what testimony has been borne to our Lord’s promise-keeping? We must summon witnesses and allow them to speak.  How many witnesses will it take to convince us?  Myself, I always begin with my grandmother.           She was poorly educated (the eldest of 15 children), became a servant-girl in England at age 12, and then the wife of a factory-worker in early 1900s Canada . (In other words, she had only pennies.) Ten pregnancies, six live births, four surviving children; kidney removed in 1917; towards the end of her life she had to attend relentlessly to a husband whose limbs were as twisted as a pretzel and who was unable to get out of bed for the last 11 years of his life — which husband she managed to outlive for a year or two.  Perhaps you wish to say that her situation may not have been so very unusual for people of her era.  Nonetheless, what was unusual was her quiet testimony concerning the promise kept. “I am with you always; you are never unaccompanied.”  Proof is impossible in the nature of the case.  Her testimony (to me, at least) was so authentic as to be unrejectable. The final stanza of her favourite hymn was fixed in her heart and on her lips:

No tempest can my courage shake,

My love from Thee no pain can take,

No fear my heart appal.

And where I cannot see I’ll trust

For then I know Thou surely must

Be still my all in all.

In the latter part of the 1800s and in the early part of the 1900s Nathanael Burwash was a giant in Canadian Methodism.  Scholar, university professor, churchman, preacher, Burwash was instrumental in moving Victoria College from Cobourg to the University of Toronto with all that Canada’s pre-eminent university could do for Victoria and Victoria for it.  In addition Burwash was a major architect of the uniting churches of 1925. In one terrible week in 1889 he and his wife lost four children to diphtheria. What did Burwash do? Curse God?  Rage that God was merely a teaser and tormentor?  Conclude that there was no more substance or truth to faith than to a child’s imaginary playmate?  Just the opposite. His consistent testimony was that his Lord’s promise was kept.  Christ’s people are never unaccompanied.

 

(ii)           Never unillumined is the second promise we shall examine this morning.  “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”(John 8:12) He has promised never to leave us in the dark.

But sometimes we feel we are in the dark.  What’s more, we are annoyed at people who claim never to be confused or perplexed or stymied or ignorant; we are annoyed at people who never seem to recognize life’s complexity.

Then what does our Lord mean when he promises never to leave us unillumined? He means that he will always provide us with enough light to take the next step; only the next step, to be sure, but at least the next step.  He hasn’t promised to give us so much light as to let us see where we shall be and what we shall be about 45 years hence, but certainly enough light for the next step so that the only issue facing you and me is obedience. If we lacked all light we could readily excuse our sin; but as long as we have enough light for one step, the next step, then the issue isn’t light; the issue is obedience. To obey is always to find enough light for the next step again, and then for the next step after that. Not to obey, of course, is to find ourselves in a darkness that only grows darker.

We must be sure to note that the promise isn’t that no one ever walks in darkness; the promise is that whoever follows Jesus; this person won’t walk in darkness, for Christ is light.

 

(iii)           Never unaccompanied, never unillumined, never neglected.  Says our Lord, “If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him.”(Matt. 7:7-11//Luke 11:9-13) Actually, there is a preface to the promise. “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For nobody asks or seeks or knocks in vain.           Is your heavenly Father a torturer?  Depraved as you are you wouldn’t treat your child like that.  How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.”

What are the “good things”?  “Goodies”? Trinkets and toys? Luke’s version of Christ’s promise helps us here: “How much more will your Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

The Holy Spirit is God himself in his utmost immediacy, intimacy, intensity. He himself is the gift; he himself in his immediacy, intimacy, intensity.  All who ask, seek, knock find themselves flooded by the Spirit.

Is the promise kept? Proof is impossible. Testimony alone matters, as testimony alone pertains to the profoundest aspects of life.

With whose testimony do we begin?  Paul says, “I am rock-ribbed certain that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Peter says, “His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Julian of Norwich (a 14th century woman), “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  Martin Luther, when asked where he would be if everything he had agonized over and laboured for were overturned, replied, “I shall be then where I am now; in the hands of God.”  When a prison guard taunted Nicholas Ridley, the most brilliant of the English Reformers, on the eve of Ridley’s execution, “Do know what’s going to happen to you tomorrow, Mr. Ridley?”, Ridley had replied, “Yes, I know what’s going to happen to me tomorrow; tomorrow I marry. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”  The prophet Jeremiah has testified, “God’s faithfulness is great; his steadfast love never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.”

There is no point in piling up testimonies ad infinitum.  Once we have heard them, all that remains for us is to take it all to heart. Which is to say, all that remains for us is to entrust ourselves to him who is Israel ’s greater son. Because he is a son of Israel and speaks Hebrew, he doesn’t have to say “I promise” in order to promise. All he needs do is speak. His word is his promise, his promise kept.

For all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ Jesus our Lord.

                                                                                                    Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                   

  June 2007

What Abundance!

2 Corinthians 4:15

 

Aren’t you amazed at God’s magnanimity, his generosity, his large-heartedness? Clues to his magnanimity (but only clues) are seen in his handiwork. His creation abounds in examples of munificence. Think of the stars. There are billions of them in our galaxy (even as ours is not the only galaxy). Not only are there are innumerable stars, many of these stars are vastly larger and brighter than the star we know best, our own sun. The largest star is 690,000,000 miles in diameter; it is 800 times larger than our sun, and 1,900 times brighter. (Can you imagine a star 800 times larger than the sun?) And how vast is the star-world? Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. Other galaxies have been located as far away as six billion light years.

The creation is profuse just because the heart of the creator himself overflows ceaselessly. How many kinds of plants are there? And within the plant domain, how many kinds of trees? And within the tree domain, how many kinds of pines? Ninety! There are ninety different kinds of pine tree alone!

And then there is food. When I moved to the Maritimes I was astounded the first time I saw a fishing boat unload its catch. As the gleaming fish spilled out of the hold I felt there couldn’t be another fish left in the North Atlantic. And I was watching one boat only, an inshore-fishery boat at that, unloading only one day’s catch!

As much as we are inundated with fish we have to remember that only 1% of the world’s protein comes from fish. The rest comes chiefly from grain. And right now there is enough grain grown to give every last person 3000 calories per day. (We need only 2300 to survive.) When I was in India I saw tons of food piled at the roadside, in village after village. To be sure, there’s often a problem with food-distribution — since 15,000 people starve to death throughout the world every day — but there’s no lack of food-production. Let us never forget that France is the breadbasket of the European Economic Community, yet the nations of central Africa — where protein-deficiency diseases proliferate — produce more food per capita than France does. Even in its very worst years of famine India has remained a net exporter of food.

Whenever I reflect upon God’s overflowing bountifulness I pause as I think of food; I pause, but I don’t linger. I do linger, however, whenever I think of God’s great-heartedness concerning his Son. The apostle John cries, “It is not by measure that God gives the Spirit!” (John 3:34 RSV) [“God gives the Spirit without limit!” (NIV)] The rabbis in Israel of old used to say that God gave the prophets, gave each prophet, a measure of the Spirit; but only a measure of the Spirit, since no one prophet spoke the entire truth of God. Upon his Son, however, God has poured out the Spirit without limit. The Spirit hasn’t been rationed, a little here, a little there. No rationing, no doling out, no divvying-up; just the Father pouring out everything deep inside him upon the Son, then pointing to the Son while crying to the world, “What more can I say than in him I have said?”

It is not by measure that God has given Christ Jesus the Spirit. To know this is to know that in our Lord there is to be found all the truth of God, the wisdom of God, the passion of God — as well as the patience of God — the will and work and word and way of God. It’s all been poured into him.

If God has poured himself without limit into his Son, then you and I can be blessed without limit only in clinging to the Son. If God has deluged himself upon his Son, then we are going to be soaked in God’s blessings only as we stand so close to our Lord that what has been poured into him without limit spills over onto us as well.

I: — Paul tells the church-folk in Ephesus that the riches of God’s grace are lavished upon us in Christ. Grace is God’s love meeting our sin and therefore taking the form of mercy. (Eph. 1:8) Since God’s mercy meets our sin not once but over and over, undiscouraged and undeflected, God’s mercy takes the form of constancy. God’s constancy remains constant not because God is inflexible or rigid (and therefore brittle); God’s mercy remains constant not because he expects human hearts, now hard, to soften (some will, some won’t); God’s mercy remains constant in the face of our sin just because he has pledged himself to us and he will not break his promise to us even if every last human heart remains cold and stony and sterile. Grace, in a word, is God’s love meeting our sin, expressing itself therefore as mercy, and refusing to abandon us despite our frigid ingratitude and our senseless resistance. To speak of grace at all, in this context, is plainly to speak of the riches of grace. And such riches, says Paul, are lavished upon us, poured out upon us without calculation or qualification or hesitation or condition.

Several years ago in Cook County Jail, Chicago, the prison chaplain visited a prisoner on death row. The convict had only hours to live. Quietly, soberly, gently, sensitively the chaplain acquainted the convict afresh with the truth and simplicity and sufficiency of God’s provision for all humankind, and specifically for this one fellow who would shortly appear before him whom any of us can endure only as we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The convict — angry, frustrated, resentful, envious of those not in his predicament, just blindly livid and senselessly helpless — the convict spat in the chaplain’s face. The chaplain waited several minutes until a measure of emotional control seemed evident and said even more quietly, soberly, sensitively, “Would you like to spit in my face again?”

When the apostle speaks of “the riches of God’s grace” he never means that God is a doormat who can only stand by helplessly while the entire world victimizes him endlessly. When he speaks of the riches of God’s grace, rather, he means that the patience of God and the mercy of God and the constancy of God — the sheer willingness of God to suffer abuse and derision and anguish for us — all of this cannot be fathomed. Two hundred years before the incident in Cook County Jail Charles Wesley spoke for all of this when he wrote in his hymn, “I have long withstood his grace, long provoked him to his face”. Because of our protracted provocation, God’s grace can only be rich, can only be lavished upon us. Little wonder that Paul exclaims, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Rom.5:20) The marvel of God’s grace is that as abhorrent as our sin is to God, it is so very abhorrent to him that he wants it to become abhorrent to us as well; therefore he meets our sin with even more of his grace.

Why does he bother to meet our sin with grace abounding? Because he knows that if only we glimpse how much more he can give us we should want nothing less for ourselves. Jesus insists, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our Lord has come that his people might have life aboundingly, hugely, wholly, grandly, plentifully.

We should note that while Jesus urges “abundance” upon us, he doesn’t tell us in what the abundance consists. He simply says that what he lends his people is to be described as bountiful, copious, plenteous, profusive. Why hasn’t he spelled it out more specifically? I think he hasn’t in order to minimize the risk of counterfeit imitation. If our Lord had said, ‘Abundant’ life consists in a,b,c,d, then people would immediately endeavour to fabricate or imitate a,b,c,d — all of which would render abundant life, so-called, utterly artificial.

People crave reality; they won’t settle ultimately for artificiality, regardless of how useful artificiality may appear in the short run. They crave reality. Surely that which is genuinely profound and truly significant will also be attractive. And surely that which is so very attractive will move more people from scepticism to faith and the possession of abundant life than will a clever argument which leaves them unable to reply but more sceptical than ever.

A minute ago I said that when Jesus speaks of “abundant life” he doesn’t say in what the abundance consists. Nevertheless, from the apostolic testimony as a whole we can put together a composite description. If generosity is a mark of discipleship, then one feature of abundant life is ungrudging, anonymous generosity. If love is too, then another feature is uncalculating concern for others regardless of their merit or their capacity to repay. If forgiveness of injuries and insults, then a marvellous forgivingness and an equally marvellous forgetfulness. If seriousness about prayer is a feature of abundant life, then equally significant is a willingness to forego much before foregoing the time we spend with our face upturned to God’s. Nobody wants to reduce holiness, the holiness marking Christians, to sexual purity. At the same time, wherever the New Testament urges holiness upon Christ’s people the context nearly always pertains to sexual conduct. (This is something the church has simply forgotten today.)

Needless to say, in all of this we shall always know that the abundant life streaming from us arises at all only because of the riches of God’s grace proliferating within us.

II: — In view of all that God pours into us, generates within us and calls forth from us we are to “abound in thanksgiving”. (2 Cor. 4:15; Col.2:6-7) We are to spout — geyser-like — uncontrived, unscheduled outbursts of gratitude to God. Of course there’s a place for scheduled acknowledgements of God’s goodness to us as we offer thanksgivings at set times (including Thanksgiving Sunday). More frequently, however, and more characteristically, unplotted effusions of thanksgiving overflow even the channels of good taste and middle class demeanour.

Despite all the sporting events that can be watched on television, there remains no substitute for seeing them “live”. Saturday night broadcasts into one’s living room and the Maple Leafs “live” at the Air Canada Centre are simply not the same event. One thing that never ceases to thrill me at a live game is the crowd’s spontaneous eruption when the home team scores. A Leaf player “drains one” (as they say in the game), and 19,000 people shout with one voice. There are no signs that suddenly flash, “Applaud now.” There is nothing prearranged to cue the crowd. There is only uncontrived exclamation.

Surely you and I will “abound in thanksgiving” only as we are overcome yet again at God’s astounding munificence and we cannot stifle our exclamation. And on Thanksgiving Sunday in particular, is there anyone whose heart doesn’t tingle at blessings too numerous to count? Then of course we are going to abound in thanksgiving.

III: — To know we have been given so much, to be grateful for having been given so much, is to shout “Amen” instantly when Paul urges us to “abound in every good work.” (2 Cor.9:8b) Anyone who has been blessed profoundly, anyone who gives thanks profusely, will always want to abound in “every good work”.

The older I grow the more I realize how important the ordinary, the undramatic, the “ho-hum” (so-called) is everywhere in life. Often the dramatic is deemed especially important, if only because the dramatic is unusual. An automobile strikes a pedestrian crossing the street; the pedestrian’s leg is severed, and the throbbing artery spouts blood, quickly draining away life — when along comes a fellow in his brand-new Harry Rosen Italian wool suit; without hesitating, he rips up the sleeve of his jacket and twists on the tourniquet — just in time. Good. None of it is to be slighted.

At the same time, 99.9% of life isn’t dramatic. For every dramatic assistance we might render there are a million opportunities for the most undramatic, concrete kindnesses whose blessings to their recipients are priceless. Maureen and I in Brandenburg, Germany, for instance, (one hour off the airplane) trying to find the tourist information bureau (needed for a list of “Zimmer mit Fruehstueck” — Bed & Breakfast); we have made four circuits in our rented car of the downtown maze of a mediaeval city, know by now that we aren’t going to find the tourist information bureau if we make 40 circuits, know too that we don’t know how to stop making circuits; a woman who speaks German only saying, “It’s too complicated for me to describe how to get to the bureau from here; I’ll walk you to it” — and then walking the longest distance out of her way to help two strangers from a foreign country whom she will never see again. The young mother across the aisle from me on the train to Montreal; her baby is only six months old, too young to be left alone; the woman is exceedingly nauseated and needs to get to the washroom before; would I hold her baby until she has returned from the washroom? Of course.

Because the undramatic abounds in life (as the dramatic does not), the apostle is careful to say that we are to abound in every good work.

IV: — There is only one matter left for us to probe. What impels us to do all of this? To be sure we are commanded to abound in thanksgiving, commanded again to abound in every good work. We can always grimace grimly and simply get on with it just because we’ve been ordered to; or we can recall the riches of God’s grace that have been lavished upon us. But to have to recall something is to admit that we are lacking an incentive that is immediate; and to grimace grimly and do onerously what we’ve been told to do is to admit that discipleship is a pain in the neck. Then what impels us to abound precisely where we know we should abound? Paul says we “abound” from the heart as joy — joy! — wells up within us.

When Paul saw that the Christians were going to go hungry in Jerusalem during the famine there he asked the Christians in Macedonia for help. The Macedonian believers were poor, dirt-poor. And yet when the apostle asked them to help people they had never seen they “gave beyond their means.” (2 Cor. 8:3) Not only did they give beyond their means, they begged Paul to grant them the privilege of helping others in dire need.

What impelled them to do it? Paul says simply, “…their abundance of joy overflowed in a wealth of liberality.” (2 Cor. 8:2) It was their joy — not their sense of duty, not the obligations of obedience — just their joy in Christ, their joy at the mercies of God, their joy at the super-abounding grace of God in the face of their abounding sin; it was their abundance of joy that impelled them to give beyond their means, poor as they were, as soon as they heard of those who were poorer still.

Only a superfluity of joy renders us those who are willing to make a real sacrifice for the kingdom; and only a superfluity of joy allows us to see that alongside the wounds of Christ we shouldn’t be speaking of our sacrifice at all.

On Thanksgiving Sunday, 2002, I want such abounding joy in my heart as to attest the mercy of God lavished upon me and lavished upon me endlessly in the face of my all-too-abounding sin and undeniable need. For then abounding thankfulness will stream my lips, even as abounding kindnesses flow from my hands.

                                                                            Victor Shepherd   

October 2002

(A word-study in the Greek verb PERISSEUEIN, “to abound”)

Text: Colossians 2:7 — “…abounding in thanksgiving.”

 

 

You asked for a sermon on What About the Paradoxes of the Gospel?

2nd Corinthians 6:1-10     Luke 18:9-14

 

For years I’ve been intrigued by the psychology of perception. What do people “hear”? What do they think they hear, that is, as opposed to what was actually said? What do people “see”, claim they see, even swear they see as opposed to what there actually is to be seen?

Laboratory experiments in the psychology of perception fascinate me. One experiment has to do with motion sickness and the perception of motion. A person is blindfolded and seated on a chair, the chair itself mounted on a rim that revolves. As the rim speeds up the blindfolded subject soon becomes dizzy and nauseated. After a few minutes, however, the subject begins to feel better. Soon he feels much better and is glad that the moving rim is slowing down and has even stopped. Now he’s completely relieved of his dizziness and nausea. Actually the rim hasn’t stopped at all. It’s moving as fast as ever. What’s happened is this: after the rim has spun for several minutes the subject’s inner ear has compensated for the motion. The blindfolded subject now feels he’s at rest when in fact he’s never stopped revolving. Little by little his inner ear has made whatever adjustment was necessary to cause a highly abnormal situation to feel perfectly normal.

Everywhere in life there are abnormal situations without number that we’ve learned to compensate for. What at first made us highly uncomfortable is now felt to be normal. Conversely, Christians who uphold what is right and good and true in the midst of the world’s opinion will find themselves feeling most uncomfortable.

Let’s return to the experiment with the blindfolded subject seated on the moving rim. As I said earlier, after several minutes have elapsed the subject feels he’s now at rest and is no longer nauseated. He can’t get off the moving chair, however, until it stops; and it won’t stop unless it first slows down. Therefore the rim is gradually slowed down. As soon as it begins to slow down, however, the subject feels dizzy again, nauseated too; as soon as the rim begins to slow down, the subject complains that it’s speeding up, and that is why he’s newly nauseated! When the rim finally stops, he feels it’s now moving at top speed. Now he’s exceedingly nauseated; nauseated, that is, until his inner ear adjusts once more.

There are many conclusions to be drawn here. For one, feeling is no indicator of actuality. How we feel is no guide to what is. For another, however upsetting the abnormal is, we soon adjust to it and look upon it as the way things ought to be. For another, any return to what’s normal is highly unsettling, at least initially.

 

Most people look upon the world “out there” as normal, the measure and standard of itself and whatever might come to be. The gospel, however, tells us that the world is capsized.

The world looks upon itself as replete with truth and the measure of truth. The gospel, on the other hand, insists that the world is riddled with falsehood and unable to measure truth.

The world looks upon itself as ultimately real. The gospel, we should note carefully, insists that the world is actual. To say that the world is actual is to say it’s not imaginary and not mythological. The world is actual, to be sure, but it isn’t ultimately real. Ultimate reality is the presence and power of God, the ascendancy of the kingdom, the living efficacy of Jesus Christ. (All these expressions mean the same.)

The world looks upon itself as the source of whatever meaning people discover in the world. The gospel insists that the meaning of the world’s life is given to it by the One who created it and won’t abandon it.

The world unconsciously assumes that whatever most people do is the measure of what humankind ought to do. The gospel insists that what most people do isn’t the measure of anything; God’s truth is the measure of what they ought to do but don’t, and his judgement is the exposure of what they shouldn’t do but do.

So who is right? Think of what it is to be dreaming and what it is to be awake. When we are awake we know indubitably that we’re awake. When we are dreaming we think we’re awake even though we aren’t. It’s only upon awakening that we know our dream of being awake to be an instance of self-deception. When our Lord grants sight to a blind man, the blind fellow knows two things immediately: he knows that he can see (no one could ever persuade him now that he isn’t seeing), and he knows who enabled him to see. When the disciples cry out at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus is the Son of God, they know indubitably that he is this even as Jesus reminds them that they didn’t come to this truth by themselves. When the Christians in Corinth exclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, they are as certain of this truth as an awakened person is that she’s awake, even as the apostle reminds them that only the Holy Spirit can bring them to this awareness.

So who is right? The kingdom of God and the world with its self-understanding contradict each other at virtually any point at which we care to compare them. A recent magazine article spoke of a “medical emergency” with the headline, “STDS ARE DEVASTATING YOUNG WOMEN’S HEALTH.” The article discussed the nature of STDs and pointed out that 12 million Americans are diagnosed each year with assorted sexually transmitted diseases. The article insisted that the responsibility for the prevalence and spread of STDs together with their attendant misery; the responsibility for all this lies with the federal government. The government hasn’t assigned sufficient funds to such problems, and government under-funding is the reason STDs continue to proliferate. Nowhere in the lengthy article was there even the hint that responsibility might rest with the women themselves. Why not? Because the article everywhere assumes that common access to sexual partners is as normal as common access to the air we all breathe and common access to the water we all drink.

The gospel engenders truth, substance, solidity. The world traffics in appearance, vacuity, froth. Recently a television program informed the Canadian electorate of how rising politicians are coached. Rule #1. Don’t wear a shirt (if you’re a male) whose collar is too large. A too-large shirt-collar makes a man appear terminally ill. (What does shirt-collar size have to do with serving the public good? What does it have to do with wisdom, integrity, trustworthiness?) Rule #2. Don’t say anything. Talk, to be sure, since all politicians have to talk. But don’t say anything, anything you might have to support or defend or account for. Rule #3. Remember that appearance is everything, substance nothing. A few years ago John Turner had the habit of licking his lips frequently as he spoke. A media-consultant publicly ridiculed him. “He looks like an ant-eater at a picnic!”, she sneered. Does the habit of licking one’s lips mean that one is intellectually deficient and ethically defective?

Anyone with a modicum of rationality would expect the world to recognise and honour honesty, decency, kindness, faithfulness, transparency. But the person who exemplifies this doesn’t even get noticed. On the other hand, when Meyer Lansky was the most powerful mobster in the underworld of the U.S.A., he received a personal invitation to the presidential inauguration of Dwight David Eisenhower. Then which is capsized, the world or the kingdom of God? Which is right side up and which abnormal, even perverse? In which do you feel more comfortable?

I am asked frequently about the paradoxes of the gospel. Such paradoxes abound beyond our telling. The arch-paradox of the gospel that underlies all other paradoxes, of course, is the paradox of the cross. We have to say something about this paradox because this paradox gives all others their force and efficacy and truth.

In a world preoccupied with power we can’t help asking ourselves “Where does God display his almightiest might?” God does his mightiest work, of course, at the cross. It was for the sake of the cross that he became incarnate in his Son. Everything in God’s 1200-year struggle with Israel came to its focus at the cross. Everything in the earthly ministry of the Son came to its fulfilment at the cross. The paradox of it all is that God does his unique work — God names himself, as it were — precisely where he’s indistinguishable from two criminals whose names the world has never known and never will. God does his most glorious work precisely where he’s most sunk in shame, for the only people the Romans crucified were enemies of the state, soldiers who had deserted, and rapists. God is most effective where bystanders deem him helpless. God is wise beyond the wisdom of the world exactly where knowing people nod their heads and commiserate concerning his folly. God is most exalted not simply where he’s most humbled but even where he’s utterly humiliated. God fashions acquittal for a world he must condemn precisely by subjecting himself to the selfsame condemnation. God displays his righteousness when the Son who knew no sin became sin for us, and God himself identifies himself with that sin which, say the Hebrew prophets, he cannot bear to behold. In sum, God brings life to the world by bringing death upon himself, a death that is the utmost alienation deep in his own heart, a self-alienation without which our reconciliation with him would never occur. The cross is one grand paradox gathering up a dozen paradoxes akin to those named, one grand paradox that is nothing but paradox.

Since the cross dominates and characterises the Christian story, every aspect of that story is therefore paradox as well. If the core of God’s self-involvement with the world is paradox, then every aspect of that involvement, every truth concerning it, is necessarily paradox too. Compared to the Christian story, the story that the world tells about itself appears back-to-front, inside out, upside down. Or is it the Christian story that’s ridiculous while the world’s is normal? Just who is crazy here, anyway?

In the time that remains today we are going to look at one or two paradoxes. A paradox, we must remember, is a statement that is inherently self-contradictory yet nevertheless true. Needless to say, a statement that is inherently self-contradictory can be true only if the ground of that statement is a reality that can’t be overturned or subverted or dispelled. The ground of every paradoxical statement in the Christian story is the cross. It is that reality which can’t be overturned or subverted or dispelled. Therefore the statements in the Christian story are not only inherently self-contradictory but also profoundly true.

“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled”, says Jesus, “and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” It’s the last line of our Lord’s parable of the two men who go to the temple to pray. (Luke 18:9-15) One man thanks God for all those things about himself for which he should thank God: he doesn’t extort, he isn’t unjust, he doesn’t commit adultery, he fasts and he tithes. Religiously he’s exemplary; morally, he’s faultless. There isn’t so much as a hint of hypocrisy or insincerity or duplicity in him. Every word he says about himself is true. He practises what he preaches. He’s a thoroughly good man. Surely no one wants to say it would be better if he were exploitative, unfair and a philanderer.

The other fellow, so the story goes, simply cries heavenward, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” And it’s this man, insists Jesus, who goes home “justified”, goes home rightly related to God and therefore exalted before God.

On my first pastoral charge I happened to mention, in casual conversation, that the situation before God of every last human being was the same. My situation before God was identical with that of the most notorious profligate any of us had heard of or could imagine. The reaction to my casually spoken line was swift and hostile. “No, it isn’t!”, church folk spat back at me, “Our condition before God is different. Since God is just (at least we all agreed on this point) our moral circumspection has to count for something.” “It does count for something”, I replied, “it counts for our condemnation.” Whereas a minute ago they had thought me ridiculous, now they thought me deranged. I pointed out to them that the fact I wasn’t a philanderer didn’t mean for a minute that I loved my wife. And my moral achievement (considerable, if I may say so myself) didn’t mean that I loved God at all.

In our Lord’s parable the man who exalted himself in view of his genuine virtue used his virtue as a bargaining chip before God, used it as leverage with God. He pointed to it and reminded God that he wasn’t like others. He was telling the truth: he wasn’t like others; he was morally superior to others. However, his moral superiority, a matter of his will, had blinded him to the condition of his heart. His virtue was a barrier behind which he hid from God; it was a disguise in light of which he thought his heart was unknown to God; it was currency with which he attempted to negotiate with God. Unquestionably morally superior, he also thought himself spiritually superior. More to the point, he was so preoccupied with himself and his achievement that he never grasped what the other fellow in the parable knew from the start: ultimately life isn’t a matter of the achievements we “tot up” but a matter of the relationships we cherish; supremely the relationship, our immersion in the heart of God. He never understood that morality boasted of, morality traded on, morality used as a perch from which to disdain those beneath us is a stench in the nostrils of God. And not only a stench in the nostrils of God, a blindness so thoroughgoing as to blind the boaster to the corruption of his heart and therefore to his vulnerability before God.

The other fellow in the parable had nothing of which to boast. Having nothing of which to boast, he wasn’t tempted to boast. Knowing himself surviving at that moment only by God’s patience and going to survive only by God’s pardon, he was without pretence, without pride, without self-deception. Humbled, he could only cry, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He went home “justified”, rightly related to God, and thereafter exalted.

The humble, says Jesus, are the exalted; the exalted (self-exalted) are going to find themselves humbled.

Let’s look this time not at a paradox from the lips of Jesus but at one from the pen of Paul. To the Christians in Corinth he speaks of himself and his fellow-apostles as “having nothing yet possessing everything.” (2 Cor. 6:10) We have no difficulty understanding what it is to “have nothing.” To have nothing is to have nothing. But what’s the “everything” that the “have nothing’s” possess simultaneously? The apostle drops clues to this “everything” throughout his letters. “For me to live is Christ” he tells the congregation in Philippi. (Phil. 1:21) “The Son of God loved me“, he exclaims to the spiritually confused in Galatia, “and gave himself for me!” (Gal. 2:20) “Nothing can compare with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord!”, he exults yet again. (Phil. 3:7) When he contemplates the Christians in Thessalonica, men and women sunk in paganism who had turned from prostrating themselves before idols to serve the living God, he glows, “You dear people in Thessalonica; you are my glory and my joy!” (1 Thess. 2:19) He sums it all up in the pithiest exclamation to the church in Corinth: “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15)

Having nothing, the apostle yet possesses everything. His intimacy with his Lord is so very intimate, so very intense, that he finds no vocabulary able to do it justice and can only say, “I have been admitted to that which I can’t describe; I have heard what may not be uttered.” (2 Cor. 12:4) Still, he can say something, as his numerous letters attest. Having nothing, he yet possesses everything: an intimacy with his Lord that no one will ever take from him and no misfortune will ever eclipse. It’s an intimacy that is, ultimately, the only wealth he possesses, the only riches he has to share, the only gift he can hold up before his people. This gift (his admittance to innermost intimacy with Jesus Christ) is inexpressible; this gift was fashioned with him in mind; this gift is of surpassing worth (he means incomparable worth). As often as he reflects on this gift he “lights up.” As often as he thinks of people like the Thessalonians who have come to know and cherish the same gift for themselves he is reconfirmed in his vocation, and he recalls that on the day of judgement their intimacy with the Lord will be his glory even as it is his joy now. Because he possesses everything, he can minister out of his riches to others in their spiritual poverty.

I am moved every time I read John Wesley’s journal. At the end of a harrying day when he has ridden miles, exchanged his lame horse for a sound one, contended with smirking magistrates and angry mobs, preached to convicts on their way to execution and coalminers on their way to the pits, written yet another tract for public dissemination and sorted out squabbles among his assistant preachers; at the end of such a day Wesley writes four brief words in his journal, “I offered them Christ.” It was all he wanted to offer. It was all he could. And it was enough, everything in fact.

I began the sermon with an illustration from the psychology of perception. I pointed out that once we become accustomed to what is abnormal; once the abnormal seems normal, a return to what is normal upsets us considerably. At the same time, however much a return to what is normal may upset us at first, we know soon that the kingdom of God is the creation of God right side up, while the world at large is the creation of God upside down. And in the same moment we understand that the gospel is true and sound and sane while it’s the world that’s crazy.

The paradoxes of the Christian story are self-contradictory by definition and therefore nothing more than “gobbledegook” for those who read them through the spectacles of unbelief. But for us whose minds and hearts have been conformed to the peculiar logic of the cross – the grand paradox, the paradox that renders everything about the Christian faith paradox; we glory in that paradox which now makes perfect sense to us, even as we pursue that life where first is last and last first, where saved is lost and lost saved. We count it a privilege to pursue it and therefore will ever pursue it until the day when paradox disappears as the logic of the cross – illogic to the world at present – is seen to be the soul of common sense. For on that day the logic of the cross will be known as truth that never could have been refuted, truth that henceforth can never be refused.

Victor Shepherd    

February 2000

Grateful Again

2nd Corinthians 9:6-15

Deuteronomy 26:1-11     Luke 17:11-19

 

I: — The writer of Proverbs tells us that there are four things so wonderful as to defy understanding: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the seas, and the way of a man with a maid. These four are wonderful. At the same time, I am sure that the writer would never restrict the wonders of the universe to four. So rich is the creation, so marvellously diverse, that the universe is wonder upon wonder without end.

Vast and rich as the creation is, the Creator himself can only be vaster and richer. Today, on Thanksgiving Sunday, I am led to wonder and gratitude and adoration as I ponder the universe which has come from God’s hand.

Think of the navigational instinct of birds. Myself, I have the poorest sense of direction. Following a road map is almost an insuperable challenge to me when road maps are supposed to render a sense of direction unnecessary. So poor is my sense of direction that I have difficulty recognizing streetscape or landscape that I saw only five hours earlier. Yet the homing pigeon can always get home.

The best navigators are sea birds. Best of all is the shearwater. One of them, taken from its nest and transported 3,200 miles away, returned to its nest 12.5 days later. In other words, the bird had flown, on average, 10.5 miles per hour, 24 hours per day, 12.5 days, and had found its way to the nest from which it had been taken.

Bees aren’t birds, but bees are top-notch navigators as well. In order to orient themselves bees need to see only the tiniest bit of blue sky. You see, light from blue sky is polarized. (Polarized light has different properties in different directions, whereas the light that shines through cloud cover isn’t polarized.) As long as bees have access to polarized light from the smallest patch of blue sky they will never lose their way.

 

Then there is the brain. The neural complexity, the cellular complexity of the brain astounds me. More marvellous than the structure of the brain is the functioning of the brain. Brain is connected to muscle by means of nerves. Nerves, muscles and brain work together in such a way that we can will to do something and do it!

More marvellous still is the realm of thought. In the creaturely world there is no thought without brain. Yet thought isn’t mere brain-activity; “thought” isn’t just a fancy term for electrical connections among brain cells. While mind, at the creaturely level, never occurs without brain, mind is never reducible to brain. After Albert Einstein had died his brain was sliced ever so finely and examined under a microscope. His brain was found to be no different from anyone else’s. Yet his mind was startlingly different. Why? How? No one knows.

Brain-researchers tell us that one part of the brain has to do with hearing and smelling and seeing, while another part has to do with locomotion, body-movement. It’s easy to confirm this every time someone sustains brain-damage. The area of injury is correlated to loss of sense-perception or loss of movement. Still, the most sophisticated brain-research hasn’t been able to unearth the exact seat of consciousness or how consciousness functions. We know that consciousness is related to the mid-brain, but we don’t know at all how what is organic (brain) is related to what isn’t organic in any respect (consciousness). The everyday commonness of consciousness renders the marvel no less marvellous.

I am rendered near-speechless as well every time I contemplate the heavens. There are 100 billion stars in “our” galaxy alone. A star, as you know, is actually a sun. Stars, unlike planets, are self-luminous. “Our” sun, the sun without whose light and warmth life would never have appeared on earth; “our” sun is 92 million miles away — very close, really, since the next closest sun or star is 270,000 times farther away again (i.e., 270,000 times 92 million miles.) The only reason “our” sun seems so much brighter than other stars is simply that “our” sun is so much closer to us.

You might think that the sun is solid, like hot volcanic rock. Actually, the sun is gas, pure hydrogen gas, held together by gravity. While we usually think of gas as light and airy, the hydrogen gas of the sun is heavy, so dense that there isn’t a person here who could carry a four-litre milk bag of it — since a milk bag of the sun’s hydrogen gas weights 400 pounds.

While the earth revolves around the sun, the sun itself is never standing still. The sun revolves around a point in our galaxy, and revolves once every 220 million years.

We mustn’t think of the sun as the brightest star. Another star in our galaxy, Orion, is 18,000 times brighter than the sun, but it only seems to twinkle inasmuch as it is 545 light years away from us (a light year being approximately six thousand trillion miles.)

So far we haven’t moved outside our galaxy. If we move next door to an adjacent galaxy, we find a tight cluster of stars that is a billion times brighter than “our” sun.

II: — And yet so rich is God that he has made something more marvelous than the firmament: he has made you and me and countless others. For a long time I have known that other people energize me. I don’t have to know these people; I need only be around them, in the midst of them. Just why they energize me I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with the marvelous diversity in human beings who are, after all, the crown and the glory of God’s creation. In the old creation story in Genesis 1 we read that after God created anything he pronounced it “good.” He created planets — “good”; vegetation — “good”; animal life — “good”. But when he created humankind there were two uniquenesses in the old story: one, God blessed man and woman — blessed them in that they alone were created in his image and appointed to fellowship with him; two, he pronounced what he had done “very good.”

The people, the crowd or the throng that energizes me; they are nameless to me, but they aren’t nameless, and certainly not nameless to God. They are the crown of God’s creation. Every last one of them is a beneficiary of our Lord’s sacrifice. He surrounds them arms and hands whose nail prints they may ignore for now but can never finally deny. Again and again, therefore, people whom I do not know at all are an occasion of thanksgiving for me.

And then there are those who do something extra-special for me: children. On several occasions I’ve travelled overseas to attend international conferences. When I went to Korea in August 1998 for the meetings of The International Congress on Calvin Research I had to get there two days ahead of the conference on account of airline scheduling. I felt lonely. I felt lonely in the same way upon arriving in both Stockholm and in Frankfurt when I was in Europe for meetings of the World Council of Churches. I did in Korea what I had learned to do on my earlier forays: I went looking for children. Finding children isn’t difficult in Seoul, a city of 13 million. The children there were like children everywhere: eager, energetic, oblivious of so much that renders adults cautious or jaded or cynical or hesitant. On an even earlier jaunt to Germany with the World Council of Churches I had felt lonely at the start of my stay. I hadn’t become acquainted with anyone at the conference yet, and in any case it soon appeared that they all knew each other from previous conferences, while I was new and strange. I went for a walk through Arnoldshain, a suburb of Frankfurt, aware that if I could just see some children I should no longer feel lonely or strange. In no time I came upon them. A few rosy-cheeked four year olds were sliding down snow banks. Some were throwing snowballs. Others were waving to their mother as they set off for afternoon classes. Two were locked in a life-and-death dispute. I was far from home, in a country whose citizen I was not, among children who spoke less English than I did German. Nonetheless, they were children. They typified promise, as surely as Isaac had typified promise to Abraham and Sarah, as surely as John the Dipper had typified promise to Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were cherished. Parents had counted the days until they were born and now felt that nothing mattered in all the world as much as their child. Suddenly I was no longer lonely. For me, to be among those who are cherished and the bearer of promise is to understand afresh how much I am cherished and what promise there is about me.

And then there are the men and women I meet in ways that leave me amazed. It happened to me with most poignant profundity when I went to a funeral at Temple Sinai, a synagogue in the Bathurst and Wilson area of Toronto. Because I had arrived 45 minutes early I went to a Jewish restaurant, Marky’s Delicatessen, for a cup of tea. The sign inside said, “Please seat yourself”. I noticed two things. One, there were no seats available. Two, I was the only man without a hat on. All the other men were wearing either a yarmulke or a fedora. It was obvious that I was in an Orthodox Jewish stronghold, and I stood out as the only non-Jewish man on the premises. I waited for a minute, not knowing quite what to do, when at the back of the restaurant an old, thin Jewish man with the warmest smile and the face of an angel moved over on his seat and beckoned to me as he called out, “There is room for us both!”

My heart melted. I had grasped the double meaning he had uttered deliberately when he had said, “There is room for us both.” I sat down beside him and we began to talk. His older sister had brought him to Canada prior to World War II. He and his sister were the sole survivors of his family. I asked him what he had done for a living. “I was a simple peddler. I went door-to-door peddling tablecloths, sheets and pillow cases.” Now he was old. He went to Marky’s Delicatessen every day for lunch. Every morning when he got up, he told me, he did his house cleaning. “I clean my house as well as any man can”, he said with his eyes dancing, “not as well as a woman could, but as well as I can.” I asked him where he had grown up. Southeast Poland. “But I shan’t tell you the village, since it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway.” He told me next that small and insignificant as his village was, it had had a famous rabbi, a most famous rabbi. “It’s a tradition”, he continued, “that a rabbi remain in the place where he begins his work. Now a minister has to go wherever he is sent. But our rabbi stayed in our little village, even though he could have gone anywhere at all, because the tradition meant more to him than the money; and besides he loved us so much.”

I hadn’t told the old man that I was a minister. Was he psychic? It wasn’t anything psychic at all. It was spirit resonating with spirit. It was heart responding to heart. I told him that in fact I was a minister. “Oh, I knew that already”, he said as if it need not have been mentioned.

In view of the fact that words like “minister” and “Christian” are synonymous with persecution going back for centuries in Poland, do you have any grasp of what grace floods that old man’s heart for him to have said to me, “There is room for us both”? He knew I represented that institution which has afflicted his people for centuries.

As the thin old man finished his lunch and I finished my tea he told me that he had had the most wonderful grandmother in Poland. Every night throughout his childhood his grandmother had asked him the same two questions: “Have you prayed? Have you worked?”

I’ll not see that dear man until the day when Messiah tarries no more. But for my meeting with him I shall thank God for the rest of my life.

If people whom I meet once are an occasion for thanksgiving, what about friends? And beyond friends, what about those people — one or two or perhaps three — who are soul mates and who know us even when we are silent and love us even when we are obnoxious?

Today my heart overflows in gratitude to God for the people whom he has brought before me, people from the big city as well as the tiny village in southeast Poland, not to mention soul mates because of whom I shall never be forsaken.

III: — Neither shall I ever be forsaken by our Lord himself. “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Cor. 9:16), exclaims the apostle Paul. The inexpressible gift is plainly Jesus Christ. He is inexpressible inasmuch as his sacrifice grants us access to the Father himself, and it is his face which mirrors the face of God so as to give us the knowledge of the glory of God. (2. Cor. 4:6)

I do marvel at the vastness and richness of the creation. At the same time, I’m aware that the creation which came forth from God’s hand isn’t exactly the creation which confronts us now, for the creation now exists in the era of the Fall. Certainly I relish all that children give me. At the same time, everyone knows that to be among children, whether as parent or as schoolteacher, is to shed all doubts concerning the doctrine of original sin. Of course I’m enriched by the people whose lives flow through mine like osmosis. But I also have no illusions about the human heart; I haven’t forgotten that the 20th century, just concluded, is the most murderous in the history of humankind. Nature is beautiful; and in a fallen world nature is also blood red.

The gift of Jesus Christ is inexpressible just because it is the one gift, the only gift anywhere in life, which isn’t marred by the Fall. This gift has no downside, no qualification, no reservation, isn’t impaired in any way. In giving us what is dearest to him — his eternal Son — God has given us himself. At what cost we can only glimpse dimly, yet glimpse enough to know that the cost is as inestimable as the gift is inexpressible.

The apostle’s exclamation is effusive — “inexpressible gift!” — just because the apostle’s experience of the gift is so rich. He knew that as the risen Lord stole into his heart the myriad confusions and contradictions in his life disappeared. No longer did he think it was God-honouring to persecute Christians. No longer did he think that only his ethnic group made up the people of God. No longer did he think that favourable standing with God was something he had to achieve, could achieve, or had achieved. He knew himself gathered up in an embrace that freed him to give up his misguided frenzy.

On many occasions in my life different people (as well as the same one or two people many times over) have forgiven me, cherished me, waited for me, refused to reject me or humiliate me when they had ample ground for despising me or dismissing me. What these people have done for me has left me knowing that I am blessed inexpressibly. I also know that what they have done reflects a vastly greater blessing from God himself. When Paul writes with amazement and brevity, “He loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20), he uses so few words just because he knows that the inexpressible can’t be expressed.

Can’t be expressed, but can be held in one’s heart, can become the truth which quietly transforms us and informs us for the rest of our lives, can become the foundational certainty which sustains us in our living and will see us through our dying. “He loved me, and gave himself for me.”

To know this gift is to know that the gift will be pressed upon me until God completes that good work which he has begun in me. (Philippians 1:6) To know this gift is to know that God will indeed heal that creation of his which, although fallen now, still exhibits splendour and marvel everywhere.

Knowing the One whose depths are unfathomable and whose gift of himself is inexpressible, I am rendered ever more grateful for people whose richness is inestimable, and for a universe whose wonders are endless.

                                           

                                                                 Victor Shepherd     

October 2001

 

You asked for a sermon on Spiritual Experiences

2 Cor. 12:2-10    Mark 9:2-9    Col. 1:9-14   Luke 11:24-26

 

1] We live in an age which craves psychedelic extravaganzas; we crave the most intense experiences. The movie theatre we patronize is the one with quadraphonic sound: the huge speakers, strategically placed, cause us to feel that we are at the foot of the mountain when the volcano erupts.

Then there is the IMAX picture screen at Ontario Place. To see the movie of the stunt flier is to feel you are a stunt flier yourself. (Also to learn that the movie is best not seen on a full stomach!)

We must not overlook the proliferation of sex manuals. Sex is now a high-skill performance ostensibly issuing in a high-intensity experience.

And then I hear the preacher say to young people, “Don’t get high on drugs; get high on Jesus.” I wince. Is not Jesus demeaned (to say the least) by speaking of him as a non-criminal substitute for a chemical hit?

People tell me they have never had a “religious experience”. Do they know what they are looking for? How would they know? How would a religious experience differ from a psychological experience or a human experience? Many such people flit from church to church, sect to sect, guru to guru, pursuing the ever-elusive religious experience.

Nonetheless, I understand what underlies their quest. A divinely-placed longing for the transcendent underlies their quest. We are made for God. Insofar as we do not know God we are aware of an emptiness, even though we cannot identify what is missing. A secularized world in fact cannot identify it as spiritual emptiness, but even a secularized world has an emptiness amounting to a vacuum.

A vacuum, everyone knows, does not remain a vacuum if there is anything ready-to-hand which can fill it, even fill it in the sense of clutter it. Paul insists that God has created humankind with a longing for God. Yet humankind is fallen. In the wake of the fall and the human distortion arising from the fall the longing for God is not recognized for what it is. As a result the vacuum gets cluttered with debris. The bottom line is a hunger for God which is always being fed with substitutes which are less than God.

 

2] You have asked for a sermon on spiritual experiences. My question to you is this: Do you want spiritual experiences (so-called), or do you want GOD, the holy one of Israel? Do you want a psychological “light-up”, or do you want to be known by and know, be embraced by and embrace the one who is indeed the creator, rescuer and sustainer of the cosmos and of your own existence?

In scripture the commonest metaphor for faith is marriage. I think we can help ourselves in sorting out the question which has given rise to today’s sermon if we ponder the nature of marriage. Do I want to be married or do I want an experience? I want to be married; I want the state of being married, the actuality of marriage. Insofar as I am married, then certain experiences appropriate to the actuality of marriage will follow naturally. But if I start by pursuing an experience which seems to be something like the experience of those who are married; if I start by pursuing an experience, then achieving this or that experience will never render me married, never confer the actuality of marriage. At best I shall be left with an experience which can only be described as an experience of “as if married”. “As if” gives it all away; “as if married” means “not married at all”. Therefore, whatever my experience might be, it could never be an experience of being married.

I must put my question again. Do you want a “spiritual experience” (whatever that might be) or do you want God? The quest for religious experience is not new at all; in fact it is as old as humankind. Think of Mexican peasants eating peyote beans. The peyote beans gave then a drug-induced “high” to which they attached religious significance.

Think of the techniques used to get people into trances. You follow a formula and repeat a sound self-hypnotically until you move into unusual mental space.

Even in the days of our Lord’s earthly ministry there were devotees of Greek mystery religions. One such religion had a practice which you would not find appealing but which the devotees swore by. The devotee stood in a pit covered by a lattice-work grill. A bull was led onto the grill. The bull’s throat was slashed. Blood poured through the grill onto the devotee. She was then pronounced “reborn for eternity”. Was she? Or was this exercise a substitute, a clutter-substitute, for that renewal at God’s hand in virtue of the sacrifice of God’s Son? It should be obvious by now that the quest for “spiritual experience” is fraught with danger. After all, there are contemporary equivalents to the lattice-work and the bull’s blood. The cults are the modern equivalent, not to speak of the occult. In other words, if we are going to speak of “spiritual experience” we should understand that not all the spirits are holy. Scripture says as much as it does about spiritual conflict just because it recognizes that not all the spirits are holy. And even where they are not especially unholy, they may yet be decidedly unhelpful.

Frankly, to seek spiritual experiences is to be looking in the wrong direction. The prophet Isaiah cries, “Seek ye the Lord…”. Nowhere are we urged to pursue experiences. We are to seek that God whom we can seek at all only because he has first sought us and found us in Christ Jesus his Son.

 

3] Let’s look again at the analogy of marriage. To be married is to live in a relationship. The relationship is the reality of marriage. Within this relationship experiences come and go, a great variety of experiences. There is also the “experience” of not being conscious of anything marital at all. I remain married when I am in my study writing a sermon, even though I am not conscious of being married. There is also the experience of quiet contentment in the presence of my wife. There is also a more intense excitement as we share something extraordinary together. And of course there are moments of ecstasy. But no marriage is sustained by ecstasy. You can’t be ecstatic 24 hours per day. Marriages are sustained by commitment.

There is another dimension to marriage about which far less is said these days than needs to be said. When two lives are fused together the suffering of one becomes the suffering of both. If one suffers and the other refuses to have anything to do with that suffering or to make any accommodation at all, then that marriage is listing and in danger of sinking.

The truth of the matter is that 90% of the time being married is to be unaware of any particular experience at all. When I see my wife at the supper table the “experience” I have (if it can be called that) is simply that I am glad to see her. But this is scarcely extraordinary. 90% of the time to be married is to live in each other’s presence without experiencing anything unusual, whether positive or negative. If you were constantly taking the temperature of your marriage by asking yourself, “What kind of experience am I having at this moment?”, you would soon have no marriage at all; and soon you would not be sane.

This “90% of the time” does not mean that nothing is going on at such moments; the relationship is going on; it’s always going on, and the relationship is everything.

 

4] So it is with that relationship with God which we call faith. In this relationship everything is going on, regardless of how we feel. Nonetheless I should never deny that we do feel.

In the relationship of faith, where everything is going on at all times , there are in fact moments of heightened awareness, moments of greater intensity, and occasionally, moments of inexpressible ecstasy — as well as moments of piercing pain.

Let’s start where you would never expect me to start: “moments of piercing pain”. On the day of Pentecost Peter, spokesperson for the apostles, is preaching the truth and reality of Jesus Christ, crucified, raised, now ruling. Peter acquaints his hearers with him who is the sinner’s judge, the sinner’s only saviour, and therefore the sinner’s only hope. Luke tells us that as all of this strikes home with the hearers they are “cut to the heart” and cry, “What are we going to do?” “Cut to heart”. They felt as though they had been stabbed in a surprise attack. “What are we going to do?” Sudden, stabbing conviction of sinnership doesn’t come to everyone with this intensity. But whenever it does I should never pretend it isn’t genuine spiritual experience. Any experience which impels people to embrace Jesus Christ is of God.

While we are looking at experiences of unusual intensity we should look at an experience of ecstasy. Paul tells the Christians in Corinth that on one occasion he was “caught up into paradise”, and there he “heard things that cannot be uttered”. The experience was so unusual, and so intensely pleasurable, that he does not have adequate words for it. In my reading of Christian biography I have come upon several similar incidents. I have no reason to doubt their veracity.

At the same time, Paul never urges people to pursue the ecstatic experience he had. He never tells them to try to work it up or put themselves in the mood for it. Worked-up artificiality would guarantee that it wasn’t an experience of God. Instead he immediately tells the congregation in Corinth of another experience of his which he does want them to have for themselves; namely, that in the midst of chronic discomfort and chronic weakness he learned that God’s grace would ever be sufficient for him, just as he learned that God’s strength will ever be made perfect not in our strength, but made perfect precisely in our weakness. This is what he wants them to know and find validated in their lives one hundred times over.

We find the same thing when Peter, James and John are with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. The three disciples are given a vision of Moses and Elijah (the two greatest figures in Israel); they are also made privy to that Word which insists that Jesus is greater than Moses and Elijah inasmuch as Jesus alone is the Son of God. It is an ecstatic experience and they want to freeze the moment, build a shrine, consecrate the spot then and there, relive the experience over and over. Jesus, however, won’t let them do any of this. Jesus takes the three men down the mountainside to a village where an epileptic boy is convulsing, parents are distraught, church people (disciples) appear helpless and feel bad about it, and some religious leaders are agitating a crowd. Jesus tells the three men that the experience on the mountain was good; of course it was good, since it was God-given and they were meant to have it. Still, among the convulsing and the agitated is where his followers belong.

And then there are experiences which are so quiet and undramatic as to be virtually the constant background to our lives. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me”. Needless to say Jesus doesn’t mean that we are constantly “hearing things”, as though we were undergoing auditory hallucinations. He means that his people are unremittingly possessed of the conviction that he is the one to be followed. They continue to hear his voice inasmuch as they are never without the conviction that he is the good shepherd and ever will be. It is not a startling experience; it is not an ecstatic experience. But it is the foundation on which the life of any Christian is built. “My sheep keep on hearing my voice; I continue to know them, and they keep on following me.”

Surely most of our Christian experience is of the non-startling, non-ecstatic order. Most of our Christian experience is so very ordinary that it becomes second nature to us; in truth it is our new nature. Paul writes to the Christians in Colosse, “God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” There is nothing dramatic about this. While a few people can certainly point to a datable, never-to-be-forgotten moment when they were delivered, most cannot. All that matters is this: as we read newspapers and listen to newscasts, as we observe social trends, as we ponder all that tends to confuse people, beguile people, humanly impoverish people, we know in our hearts that we have been delivered from the dominion (the illegitimate rule) of darkness and have been transferred to the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and in him we know ourselves to be forgiven people. This too is experience; elemental experience.

 

So far today we have seen that some experiences are intense and momentary, some are throbbing and of greater duration, and some are so quiet as to be unnoticeable most of the time. There is another kind of experience which is genuinely of God; what’s more, it is an experience which all Christians are to own without exception. A few minutes ago I said that when two people are fused together in marriage the suffering of one partner must become the suffering of the other. By faith you and I are fused to Jesus Christ; our being fused to him makes cross-bearing inevitable. The analogy with marriage breaks down here, in that although fused to our Lord we are never called to bear his cross (only he can do that); but in his company we are most certainly called to bear our cross. Which is to say, our discipleship requires a sacrifice of us which we readily make for our Lord’s sake.

You asked for a sermon on spiritual experiences. Yet it is not spiritual experiences that we need. It is God himself. To be rightly related to him is to be acquainted with what St.Peter calls the “many-splendoured grace of God”. Just because God’s grace is many-splendoured what steals over us when we neither look for it nor cultivate it will be richer than anything we have anticipated; rich enough indeed to satisfy us until the day when faith gives way to sight and we know even as we are now known.

 

                                                                             Rev. Dr. Victor A. Shepherd
17th March, 1991

When The Time Had Fully Come . . .

Galatians 4:3-7

 

I: — “We were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe.” The apostle Paul reminds the Christians in Galatia United Church that at one time they were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. They were. They are no longer.

What about us in Streetsville United Church? Were we ever slaves to these spirits? Are we now? What are the “elemental spirits”, anyway?

At one time the Greek word “elemental spirits”, STOICHEIA meant the alphabet, “A,B,C…” By extension “A,B,C…” came to mean “the ABCs”; the ABCs of anything at all. The ABCs of baseball are the most basic aspects of baseball, the first principles, the rudiments — as with sewing or music-making or arithmetic. The ABCs are the basic information about anything, the elements of anything, the sort of thing children learn in elementary school.

By the “elemental spirits of the universe” Paul means the most basic understanding of how the universe operates.

Think of bodily health. “Eat well-balanced meals. Wash your hands frequently. Avoid excessive fat in your diet.” The most elemental stuff. Living by it won’t turn you into a super-athlete or a beauty contest winner. Living by it doesn’t mean you are extraordinarily virtuous. Living by merely helps you survive.

Think of social situations. “Don’t criticize the boss so as to make him lose face. Don’t criticize your parents-in-law at any time. Don’t wear a Hallowe’en mask into a bank.” Observing these principles merely lets us survive socially.

The STOICHEIA, the elemental principles of the universe, are the principles by which order is maintained in the universe. These elemental spirits, the ABCs of life, facilitate survival, but no more than survival.

 

Yet there is a second meaning to STOICHEIA, the elemental spirits of the universe. In the ancient world the STOICHEIA were also the forces that course through everyone’s life, the forces that shape us socially, psychologically, politically. These forces determine eversomuch about how we think, what we expect, how we react, what we do.

Think about me. I am a male. That means my thinking, my reacting, the social possibilities open to me are ever so largely determined by the centuries old force of patriarchy. The fact that I am a male also means that I must nowadays contend with the force of aggressive feminism.

I am also an affluent westerner. This fact forces me into the strictest mould as surely as the impoverished Arab is forced into his mould and the Communist Chinese peasant is forced into her mould.

The forces that shape us as they compress us and constrict us are legion. These forces too are part of what is meant by the “elemental spirits of the universe”.

 

The apostle Paul, in his customary terseness, states that all humankind is in bondage to these spirits. These spirits — whether the mechanisms that let us survive but no more than survive, or whether the forces surging over us at all times — these forces don’t merely shape us. They limit us. They restrict us, constrict us, confine us. They defy that “abundant life” which Jesus insists is alone worth calling “life”.

 

II: — We should have been in bondage forever except — except that God sent forth his Son at Christmas. “When the time had fully come”, Paul writes, “God sent forth his Son.”

Immediately the apostle adds that this Son was “born of woman, born under the law”. “Born of woman” means that Jesus is genuinely human, not merely apparently human. “Born under the law” means he shares our frustration, our futility, our self-contradiction, our condemnation.

Our frustration, futility, self-contradiction and condemnation? Is this our predicament in addition to our bondage to the elemental spirits? Not only are we compressed suffocatingly by the forces all around us; we are condemned as well! How did this happen?

It all has to do with the law. The law has to do with the claim of God upon us. The claim of God upon us has issued somehow in the worst form of enslavement: a condemnation before God that we cannot escape.

The law is the claim of God. Think of the claim or command of God that we commonly call the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal”. (We could have selected any command of God to illustrate our point, but the eighth commandment will do.)

The commandment of God is spoken to us for our blessing; it is meant to promote our freedom. Yet in the moment of hearing the command of God we who are fallen creatures hear it with ears and hearts that pervert it instantly. To be sure, we hear it said we are not to steal and therefore we don’t steal. Good. Yet even as we don’t steal we glory in our self-congratulation.

We don’t steal. And isn’t fine that we aren’t like those disgusting wretches who do steal!

We don’t steal. No wonder we thank God we aren’t like those weak, self-deluded, irresponsible people who deserve everything they bring down upon themselves.

We don’t steal. Little wonder we exalt ourselves and despise others. In despising others we hate them (“hate” in the biblical sense of the word, the only sense that matters before God). In hating our fellow-creature s we blind ourselves to our own spiritual condition. After all, aren’t they obviously depraved where we are transparently exemplary?

We glow over the fact that we don’t steal. Our glowing puffs up into gloating. And our gloating, now pridefully stupid, voices itself in boasting. Boasters now, we tell God (albeit usually unconsciously) that it’s a good thing he got his act together at Christmas and sent forth his Son. He got his act together just in time for all those wretches who need a special Christmas present just because they are spiritual underachievers and require extra help. Achievers like us, on the other hand, don’t need gifts; we’ll be content with recognition!

We don’t steal. We are extraordinary achievers. Our accomplishment is that we have seemingly honoured the eighth commandment. But in our swollen, sin-blinded conceit we have profoundly dishonoured the command of God as a whole. For in “honouring” the eighth commandment in our perverse way we have dishonoured the command of God concerning our neighbour; we have also dishonoured the command of God enunciated in the first commandment: that we have no gods before him. Plainly, we are our own god. We are the measure of everyone, including ourselves.

Then what have we finally accomplished? We haven’t accomplished what we set out to achieve. We set out to keep the eighth commandment and therein justify ourselves before God; justify ourselves as those who do not need him and shouldn’t have to bother with him. We set out to justify ourselves before God, yet have managed only to condemn ourselves before God. After all, as Martin Luther pointed out tirelessly, the first commandment — that we have no god but God himself — is the first. The first commandment (it controls all others, Luther reminds us) is that we place our faith in God, honouring him for his truth, wisdom, patience, and mercy. Mercy? We don’t need his mercy; we don’t steal! Faith is a prop for those who need help. We don’t need help. How many times do we have to tell the world that we don’t steal? Luther, of course, insists the claim of God finally is a claim on our heart, on our devotion, our faith, our trust, our gratitude — not merely a claim on middleclass, suburban moral nicety. But what does Luther know?

The truth is, Luther’s heart beats in time with the heart of the Hebrew prophets, in time with the heart of that Hebrew who is more than a prophet. Our achievement is that we don’t steal. Our accomplishment is that we stand condemned before God, in desperate need of the Christmas gift we think to be a prop for those weaker than we. Our attempted self-justification before God has accomplished our self-condemnation before God.

“When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” We already knew that our lives were shrivelled inasmuch as we are in bondage to the elemental spirits of the universe. We thought that the Christmas gift was going to do something for us about that. But the Christmas gift, the Son given to us, has made us aware that our predicament before God is infinitely worse. It’s bad enough to be enslaved by the elemental spirits; it’s worse to be condemned before God. The bad news about us is getting worse.

 

III: — But the news at Christmas is good, good without qualification. God has sent forth his Son ultimately not to acquaint us with the bad news about ourselves. God has sent forth his Son in order to redeem those under the law.

The Oxford English Dictionary has many meanings for “redeem”, but in the dictionary that supplies Paul’s meaning (the Hebrew bible) there is only one meaning: to redeem is to release those in bondage. God’s purpose in the gift of Christmas is to release us from the confines of the elemental spirits and from the condemnation of the law.

We are released as Jesus Christ draws us into his own life. As our Lord draws us into his own life, the life he lives in us frees us from the stifling confines of the elemental spirits. To be sure, we never get away from them entirely (the health rules still apply), but the life he lives in us can never be reduced to something so minimalist.

Yes, I am still a male with a history of patriarchy behind me, but I know the apostle to be correct when he says that in Christ Jesus there is now neither male nor female: the abyss between patriarchy and feminism has been bridged.

As our Lord draws us into his own life, the life he lives in us renders us different; and different just because what he brings us the world can never generate of itself, and what he gives us the world can never take away by itself. Who we profoundly are, what we are henceforth to be about, where we are headed ultimately, how rich our future is to be; all of this is ours upon our release; all of this is ours as we abandon our attempted self-justification and receive the Christmas gift whose forgiveness justifies us before his Father.

 

“Too abstract”, someone complains, “it’s all so very abstract.” No, it’s not. There is nothing at all abstract about the deepest-down, visceral experience. A textbook on the neurophysiology of pain is abstract; but a broken baby finger, or a broken baby toe, a tiny broken bone that hurts beyond words to describe the pain, is not abstract at all. Freud’s psychoanalytic explanation of humour is abstract; but the person doubled over, laughing at a good joke, does not find humour abstract at all.

A treatise on the theological notion of adoption or sonship (same word in Greek) is abstract, but not the experience of being so intimately drawn into God’s life that the cry, “Father”, is pulled out of us spontaneously. Listen to the apostle once more. “God sent forth his Son…so that we might receive adoption as sons…. God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba, Father’.” It’s not that Jesus Christ frees us from the elemental spirits of the universe and frees again from an attempted self-justification and its accomplished self-condemnation in order to give us an abstract lecture on the Fatherhood of God. He frees us from all of this in order that we become sons and daughters of God, only to find ourselves unable to help crying out, “Father, my father!”

Paul maintains that God’s children can’t help the spontaneous cry — in precisely the same way that a person in pain can’t help wincing, the person tickled by a good joke can’t help laughing (have you ever tried to stifle laughter? The very attempt gives you away!), the person bereaved and grief-stricken can’t help weeping (it’s a sign that we are sane!). And, says the apostle those adopted into the household and family of God as their elder brother, Jesus, hugs them and they hug him back (faith!); all who are “at home” with their Father; we find our hearts swelling inside us and find ourselves unable to stifle the cry, “Abba, Father.”

“Abba”. It’s an Aramaic word (Aramaic being a Hebrew dialect that people spoke every day in Palestine). The New Testament is written in Greek. Why wasn’t this Aramaic word translated into Greek along with thousands of other Aramaic words? Because the twelve who lived most intimately with Jesus overheard him crying, “Abba”, when he was at prayer. The intimacy he knew with his Father he has bequeathed to his followers. Since our experience reflects his, our vocabulary should reflect his — said the writers of the NT. And so this Aramaic word was left untranslated in a Greek testament.

“Abba”. It’s an Aramaic word that was never used of God prior to the coming of Jesus. The word was used only by a child affectionately of his father; the word expresses immense affection without a hint of disrespect. The word expresses intimacy and warmth without a hint of mushiness. This word is used of someone whom we should always trust yet whom we could never presume upon; someone before whom we should be glad to unburden ourselves yet whom we should dread to trifle with. This word is used of someone whom we know to cherish us, yet whom we also know never to indulge us; someone before whom we can always blurt out our need or pain or confession of sin yet before whom we could never be flippant. This word describes the deepest-down experience of God’s children who have pleaded with their Father for centuries yet always shrink from impertinence.

This word — “Abba, Father” — is the spontaneous cry of someone who loves him on whose knee we can sit and whose heart we can hear beat, even as we know we cannot manipulate him and don’t care to try. This cry is torn out of us when we are most intimate with our Father who continues to favour us yet whose favour we can never curry.

Do we use this word just because we know that Jesus used of it of his Father and we think it’s a good idea to imitate our Lord?

No child of God imitates Jesus. We aren’t copy-cats. Rather, we are sons and daughters whom the Son has brought to his Father. We don’t imitate our Lord. We stand so close to him in faith that the intimacy he knows with his Father we are allowed to enjoy as well.

There is nothing abstract about all of this. This is concrete, real, vital, visceral. This is undeniable experience as much as laughter and grief and pain and joy are undeniable experience.

 

IV: — “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son.”

To do what? To free us from the elemental spirit and also to free us from our self-condemnation under the law.

How did the Son do this? By rendering us sons and daughters through faith.

What is the outcome of our adoption? We are possessed of that abundant life which can never be restricted to or reduced to those cramped confines amounting to enslavement.

What evidence is there that this is the truth about me? He who sent forth his Son at Christmas, says the apostle, has also sent forth the Spirit of his Son, so that we whom he makes sons and daughters cry out, “Abba, Father”, as he did before us, Son that he is upon whom the Father’s favour rests.

 

Is all of this too heavy for Christmas eve? For what other reason could God have sent forth his Son, the Bethlehem babe? For no other reason has he.

 

                                                                                          Victor A. Shepherd                                            

Christmas 1994

God Sent Forth His Son”

Of Strength, Weakness and The Power Of God

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

 

Contradictions riddle life everywhere.  At home you are soaked in so much love it’s like being immersed in a warm bath. In the workplace, however, the bathtub becomes a shark tank, and only your wits keep you from being eaten alive, even as you know your wits might not save you from the workplace sharks forever.Again, you are amazed at the affection so many people lavish upon you, and amazed once more that the people who cherish you are often the ones you wouldn’t expect to. You are just as amazed at the hostility of people who don’t like you, and don’t like you for reasons you’ve never been able to figure out.

Life is like this; life abounds in contradictions.

The contradictions of life are all the more startling when we move from the horizontal plane to the vertical, when we move from the contradictions found in our life with our fellows to the contradictions confronting us as the truth and reality of God seizes us. One such contradiction stood out in the life of the apostle Paul.  On the one hand he was exhilarated at being “caught up to the third heaven”, as he put it, “the third heaven” being a Hebrew expression for utmost intimacy with God; unmistakable, unsurpassable, unforgettable. On the other hand he was tormented by his “thorn in the flesh”, an occasion of chronic pain that tortured him relentlessly.         On the one hand, an exposure to God so very vivid and ecstatic as to leave him speechless; on the other hand, an infirmity that continued to bring him anguish comparable to being speared.         What did it all add up to?

 

I: — Let’s begin by looking at his ecstatic experience.  It wasn’t the only instance of spiritual vividness in his life.  Paul appears to have had uncommonly rich visions, revelations and ecstasies. His encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus had certainly been one of them, foundational, in fact.  Later he had been praying in Jerusalem when he had fallen into a trance and was mystically told to leave the city before he was beaten to death.  Another day he had had a vision of a man from Macedonia crying out, “Come over here and help us.”  Yet again he had had a “visitation” in which he had been told to speak boldly in a particular city in that God was going to bring many people to faith there through his proclamation.

If the Damascus road experience was foundational in the life of the apostle, his experience fourteen years before his first visit to the congregation in Corinth was the climax of all such experiences: “Caught up to the third heaven.” He means “Admitted to intimacy with God, an intimacy whose intensity defies description.” “Caught up to paradise”: he means “Given, amidst the savagery and sorrow and frustration of this earth, a vision of God’s final restoration of the creation, all of it enveloped in an ecstasy no language can capture.”

Unlike religious exhibitionists today who are only too eager to chatter and prattle on TV talk shows, Paul didn’t yammer on and on about this. What, after all, is to be said if an experience is beyond words?  Then why did he speak of it at all?  He attempted to speak the unspeakable in that his detractors goaded him into speaking. His detractors in Corinth snickered that he was a kindergarten Christian, a spiritual midget, someone the shallow Christians there could laugh at one minute and dismiss the next. It grieved the apostle to hear this. When they kept it up, however, and used it as the pretext for dismissing what he had to say to them, he felt he couldn’t turn a deaf ear to it any longer: he would have to refute them if he was going to minister to them. “Listen to this”, he told them; “fourteen years ago I heard what cannot be uttered; I saw what cannot be described.”

We mustn’t trivialise Paul’s experience and pretend that it was merely short-lived psychological fireworks, a Queen Victoria’s Day sparkler that coruscated in his head for a few seconds and then fizzled out cold. I’m convinced, rather, that his experience fired his apostolic work for the rest of his life. Whenever he was ridiculed, slandered, beaten up; when he was afflicted with the worst affliction of all, simply being ignored because not taken seriously; in any and all of this all he had to do was recall the event of his immersion in the innermost depths of God and his zeal for the gospel was renewed again. It wasn’t a thirty-second “rush” as if he had inhaled a lungful of “wacky-baccy”; it was a disclosure of God so intense and so vivid that he never lacked its light and heat for the rest of his life.

If his detractors in the Corinthian congregation had been half as smart as they thought they were they would have known they had a spiritual giant in their midst, someone as huge as Elijah with his experience of earthquake, wind, fire and still, small voice; someone as huge as Elisha with his “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit; someone as huge as Daniel with his prostrating vision of the awesome Son of Man; someone as huge as Ezekiel when, in Ezekiel’s own words, “the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God”.  The Christians in Corinth , however, weren’t even half as smart as they thought they were.  They were the spiritual midgets.

Since Paul’s innermost ecstasy was private and ultimately inexpressible, he referred to it at all and stammered out the most inadequate expression only because his detractors forced him to.         Having mentioned it once to make his point and establish his credibility, however, he wanted to get off the topic lest anyone think him to be posturing himself as other than, greater than, the fragile, frail creature that all of us are. Just in case he was ever tempted to imagine himself lifted above the mundane existence that no one is ever lifted above, “third heaven” experience or not, he told the Corinthians of his thorn in the flesh.  His “thorn” wasn’t a sliver; in classical Greek skolops meant a sharpened stake. The sharpened stake could be anything from a sharpened tent peg to a sharpened fence post to a sharpened instrument of torture and execution on which someone was impaled. It wasn’t a sliver. In other words, there remained in the apostle the twin vividness of his “third heaven” ecstasy and his ceaseless torment.  Regardless of his immersion in the heart of God, he suffered the pain of any human being; and suffered it not once, not even occasionally, but relentlessly.

 

II: — His inescapable torment: what was it? We don’t know. Some people have guessed epilepsy; some have guessed recurring bouts of malarial fever accompanied by fierce headaches.  In any case we don’t know.  Neither is it important to know.

But it is important to know what his pain-riddled weakness meant to Paul. It meant that regardless of how strong he might appear to some people all the time, or how strong he might appear to all people some of the time, in fact he was weak and would always be weak. Unlike so many others, however, he owned his weakness.  Unashamed of his weakness, he didn’t attempt to deny it or disguise it. Own it?  He did more than own it; he even gloried in it.

It’s important that you and I own our weakness.  Before we even think of glorying in it, we are going to have to own it. Regardless of whether the pain attending it is slight or severe; regardless of whether the impediment surrounding it is little more than a nuisance or nothing less than disabling; regardless of whether it occasions minor embarrassment or major humiliation; in any case it’s important that we own it. For if we don’t own our weakness, then we are denying something that everyone else can see in any case, and we are living in a world of make-believe.         If we don’t own it then we are consciously suppressing or unconsciously repressing something that will fester until the ensuing “infection” distresses us.

But in the church we shouldn’t pretend that psychological categories are the last word; in the church we must admit that theology is the last word, the truth of God.  Then we must say that if don’t own our weakness we are plainly more concerned with looking good than with doing good; more concerned with how we appear than with who we are and how fruitful we can be in the service of God.

What’s more, if we don’t own our weakness we shall always be thrusting people away from us; not deliberately, I admit, yet holding them off none the less. You see, in a world where everyone is weak somewhere, it’s our weakness – owned, joked about even – that endears us to people.         Where we are weak we endear them; where we are strong we intimidate them. To pretend that we are always strong, everywhere strong, nothing but strong is to barricade others from us. Not to own our weakness is forever to be deceiving ourselves and forever to be repelling others.

The saddest thing about not owning our weakness, however, isn’t that we isolate others and falsify ourselves, sad as these are; the saddest thing, rather, is that we prevent the power of Christ from resting upon us. Paul insists that it’s precisely at the point of our weakness that the power of Christ rests upon us. So certain is he of this truth, so consistent is the evidence supporting this truth, that he finds himself going one step farther: he glories in his weakness. He wears his weakness like a badge of honour.

 

I am moved every time I ponder today’s text.  I am moved whenever I think of the woman I sat with on the Board of Directors of the Peel Mental Health Housing Coalition. The coalition endeavours to procure living accommodation for those who are chronically wounded psychiatrically.  The woman I have in mind has, in the course of a year, several good months, several bad months, and several months whose horror is indescribable. She is schizophrenic herself and moves in and out of the episodes that most schizophrenics know. She suffers terribly. But she isn’t ashamed of her illness. She doesn’t try to hide it. (She’s not so foolish as to think she can.)  She doesn’t pretend she’s non-schizophrenic, doesn’t pretend anything at any time. She does, however, have a credible word to speak to people who suffer as she does; she has a believable word of encouragement, a weighty word of the gospel – a word that you and I can’t speak in the same way to such sufferers in that their weakness isn’t ours and ours isn’t theirs.

We all want to think we’re of greatest use to God at the point of our greatest strength. Just imagine how super-effective God could render my strongpoint, already effective in itself (I like to think.)         Just imagine how fortunate God is that my talent is available for his kingdom. This is what we all want to say, even though our postured modesty prevents us from saying it loudly. The truth is God is nervous about so much as acknowledging my strength.  He knows I’m always one step away from being a show-off; he knows my lurking pride would inflate insufferably if my strength were given the recognition I think it deserves.  For this reason the apostle’s declaration is as sensible as it is startling: our strength is of some use to God, to be sure, but only of moderate use to God; our weakness, on the other hand, is simply indispensable to God – for it’s our weakness which God suffuses with that power which raised his Son when his Son was so weak he couldn’t have been weaker.

On several occasions I’ve been asked to speak at services for physically disabled adults. One evening I noticed a fellow with severe cerebral palsy, twitching in his wheel chair, who seemed inconsolable.  The music that night was brought by a husband and wife who could sing like larks. They could both sing, but only one could walk: the wife.  Her husband was in a wheelchair, paraplegic, the result of a hunting mishap. (His hunting companion had accidentally shot him in the spine.)  The paraplegic hunter sang with his wife, spoke briefly, noticed the distraught c.p. sufferer. A few minutes later he wheeled over to the distraught fellow to speak and embody and bestow a solace that no one else in the room could have.

Dr. James Wilkes, the psychiatrist under whom I studied and from whom I learned more than I can tell you; Jim’s wife worked as a nurse at Princess Margaret Hospital after she had been diagnosed with cancer herself, and continued nursing there until she was too ill to work.  Clearly she had something to share with the patients at Princess Margaret that I don’t have – yet.  I spoke with her at home when she had become too ill even to attend church. She told me that housebound as she was, and growing sicker every day, she spent much time praying for others. “Intercession is the one ministry left me”, she remarked, “but it’s ministry enough.”

Moses stuttered. Because he stuttered no one ever confused that Word of God which he uttered – most noticeably the Sinai pronouncement that has forged and formed the consciousness of the western world – with the words of Moses.

Hosea was heartbroken and humiliated when his wife became a “hooker” and flaunted it. Out of his heartbroken humiliation Hosea became the prophet who spoke unforgettably of God’s heartbreak at the waywardness and infidelity of Israel . “How can I give you up?  How can I give you up?”

All of us have weaknesses both great and little.  Our weakness can be something as obvious as physical disability.  Or our weakness can be something less evident (or something we think to be less evident, since there are never as many secrets about us as we pretend there are.) Our weakness can be something tinged with shame.  Like the aftermath of sexual abuse endured in childhood; like the psychological vulnerability acquired through who knows what assaults in life; like – like what? Our weaknesses are as varied as any other feature of humankind.         Ownership of our weakness would give us access to others who’ve been victimised in the same way; ownership would give us a ministry that others will never have.

Perhaps our weakness concerns a besetting temptation with which we’ve struggled for years. Beset with it, we have had to continue resisting it.  Most likely we’ve thought we were alone in our struggle with this particular matter. To own it and shed our shame concerning it would also end the isolation of another lonely, frightened struggler who has also thought she alone had to contend here and wondered why she had to and for how much longer she’d be able to. Let’s never forget that to find ourselves tempted relentlessly somewhere in life is to be saddled with additional temptation, the temptation to self-rejection. Think of how we could be used of God right here on behalf of someone else.  We have to get beyond thinking that our weakness is the like the sign on the empty, darkened bus, “Out Of Service”.  Remember, the apostle glories in his weakness.

 

III: — We shouldn’t be surprised that he does.  After all, he tells us elsewhere that he glories in the cross; the cross of Jesus, that is. He knows that the power of God is simply the efficacy of the cross.  Of course he knows this: his apostleship is the result of it.  Furthermore, it’s no accident the apostle tells us he pleaded with God three times for the removal of his affliction.  He has in mind his Lord’s torment in Gethsemane when Jesus pleaded three times to be spared having to drink the cup to the dregs. Yet so unforeseeable is God’s power, so insuperable, so startling is God’s power that not even the cross – and apparent victory of the evil one – not even the evil one’s gloating could frustrate the purposes of God. And just as grace was sufficient for our Lord in Gethsemane, just as God’s strength remains effective in the weakness of the crucified one, so you and I must trust God’s grace to be sufficient for us and trust his strength to be effective in our weaknesses, whether those weaknesses are great or little. Ever since the Damascus road event the apostle had known the resurrection to be the efficacy of the weakness of the cross; and ever since Damascus road event he had known he could glory and must glory in his own weakness, for to be ashamed of his weakness would mean he was ashamed of his Lord; and this he was never going to be.

 

Unlike Paul I’m not going to say that I’ve been caught up to the third heaven. But I want to say I’ve been caught up to the first.  My exposure to God, my experience of God, my vocation to the ministry; it’s all rich enough to find me resonating with the apostle’s experience and affirming the apostle’s declaration.

 

“About my thorn in the flesh”, the little man from Tarsus said, “It hurts; it hurts terribly.  But I’m stuck with it. Still, I know it to be the occasion of God’s grace and the venue of his strength. Therefore I regard my weakness as no impediment at all to my usefulness in that kingdom which is like no other kingdom.” So said the little man from Tarsus to the congregation in Corinth .

Did the congregation in Corinth ever hear him?

 

Victor Shepherd     July 2007

 

On Bearing One Another’s Burdens

Galatians 6:2

Some of the things we call “burdens” scarcely merit the label. They are niggling nuisances, annoyances, irritations, to be sure, but we exaggerate if we call them burdensome. Like arthritis in one knuckle only. A teenager who sits on the living room sofa still wearing his fix-the-car trousers. A husband who leaves dishwater in the sink. Irksome matters. But not worthy of being called burdens.

And then there are real burdens. If the burden is bad enough we speak of “dead weight”. “Dead weight” suggests that this burden is threatening to collapse us.

Will it submerge us? Even crush us? Perhaps not. You have seen the picture of the two tousled-haired boys, one carrying the other. The first fellow is staggering under the weight of the other. Nonetheless he smiles cheerfully and says, “He’s not heavy; he’s my brother!” He’s not heavy? Not true! He is so heavy that the first fellow is wobbly-kneed. Nevertheless, “he’s my brother”. And so the burden is shouldered gladly, without complaint, without resentment, without calculation as to whether burden-bearing is even possible.

St. Paul insists there is a burden which you and I as Christians ought to carry, and even to carry gladly: the burden of someone dear to us who has taken a spill; “overtaken in a trespass” is how the apostle puts it. From time to time someone in our Christian community, someone among our friends, even someone in our family runs off the rails. She is caught in or confesses to behaviour which we find scandalous. What happens next to that person? What happens next to her, what happens within her, depends chiefly on what we do.

Paul insists there is only one thing we are to do with such a person: “restore him in a spirit of gentleness”. But why should we bother to restore him at all, never mind restore him gently? Hasn’t he disgraced himself? Hasn’t she embarrassed the family? Hasn’t he brought a knowing smirk to the face of those who say that Christian faith is froth and phoniness? Then why should we bother to restore such a person?

There are many reasons. In the first place, we are only one step away from the same spill ourselves. More likely half a step away! “Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted”, says the apostle. We must not think we possess a spiritual superiority, a moral superiority which makes us impervious to the very temptation which has overwhelmed our sister or brother.

One day a member of the congregation is arrested for embezzling. “How could he have done it?”, some people wonder out loud. But haven’t you ever been under severe financial pressure yourself — for who knows what reason — when just a few hundred extra dollars for just a month or two would get you past the squeeze? The fellow just arrested had convinced himself that he was only going to “borrow” the money. Certainly he intended to pay it all back as soon as he could. It just happened (according to his unrecognized rationalization) that he “ran out of time”.

The sweetest woman in the congregation is found to have injured her three year-old. Tongues wag. “How could she have injured her own flesh and blood, a defenceless bundle of love at that?” I have no difficulty understanding how. Young Mrs. “X” had already been up three nights in a row with another child, a sick child. Her sleep-deprivation had put her on the ragged edge. Besides, it was only the third week in the month and her husband’s paycheque, sorely needed, was still eight days off. So many more things had piled up on her that her nerves were quivering the way a horse’s legs will quiver when it is whipped. And then the three year-old himself behaved with that mean, miserable ugliness which unfailingly confirms the doctrine of original sin. This time it pushed sweet mother over the edge. Now she is humiliated. She feels that everyone is looking sideways at her, as though she were uncommonly cruel or unusually unstable, when in fact she is neither. Shame. Guilt. Disgrace. But before we point a finger at her or think out loud behind her back we have to hear Paul’s caution: “Look to yourself”.

Somebody has an affair. Betrayal of one’s wife or husband is a very bad thing. But it’s not the only bad thing about the affair, not necessarily the worst thing. Think of the utter self-falsification which characterizes the betrayer finally. But he didn’t start off sunk in self-falsification. Affairs advance a step at a time, proceeding incrementally. Each step is rationalized subtly; that is, uncritically lied about, usually to others and always to oneself. With each step the situation becomes more complex and more ridden with deceit. By now falsification has become a way of life; it’s the currency in which one traffics every day; it’s the atmosphere one inhales and exhales unthinkingly. At this point someone has cloaked himself in falsehood for so long that he becomes the very cloak he’s wearing. Now he’s a walking lie. And he no longer knows who he is.

Then one day a shaft of light, a ray of truth penetrates the falsity like a laser. He sees what he is. And he can scarcely believe it. Or endure it. After all, when he was sunk in self-falsification, at least he was as happy as anyone else who lives in a fool’s paradise. Now that the truth about himself has broken in upon him, he’s devastated. He is himself the very thing which he has always despised in other people. Our friend has looked into the mirror. What has looked back at him has frightened him and saddened him and disgusted him all at once.

Those of us whose sin is less dramatic, less lurid, yet know the depravity which lurks in our heart. We ask ourselves the same question. As we do we stop wondering why we should even bother with the person who has stumbled. We realize that we are only a step away, half a step, from similar offense ourselves. And if it had happened to us, we’d be desperate for someone to bother with us!

But there is another reason, a better reason, for restoring our sister or brother: we are inwardly constrained to reflect the mind and spirit, the heart and hand of Jesus Christ. Our Lord never disdained those who had been overtaken in a trespass. Yes, he did speak with terrible severity of those who planned and plotted and protracted their degenerate behaviour. But those who were “overtaken”, surprised at their trespass — these people he always restored gently.

Knowing this, Paul maintains that as we restore others gently we “fulfil the law of Christ”. We walk the way which our Lord calls us to walk, the way which he walks with us.

The word “trespass” is really an old fashioned expression for “misstep”. You are walking down a flight of stairs when you miss a stair, stumble, and jar yourself. (When you miss a stair the element of surprise is always startling, isn’t it?) You are stepping briskly along a leaf-covered sidewalk; because of the leaves piled up and strewn around you don’t see the curb. You misstep, stumble and jar yourself. (Another unpleasant surprise, usually painful as well.) This is the kind of trespass Paul speaks of and this is the kind of trespasser whom Jesus always restored gently. Reason enough for Christians like you and me to hear and heed the apostle!

Therefore when we are face-to-face with someone who has misstepped, someone who has been surprised and jarred as trespass overtook her, do we deflect her shame back into her face or do we own her shame as ours as well? Do we rub her nose in her humiliation or do we absorb it ourselves and put an arm around her, affirming our solidarity-in-sinnership? Do we regard ourselves as superior, or do we say, “Take my hand, brother, I know the way to the cross.” We must cherish him as much as we have ever cherished him, and do so manifestly. Our concern must be as evident as his collapse is undeniable.

Let’s not underestimate what is at stake here. In restoring the person surprised by trespass we are not doing something trivial or pointless or ineffective. On the contrary, we are doing something of remarkable importance, something of extraordinary effectiveness.

The English word “restore” translates a Greek word (katartizein) with three meanings. First of all, the Greek word means to set a broken bone. A broken bone is both painful and useless. The broken leg doesn’t walk. The broken hand doesn’t grasp. The broken limb simply doesn’t work. And it is painful. In restoring those who are overtaken (surprised) in a trespass — whether in our family (where shame seems to spew in all directions and land on everyone) or among our friends (who never needed us as much as they need us now) or within our congregation — wherever — in understanding and cherishing these people we are restoring them to usefulness (they can function among us once more) and we are reducing their pain.

But the Greek word for “restore” has an additional meaning: to remove a tumour. A tumour, of course, is life-threatening. In restoring those who have misstepped we are removing something which threatens them, to be sure, and which threatens us as well. After all, if I don’t cherish my sister or brother who has been overtaken, then I have clearly sundered myself from Jesus Christ who does cherish them! My refusal to restore others — not grudgingly but in the spirit of Christ — is always a spiritual threat to me!

The third meaning to the Greek word for “restore” is more common: to repair, to put back together what is broken, even what is broken down. So what exactly are we doing when we gently restore someone whose sin has sneaked up on her and submerged her? We are repairing what is broken and restoring it to usefulness; we are setting a fractured limb and reducing pain; we are removing what is life-threatening and promoting wholeness. This is no small matter. In doing this, Paul says, we are fulfilling the law of Christ, the Torah of Christ. And Torah, our Jewish friends tell us, is not merely truth to be understood but a way to be walked, the way, in fact. The result of our walking this way is that someone is raised from the dead; someone is infused with new life.

We do all this as we “bear one another’s burdens”. Is it a burden? Yes! Sharing someone else’s shame and humiliation and guilt really is a burden. Then is it also a dead weight, on the point of crushing the breath out of us? No! We have to be like the little fellow who, even as he staggers under his load, says cheerfully, “He’s not heavy, he’s my brother!”

For this reason Paul concludes this paragraph in his letter to the congregation in Galatia, “Let us not grow weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart”. We musn’t lose heart in this endeavour. We mustn’t grow weary. Its fruit is going to be reaped. It will raise the dead and infuse new life into all of us.

“She’s not heavy, she’s my sister”

Then we shall bear one another’s burdens gladly, knowing that our Lord counted himself among the transgressors, burdened himself with us sinners, and therein appointed us all to the glorious liberty of the daughters and sons of God.

                                                                      Victor Shepherd

September, 1996            

 “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Crucial words in the Christian vocabulary: Reconciliation

2nd Corinthians 5:16-21

Psalm 133    Ephesians 2:11-16     John 10:7-17

 

I: — You don’t have to teach a child to be mean or spiteful. You don’t have to teach a child to be cruel or to find fiendish pleasure in being cruel. You don’t have to teach a child to torment someone who dresses unusually or speaks with a slightly different accent. Only the silliest romantics (never in short supply despite their naiveness) think that children are innocent, pure, untainted. In a fallen world of fallen human beings antagonistic behaviour comes naturally.

But we needn’t single out children. Adults are no better. To be sure, we adults try to disguise what children display openly. This only proves that we adults are cruel and cagey at the same time. Still, what bubbles up undisguised and unsuppressed in children effervesces just as relentlessly in adults.

All of this adds up to a truth that Christians never doubt; namely, in a fallen world hostility is found at all times and in all places, together with the estrangement that such hostility produces and perpetuates.

The fact of prejudice is surely irrefutable confirmation of all this. Prejudice doesn’t have to be taught. And by definition there’s no reason for our prejudice. By definition prejudice is an irrational fear of specific kinds of people or classes or nations or races or social groups. Prejudice, of course, is all the proof we need that humankind’s multi-fronted alienation is rooted in an irrationality that contradicts the rationality we all like to think we have in spades. From a purely rational standpoint all such alienation is groundless. To say it’s groundless rationally is simply to say it’s unreasonable, incomprehensible. Still, to say it’s groundless rationally isn’t to say it’s groundless absolutely. For in fact prejudice, alienation for which no adequate cause can be found, is grounded in our root condition as sinners.

Several weeks ago, in our investigation of crucial words in the Christian vocabulary, we probed the meaning of the word “sin.” We noted then that one of the consequences of sin is alienation or estrangement. We are alienated from God, alienated from our true self, alienated from each other.

I admit, however, that not all human alienation appears to be rooted in the incomprehensible mystery of sin. Some alienation appears to be rooted in that sin which is entirely understandable. Why am I alienated from my cousin? Because he envies my new home. Why are you alienated from your boss? Because he demoted you simply in order to promote his son. The truth is, people have treated us shabbily. They have lied to us, or betrayed us, or exploited us, or humiliated us. In this situation the gulf that has opened up between them and us, the alienation that won’t go away, has nothing to do with prejudice. It has everything to do with events that are as undeniable as they are unforgettable.

Where we (or others) are exploited or cheated or slandered we are angry, and rightfully angry. Jesus was angry repeatedly (every day of his public ministry, it would seem according to the gospels.) He was angry when he saw defenceless people exploited. He was angry when he saw sincere people mislead by religious leaders. He was angry when he saw vulnerable people “fleeced” financially. Not only was he angry in those situations, he expects us to be angry in similar situations. The person who is indifferent where our Lord is angry is a person whose indifference we had better not call “peace-loving.” To be indifferent when others are abused or exploited or plundered is to be humanly defective.

Still, today we are probing the gospel-blessing of reconciliation. Doesn’t anger, however right and righteous, merely intensify estrangement? Doesn’t anger, however, appropriate, merely inhibit reconciliation?

The apostle Paul, whose passion for reconciliation everywhere in life is at the forefront of his thought and work, can help us here. “Be angry,” he says, “but don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” (Eph. 4:26)   In other words, while it is sin not to be angry in the face of manifest exploitation or abuse, it is equally sin to allow our anger to fall into the settled mood of seething, festering bitterness.

A wise old Christian who had the gospel in his bloodstream said to me one day, “Victor, anger in a Christian is proper and fruitful only if it is accompanied by grief.” If I have harmed you in any way you may and should be angry with me. Yet only as you are also grieved by my insensitivity; that is, only as you see something pitiable in my callused spirit will your proper anger at me fall short of falling into festering bitterness. We may and we should be angry with the fellow who assaulted an elderly woman for the ten dollars in her purse. But if our anger isn’t merely to add to the cauldron of violence boiling already in the world (one item of which is this fellow’s assault) then we must also find pitiable the situation of that twenty-year old who is as twisted as he is and whose future is as bleak as his certainly is. If our anger, legitimate anger, towards that fellow isn’t accompanied by our grief, then our rage is as reprehensible as his cruelty.

The truth is, in a fallen world there is at all times a multi-faceted estrangement arising from what we all understand (premeditated, deliberate nastiness) and also from what no one can understand (the mystery of sin in our depraved estate.)

 

II: — Regardless of the kind of estrangement, however; regardless of the extent to which it can be understood, the gospel is inherently reconciling. Wherever the gospel is operative through the power of the Spirit reconciliation occurs. Because we love the one who is the reconciler, God, we want to be reconcilers in our own way. The last thing we want to do is render inoperative our attempts at reconciliation or discredit his. Then we have to learn how estrangement is overcome and antagonism defused. We have to learn how genuine peace is promoted rather than indifference touted. We learn this, or learn it afresh, only as we are soaked in God’s reconciliation of us and understand how it occurred. How did he do it? What did he do? How does it all work? Paul writes, “While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him by the death of his Son.” (Romans 5:10)

[1] The first thing we have to notice here is that it is the offended party (God in this case) who initiates reconciliation. We had violated him. We had wounded him. Yet he reconciled us to himself. There is no harder point for people to grasp, I have found, than this. We always assume the opposite; we always assume that the responsibility for initiating reconciliation lies with the offender. After all, it’s the offender who caused the bloodletting. It’s the offender who turned bond into breach. “Then let the offender fix it!” we say. If my wife tears a strip off me and intimacy gives way to a gap between us the size of the Grand Canyon then surely it’s her responsibility to repair the breach, since she caused it in the first place. Meanwhile, I tell myself, I can only wait until she undoes the damage she caused. “So I’ll wait, however long I have to wait.” This logic is perfectly logical with the logic of the world; it is equally illogical according to the logic of the gospel. For according to the Gospel, God’s spell, the spell which God has cast on you and me, God himself sought our reconciliation with him when we were wholly to blame for the estrangement.

It takes a while for this reversal of the world’s logic to register with us. But once the logic of the gospel has sunk in we understand why it has to be the offended person who initiates reconciliation. The offender, the person who has caused the rupture in the first place, may not even be aware of what he’s done. (Remember, you and I were sinners long before we became aware that we were sinners; we had broken the heart of God long before we learned that we had done this.) What’s more, if the offender is aware of what he’s done he will consciously excuse or unconsciously rationalize the enmity he’s caused. Already he can recite ten “reasons” for his offensiveness. In addition, the offender will feel so “right” about it all that he would regard any attempt on his part to seek reconciliation as weakness. This is how the world, a fallen world, thinks. But this is not how Christians think in conformity to the reconciling activity of God.

[2] The second thing to be noticed is similar: the cost of reconciliation is borne by the offended party, not by the offender. “While we were enemies,” scripture informs us, “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” We offended God. Wrapped up in our self-extenuating rationalization, we were prepared to live with the consequent estrangement. But God couldn’t live with it. He, the one we had wounded; he couldn’t live with it. He sought to reconcile us to himself. At what price? The price was breathtaking: he gave up his Son – which is to say, he sacrificed himself. The cost, the pain of our reconciliation to him, God absorbs himself. Pained as he is by our violation of him; pained still more by the estrangement that arises from our violation, he pains himself inestimably more by bearing the cost of getting us home with him.

There is no such thing as reconciliation – anywhere in life – that costs nothing. Estrangement corrodes. Hostility is an acid that eats away at us even as it eats away at the person on the other side of the divide. Of itself the corrosion will only worsen until the relationship is pitted and pockmarked, then weakened, and finally crumbled. What it takes to overcome acid-fed corrosion and unsightliness and pulverization – reconciliation; this can’t be picked up in a bargain basement sale.

To say that our reconciliation to God cost him the death of his Son is to say that you and I shall never be able fully to grasp its price. Still, we can understand enough to see that reconciliation, anywhere in life, is going to cost someone a great deal. And in fact it is the offended person, already victimized, who now freely victimizes herself (isn’t this exactly how it feels?) in order to defuse the antagonism, end the standoff, and overcome estrangement.

The cost we bear, the pain we absorb, is real and pronounced even where it isn’t dramatic. Just because it isn’t dramatic it will seem insignificant to others. But it’s never insignificant even where it isn’t dramatic. I have in mind our aspiration to promote reconciliation, for instance, through our resolve not to focus on and intensify the pain we are in already through having been “shafted” (even if we can’t ignore such pain.) Or perhaps what’s required of us if reconciliation is to occur is this: we are going to resist the temptation to display or advertise the offence that wounded us in the first place. (Plainly as long as we are advertising the offence and our pain over it reconciliation is far from our heart.) Perhaps what’s required of us is this: having been stung once already we now have to risk being stung again.

“Just a minute,” someone interjects, “Anyone who sticks his neck out a second time is a fool.” I agree. He is a fool. Yet according to the gospel there are two kinds of fools: those who are merely fools because unwise, and those with much wisdom who for just that reason are “fools for Christ’s sake.” Frankly, anyone who risks herself, exposes herself, lives vulnerably for the sake of promoting reconciliation; any such person is always going to appear a fool. But the alternative to turning towards the offender in our own vulnerability is to turn towards the offender in our armour. Armour reconciles no one. What else is the cross except God’s vulnerability exposed to the world? And what else is the cross except God’s self-initiated, anguish-bearing deed of reconciliation for those who have offended him?

Few of us have been physically assaulted. But all of us have been psychologically assaulted.   We’ve all been trampled on, run over, put down, publicly humiliated, ridiculed quietly or ridiculed noisily. Pained as we are by it the gospel insists that it is we, the victim, who must initiate reconciliation.

After all, the word “gospel” is derived from the old English, “God’s spell.” A spell is something that a superior spiritual power puts on people so as to alter them. To say that we are the beneficiaries of the gospel is to say that God’s spell has altered us profoundly, altered us after his own heart. To have God’s spell put on us means that we are now impelled to do unto others as God himself has already done unto us. It was while we were enemies that we were reconciled to God by the shed blood of his Son.

 

III: — In this huge topic of hostility and reconciliation there’s a matter we have to be clear about. This matter Paul discusses in his letter to the church in Ephesus where he insists that in Jesus Christ “the dividing wall of hostility” has been crumbled. In the ancient world the highest wall (so high, in fact, that it could never be climbed over) was the wall separating Jew and Gentile. Because this “dividing wall of hostility” was utterly insurmountable it also represented any lesser wall that separated people from each other anywhere, for any reason (or no reason.) And precisely this wall, humanly insurmountable, God has broken down, says Paul, in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now the wall doesn’t exist at all. And in place of the two hostile persons God has created one new person in Christ. And if this one wall has been crumbled, so have all the lesser walls that it represents. And who is aware of this? Christians are. Christians alone are, to be sure, but certainly we are. We know that in Christ God has fashioned one new person in place of two hostile persons.

What does it mean, then, if you and I claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ and then live as if the wall were still standing? What does it mean if we orient ourselves as if the dividing wall of hostility were fixed forever before us? Would it mean we were mistaken? Would it mean we were bigoted? What would any of us say if we came upon someone who insisted there was a huge wall squarely in the middle of Highway #27 and it was his job to make sure that the wall stayed put? We wouldn’t say he was mistaken or bigoted; we’d simply say he was insane. Listen: if you and I take the name of Christ upon our lips and then suggest in word or deed that there are dividing walls that are real and need to be shored up, we are spiritually insane.

I know, hostility and antagonism are the order of a fallen universe. And certainly we live in that universe. But finally, ultimately, we Christians live in Christ. We live in the one in whom the Fall has been overturned; we live in the one in whom all dividing walls have been crumbled.

To say the same thing differently: we have a foot in both worlds, but we don’t distribute our weight evenly over both feet. Even as we have a foot in both worlds we have shifted our weight onto that foot which is planted in the world of reconciliation. We don’t want to reflect the world’s antagonisms back to the world, thereby making everything worse. We want to reflect the reality of Christ’s reconciliation into darkened corners where darkened people continue to think that assorted walls of hostility are still standing. We want only to hold up reconciliation: God’s reconciliation with us and ours with our fellows – and all of this just because we know where reconciliation was first wrought and how it was wrought: namely, at a cross where the God we had offended and pained absorbed his pain in order to have us home again.

 

IV: — I know what someone is going to say before I sit down: our efforts at reconciliation don’t always work. There are situations where we’ve swallowed our “rights” and absorbed our pain and risked ourselves again and again only to have it all thrown back in our face. The relationship we hoped to recover has remained dead and now gives every appearance of remaining dead forever. Where are we now?

We must remember it’s never our task to be successful. It’s our task to be faithful. Our only responsibility is to be agents of reconciliation by living the truth of the reconciliation we already enjoy in Christ. The fruitfulness of our effort we must leave with God.

God has promised that regardless of the fruitfulness we don’t see, our lived witness will never be finally fruitless. Its fruitfulness may be hidden from us for now, but its ultimate fruitfulness isn’t in doubt. Assured of this we can even now claim for ourselves the joy of the psalmist when he writes, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers (sisters too) dwell together in unity.” (Psalm 133:1)

 

                                                                                                               Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                  

  March 2004

What’s New? The One New Person in Place of the Two

Ephesians 2:15

Ecclesiastes 1:9    Revelation 21:5    Psalm 33:3

 

“There is nothing new under the sun”, said the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes.

Nothing new?” said the writer of the book of Revelation; “Everything is new, for hasn’t God said, ‘Behold, I make all things new’?”

Then which is it: nothing new or everything new?

I: — Let’s begin with a brief word study. There are two Greek words for “new”: neos and kainos.
Neos means ‘new’ in the sense of chronologically recent.  If I have six identical wineglasses and I break one, I replace it with a new wineglass of the same kind.  The new one is the same as the odl ones.  It’s new only in the sense that I’ve owned it for ten minutes instead of ten years. It’s new in the sense of chronologically recent, even though it’s identical in all respects with the ‘old’ glasses.

Kainos, on the other hand, means “qualitatively different.”  For years the Volkswagen Company produced only the “Beetle.”   A new VW Beetle wasn’t a new development; it was simply a chronologically recent version of the same old car.  Then one day the VW Company brought out the Jetta and the Golf.  These were new developments.         The new VW car was now kainos-new rather than merely neos-new.

In scripture, wherever human newness is concerned kainos is used. We humans need ever so much that’s qualitatively new, ever so much that we can’t produce ourselves. The newness we need God alone can produce. For this reason scripture uses kainos, qualitatively new, only in connection with what God can produce.  God alone can fashion a new (kainos) human reality.

God alone can; God just as surely does.  The prophet Ezekiel speaks of God giving people a new heart; God removes the heart of stone (calcified, cold, inert) and gives us a heart of flesh (warm, throbbing, life-sustaining.)         Ezekiel tells us that God puts a new spirit within his people.  The apostle Paul, a spiritual descendant of Ezekiel, exclaims, “If any person is ‘in Christ’ – that person lives in a whole new world where everything’s new.”

God alone can fashion the humanly new.  He does. The newness he presses upon us is gift; sheer gift.

At the same time it’s a gift we must exercise.  Not only does Ezekiel tell us that God gives a new heart and new spirit; he also tells his people “Get yourselves a new heart and spirit.”  The newness that is God’s gift is also a newness we must exercise.

Too many people, upon hearing scripture’s characteristic speech about new heart, new spirit, new creation become dreamy-eyed mystics.  They passively wait for something they-know-not-what, some sort of intra-psychic vividness. They’ve heard someone else describe experience of some sort in living colour, and now they’re waiting for the phosphorescent flash.

We shouldn’t do this. Instead we should affirm, in faith, that the gift which God alone can bestow upon us he has bestowed; and then we should set about exercising this gift, doing the truth. We take God at his word, and then we act on the truth of that word.

 

II: — God tells us that he makes all things new.  Lacking time to probe everything he makes new we shall concentrate on one issue only: the two opposed persons whom he makes into the one new person. Listen to Paul: “For he [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Eph. 2:14-16. ESV)

When the apostle says that Jesus Christ has broken down the wall of hostility and has made one new person in place of the two, he’s speaking of Jew and Gentile. In the first century world there was no higher wall than the wall dividing Jew and Gentile. The Jew regarded the Gentile as godless and lawless.  The Gentile regarded the Jew as religiously obsessed, and obsessed with the pointless as well as the grotesque; after all, the food restrictions were pointless, said Gentiles, while circumcision was barbaric. Over the centuries mutual suspicion had hardened into mutual hostility.  The wall between them had had brick after brick added to it until it was insurmountably high. Not only could no one bring it down; no one seemed to want to.  And then – this takes the apostle’s breath away – and then in Jesus Christ, specifically in his cross, the wall had been crumbled.  This one Jew, the Son of God who was also the Son of man; this one Jew both mediated God to all humankind and mediated all humankind to God; this one fellow absorbed in himself the lethal hostility that boils and boils over whenever people who are different in any respect face each other. In absorbing in himself such lethal hostility he undercut the standoff; he collapsed the wall of hostility, thereby making one person in place of two.

Who knows this? Who knows that the wall is down? Who knows that Christ alone brought it down?  We do. Christ’s people do. To be sure, the two have been fused into one only “in Christ.”  By faith we live “in Christ.”         Therefore by faith we participate in “the one new person.”  Non-Christians don’t live “in Christ.”  Therefore they haven’t discerned that there’s only “the one new person.” Nevertheless, since the arms of the crucified embrace the whole world, the whole world has been appointed to this truth, even if there are some who haven’t yet perceived it, some who haven’t yet acknowledged it, and some, quite frankly, who simply don’t believe it and never will.  Still, no one’s disregard of truth undoes the nature of truth. For this reason Jesus Christ has conscripted his people on behalf of that truth which he has already established and which can never be undone.

 

III: — We can’t deny that the wall of hostility appears to be standing yet.  Think of racial hostility. For years I’ve heard Canadians say that because the history of Canada isn’t as racially torn as the history of the USA , therefore Canadians don’t have in their bloodstream the lethal racism that Americans seem to have.  The premise is correct; the conclusion is false.  Racism is a mark of the Fall, and everyone, everywhere, lives in the wake of the Fall.

William Stringfellow, the New York City lawyer and Anglican theologian I’ve spoken of many times here; Stringfellow maintained that racism in Canada was much more subtle, much more covert, much more polite than that in the USA, and for that reason harder to identify – yet no less virulent. Toronto , Stringfellow said, was much more racist than New York City .

It’s customary for sports teams to accommodate players two to a hotel room when the team is on the road.         For decades the Ottawa Roughrider football team always roomed black player with black and white player with white.         What happened when a black player and a white player were left over? The leftover players, white and black, were each given a separate hotel room at the team’s expense lest they have to share a room.  Black Ottawa football players who dated white women were taken aside and told they shouldn’t be doing such a thing.

Few Canadians appear to be aware that there were slaves in New France (now Canada ) during the seventeenth century. Slavery didn’t end here because of humanitarian enlightenment.  It ended because the climate here didn’t support a plantation economy. Slavery ended inasmuch as it didn’t pay white people to enslave black people.

During World War II Canadian citizens (citizens, be it noted) of Japanese origin were herded into concentration camps euphemistically called “internment camps.”  (Yes, I’m aware that a few years ago the Canadian government compensated these people, even as everyone knew that the distress into which they had been plunged couldn’t be assigned a dollar value at all, never mind the matter of payment rendered decades later.)  The treatment of Canadian citizens of Japanese origin was deemed necessary for reasons of national security.  Why, then, were German-Canadians not treated in the same manner?  Because German-Canadians were Caucasian.  The prime minister of Canada wrote in his diary, which document came to light years later, that Canada had to be protected from “the yellow peril.”  But the highest-ranking RCMP officers declared repeatedly that there was no peril.

Rabbi Lawrence Englander remains one of my dearest friends in Mississauga . Larry’s mother used to tell me of her teenage years in Brampton , when signs were posted reminding Jewish people that they were forbidden to enter public parks. More recently two people from Larry’s synagogue in Mississauga have come to me with heartbreaking stories about public vilification of Jewish people at the hands of Christian clergy in Mississauga, one event being a church funeral, another event being a pastor’s conversation with a thirteen year-old Jewish girl who had been sent to interview him on a grade eight school project. Solel Synagogue and Streestville United Church collaborated in masterminding two affordable housing projects, Jews and Christians alike thinking it important that financially disadvantaged people have adequate accommodation. (One project, by the way, was worth $19 million, the other $15 million.)         At the conclusion of the projects a celebratory party was held on a Saturday night in the synagogue. While we were all dancing up a storm in one part of the building, hoodlums sneaked into another part where the food we were to eat later was waiting for us. They trashed the tables laden with food. In the years I’ve lived in Mississauga , Solel Synagogue has been vandalized five times.

Ever since “9/11”, September 11th 2001 , when the World Trade Towers were attacked in New York City , I have feared an outbreak of Islamophobia.  I have feared that every last Islamic person in North America would be looked upon as treacherous.  Some people tell me that there are dark, dark currents in Islam.  Some of the people who tell me this have lived in Islamic countries for many years. I have not. Plainly their identification of dark currents is something I can’t contradict.  Neither do I want to. I don’t doubt that there are horrifically dark currents in Islam.         But tell me: is Northern Ireland Islamic territory? Of course there are dark currents in Islam.  Are there no dark currents in church history?  Ask your Jewish neighbour. You won’t have to ask her twice. The truth is, until 1948, the founding of the state of Israel , Jewish people received far, far better treatment at the hands of Muslims than they received at the hands of Christians.  We should ponder all of this carefully.  After all, right now, both in the city of Toronto and in Canada as whole, there are more Muslims than there are Presbyterians.

When I was a pastor in New Brunswick there were enormous tensions between English-speaking and French-speaking people. High school students went to two different schools, depending on the language of instruction. For part of the bus trip to school, however, both Anglophone and Francophone students had to ride on the same bus.         The French-speaking students were threatened, with the result that guardians had to be on the bus in order to get the Francophone students to school intact. On one occasion I was speaking with an older woman in the congregation who wanted to sever and sell part of her ample lot. She had advertised the piece of land. On this particular evening a young woman, accompanied by her fiancé, approached her. They talked about the land, the purchase price, the date of transferring the deed, and so on. Somewhat suspicious now, the older woman said to the younger, “By the way, what’s your name?” “Poirier.”  “Poirier? The land isn’t for sale.”

 

III: — I want you to imagine someone standing in the middle of the street going through the motions of sawing, hammering, and mixing concrete.  As soon as you see him you tap him on the shoulder and say, “Excuse me, but there’s nothing here.”  Imagine him replying, “Oh, but there is; there’s a wall here, and I deem it my responsibility to keep it in good repair.”  Whereupon he returns to the motions of sawing and hammering and mixing. What would you conclude about the fellow? You wouldn’t say, “I think he’s mistaken.”  You would say, “He’s psychotic; he’s no longer in touch with reality.”

Humanists who act from a humanitarian concern tell us that we ought to bring down the walls that divide hostile groups.  Humanists insist that not to bring down these walls is to perpetuate bigotry. Christians, however, don’t speak like this. We don’t talk about “bringing down” any wall.  We know that the wall is down now.  To live as if it weren’t down isn’t to display bigotry; it’s to display insanity.

For twenty or thirty years after the Allied defeat of the Japanese in World War II a Japanese man would stumble out of a cave on a Pacific Island where he’d been hiding for the last several decades.  He had been a Japanese soldier stationed on the island when American forces overran it. Having fled inland in order to spare himself, he had remained hidden on the assumption that American forces were still occupying the island.  On the day he was unearthed he learned that he had spent half of his life orienting himself to something that had long since disappeared.

People throughout the world do as much all the time.  They spend their entire lives orienting themselves to something that has long since disappeared. The wall is down. Christ has crumbled it.  Not to acknowledge this isn’t bigotry or blindness or ignorance; it’s psychosis, madness.  One new person has been fashioned in place of the two.         The wall is down.

 

IV: — One important matter yet to be discussed is the mood in which we announce and embody the truth about the crumbled wall.  In this regard scripture says much about the “new song.”  Neos-new would mean a recent repetition of the same old song; kainos-new means that God has given us a brand new song to sing, a song we could never invent for ourselves. Because we’ve been given a new song, the prophet Isaiah isn’t silly in urging his people, “Sing unto the Lord a new song.”  For the same reason the psalmist cries, “Sing unto the Lord a new song….Tell of his salvation, his shalom, what he has done, from day to day.” Four hundred years later another Hebrew prophet announces, “Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart….For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.”

The point is regardless of what is happening in the world; regardless of what turbulence or distress there might be, the people of God have grounds for singing a new song and therefore must be found singing it.

It’s crucial that we be found singing the new song, for otherwise we’re going to be forever mumbling the old dirge.   If we aren’t found singing the new song, then when we come upon the person commonly described as “bigoted” or “intolerant” or “prejudiced”, our own spirit will acidify and our own heart will shrink and we shall become as bitter and as negative as the people we are currently faulting.  Only as we are found singing the new song can we continue to announce and attest the crumbled wall and not become petulant or cynical or sour when we are opposed by so many people who delight in telling us that the wall is still standing and standing for good reason.

 

“There is nothing new under the sun”.

“Behold I make all things new.”

“For he [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

“Sing to the Lord a new song.”          

 

Everything is new for those who are kingdom-sighted.

 

                                                                                         Victor Shepherd

February 2007

Strengthening the Inner Person

Ephesians 3:14-21

 

I have long thought that the least accurate way of finding out what a person believes is to ask him what he believes.         As soon as we ask someone what he believes, he’s suspicious – and rightly so. He wonders immediately why we are asking the question, where we are coming from, where we are going, what we plan to do with his reply.

We find out what a person really believes when we overhear her, when she doesn’t think that anyone’s listening, when she isn’t concerned to impress people.         We find out most accurately what someone believes, I’m certain, if we overhear her praying. This is the acid test: what we really believe about God (as opposed to what we say we believe), what we believe about the Gospel, about life – it’s all indicated about what we pray for; and not only what we pray for, but also how we pray for it.

Throughout Scripture we are privileged to overhear people praying: Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Stephen, Peter, Paul. In the passage from the Ephesian letter that forms the text of today’s sermon, we can overhear Paul praying: not only what he prays for, but how he prays for it.

In Ephesians 3 Paul reminds his readers that concerning them (they are, after all, dear to him) he “bows the knee”. Contrary to what we modern types may think, to “bow the knee” doesn’t mean to get down on one’s knees to pray, perhaps like a child saying “Now I lay me down to sleep”. To “bow the knees”, rather, is a Hebrew expression meaning “to collapse”: to stumble, fall down, crumple. In modern English we say that someone’s knees buckled.  Jewish people don’t kneel to pray: they stand.  (If you go to a synagogue today you will find Jewish worshipers standing to pray.) In Luke 18 Jesus utters the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.   The parable begins this way: “Two men went to the temple to pray…one standing here, the other standing there….”  Jews stand to pray.

Then why does Paul (a Jew) “bow the knee”? We should recall our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion wherein he would bear in himself the Father’s just judgement on the sin of the whole world.         We are told that Jesus “knelt” to pray.  He didn’t calmly kneel down beside that flat-topped rock we see in so many church pictures. The Greek text uses a verb tense that indicates our Lord’s knees buckled; he collapsed, got to his feet again and took a few steps, staggered once more and collapsed as his knees “bowed” and buckled beneath him repeatedly – all the while with perspiration running down his face, Luke tells us, as though blood were pouring out of a forehead gash.  “Bow the knee” is an expression Jewish people used of that pray-er who was preoccupied, intense, passionately concerned, in the grip of something crucially important and therefore unmindful of all else.

Paul is this concerned about the congregation in Ephesus . He’s pleading for them.  He isn’t tossing off a pretty prayer before he hops into bed and falls asleep. He’s urgent, instant, constant, about something.

 

What is it? What’s he so very passionate about? He wants the Christians in Ephesus to be strengthened in their “inner being”, their “inner man” (woman). He wants them to be fortified against the attacks, the difficulties, the disappointments and dangers that life hurls at them. He wants them to be fortified against the propaganda of a world that sneers at truth and sets clever falsehood in its place.  He doesn’t tell them to strengthen themselves.         Regardless of how strong they might be in themselves (or might not be), he insists they need an infusion of strength from outside themselves, specifically from the Lord whose people they claim to be.  He prays ardently that Jesus Christ, the true man, new man, will reside in them and preside in them so very thoroughly that his presence within them will be their strength, and they will know it.

 

[1] The apostle is so very concerned about the strengthening of the inner person, in the first place, because he knows that life has to be faced, ultimately, by the individual and her Lord. On the one hand, no one wants to minimize the comfort we receive from those who gather around us and support us when upheavals come upon us.  Few things are worse than being abandoned just when we need others as we have never needed them before.  On the other hand, however much our friends may sustain us (and they do), all of us are aware that there is a dimension to us, an innermost crevace, to which no one else has access.  There remains an innermost recess in all of us that not even the best friend or the most loving spouse can penetrate.

It’s for this reason, I’m convinced, that so many people feel awkward at funeral parlours.  They know that their concern at the time of the bereaved person’s loss, and their support in the months afterward, however genuine and generous, finally gets so far and no farther.  They know that their care and concern, genuinely helpful, can’t ultimately access the innermost recesses of the person most recently afflicted.

If they can’t access that person’s innermost heart, then who can? One alone can; namely, the one who said, “Abide in me and I shall keep on abiding in you.” He alone can “abide” in us. The evening the widow goes to bed by herself, for the first time in decades, her family is startled at their inability to reach someone who seems so very close to them yet is ultimately out of reach.  The most effective thing any of us will be able to do at that time is pray, even pray with bowed knee, that Jesus Christ will strengthen her “inner being” as he dwells even deeper in her – to use Paul’s language.

All of life is like this, not merely bereavement situations. Parents whose children are about to leave adolescence for adulthood are aware that soon these young adults will strike out on their own.Parents will be powerless. Weren’t they powerless (or largely powerless) when their offspring were adolescents? Yes.  But the move out of the adolescent world into the adult world amplifies the realization that while our love for someone never stops short of that person, our access to that person does.  Then we can only pray for the strengthening of the inner being, the inner man or woman.

All of us need such strengthening.  Life is ceaseless stress. We are released from our employment. We fall ill. We are rebuffed.  We disappoint ourselves. Every day brings a surprise, something that we haven’t been able to anticipate and therefore that we haven’t been able to prepare ourselves for. It comes upon us without warning and moves on quickly.  We are left with the after-effects, as unable to understand it all as we are unable to shed the after-effects.         There are many things we can do next, but most aren’t helpful.  We should always remember that we are spiritually most vulnerable when we are emotionally most wounded.  It’s little wonder that the apostle prays ardently for the strengthening of the inner being of those dear to him in Ephesus .

 

[2] Yet the apostle has more in mind. He contrasts the inner man, the true man, the new man, with the old man, the old woman. The new man is who we are in view of Christ’s coming to us and taking us into his own life.  The Gospel-promises insist that all who keep company with Jesus Christ are given a new nature, a new name, a new future.         The new man or woman is the creature God intended from the start, unmarred by sin and corruption and self contradiction.  The new man or woman is the creature in whom God’s image shines forth, the image no longer marred or obscured or defaced. This is who we are as men and women “in Christ”.

But this isn’t all that we are, for the old man, the old woman, the creature defaced by sin and difficult to live with; this is still with us. To be sure, the old being doesn’t determine our ultimate identity: Christ does this. Still, the old being clings; it lingers.  And it is loathsome.

In the Roman Empire of antiquity, Roman authorities displayed limitless imagination and cruelty in punishing law-breakers. One of the most hideous punishments was that of strapping a corpse to the back of a law-breaker. The criminal had to carry it around for a day or two or three as a judge decided. The corpse was heavy. It was awkward.         It inhibited movement. It always interfered with what the person was supposed to be doing.  Worst of all, it was revolting: it stank, it leaked.  It was hugely repulsive to the person who had to carry it, repulsive as well to those who witnessed it.

In the 7th chapter of his letter to the Christians in Rome , Paul glories in the new life that arises in God’s people as they live in the company of Jesus Christ.  Then with shocking abruptness he deplores the life of the old man, the old woman, the creature of sin that all believers have repudiated – he deplores this as he cries, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?”  On the one had he knows and glories in and is ceaselessly grateful for the gift of new life at Christ’s hand.  On the other hand he’s only too aware that the old man slain at the cross and therefore dead; this corpse is strapped to his back, and it isn’t pretty.

Luther, with his customary earthiness, says that you and I are new creatures in Christ to be sure, but the old man/woman won’t die quietly. The corpse still twitches, says Luther.

We know what he means.  While we are indeed new beings in Christ, the old being appears stuck to us. It’s heavy; it’s awkward; it interferes with the Kingdom-work we’re commissioned to do. And it is repugnant.  How repugnant? If I used the language right now that Luther used, you’d throw me out.  If ever we think Luther exaggerates, however, we need only ask those who work with us or live with us.  To be sure, they may love us; just as surely they are burdened with us precisely where we are most loathsome.

Temptation never ceases to pound on our door. Sometimes we open the door a crack “just to get a better look at it”, only to find that we can’t get the door shut again. Eventually we are startled, then staggered, and finally sick at heart to realize that we could hate someone so intensely that seeing him undergo adversity would make our day. Until we did it we never thought we could wait, patiently, for three months, to level someone in a public meeting – and the more people there were to witness it, the merrier we felt.

Have you ever noticed that we don’t envy what strangers have; we don’t envy what the super-rich have?  We envy what our very best friends or family members have.  We begin making tangential comments, snide remarks, passive-aggressive remarks whose poison tips we both relish and deny at the same time. Before long another relationship has gone down, and we still manage to blame the party we have slain.
You must have noticed how much better most of us can cope with emergencies, major upheavals of all sorts than we can cope with minor irritations and frustrations wherein we appear childish, petulant, spiteful, rude.  While there are relatively few major upheavals in life, however, there are countless minor vexations, cumulative vexations, and therefore the people whose lives cross ours most frequently find the body of death on our backs distressing to them and repugnant as well.

Yet we mustn’t stop here, for in Romans 7, as soon as Paul cries out “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” he exclaims “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.  There is deliverance.  Not instantaneous, not without a measure of pain on our part as lingering depravity is burned out of us, not without the occasional lapse whenever we become complacent; still, he who is our inner man and who is ever strengthening us; he is at work within us to free us from that burden we know to be oppressive and loathsome.

When Paul prays for the strengthening of the inner man he’s praying the Lord will magnify, expand, his redemptive work in us so that we whom he has declared new may become new in fact. In his letter to the Christians in Philippi , Paul reminds the people there that the one who has begun a good work in them will unfailingly go on to complete it.

In a word, the apostle is praying that the Ephesian Christians will find themselves increasingly conformed to Jesus Christ as the body of death drops away from them.

 

[3] The apostle has one more thing in mind: he contrasts the inner man, the new man, not only with the old man; he also contrasts the inner man with the outer man.  The inner person is who we are, who we are in ourselves because first of who we are in Christ. The outer person is what we are deemed to be by the 101 grids or diagnostic tools or measuring rods by which we are measured.  We are all measured by our monetary net worth, by our level of formal education, by our political affiliations, by our social sophistication (so-called), by our physical beauty (or ugliness), by the labels that adorn the clothes we wear, by the smoothness with which we can handle ourselves at cocktail parties and assorted social events, by the whiteness of our teeth and the non-whiteness of our hair, even by and our sense of humour. (People with a cutting, sarcastic sense of humour, I have found, are deemed to more clever, more “with it”, in greater demand, than those with a gentle, non-victimising, sense of humour.) We may be deemed to be “cool”. (“Cool” has a specific meaning in our informal understanding.)  We may also be deemed to be “hot”.  And because of the informal meanings of “cool” and “hot”, we can be cool and hot at the same time.

It’s as if so many points, one to five, are awarded in each category, the accumulation of points determining our place on the social scale.  By means of the social scale we are regarded as “losers” or perchance “winners” or, more likely, something in between.  Our place on the grid determines whether we are to be flattered or forgotten. Yet Christians know that our place on the social scale is a matter of utter arbitrariness. If the grid by which we are assessed is changed, our place on the scale changes.  Furthermore, the social grid deployed today wasn’t used yesterday, and another grid will replace it next decade.

Then who are we?  Who was the apostle Paul? He tells us that when he went to Corinth he was laughed at because of his speech impediment and his scrawny physique. He replied to the Corinthians, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” (1st Cor. 15:10)  And what was that? To the Christians in Colosse he wrote, “Our real life is hid with Christ in God.” In other words, who we are is determined by Christ’s possession of us.  This is known only to God; it is known to us insofar as God reflects it back to us. But make no mistake: it’s real.  It’s real beyond the unreality of the “outer person”.

Paul prays for the strengthening of the inner person because he knows that if we become preoccupied with the outer person, we shall deny our fellowship with Christ; we’ll forfeit our integrity; we’ll conform ourselves to social expectation and sell ourselves.

Are we afraid of looking like losers?  Tell me: did our Lord look like a winner when he was executed with criminals at the city garbage dump?  In the company of Jesus Christ there are neither winners nor losers, neither weak nor strong, neither successes nor failures, neither the flatterable nor the forgettable. There are simply children of God whom Jesus their elder brother cherishes. His grip on them makes them who they are, determines a truth about them that no social arbitrariness can undo. In view of the fact that it can’t be undone before God, we shouldn’t act as if we can undo it before ourselves or before the world.  As our inner person is strengthened, the truth and reality of who we are in Christ sinks deeper into us and increasingly characterizes our thinking, our doing, our aspirations.

 

“Bow the knees.” It doesn’t mean to kneel down. It means that some pray-er is pleading for fellow-Christians with an intensity, an urgency, a persistence that we find startling.

Specifically, Paul is pleading for the strengthening of the inner being of the Christians in Ephesus . He’s aware of the downward pull of the old man/woman; he knows the preoccupation with the outer man/woman.

But he knows too, as he concludes his prayer, of “the power at work within us that is able to do far more abundantly than we ask or think”. Then by God’s grace may you and I ever want for ourselves what the apostle wants for us, and may we want it with an intensity, an urgency and a persistence no less than his.

 

                                                                                                     Victor Shepherd                                                                                                    

September 2005                                      

 

What Is The Church? Three Angles of Vision

Ephesians 3:20-21

 

“Now to him who by the power at work within us…to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.”

Whenever I have conducted confirmation classes for younger people I have noticed how engaged they are as we discuss God, his Son Christ Jesus our Lord, the nature of faith, the necessity of obedience, the rigours of discipleship. In fact I have noticed how engaged they are concerning almost any topic until we bring up the topic of the church. For them, at least, the church seems to have little credibility.

Many adults appear to be on the same wavelength. After all, they would never hesitate to announce a little league hockey practice at the same hour as Sunday School, thereby declaring church unimportant, even though they continue to expect the services of the church to be available when granny needs to be buried or their daughter needs to be married.

Then again those of us who have been ministers of the church for decades are always surprised to hear from folk who have been “turned on” to the gospel through coffee-house groups or campus organizations and who now wish to candidate for the ordained ministry, even though they have had no exposure to the church and have no familiarity with its worship or its governance or its traditions. Plainly they view the church has having little to do with their new-found faith.

All of this forces us to ask, “What is the church? What is it supposed to be?” By way of answering this question we are going to listen to three major streams or traditions of the church as a whole. The three are classical Protestantism (Presbyterianism is huge here), Roman Catholicism, and the charismatic or Pentecostal movements.

 

I: — Let’s begin with our own tradition, classical Protestantism. The emphasis here is plain: the church consists of those who gather to hear the Word of God preached and to respond to the Word preached through praise and prayer. The architecture of church buildings suggests this. In most of the church buildings of classical Protestantism the pulpit stands square in the centre of the platform. The pulpit, often not only central but even elevated, occupies the chief place. It can’t be overlooked. People assemble Sunday by Sunday in order to be taught. And when a pastoral relations committee is calling a new minister, the first question it wants answered is, “Can he preach?”

But we must never think that preaching is entertainment; it’s not of the order of an after-dinner speech or a politician’s pep rally. Preaching always presupposes that what people are taught through an exposition of the gospel they need as they need nothing else and they can acquire it nowhere else. In other words, the presupposition of preaching is that the gospel has a precise content. This precise content is rooted ultimately in the heart of God who is possessed of a precise nature and has come to us in a singular Son and whose truth summons us to respond in a particular trust and love and obedience.

In classical Protestantism, then, people gather at worship first of all to be informed of a truth and reality they can’t learn anywhere else. No immersion in newspapers, magazines, movies; no time spent at golf, bird watching or water skiing: none of this is going to acquaint us with that gospel which has to be taught, and which should be taught, say classical Protestants, through ministers whose vocation the church has recognized and whose education and training the church has supervised. Calvin was fond of saying that the voice of God sounded in the voice of the preacher. He never meant that the voice of God and the voice of God’s servant are identical. Yet he insisted (i) God speaks; (ii) God is going to be heard to speak only as the herald of the gospel is heard to speak.

From time to time people tell me that they don’t have to assemble on Sunday mornings in order to be instructed in the Word and will and way and work of God. Neither do they have to be instructed in the response that God both invites and summons them to make. They insist they “feel closer to God” in nature than anywhere else (church included), and therefore on Sunday morning they go to hear the birds sing or watch the sunrise or look at the Grand Canyon . But gather to hear the Word of God declared? Superfluous, they say.

In the spirit of the tradition of classical Protestantism I reply (as gently as I can), “Feel close to God? We can genuinely feel close to God only as we are close to God. And since as sinners we are God-flee-ers we can be close to God only where God has drawn close to us. And where has he drawn close to us? Not in nature and not on the golf course: God has drawn exquisitely close to us in his Son; specifically, in the cross of his Son. When we are profoundly moved at nature’s beauties we are not being moved by God; we are being moved by God’s creation, the things that he has made, but we are not thereby in touch with the person of God himself. We are in touch with the person of God himself only as we are touched by that Son whose crucified arms embrace us and plead with us to embrace him in return.

If people tell me that in nature they have a sense of God’s power, I remind them that God acts most effectively and acts most characteristically (i.e., lovingly, redemptively), precisely where, from a human perspective, he is powerless: in a cross. All of this strikes people as something they’ve never heard before. In fact they haven’t heard it before. They need to be told.

Plainly we can’t inform ourselves of the gospel. The gospel – what all humankind needs as it needs nothing else – is not a human invention. It’s a divine cure. And concerning God’s cure we have to be informed.

You must have noticed that when Jesus began his public ministry, Mark tells us, he “…came preaching.” Then he commissioned twelve others to preach in his name; then seventy; then many more. There’s much to be said for classical Protestantism’s angle of vision concerning the church: the church consists of those who gather to hear the Word of God preached and to be schooled in the response they are to make.

 

II: — Let’s turn now to the angle of vision found in Roman Catholicism (and in Anglo-Catholicism, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church.) These Christians emphasize the church as the body of Christ. Unquestionably this emphasis too is rooted in scripture. Altogether there are 188 images of the church in the New Testament. Three of the major images are “bride”, “building” (temple) and “body.” Of the three major images, however, “body” is the chief image. We are the body of Christ. Christ himself is head of his own body.

As soon as we acknowledge the church to be the body of Christ we have to acknowledge several crucial truths we might otherwise overlook.

[1] Individually you and I have a relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord only as we are related to his body, the church, the congregation. We can’t be related to the head of the body without being related to the body itself. No one can cherish Jesus Christ while disdaining his people. No one can glory in the head of the body while dismissing the body.

[2] Individually you and I have an identity as Christians only as we are identified with the body, the church, the congregation. If we are asked, “Are you a Christian?” our initial response, whether uttered audibly or not, is, “Yes, I’m a Christian; I cling to Jesus Christ in faith.” The response is fine as far as it goes but it doesn’t go far enough. “Yes, I cling to Jesus Christ in faith and I cling to his people in love.” When the Christians in Corinth were ripping apart their fellowship through their bickering, party-spirit, and out-and-out wickedness, Paul asked them sharply, “Do you despise the church?” That stopped them in their tracks. They knew what he was going to say next: “If you despise the body then you despise the head of the body, Jesus Christ, and you aren’t Christians at all.”

[3] Individually you and I are going to be useful in the service of Jesus Christ only as we are members of his body. Rather crudely Paul asks us to think of a normal human body, and then to imagine a leg detached from that body “over there,” an arm somewhere else, an eyeball somewhere else again – you know, the sort of ghastly spectacle we might see at the site of an airplane crash. “Now,” says the apostle, “of what use is a detached leg?” Plainly, no use at all. Not only is a detached leg useless, can it even be said to be a leg? If a leg is defined as that which supports and propels a torso, then a detached “leg” isn’t really a leg at all. The purpose of an eyeball is to see. A detached eyeball can’t see, since it’s detached from nerve and brain. Then is it an eye at all? Once any body member becomes detached it’s no more than a piece of putrefying flesh: unsightly, malodorous, and above all, useless.

In everyday life the function of our body is to do what our head tells it to do. What the head wills the body to do is transmitted through our nervous system, since nerves connect mind and muscle. Jesus Christ has a body on earth (his muscles, as it were) in order that his will for humankind will be done. Christ’s purposes for his human (and non-human) creation will be accomplished only as there is a body, somewhere, that receives, recognizes the directives from the head and implements them.

“But surely,” someone objects, “surely where you are talking about Christ’s body you don’t mean the local congregation; you don’t mean St. Matthew’s by the Variety Store. Why, in that congregation there are all kinds of problems and more than a few power plays and God only knows what else.” (It has been said – truly – that the church is like Noah’s Ark : if it weren’t for the storm outside no one could stand the stink inside.) “Surely that congregation isn’t the body of Christ.” Yes it is. Our Lord’s body may be scarred, marred, pock-marked, even deformed, crippled in some respect. Nevertheless, it’s the only body he has.

In everyday life no one can exist without a body. Jesus Christ, Lord of his own body to be sure, nevertheless chooses to be present to our world and present in our world through his body. We are members of that body. If we forsake it we forsake him. If we snootily remove ourselves from it then we fatally remove ourselves from him.

There’s one thing more we can learn from the angle of vision that the church is the body of Christ: the body will last as long as the head lasts. Sometimes it is suggested that the church is at risk. To be sure, any one congregation or denomination may be at risk, but Christ’s body is no more at risk than Christ himself is, and he is never at risk. He has been raised victor over death. He has been enthroned at the right hand of the Father. The powers of destruction cannot prevail against him; cannot prevail against him, head and body alike.

The body of Christ existed long before we were added to it; it will thrive long after we are no longer around. Therefore the community of Christ’s people will never disappear. The church is weak? God will strengthen it. Confused? God will enlighten it. Corrupt? God will purify it. “I shall build my church,” says Jesus, “and the powers of destruction shall not prevail against it.”

 

III: — Let’s look at the church from the third angle of vision, the emphasis of the charismatic or Pentecostal movements. The emphasis here is on the Holy Spirit: the church is the community of the Spirit. These movements remind us that a body can appear splendid, and yet be a corpse. The Spirit – life, breath, vitality – the Spirit is the difference between a body and a corpse.

To emphasize the Holy Spirit (the Holy Spirit is the immediacy, intimacy and vividness of God) is to emphasize our experience of God. The book of Hebrews, for instance, speaks of those who have “tasted the goodness of God and the powers of the age to come;” tasted, not merely read about it, not merely discussed it. What’s the difference between tasting salt (and knowing that what you’ve tasted is salt) and reading a book on the chemical properties of sodium chloride? Paul reminds the church in Thessalonica that the gospel came to them “not in words only, but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction.” Of course the gospel had come to them in words. (Classical Protestants had made sure of that.) Yet the gospel had come to them as well “in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction.” Can’t we sense the crescendo, the surge, of all that our charismatic fellow-Christians insist on? The Christians in Thessalonica heard the gospel announced, and then were convicted and convinced of its truth and its significance for them.

In his first epistle the apostle John says much about believers abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in them. Is it mere talk, or is there a reality behind the talk that lends the talk authenticity? John answers our question when he adds, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.” The Spirit is God himself in his immediacy and intimacy and intensity burning his way upon men and women so that they know—not wish or think or hope – know that their relationship with their Lord is just that.

When the Christians in Galatia were in danger of exchanging the gospel of God’s free grace and his gift of faith for a moralistic legalism that would render people self-righteous legalists Paul wanted to correct them as fast as he could. He asked them, “Did you receive the Spirit by hearing (the gospel) with faith or by moralistic legalism?” (Galatians 3:2) The point is this. When he asks them “Did you receive the Spirit?” he was referring to their identifiable experience of God. They could no more deny their present experience of God than the person with a raging headache can deny her headache. If I have a headache right now you may say to me, “Did you get your headache from reading in poor light or from having the ’flu?” Regardless of my answer the one thing that isn’t in doubt is my headache. I know I have a headache.

“Did you receive the Spirit through hearing with faith or by moralistic legalism?” The apostle knows they aren’t going to deny their present experience of the Spirit. He knows too that they are going to recall how they came to taste the Spirit: they had responded to the gospel in obedient faith.

In the older testament the Hebrew word for spirit is ruach. In the newer testament the Greek word for spirit is pneuma. Both ruach and pneuma mean breath, wind, spirit. Breath is essential to life. To be without breath is to be without life. Wind indicates power; it drives boats and windmills; it dries clothes; it moves clouds. Wind always does something. And Spirit? Spirit is simply the God who infinitely transcends us now coming among us, even coming within us with such immediacy, intimacy and intensity that we no more doubt him than we doubt our headache – better, than we no more doubt our contented heart.

The charismatic churches have much to share with us.

 

What is the church? Classical Protestants say it’s the gathering of those who assemble to hear the gospel preached and to be schooled in the response of faith and obedience.

Roman Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, Eastern Orthodox insist that the church is the body of Christ, his hands and feet and muscle in the world, obeying Christ the head and aspiring to do his work.

Charismatic Christians say the church consists of those who have been touched by the Spirit.

The truth is, all three emphases are correct. And we need all three. For if one emphasis only is upheld, distortion, lopsidedness and out-and-out error occur.

If we want to see the church whole and see as well its marvellous diversity, then we must view the church from three complementary angles of vision. As we do this we shall find our understanding deepening, even as we find our love for the church swelling – but never out-swelling our love for him who ever remains ruler and head of the church, Christ Jesus our Lord.

                                                                                                        Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                

 April 2004

 

On the Necessity of Acquiring a Christian Mind and Discerning False Teaching

Ephesians 4:11-16      Jeremiah 23:13-17     Matthew 7:15-20

 

I: — I have a friend who is a physician at Toronto ’s Sunnybrook Hospital . He is also professor of medicine at the University of Toronto . Several years ago a fourth-year medical student was suspected of knowing very little medicine. University officials were embarrassed. How had this fellow managed to get to fourth year and seem so ignorant?  Who had marked his examinations and passed him during his first three years? Why had he been passed when he should have been failed?  Fourth-year medical students rarely fail, since less able students are weeded out much earlier in the programme.  My friend was called in. He asked the student two or three elementary questions concerning anatomy.  The student could not reply.  Whereupon my physician-friend told university officials to plough this fellow so deep that he would never surface in a medical classroom or clinic anywhere.

The one thing my friend did not do was say, “Oh well, it doesn’t matter. No doubt there are good qualities in the fellow somewhere.  Let’s avoid hurting his feelings; after all, it’s terrible to be rejected. If the student is rejected he may never recover emotionally, and we wouldn’t want that on our hands!” Instead, “Expel this fellow right now before he has a chance to damage someone irrecoverably.”

When I was in Grade XIII chemistry the day came when we were to make hydrogen gas in the classroom.         I’m told that high school students are not permitted to make hydrogen gas now because of the risk of explosion the process entails. That’s why my chemistry teacher (1961) carefully instructed us in the properties of hydrogen gas and the precise steps we were to follow lest someone’s face be riddled with glass shards.  Then the teacher proceeded to monitor each student’s experiment. Suppose the teacher had said and done nothing and an explosion had occurred.         Wouldn’t parents have been right in pronouncing him negligent, even criminally negligent?

 

Prophet and apostle (whose written testimony scripture is) are so very concerned about false teaching ,  just because they know that a teacher or preacher or Sunday School instructor or UCW devotions leader fitted out with false doctrine is dangerous; dangerous to others of course, but also dangerous to herself.  And the congregation? Any congregation that lacks a Christian mind; any congregation indifferent to false teaching, false doctrine is as negligent as the perpetrator himself.

 

II: — And yet in congregations everywhere in Christendom we find people impatient with doctrine, impatience with an insistence on sound teaching, impatient, in short, with acquiring a Christian mind.  Someone is always saying, “Who needs it?  It’s only cerebralism for those who like head games.  Besides, doctrine is frequently an occasion of dispute.  Let’s get rid of it all and just go with Jesus, a doctrine-less Jesus.”

To speak like this, however, is not to know what one is saying.  For starters, who is this simple Jesus we are to go with?  Why go with him rather than with Winston Churchill?  Because Winston Churchill isn’t the Son of God.  “Son of God” did someone say?  But to speak of Jesus as the Son of God lands us squarely in the doctrine of the incarnation. All right, then, forget the incarnation; we shall speak only of Jesus Christ. But “Christ” isn’t our Lord’s surname (in the way that “Shepherd” is mine.)  “Christ”, CHRESTOS, is Greek for the Hebrew MASHIACH, meaning Messiah. The Messiah is God’s agent in righting creation gone wrong.  Two doctrines leap out at us: the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of the fall. (Remember, a Messiah is needed only for a world gone wrong.)

Our objector, now grown impatient, retorts, “Forget Messiah; just give us the simple saviour of our Sunday School days.  Saviour? Saviour from what? Two doctrines leap out again: sin and salvation. “Can’t we just believe without all this mental clutter?”  Believe what? Besides, how does such belief differ from gullibility or superstition or mere opinion? Obviously “belief” presupposes a doctrine of faith.  There is no doctrine-less Jesus.

 

III: —    Doctrine, you see, is the articulation of truth.  Where doctrine is dismissed someone is saying there is no such thing as truth. But Christians cannot say this. Where doctrine is unknown truth cannot be known and cannot be commended.  But Christians are eager to know the truth and commend the truth since we are born of the truth. Where teaching is out-and-out false people are put on a road that ends in swamp or desert, never on a road that ends in the kingdom of God .

The older testament is everywhere concerned with false prophets and the damage they do. The newer testament is everywhere concerned with false teachers and the damage they do. There are five New Testament books which are especially concerned with the place of sound teaching (the acquiring of a Christian mind), the place of truth within the Christian community.  The five brief books are Paul’s two letters to Timothy (a young preacher), his letter to Titus, plus Peter’s second letter and Jude’s only letter. These five epistles especially emphasize the necessity of sound teaching and the danger of false teaching.

Ponder for a minute Paul’s line in his first letter to Timothy where he speaks of “…God our saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”; or in J.B. Phillips’ paraphrase, “The purpose of God our saviour is that all men should be saved and come to know the truth”.  Plainly it is Paul’s conviction that we need to be saved – not helped, not boosted, not fixed up – saved (i.e., spared spiritual futility now and from eternal loss ultimately); it is his conviction that God longs to save us all without exception; it is his conviction too that God does so only as we come to know the truth, that truth which God himself is and that truth concerning ourselves which God discloses to us. Knowledge of God’s truth is essential to our possession of God’s salvation.  On the other hand it is just as plain that dissemination of false doctrine, false teaching which renders people ignorant of the truth; this imperils their salvation.

If we have a raging infection our physician prescribes an antibiotic (penicillin or something like it).  We take the medicine because we believe it is the cure for our infection. If penicillin were prescribed and we had already been told that it was not the cure for our infection, we should only disdain the medicine and have our infection worsen until we were sick unto death.

People rejoiced to hear the Christmas announcement just because they believed that what God had prescribed for them was the cure they needed. The good news of Christmas was that to them, to them even as they were helpless and hopeless in their predicament before God, there had been given a saviour.  Not any saviour; the effectual saviour, none other than Jesus of Nazareth and him only. John insists that Jesus Christ has been given us as “the remedy for the defilement of our sins”. Whenever false teachers with their false doctrine obscure this truth, deny this truth, diminish this truth, or cast aspersion upon it; whenever this truth is “fudged” in any way men and women are imperilled before God, since they will remain without the only saviour any of us can ever have.

Do not think I am exaggerating when I compare God’s truth to antibiotic medicine without which the infected person sickens unto death. When Paul speaks of “sound doctrine” in his letters to Timothy and Titus the one word he uses over and over for “sound” is HUGIAINOUSA; HUGIAINOUSA is an everyday medical term which means health-giving.  In other words, sound doctrine, sound teaching, is health-giving just as surely as false teaching is death-dealing.  In his first letter to Timothy Paul reminds the young man of what appears when a Christian mind is absent; i.e., when sound doctrine is absent and false teaching proliferates: “murderers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars and perjurers”.  Are these people contrasted with virtuous persons?  No. They are contrasted with “sound doctrine”, health-giving teaching.  At the end of his first letter to Timothy Paul speaks of “the teaching which accords with godliness”.  Not only does he insist that the young preacher “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine”, he tells Timothy why: “for by so doing you will be able to save both yourself and your hearers”.

When I used to interview candidates for the ministry in the courts of the church I let other committee-members probe the students’ social skills and marital history and career plans and psychological profile. Instead I always concentrated on the students’ grasp of God’s truth; I wanted to see the Christian furniture of their mind.  When I was told eventually that this was none of my business (can you believe it?) I resigned from the committee, for then I could no longer protect congregations who would be endangered a year or two later when these candidates were ordained.  The danger, after all, is not slight.  Jesus speaks of those who address a congregation all the while appearing to be warm, affectionate sheep when in fact they are ravenous wolves. They aren’t ravenous wolves because they are nasty or cruel; they turn out to be ravenous wolves — lethal, deadly — just because they are mindless with respect to the gospel (even if, perchance, sincere), just because they have substituted false teaching for God’s truth.

Little wonder, then, that Paul writes the congregation in Ephesus and urges the people in it – all the people in it – to grow up, to get beyond a child’s understanding. As long as a congregation has only a child’s understanding, says the apostle, it will always be “tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine”. “Tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine”: false teaching blows Christians off course, at the very least.  It likely leaves them upset (spiritually and emotionally seasick) and may even find them drowning.

For this reason the apostle Jude fulminates against false teachers in his one-chapter book. In the most scorching language Jude tells us that false teachers are “waterless clouds”: they promise life-giving rain but they never produce a drop for spiritually parched people.  They are “barren fruit-trees”: they yield nothing that is of any help to anyone. They are like “wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame”: not only are they as destructive as a typhoon, their own lives are shameful. Finally, says Jude, they are like “wandering stars”; today we should say “shooting stars” which fall out of the sky and fizzle out into the darkness. Jude’s language, scorching as it is, is no more severe than our Lord’s when he says that false teachers appear to be cuddly sheep when in fact they are lethal wolves.

 

IV: — We haven’t time to explore all the false teaching mentioned in the New Testament. We have time only to comment on representative false teaching.

(i)         John identifies as false any teaching which denies the incarnation. To deny the incarnation is to deny the atonement; this is to deny that we have been given a saviour. It’s to leave people floundering, ignorant and unrepentant, in their sinnership before God.

(ii)         Peter identifies as false teaching which denies that obedience to God is required of all Christians, with the result that licentiousness appears and the name of Jesus is disgraced.

(iii)         Paul identifies as false that teaching which pretends that people have to earn or merit or deserve their standing with God as pardoned sinners. Sound doctrine, on the other hand, insists that we are justified by grace through faith on account of Christ; we are set right with God, rightly related to him, as we trust in faith his provision of mercy, fashioned for us and vouchsafed to us in his Son.

(iv)         James identifies as false the teaching that we can be hearers of the Word of God without being doers of the selfsame Word.  To be an authentic hearer, says James, is always to be a doer, especially a doer on behalf of what James calls “the widow and the orphan”; that is, those people who are marginalized, vulnerable or defenceless.

(v)         Jude has more to say about false teachers in his tiny letter than any other NT writer. “Recognize them and avoid them”, he tells us.  How are we to recognize them?  If they contradict the gospel they give themselves away.         In addition, says Jude, they use fancy language; they are intellectual snobs; they are slick manipulators; and they claim to have the Holy Spirit extraordinarily when all the while they behave shamefully. Recognize them and avoid them.

 

V: — There is one crucial point you must give me time to make this morning: while correct teaching, sound doctrine, truth is necessary, it is not enough. Necessary, always necessary, but of itself never sufficient.  You see, it is possible to grasp the truth of God with one’s mind and yet have one’s heart far from God.

The Hebrew prophets always knew this.  The Hebrew prophets didn’t suspect that their people were ignorant of Torah. They knew that their people had been schooled in Torah since infancy and therefore were apprized of God’s nature and God’s purpose and God’s way.  Nevertheless, cried the prophets, what the people have in their heads they do not yet have in their hearts.  The God they say they believe in they do not obey.  The one whose love rescued them from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness; this one who loves them they do not love in turn. The God they know so much about they are personally acquainted with so very slightly. The Hebrew prophets plead with their people to encounter intimately the person of the God whose truth has already informed their minds.

When I was moving step-by-step through my doctoral programme I had to sit a series of oral examinations on a variety of topics.  One of my examiners was Professor Jakob Jocz, a third-generation Lithuanian Hebrew-Christian. When my examination with him was over Jocz leaned forward in his chair, fixed his eyes on me and said in his pronounced, Eastern European accent, “Shepherd, you have done well in this examination.  But I want you to remember something.  As important as the truth is that we have probed today, it is by no means everything: what really counts is the shape of a person’s life”. I have never forgotten this.

I like to think that I have made considerable progress in acquiring a Christian mind. But this fact does not mean for one minute that I am more intimately acquainted with the living God than is the old saint who has prayed and wrestled, suffered and obeyed, pleaded and praised every day for decades and who can now echo the psalmist from the bottom of her heart: “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me”. (Psalm 13:6)

Whenever I think about my grasp of sound doctrine I recall the word of the apostle James. James, together with all prophets and apostles, knows that sound doctrine is utterly essential to the calling and equipping and strengthening of God’s people. Then should every Christian aspire to be a teacher, an expositor of sound doctrine?         Of course not.

Still, there are six clergy-leaders in the congregation of St Bride’s who are appointed to teach.  We six are prayed for every Sunday.  Good. We need all the help we can get. At the same time, we should be aware, according to James, that those who teach are going to be judged with greater strictness.

Since we clergy-teachers are going to be judged with greater strictness, why don’t you do us the favour of judging us now, thereby sparing us something worse later? “What counts is the shape of a person’s life.”  Don’t leave us in any ghastly illusion concerning ourselves one day longer. For I know that the psalmist is correct when he insists that the upright, and only the upright, are going to behold the face of God. (Psalm 11:7)

 

                                                                                      Victor Shepherd                                      
                                 
 October 2, 2010

 

St Bride’s Anglican Church, Mississauga

 

Jeremiah 23:13-17

Matthew 7:15

1 Timothy 1:3; 2:4; 1:10 ; 4:16 ;

Titus 1:9

Ephesians 4:13

Jude 12-13

James 2:19

Psalm 13:6; 11:7

 

 

On Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ

Ephesians 4:24      Romans 13:14      Colossians 3:5-14

 

Nakedness renders very few people more handsome.  Most people look worse in the bathtub than they do anywhere else.  By the time we are 35 years old gravy and gravity have taken their toll. We look better clothed.

Then what shall we wear? Anything at all? Shabby clothes?  Soiled clothes? “Far-out” clothing as unserviceable as it is ostentatious?  Surely we want to wear clothing that enhances us.  And if we can find clothing that is “just right” for us, we may even say that our clothing “makes” us.

The apostle Paul was fond of the metaphor of clothing.  In his letters to congregations in Rome , Ephesus and Colosse he speaks metaphorically of clothing which should be thrown out, as well as of clothing which should be worn all the time.  The apostle knows something we do well to remember: nakedness (metaphorically speaking) is not possible.  It is impossible to be unclothed spiritually.  He never urges his readers to put on something in order to cover up their spiritual nakedness. Instead he urges them to take off that clothing which always clothes, naturally clothes, fallen human beings, and then to put on that clothing which adorns Christians, and adorns them just because they have first put on the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

 

I: — First, the clothing that has to be rejected.  Everyone knows that some clothing is not merely old or frayed or threadbare. Some clothing is much worse than this: it is vermin-ridden.  Vermin-ridden clothing is not to be washed or patched or simply set aside in case it comes back into fashion.  It has to be destroyed.

For this reason Paul begins his wardrobe recommendations with the startling phrase, “Put to death….”  “Put to death what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity…” and so on. Degenerate sexual behaviour is inappropriate to Christian discipleship and must be eliminated.

What the apostle had to say in this regard shocked the ancient world. In ancient Greece a man had a wife for human companionship; he had as many mistresses as he wanted for libidinal convenience; and he had a pubescent boy for ultimate sexual gratification. As the gospel surged into the ancient world Christian congregations stood out as islands of sexual purity in a sea of corruption.

Do we still stand out today?  Not so long ago the Toronto newspapers published articles on the promiscuity of NHL hockey players.  Players were not named for the most part (although one Maple Leaf identified himself unashamedly as one who had been tested for AIDS).  A player with the Montreal Canadiens, a fellow who makes no Christian profession at all, remarked, “I always thought it was supposed to be one man and one woman for life.”         Does it take a hockey player to remind the present-day church of what it is supposed to uphold? In the ancient world the church stood out as startlingly different; the society surrounding the church had never seen anything like it.

I am asked over and over what I think about “trial marriage”.  Invariably I say that “trial marriage” is a logical impossibility; it is as logically impossible as a trial parachute jump.  As long as you are standing in the doorway of the airplane, you haven’t jumped at all. Once you have jumped, however, it isn’t a trial; it’s the real thing.  A trial parachute jump is logically impossible.  So is a trial marriage.  If a commitment intending indissolubility hasn’t been made it isn’t marriage at all. If a commitment intending indissolubility has been made it isn’t a trial.  We can be sure of one thing: the person who foolishly thinks there can be “trial marriage” will also think there can be “trial adultery”. Paul, reflecting the conviction of all Christians of the apostolic era, insists that some clothing can’t be helped by spot remover.  It has to be destroyed. “Put to death what is earthly in you”, is his manner of speaking.

 

There are additional items of clothing which should be destroyed.  “Passion, evil desire, covetousness”, with covetousness underlined, since covetousness amounts to idolatry, he tells us.  The Greek word for covetousness is PLEONEXIAPLEON — more; EXIA, to have.  Covetousness is the passionate desire to have more — have more of anything. It is evil in that the passionate desire to have more corrupts us and victimizes others.

To crave greater prestige, greater notoriety, greater visibility is to embrace compromise after compromise until we have thoroughly falsified ourselves, a phoney of the phoneys.  To crave more goods is to fall into dishonesty.         To crave more power, greater domination, is to become first exploitative then cruel.

Paul sums up the passionate desire to have more — covetousness — as idolatry. Martin Luther used to say, “Our god is that to which we give ourselves, that from which we seek our ultimate satisfaction.”  What we pursue, what we actually pursue regardless of what we are too polite to say we pursue, what our heart is secretly set on when all the socially acceptable disguises are penetrated; this is our god.  Because we expect to be rewarded by this deity (and will be rewarded, Jesus guarantees with his repeated, “They have their reward…”) we secretly, yet surely, give ourselves to it.  Such idolatry, insists the apostle, we ought swiftly to put to death.

 

He isn’t finished yet. Also to be killed are “anger” and “wrath”.  ORGE, anger, is smouldering resentment, calculated resentment, long-relished resentment that nurses a grudge and plots ways to even the score. THUMOS, wrath, on the other hand, is a blow-up, the childish explosion that is no less sinful for being childish. The petulant adult with infantile tantrums, as well as the adult whose long-relished resentment is kept smouldering; both these people are pitiable. They think they are well-dressed when in fact their shabby clothes are loathsome because verminous.

 

Lastly, the apostle speaks of “slander”, “abusive talk”, and “lying”. Slander is the ruination of someone else’s reputation.  Abusive talk is any language that assaults and is meant to hammer people. Lying is deliberate misrepresentation. The slanderer is as lethal as a rattlesnake.  The abusive talker is as brutal as a sledgehammer.         These people plainly damage others.  The liar, on the other hand, while certainly deceiving others, principally damages himself. You see, the liar who lies even in the smallest matters has rendered himself untrustworthy. Once he is known to be untrustworthy no one will say anything of any importance to him; no one will confide in him. All he will hear for as long as he is known as a liar is what’s trivial. Of course the liar can be forgiven (and should be); but the liar can never be trusted. Far more than he victimizes others he victimizes himself.

 

The apostle never minces words.  There is clothing we must not merely shed; we must get rid of it.  “Put to death”, he tells us, the impurity which defiles, the craving which corrupts, and the talk which either damages others or renders oneself untrustworthy.

 

II: — At the beginning of the sermon I said that nakedness (metaphorically) isn’t possible. We jettison the clothing which we must only because we have first put on, already put on, the new clothing which becomes all of us.  In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  We do put him on — in faith — so that he becomes ours and we become his. To the Christians in Ephesus Paul writes, “Put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  To the Christians in Colosse he says, “Put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

It is plain that Christians are those who, in faith, have put on Jesus Christ himself. As we put on him we put on that renewed human nature which he is and which he fits onto us; as all of this happens the image of God, in which we were created but which has become scratched and marred and defaced — this image of God is re-engraved and now stands out starkly.

If this is really what has happened (and what more could happen?), what is the result of our having put on Christ?

 

(i)         The first result is startling; the first result is so public, so notorious, so blatant that it can be observed even by those who make no profession of faith at all. The first result is that the barriers throughout the world which divide, isolate and alienate human beings from each other are crumbled.  “Here there cannot be Greek or Jew”, says Paul, “…nor barbarian, Scythian, slave or free person; but Christ is all and in all.”

The barriers in the ancient world were as ugly as they are today.  The Greeks regarded themselves as intellectually superior to everyone else. They were the cultured of the cultured. The Greek language was considered both the most expressive and the most mellifluous (beautiful sounding) of any language.  Why, compared to the sound of Greek all other languages had a harsh, unmusical, brutish sound: “bar-bar”.  Greek people therefore regarded everyone else in the world as a barbarian.

We modern people look upon the study of languages as a mark of the educated person. No one brags of being unilingual.  But the ancient Greeks boasted of knowing one language only.  They despised the study of non-Greek languages.  They argued that since every language is inferior to their own, and since everyone who speaks an inferior language is inferior to the Greek people, why waste time studying the inferior languages of inferior people?   Max Mueller, an internationally acclaimed linguist of the late nineteenth century; Mueller insisted that a desire to learn other languages arose only through the indirect illumination of the gospel, arose only when the people who spoke these languages were no longer seen as barbarians but as brothers/sisters.

The Scythians mentioned in our text today are named inasmuch as they were regarded as the lowest form of human life.  “More barbarian than the barbarians” is how the Greeks spoke of them. Scythians were held to be barely human, scarcely human.

Utterly unhuman were slaves.  In the ancient world the slave wasn’t considered to be a human being in any sense. Slaves had no rights. They could be beaten, maimed or killed with impunity — and why not, since killing a slave, through overwork, for instance, was no more significant than breaking a garden-rake through overuse.  No less a philosopher than Aristotle had said that a slave was a highly efficient tool that had one disadvantage not found in other tools: the slave had to be fed.

And yet in the early days of the church the spiritual leader of the congregation was frequently a slave.         Freemen and women, people whose social class towered above that of a slave; freemen and women recognized the godliness of the slave who was leading their congregation. They recognized the spiritual authenticity and authority of someone whom the society at large didn’t even regard as human, and deferred to it.  Only in a Christian congregation could this phenomenon be seen.  It happened nowhere else. It was the single most public consequence of putting on Christ.

One consequence of putting on our Lord, of putting on our new nature in righteousness and holiness, is that the congregation is a living demonstration of the collapse of those barriers which divide, isolate and alienate people from each other.

 

(ii)         A second consequence: in putting on Christ, in putting on that new nature which is being renewed after the image and likeness of God, we become clothed with the character that shines in our Lord himself.

We put on compassion and kindness.  Compassion is literally the state of being attuned to someone else’s suffering. It is the exact opposite of what we mean by “do-gooder”.  The do-gooder does good, all right (or at least does what he regards as good), but does it all from a safe distance, does it all with his hands but is careful to leave his heart out of it, lest his heart become wrenched, never mind broken.  The compassionate person, on the other hand, is completely different; the compassionate person’s heart is attuned to someone else’s suffering, even if there is very little that that person can do with her hands. If you were afflicted or tormented yourself, which person would you rather have with you: the do-gooder who will only tinker remotely, or the compassionate person who may only be able to resonate with your pain? — always the latter, for the latter will in the long run be vastly more helpful and healing than the tinkerer.

We put on kindness as well. Kindness is holding our neighbour’s wellbeing as dear as our own.  Such kindness has about it none of the negativities surrounding “do-goodism”. In the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry the word “kind” was used of wine; wine was said to be kind when full-bodied red wine had no sourness about it. Such wine was rich and delightful but without any sour aftertaste.  The same word is used by our Lord himself when he says, “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is — is what, easy? The English translations say “easy”, but the Greek word is CHRESTOTES, and everywhere else it means kind. An ox-yoke was said to be kind when the yoke fit so well that it didn’t chafe the animal’s neck. “Yoke” is a common Hebrew metaphor for obedience to Torah.  When our Lord tells us that his yoke is kind he means that our obedience, an aspect of our faith in him; such obedience to him won’t irritate us, chafe us, rub us raw – or render us sour.

When we put on Christ, continues Paul, we put on lowliness, meekness and patience. Lowliness is humility, and humility, you have heard me say one hundred times, is simply self-forgetfulness.

Then what about meekness? Meekness is strength exercised through gentleness.  All of us have strengths; to be sure, we have weaknesses as well, but all of us have strengths. We can exercise our strengths heavy-handedly, coercively, domineeringly, or we can exercise our strengths gently.  When Paul wrote his epistles the word “meek” was used every day to describe the wild horse which was now tamed (and therefore useful) but whose spirit had not been broken.

Patience means we are not going to explode or quit, sulk or sabotage when things don’t get done in congregational life exactly as we should like to see them done.

We put on forgiveness, and forgive each other, moved to do so simply by the astounding forgiveness we have received from our Lord himself.

 

(iii)         The final consequence of putting on Christ: we put on love, with the result, says Paul, that the congregation “is bound together in perfect harmony”. He maintains that a congregation is to resemble a symphony orchestra.         An orchestra never consists of one instrument only playing the same note over and over. An orchestra consists of many different instruments sounding many different notes at the same time. The full sound of the orchestra is what people want to hear.  Whether the full sound is a good sound or a grating sound depends on one thing: is the orchestra playing in harmony?

We should be aware of what the metaphor of harmony doesn’t mean for congregational life. It doesn’t mean that the goal of congregational life is uniformity or conformity; and it doesn’t mean that voices which shouldn’t be heard all the time shouldn’t be heard at all.  (The sharp crack of the timpani drum and the piercing note of the piccolo aren’t heard often in an orchestra, but when they need to be heard they should be heard.)

It is love, says the apostle, and love only, which renders congregational life harmony rather than cacophony.         For it is such love which renders our life together honouring to God, helpful to us, and attractive to others who may yet become Christ’s people as they too are persuaded to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. For as they do this, they will find, as we have found already, that to put on him is also to put on that human nature which God has appointed for us.         And to clothe ourselves in this is to find that clothes do indeed make the man — and the woman too.

 

                                                                                                 Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                     

June 2007

 

The Seven Deadly Sins: Anger

Ephesians 4:25-32       Exodus 23:1-9      Matthew 5:21-24; 43-48

 

[1]      What must it have been like, that day in the temple, when Jesus braided a whip (it would have taken him 10 or 15 minutes to braid the whip; plainly his violence was premeditated; we can’t pretend anything else), while his eyes flashed fire and his voice skinned people as he kicked over tables and scattered money?  What must it have been like to see our Lord enraged?

 

What’s more, Jesus was angry not once but many times.  He was livid whenever he saw religious hucksters fleecing defenceless people; livid again whenever he came upon church leaders who caused followers to stumble; livid once more whenever he ran into hard-hearted people who cared not a whit about the suffering of those who had suffered for years.

In view of the fact that Jesus was angry on so many occasions I am surprised that the church has customarily assumed that anger of any sort is sinful. In view of the church’s distortion of what it means to follow Jesus I am no longer surprised at the apathy that surrounds us everywhere in our society; no longer surprised that even the worst apathy — the kind that invites victimization — is now paraded as a virtue.  I have never doubted that our Lord turned water into wine; I am just as certain that the church regularly turns wine into water, not least where it fails to grasp the nature of our Lord’s anger and thereby fosters the pseudo-virtue of apathy.

At the same time, angry as our Lord is on many occasions he will yet die for the very people who have enraged him.         We must always remember this and take it to heart concerning our own anger. Our Lord’s anger at people never inhibits his love for them.  He will give up his life — gladly give it up — for the same people who have infuriated him. Having been angry with them (rightly angry with them), he yet never disdains them, doesn’t ignore them, doesn’t dismiss them, doesn’t write them off as lesser creatures not worth his time and attention and energy. The people who have made him boil he will yet love with his last breath.

From our Lord’s example it is plain that apathy is inexcusable in any Christian. It is plain, according to scripture, that Christians are commanded to be angry when situations call for anger. “Be angry”, the apostle Paul tells his readers.  “Be angry”, he insists, “but do not sin.”  We are to be angry even as we are not to sin in our anger.         Plainly anger can curdle into sin.  Then when is anger sin?

 

[2]         Anger is sin whenever anger gives way to revenge.  Revenge impels us toward bloodletting.  Revenge pursues retaliation.  (Our Lord’s anger, we should note, never issued in retaliation.)

When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was president of the USA a journalist asked him why he and his brothers “boiled over” so very infrequently. “We Kennedys don’t get angry”, replied JFK coolly, “we get even”.

Before we think the Kennedys vicious and ourselves virtuous we must understand that anyone at all can begin virtuously and end viciously. The pattern is plain. We are brought into the orbit of something that leaves us justifiably angry.  But if we are not spiritually alert, our anger at injustice becomes the occasion of temptation to revenge.  Now our anger at injustice has perverted itself into enjoyment at the prospect of revenge. We begin to nurse our anger, feed off it, rationalize the twist with which we have twisted it. The result is that anger becomes our settled disposition; anger becomes our characteristic mood, the colour of our blood, the core of our personality.

There are always telltale signs when people have fallen into carefully nursed anger (now sin) that has also become their characteristic mood. The first sign is that they imagine slights where there is none.  They speak of themselves as “sensitive”. But in fact they aren’t sensitive at all; they are merely “touchy”. Genuinely sensitive people, like Jesus, are moved at injustice, injustice that principally victimizes others. Touchy people, on the other hand, can think only of themselves.  Sensitive people forget themselves in their outrage at manifest injustice. Touchy people focus on themselves in their never-ending narcissism.

Another sign of anger that has curdled into revenge and therefore denatured into sin is over-reaction.  “Did you hear that?” someone now fumes, “I have been treated shabbily.” To be sure, an offence has occurred; but it was relatively slight.  A rowboat, rowed by someone who may be malicious but as often as not is merely inept, bumped into us.         We now launch an aircraft carrier.  We were pricked with a safety pin?  Out comes our 12-foot spear, replete with poison tip.  When word goes through a staff or a board or a committee that Mrs. “X” has a short fuse (and therefore all present are made to feel that they must step carefully), the most obvious feature of Mrs. “Short-fuse X” isn’t that she explodes quickly; it’s that she explodes over trifles, trifles that affect her.  Before long she is also telling everyone that whatever it is that has made her angry was done deliberately simply to “get” her, as all of life is now interpreted to be endless conspiracy.

When anger passes from obedience to the command of God to fodder for the evil one, when anger becomes our settled disposition, we display the destructive urge that psychoanalysts say lurks ever so deep in us.         Psychoanalysts comment a great deal on humankind’s deep-seated urge to destroy, which urge unconsciously finds satisfaction wherever it can. Before psychoanalysis noticed it scripture insisted on it and even illustrated it. We moderns try to deny it, telling ourselves that we have progressed beyond all of this. But of course no cultural sophistication, however rich, overturns anything pertaining to the Fall.

I find movies entertaining twice over.  The movie itself is entertaining, and the response of the movie-watchers in the theatre is also entertaining.  In the course of one entertaining movie-night I saw on the screen a young man playing an electric guitar.  The amplifier cut out on him.  No sound now. He fiddled with the dials on the amplifier for a while, becoming increasingly enraged. Finally he grabbed the guitar by the neck, swung it like an axe, and smashed both guitar and amplifier in a fit of destructive fury.  At this point the movie-watching audience laughed, laughed uproariously, as though something enormously funny had occurred.

Psychoanalysts maintain that one reason for laughter is this: what we are found laughing at points to something deep inside us whose subject-matter we cannot discuss or admit in polite company.  Laughter is the smokescreen behind which we can bring out what is ever so deep in us yet which is not normally socially acceptable, not customarily aired in polite company.  This is why we laugh at off-colour jokes, laugh at racist jokes, and laugh at exhibitions of destructive rage.  The anger-fuelled urge to destroy courses deep inside fallen humankind. Expressing it isn’t socially acceptable. Therefore socially acceptable vehicles are sought that will allow it to emerge.  Humour is such a vehicle.

Once anger has moved from a right response at injustice to a settled disposition we wish to nourish inasmuch as it feeds us; once this has occurred anger quickly turns into hatred.

Years ago when I naively (and non-biblically) had vastly more confidence in the political enterprise to transmute the human situation, I became disillusioned with both the political right and the political left. My disillusionment with the political right came first, and I fled to the left.  From the political left I heard a high-flown vocabulary about concern for the poor and solidarity with the disadvantaged.  But I didn’t find much concern for the poor, certainly no willingness to make any sacrifice for the poor.  I found enormous anger at the rich born of envy of the rich.  I have yet to meet a socialist who isn’t a closet capitalist.  I have met many who maintained in one breath that they were committed socialists and who complained in the next breath that their investment portfolio wasn’t performing as well as expected.  Anger as a settled disposition, residual rage bent on revenge, will invariably turn us into people whose apparent quest for righteousness is merely the disguise that hatred wears.

 

[3]         Then how do we leave the very pit of hell where settled anger smoulders all but inextinguishably?  We leave it only by looking up, looking up at the One who is light and love and life. As we look to him who is light, love, life and therefore truth we must allow his truth to x-ray us ruthlessly.

(i)         First we must allow ourselves to be interrogated as to the command of God never to seek revenge.  Have we really heard the command of God?  Do we intend to obey him? Do we know that the Hebrew word (and the Greek word too) for obedience has the grammatical form of intensified hearing?  (In other words, if we don’t obey then we have never profoundly heard, regardless of what we say we have heard.)  Revenge is always forbidden God’s people.         “Never avenge yourselves” God insists; “vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”  We are not to finesse the matter of revenge at all.  (By “finesse” I mean exact revenge, thereby satisfying ourselves, all of this done with as much stealth and sophistication as needed to keep us appearing anything but vindictive.)  We are instead to leave the entire matter with God.

There is a crucial point we must understand this morning.  When God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, he does not mean that we can forget about exacting revenge because he is going to exact it for us, and exact it more painfully than we ever could ourselves. We are not to leave vengeance to him on the understanding that he is infinitely vengeful — as if he had a heart as depraved as ours.

For years I watched Bobby Clarke, the most talented hockey player with the Philadelphia Flyers, use his stick to cut down and cut up opposing players as though his stick were a scythe.  Opponents, needless to say, reacted with heavy stickwork of their own. At this point Clarke always acted as if he had been treated unfairly, as if he were the victim of a “first-strike” policy implemented by the opposing team.  With his posture of victimization Clarke let it be known that revenge was now in order. But Clarke never tried to avenge himself.  He let two goons do it for him: Dave “The Hammer” Schultz and Bob “Mad Dog” Kelly. Clarke could safely leave revenge to his two team-mates since they could exact it much more thoroughly.

This is not what is going on when God says, “Don’t you avenge yourselves; leave it with me.” We must never think that God can be counted on to act on our behalf in a manner commensurate with our depravity.  God’s command to us means something entirely different; namely, the whole matter of revenge we should simply forget.         The jab, the insult, the offence that has brought out our lurking revenge we should lay before God and leave there.         We aren’t trusting God to exact revenge on our behalf; rather, we are trusting God to work his unique work for good in an evil situation which has so enraged us that we passed the bounds of rationality days ago and are incapable of any objectivity concerning it.  We are trusting God to do something positive, something good, something restorative with a situation that we, in our upset, cannot assess accurately, and in our anger can only make worse.  We are forswearing vengeance not in order to allow God to exact it for us and exact it more painfully than we ever could; we are forswearing it because we now know that what we are bent on he isn’t.  Where we can only add to the world’s distress (even as we acquit ourselves self-righteously for doing so), he can uniquely relieve the world’s distress. Therefore we are to leave vengeance with him.  Note: we are not to leave vengeance to him; we are to leave our vengeance with him; that is, lay it before him and walk away from it ourselves.

Our first responsibility is to hear the command of God; really hear it; that is, obey him.

(ii)         Our second responsibility is to admit that our heart is every bit as depraved as the heart of the person who has offended us.  Therefore we too need deliverance from perverted passion.  We don’t need timely suggestions, sound advice, a model to imitate; we don’t need these chiefly.  We need deliverance.

While we may be either annoyed or mystified by the people who use “born again” language we must admit nonetheless that the promise of a fresh start in life, an ever-renewed new beginning; this is what the gospel is finally about. While many people suspect any talk of Christian experience as exhibitionistic and therefore fraudulent, our foreparents in faith were unashamed to speak unselfconsciously of what their hearts had come to know and cherish. We must never belittle the private necessity, the public significance, and the gospel-promise of a genuine change in the human heart.  The power needed to render the covetous person contented and the addicted person sober is dwarfed by the power needed to render the vengeful heart a vehicle of mercy. For this reason Jesus (who, said John Calvin, comes to us “clothed with his promises”) promises and guarantees all we need for the one and only attitude Christians are permitted to have toward their enemies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who spear you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”   Jeremiah insists that the people of Israel must seek the well-being even of the Babylonians who have captured them, taunt them, and threaten them relentlessly.  Moses insists that when an Israelite sees his enemy’s ox or ass going astray, the Israelite doesn’t say, “Let that stinker find his own animal — if he can find it before it breaks a leg”.  Instead, he must inconvenience himself and return even his enemy’s animal. Job, overwhelmed at his suffering, had to endure his friends telling him that perhaps he did wrong here or there.   Job, however, insists that there is one wrong he has not committed: he has never rejoiced at the misfortune of an enemy.

Peter tells us that when Jesus was reviled he did not revile in return. Paul tells us that when we are reviled we are to bless. To do anything else is to tell the world that we have not yet been delivered from a heart that is as cold, hard and venomous as the heart of the person whose treatment of us we deem inexcusable. Then deliverance is precisely what we need above all else.

(iii)         In the third place we are to hear and heed the command not to let the sun go down on our anger. We are not to let the sun go down on our just anger, our proper anger.  Even that anger which mirrors Christ’s; even that anger apart from which we should be culpably apathetic; even this anger must not be found in us after sunset.

In Hebrew thought the setting of the sun sets limits to many human activities. The wages of a hired man (a day-labourer) have to be paid by sunset.  Pawned goods must be returned by sunset.  A corpse has to be buried by sunset.   Anger, however justified, must not be put on the back burner, there to simmer indefinitely. Sunset sets limits even to the most righteous anger.  After all, the psalmist reminds us, “God will not always chide; he will not remain angry forever”.   If our heart is attuned to Christ’s then we should react in anger in those situations where he reacts.         But since our heart is attuned to his we shall not nourish our anger, not gloat over it, not allow it work evil and therein intensify the world’s misery. In the words of Paul, we are to give no opportunity to the devil.  Commenting on this latter statement John Calvin remarked in his quaint way 450 years ago, “If your wrath endures, the devil will take possession of your heart”. Through the prophet Isaiah God himself has said, “In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you; but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you”.

We must be found doing nothing less and nothing else.

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     February 2006

 

You asked for a sermon on Gossip

Ephesians 4:29

[1] In World War II American fliers in the Pacific theatre were provided with a package of shark repellent. As soon as the downed flier had parachuted into the water he released his shark repellent. The repellent spread out around him, forming a protective sphere within which he could survive. Inside the sphere he was safe, in no danger from sharks. If, however, he foolishly decided to move out beyond the sphere of the repellent, he would be devoured immediately.

The Ten Commandments demarcate the sphere, in a fallen world, within which we can thrive, within which there is safety and freedom. As long as we live within this sphere we shall find life blessed, wholesome, satisfying. We shall know and enjoy the freedom which God has fashioned for us. If, however, we decide to extend ourselves beyond the sphere which the commandments mark out, we shall find not freedom but enslavement; not blessing but curse; not life which thrives but death whose deadliness deadens everything around it.

Since the ninth commandment forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour, it’s plain that to gossip is to think — foolishly — that we can live beyond the sphere of God’s protection and blessing. But we can’t. To bear false witness, to gossip, is to poison ourselves and slay others; to gossip is to let loose poison gas which renders everyone sick unto death.

We have no difficulty understanding that to try to live outside the sphere demarcated by the commandments is to embrace death; that is, we have no difficulty understanding this for some of the commandments. Murder, for instance, or stealing or adultery. Simply to think of these three instances of wickedness is to know that where they thrive we don’t; and conversely, if we are to thrive then these three are to be renounced. Murder, stealing, adultery — and gossip. Is gossip in the same class? Is it really this serious? Is it as disgraceful? as destructive? as deadly? The fact that God forbids us to bear false witness as surely as he forbids us to murder should convince any doubter that gossip is iniquitous.

 

[2] If, however, the doubter remains doubting then a moment’s reflection on what gossip does should convince us.

If we are inclined to think that gossip is a harmless amusement that merely tickles the ear, nothing more than coffee-break chatter, then we should understand that unfounded rumour can end someone’s reputation, end her career, end her life. “She is over-fond of men”, someone says with a knowing wink. Said of a dancehall entertainer the gossip would likely fall to the ground, harmless. (It might even enhance the dancehall entertainer’s business.) But said of a physician it would be ruinous.

“She doesn’t declare everything on her income tax return.” Said of the single mother trying to support herself and her family through the day-care she operates out of her home it would mobilize little. But said of an accountant it would be the end of everything.

“He is disloyal.” Said of a separatist politician from Quebec it is so far from being slanderous as almost to be a badge of honour. But said of a military officer it would mean dismissal. Captain Albert Dreyfus, an officer in the French army at the turn of the century, was accused of treason. There wasn’t an iota of evidence to support the accusation. For ten years Dreyfus and his friends struggled to clear his name. After ten years he was exonerated. By then he and his wife and his children were ruined. While he was exonerated officially, millions of French citizens viewed him as a disgrace — when all the while he was innocent.

Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian chest surgeon who worked with the Eighth Route Army in revolutionary China, nicked his finger with a scalpel one day while performing surgery on a wounded soldier. The nick seemed inconsequential. Before long, however, Bethune was dead from septicaemia. Gossip may appear no more than a nick. But some nicks are deadly!

In World War I Chlorine gas was used on enemy forces. It was a lethal substance which killed men, not instantly, but slowly and agonizingly as their lungs were seared and they choked. In other words, chlorine gas killed after it had induced terrible suffering and panic. There always remained one huge problem in the deployment of chlorine gas: unforeseen changes in wind direction. A change in wind direction brought the gas back upon those who had only recently released it. At this point the gas didn’t merely take down the enemy; it took down everyone. Gossip is just like that.

 

[3] This being the case, why do we gossip? Before we look for ultra-sophisticated analyses as to why we gossip we should be sure we understand the most elemental reason for gossip: false witness comes naturally out of the depraved human heart. It is not the case that humankind’s heart is naturally righteous or godly (if it were, the gospel would be superfluous). The human heart, rather, is by nature (fallen nature) a fountain of corruption. “For out of the heart” (this is Jesus speaking) “come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” When we ask, “Why does gossip, malicious gossip, leap unbidden to the tongue?”, we must always recall the pronouncement of Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt. Who can understand it?”. As often as we look for a reason for our addiction to gossip we must remember that at bottom our addiction to gossip is unreasonable, irrational — as irrational as all the addictions of the corrupt heart. (Recall Kierkegaard: “Whoever claims to understand sin has never experienced it.”)

Once we have admitted that gossip is an outcropping of our innermost corruption; once we admit that the root of gossip is sunk in invisible irrationality, we can then safely attempt rational explanations for some features of gossip.

For instance, we find it virtually impossible to honour someone else’s right-to-privacy. Not wanting to honour someone else’s right-to-privacy we speculate or fantasize as to what is happening in that person’s private life. Next (and here’s the lethal step) we voice our speculations or fantasies as though they were factual. There are no grounds for doing this. But who needs grounds? What we can only guess at we utter as though it had been proven a hundred times over; all the while we know nothing at all.

We gossip, too, inasmuch as we are vindictive cowards who want to hurt someone without being held accountable for our assault. If we walked up to the person we wish to hurt and punched her in the face, we’d be in jail for assault. Then how to assault without having to account for it? Gossip. Gossip is the signature of the person who is vindictive and cowardly in equal measure.

We gossip, again, inasmuch as we are envious. Not only can we not accord someone else her right-to-privacy, we cannot accord her her right-to-possession. We cannot endure someone whose house is larger, or bank account richer, or inheritance greater, or ability grander, or children brighter. Since the disparity between someone else and us is unendurable, we have to end the disparity. There are only two ways of doing this: either we elevate ourselves or we bring her down. Only the latter is feasible. But how are we to bring her down? We can’t embezzle her savings or reduce the academic achievement of her children or diminish her talent. We can only gossip. Three words of gossip and she will be levelled; more than levelled, she will be beneath us. What a triumph! (When individuals do this, it is called gossip; when a nation does it collectively, it is called propaganda.)

 

[4] The command of God is plain: we are not to bear false witness against our neighbour. “False witness” is the English translation found in both places of the older testament where the Ten Commandments are stated, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The English translations are identical, but the Hebrew texts behind them differ. In Exodus 20 the Hebrew text which is translated “false witness” means lying, falsehood, what is untrue. In Deuteronomy 5 the Hebrew which is also translated “false witness” refers to insincerity or frivolousness. In other words, Exodus 20 refers to the substance of what is said, while Deuteronomy 5 refers to the mood and motivation of what is said. The Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 5 recognizes that it is possible to say what is factually correct but to say it in a mood and out of a motivation which is every bit as damaging as an outright lie. When the Hebrew bible forbids us to bear false witness it forbids us both to utter what is untrue and to utter what may be true but the uttering of which arises from a mood and motivation which aim at someone else’s ruin. In Psalm 51 the psalmist maintains that God “desires truth in our inward being”. “Truth in our inward being” means both outward truth, devoid of falsehood, and inward heart-purity, devoid of insincerity or duplicity.

 

[5] As we school ourselves more profoundly in the revelation entrusted to our Hebrew foreparents we come to appreciate Israel’s horror — sheer horror — at false witness. The psalmist cries that to have malicious witnesses rise up against him is the worst thing that could befall him. (Have you ever been slandered? If you have, you will agree with the psalmist instantly.)

Our Israelite foreparents were so fearful of false witness that one witness — one witness only — was never sufficient to convict anyone in a lawcourt. Testimony given by one witness alone was worthless.

Hearsay was never permitted. If someone said, “I didn’t see it happen myself, but last week Samantha told me she saw it happen” — worthless as well.

The Mishnah stated (the Mishnah is the distillate of rabbinic wisdom); the Mishnah stated that anyone who was commonly known to be loose-tongued or mean-spirited was disqualified as a witness; that person’s testimony was worthless at all times and in all circumstances.

The Mishnah stated too that if someone were discovered bearing false witness, that person must be punished with the same punishment that would have been assigned to the accused if the accused had been convicted. In other words, if person A testified falsely against person B concerning fraud, and the penalty for fraud was five years in prison, then person A, the bearer of false witness, himself went to prison for five years. In situations where this arrangement was impossible to implement (for instance, if false testimony were offered concerning the legitimacy of a child, the false testifier couldn’t suddenly be pronounced illegitimate himself), then the person bearing false witness was lashed 40 times. If the penalty for an offence was normally 40 lashes in any case, then the person bearing false witness was lashed 80 times. In other words, our Israelite foreparents wanted everyone to know that before someone spoke so much as one syllable against another person, the speaker had better know that he must speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and do this without any insincerity, frivolousness or malice.

The Mishnah said one thing more. When a witness offered testimony concerning an offense whose penalty was death, and it was the witness’s testimony which secured the conviction, then the witness (whose testimony had been true) must nevertheless himself serve as executioner. It was felt that if someone testifying truly still had to serve as executioner, then someone testifying falsely concerning capital offenses could never live with himself if his false testimony secured a conviction followed by an execution which the false testifier himself had to implement.

Then perhaps the safest thing to do was not say anything; not bear witness at all, whether true or false; simply keep one’s lip buttoned and one’s head down. But this wasn’t permitted in Israel. The person who remained silent when he heard gossip; the person who heard gossip but did not denounce it on the spot; that person was deemed guilty of gossip himself, guilty of bearing false witness. The person who said in self-extenuation, “But at least I never repeated the gossip I heard”; that person was as much guilty of gossip as the gossiper herself. Leviticus 5 states that to hear gossip and not denounce it is to be guilty of gossip — and therefore subject to the appropriate punishment for false witness.

It is little wonder that the prophet Malachi tells us that God will flay any and all who bear false witness.

 

[6] Gossip is a curse. What is the cure?

The first stage in the cure is to hear the command of God afresh. What is the ninth commandment? that we are not to bear false witness? No! We are not to bear false witness against our neighbour. A command not to bear false witness would be highly abstract, devoid of human face and heart. But a command not to bear false witness against our neighbour reminds us constantly that we have to do with a specific, living, suffering, fragile flesh-and-blood person.

Specific? How specific? Who is our neighbour? Jesus was asked this question. He replied in his parable of the Good Samaritan. The point of the parable is this: our neighbour is the person nearby us who is in need. Our neighbour is that person who is so very proximate to us that we find ourselves bumping into her all the time: grocery store, library, dentist’s waiting room. Already she is in great need. Are we going to worsen her neediness by bearing false witness against her? We are not to bear false witness against our neighbour. Our neighbour, according to Jesus, is the person whom we meet in the course of the day’s unfolding and whose need is undeniable. To worsen that person’s suffering through gossip is unspeakable cruelty and detestable sin.

Israel, we have seen, was horrified at false witness. It did everything it could to inculcate that horror into all its people. Its approach here was similar to the approach used with teenagers who are convicted of impaired driving. Teenagers convicted of impaired driving are made to watch film-footage of motor vehicle accidents caused by impaired drivers; made to watch motor vehicle accidents whose victims are killed or crippled; made to watch all of this in the hope that horror at impaired driving will be inculcated in the teenager and remain inculcated forever.

If we could be made to see what gossip does to that neighbour whose need finds her suffering intensely already we should be horrified, for life. And a most excellent thing it would be.

There is more to the cure for the curse of gossip. The next step in the cure is to hear and heed the apostolic injunction. Look at what Paul says to the church in Colosse: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt…”. Salt, in scripture, is a sign of the covenant. Salt is a sign of the pledge God has made to us, pledging himself, promising himself, ever to be our God, never to forsake us. Grace is God’s faithfulness to his pledge; grace is God himself forever keeping the promise he has made to us. To say that God is gracious is to say that nothing will ever deflect him from his pledge and promise to be God-for-us. Because you and I are sinners God’s faithfulness meets our sin. When God’s faithfulness meets our sin, his faithfulness takes the form of mercy. Salt, then, is the sign of God’s pledge to us that he will ever stand by us and envelop us in mercy.

The apostle Paul says that our speech is to be seasoned with salt. Our speech is to reflect to others the faithfulness and mercy of God himself. This is crucial; after all, we live in a world characterized by unfaithfulness and mercilessness. Christians are to be salt in this world; our speech is to be salt. Salty speech is a sign of what we are in ourselves: people who are not unfaithful to the suffering neighbour but rather who support the suffering neighbour faithfully, always enveloping him or her in mercy.

In his letter to the Christians in Ephesus Paul writes that their speech is to be “such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear”.

Our speech must fit the occasion. Of course our speech must be truthful; but more is needed. Our truthful speech must fit the context, fit the occasion. A physician who spoke the truth about a patient’s medical condition at a cocktail party would be hanged. No physician could ever plead that he was telling the truth and only the truth. The occasion is entirely unfitting, entirely inappropriate. The schoolteacher who said to the 8-year old in front of 25 other 8-year olds, “No wonder you are sleepy in class every day; your mother and father fight so much that no one can get enough sleep in your home”; the teacher who said that could never excuse herself on the grounds that she was only telling the truth. Her truth-telling does not “fit the occasion”.

The apostle insists as well that our speech is to be edifying; it is to be more than merely true, more than barely true; it is to be edifying.

And then Paul says something about which I have never heard a sermon: he says that our speech is a sacrament. He does not say in his Ephesian letter that our speech is to reflect God’s grace; he says that our speech imparts God’s grace. If human speech imparts God’s grace, then our speech is a sacrament.

Throughout the history of the church there have been bloodletting controversies over the sacraments. What is a sacrament? What is not? Protestants jump up and say, “There are two sacraments only, baptism and the Lord’s Supper”. Roman Catholics reply, “Seven; there are seven sacraments. Marriage, ordination to the priesthood, penance — plus others — are sacraments too.” At one point in the middle ages there were twelve sacraments. Not once in my reading of church history; not once have I come upon a discussion of speech as a sacrament. But the apostle Paul (whom Protestants appear to venerate above all others) plainly says that it is a sacrament. A sacrament of what? Poison gas? No! A sacrament of God’s grace.

My last point in the cure for the curse of gossip. All of us are jabbed from time-to-time. We may be jabbed verbally or non-verbally. Whether we are jabbed verbally or non-verbally, our first instinct, our depraved instinct, is to retaliate verbally. In retaliating verbally we bear false witness. We may do so by uttering gossip, or by uttering truth maliciously, since our mood and motivation are deadly. I have found there is one sure way of defusing the temptation to retaliate. When next you are jabbed, don’t dwell on the nastiness of the person who jabbed you. Instead look upon that person as your neighbour; which is to say, find out where that person is suffering. Then dwell on that person’s suffering. Wrap your heart around that person’s suffering. You will find that the temptation to gossip, the temptation to bear false witness, evaporates in that instant.

F I N I S

                                                                    Victor A. Shepherd

January 1994

Exodus 20:11*
Deuteronomy 5:20*
Matthew 15:19
Jeremiah 17:9
Psalm 51:6
Leviticus 5:1
Malachi 3:5
Luke 10: 25-37*
Colossians 4:6*
Ephesians 4:29*

 

You asked for a sermon on Voices United

 Ephesians 5:15-20  

 

I: — Prostitution is tragic under any circumstances. Prostitution is demeaning. Prostitution, however, that is enjoined as a religious act and defended by a religious argument is more than tragic and demeaning: it’s disgusting.

In the city of Corinth one thousand women were attached as religious prostitutes to the temple of Aphrodite. Needless to say the Christian congregation in Corinth stood out starkly against the backdrop of the temple and its sordid traffic in devotees who did obeisance to Aphrodite and all that the goddess represented. At least the Christian congregation in Corinth largely stood out starkly against the backdrop of sexual irregularities. We know, however, that the spirit of Aphrodite always lapped at the Christian congregation and occasionally infected a member or two of it.

Centuries earlier the Canaanite nations that surrounded Israel had trafficked in religious prostitution too. The word to Israel that had thundered from Sinai, however, had repudiated such degradation. The prophets in turn denounced it unambiguously. Even so, the spirit of sexual irregularity always hovered over Israel, always had to be guarded against, and occasionally had to be exorcised.

Throughout the history of humankind, whenever a goddess has been worshipped as the arch-deity, wherever “Mother-god” has been held up, the final result has always been religious prostitution and widespread sexual promiscuity. For this reason Israel refused to call God “Mother”, and refused as well to speak of the deity as “goddess”.

Throughout the history of humankind goddess-worship (Mother-god-worship) has been associated with the worship of fertility. The worship of fertility includes fertility of all kinds: agricultural fertility, animal fertility, human fertility. A key element in such worship, a key element in the chain of events, has been “sympathic magic”. Sympathic magic means that when humans are sexually active the god and goddess are sexually active too. The sexual activity of god and goddess in turn ensures the fertility of animals and crops.

When Israel was led to call God “Father”, Israel didn’t think for a minute that the God of Israel was equipped with male genitalia rather than female. Israel knew that the true and living God is not equipped with genitalia of any kind; God is not gender-specific in any sense. In calling God “Father”, however, Israel was deliberately refusing to call God “mother”; Israel was deliberately repudiating everything that the fertility cults around it associated with female deities. Israel repudiated the notion that the deity is sexually active, the notion that human sexual activity is sympathically magical, the notion that the entire enterprise is sacramentally abetted by sacral prostitution, the notion that the concomitant promiscuity has any place at all in God’s economy. Israel repudiated all of it.

Yes, Israel did occasionally use female imagery to describe God. In scripture God is said to be like a mother or a nurse or even a she-bear not to be trifled with. But while God is said to be like a mother, for instance, God is never said to be a mother, never called “mother”. On the other hand God is said to be a father and is called “Father”. Why the difference? — because of everything detailed above.

In view of all this I am stunned to find Voices United naming God “mother” and “goddess” in six hymns and three prayers. Two of the prayers name God “Father and Mother” (as in the rewritten prayer of Jesus, “Our Father and Mother…”). This plays right into the hands of Canaan and Aphrodite where sexual intercourse among the deities creates the universe. (In the creation stories of the bible there is no suggestion anywhere that the universe came into being as the result of sexual activity among the deities.) It also plays into the hands of the old notion that when a worshipper is sexually joined to a religious prostitute, worshipper and prostitute themselves become the god and the goddess. In other words, to speak of “Our Father and Mother” lands us back into everything that Israel’s prophets fended off on account of the character of Israel’s God. Hymn #280 of Voices United exclaims, “Mother and God, to you we sing; wide is your womb, warm is your wing.” This hymn squares perfectly with the fertility cults of old, together with their sacral prostitutes and their religiously sanctioned promiscuity.

 

II: — As expected, then, Voices United denies the transcendence of God. By transcendence we mean the truth that God is “high and lifted up”, as Isaiah tells us. Later a Hebrew prophet, knowing himself addressed by the holy One Himself, finds seared upon his own mind and heart, “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) God is radically different from His creation, radically other than His creatures.

The distinction between God and His creation is a distinction that scripture never compromises. “It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves”, cries the psalmist. In last week’s sermon I mentioned that the root meaning of “holy” is “set apart” or “different”. God is holy in that He is radically different. God is uniquely God. His creation is other than He, different from Him. To be sure, His creation is good (good, at least, as it comes forth from His hand, even though it is now riddled with sin and evil); but while God’s creation is good it is never God. The creation is never to be worshipped. Idolatry is a horror to the people of God. The creation isn’t God; neither is it an extension of God or an aspect of God or an emanation of God. God remains holy, high and lifted up. He and His creation are utterly distinct. He alone is to be worshipped, praised and thanked. We who are creatures of God are summoned to trust Him, love Him, obey Him, and therein know Him. We are summoned to know God (faith is such a knowing); but we are never summoned to be God. Indeed, the temptation to be God, to be our own lord, our own judge, our own saviour — this is the arch-temptation. Any suggestion that any human activity can render us divine (as is the case with sacral prostitution) is a denial of God’s transcendence. The old hymn known as “The Doxology”, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise Him all creatures here below…”, reflects God’s transcendence. In Voices United, however, “the Doxology” has been altered to “Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise Him all creatures high and low…”. “All creatures here below” affirmed the truth that God is above us; “All creatures high and low” makes no such affirmation. In the mother-goddess mind-set God is no longer radically other than His creation; God is no longer discontinuous with the world; God and the world are a function of each other. Here God is an aspect of the world — which is to say, God (so-called) is useless to the world.

The loss of God’s transcendence is reflected in the psalm selections of Voices United. Of the 141 psalm selections in the book, only 9 retain the name LORD. (When LORD is spelled with every letter capitalized, it translates the Hebrew word YAHWEH, “God”.) Voices United has virtually eliminated “LORD” from the Christian vocabulary. The reason it has done so, according to the hymnbook committee, is because “LORD” is hierarchical and therefore oppressive. The hymnbook committee is correct concerning one matter here: unquestionably “LORD” is hierarchical; God is above us; He is “high and lifted up”; he does transcend us infinitely. But does this make Him oppressive? So far from making Him oppressive, the fact that God is above us is the condition of His being able to bestow mercy upon us. Only if God is above us, only if God transcends us, is He free from us and therefore free to act for us.

The loss of God’s transcendence shouldn’t surprise us in view of the fact that the New Age movement has infected everything in our society, the church not excepted. The New Age movement endorses pantheism (that heresy, says C.S. Lewis, which always tempts the church). Pantheism insists that God is the essence of everything or at least that God is in everything. If God is in everything or the essence of everything, then there is nothing that isn’t God. However, if there is nothing that isn’t God, then evil doesn’t exist, since evil is that which contradicts God and aims at frustrating Him, that which He in turn opposes. And if evil doesn’t exist, then neither does sin, since sin is that expression of evil that has overtaken humans. In other words, the loss of God’s transcendence plunges men and women into a confusion, a maze, where such crucial bearings as sin and evil are lost too.

Yet we are plunged into more than mere confusion; we are plunged into hopelessness. When God’s transcendence is denied, God is unable to judge us (the New Age movement finds this convenient). However, the loss of God’s transcendence also means that God is unable to save us. Only He who transcends the world so as to be able to judge it is also free from the world so as to visit it with mercy. Only the “hierarchical” God can finally be for us. Hierarchy is the condition of God’s helpfulness. The God who isn’t LORD is the God who has been handcuffed.

 

III: — Since God’s transcendence is compromised in Voices United, no one will be surprised to learn that the foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity, is undervalued. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In The Hymnbook the Trinity is referred to in over 50 hymns out of 506. In Voices United the Trinity is referred to twice out of 719 hymns. Plainly, the Trinity has all but disappeared. This is no surprise. After all, if God isn’t to be called “Father”, then God certainly isn’t going to be known as “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.

Why is the doctrine of the Trinity important? How is it foundational to the Christian faith? The question “Who is God?” is a question scripture never answers directly. By way of answering the question “Who is God?” scripture always directs us to two other questions: “What does God do?” and “What does God effect?” “What does God do?” refers us to God’s activity on our behalf, what he does “for us”. “What does God effect?” refers us to God’s activity “in us”.

What does God do for us? He incarnates Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. He redeems His creation in the death of Jesus, restoring its access to Him. He raises Jesus from the dead, vindicating Jesus and declaring him to be sovereign over all, Lord and Messiah.

What does God do in us? He visits us with His Spirit and seals within us all that He has done outside us. He steals over our spiritual inertia and quickens faith. He forgives the sin in us that He had already absorbed for us on the cross. He brings us to submit to the sovereign One whose sovereignty He had declared by raising him from the dead. In short, the God who acts for us in His Son acts in us by His Spirit so that all the blessings provided in the Son may become ours as well.

What God does for us in the Son is known, in theological vocabulary, as Christology. What God does in us through the Spirit is known as pneumatology. Christology and pneumatology add up to theology. Who God is is made known through what He does for us and what He does in us. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In place of the Trinity Voices United speaks of “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer”. But the two expressions are not equivalent. “Father, Son, Spirit” speaks of God’s being, who God is in Himself eternally, as well as of God’s activity, what He does for us and in us in time. “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer”, on the other hand, speaks only of God’s relation to the world in time. According to scripture God’s relation to the world means that He is also judge, sovereign and inspirer. Then instead of “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” we could just as readily say “Judge, Sovereign and Inspirer” — plus ever so many more. We could say them all with equal justification, even as we still wouldn’t be saying what is said by “Father, Son, Spirit”: namely, that God is for us and in us in time what He is in himself eternally, and He is in Himself eternally what He is for us and in us in time.

There is another point to be made here. “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” is sub-personal. But God isn’t sub-personal. God is Person in terms of whom we understand what it means for us to be persons. Again, for this reason, we must call God “Father” even as for reasons already mentioned we mustn’t call God “Mother”.

There is yet another point to be made here. When we speak of God (or speak to God) as “Father, Son, Spirit” we are calling God by that name wherewith He has named Himself. My name is “Victor”. I always introduce myself as “Victor” because I expect to be called Victor. I don’t care to be called “Vic” or “slim” or “mack” or “You, there”. I think it’s only courteous to call me by that name wherewith I name myself.

Surely we can be no less courteous to God. Yet more than a courtesy/discourtesy is at stake concerning God. According to our Hebrew foreparents name means nature. A change of name means a change of nature. “Jacob” means “cheater”; his name is changed to “Israel” — “he who wrestles with God”. Why the name change? Because the man himself has ceased to cheat and has become someone who will wrestle with God for the rest of his life.

To change the name of God from “Father, Son, Spirit” to anything is to repudiate the nature of the true God and to pursue a false god. To trifle with the name of God at all is to reject the One who is our only God and Saviour.

 

IV: — It’s only fair to admit that there are some fine hymns in Voices United. Not only are there fine older hymns, there are also fine newer hymns. The puzzling feature, then, is why they are mixed up together. Why does the one book contain hymns that are unexceptionable as well as those that are heretical and worse?

On second thought I don’t think there’s a puzzle. I think the mix-up is the result of the age-old temptation of syncretism. We human beings are exceedingly uncomfortable when we face a fork in the road anywhere in life. We prefer to “have our cake and eat it too.” We don’t want to have to say “No” to anyone or anything. It’s always easier to include all the options and endorse all the alternatives. We are syncretists in our fallen hearts.

Syncretism is a temptation that has always tempted God’s people. When Joshua, successor to Moses, confronted the people with his ringing challenge, “Choose this day whom you will serve. The deities of the Amorites? The deities of the region beyond the Jordan? Choose! But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!” — plainly Joshua knew that his people could serve either the LORD or the Amorite deities but not both.

As a matter of fact Israel wasn’t customarily tempted to repudiate God; Israel was tempted customarily to combine God and Baal, God and Ashtareh, God and whatever deity the neighbouring nation was extolling. The temptation is easy to understand. God promised His people His fatherly care and protection; Baal promised the people unrestrained licence. Why not have both? Why not have holiness and hedonism at the same time? Holiness guaranteed them access to God, while hedonism guaranteed them endless self-indulgence. Why not have both? Why not have God and mammon? Why not? Because Jesus said it’s impossible. Because the prophets before him said it’s impossible.

All of which brings us to a refrain that reverberates repeatedly throughout God’s history with His people. The refrain is, “I am a jealous God.” God is jealous not in that He’s insecure and He needs to have His ego strengthened; neither is He jealous in that He craves what someone else possesses just because He lacks it. God is “jealous”, rather, in that He insists on our undivided love and loyalty. He insists on our undivided love and loyalty for two reasons. One, since He alone is truly God, He alone is to be worshipped and obeyed. Two, since He alone is truly God, He wants us to find our true wholeness in Him. He knows that since He alone is truly God we shall fragment ourselves if we don’t worship Him alone. He cares too much for us to allow us to fragment ourselves. If we persist in gathering up the gods and goddesses and add the Holy One of Israel for good measure we shall fragment ourselves hopelessly.

Everybody knows that exclusivity is of the essence of marriage. To say that exclusivity is of the essence of marriage isn’t to say that husband and wife live in a universe of two people, ignoring everyone else. But it is to say that at the heart of marriage there is that which can be shared with no one else. Two married people who relish the marvel and the riches their union brings them don’t then say, “Since marriage is so rich with the two of us in it, let’s make it richer still by adding a third person!” So far from enriching a marriage, adding a third person annihilates the marriage. To the extent that exclusivity is of the essence of marriage, then, there is a kind of jealousy that is necessary to marriage.

Israel always knew that “God and…” , “God plus…” meant “not God at all”. Syncretism is fatal to our life in God.

Voices United combines fine hymns and terrible hymns on the assumption, apparently, that “nothing should be left out; no one should feel left out; there should be something here for everybody.” For this reason what we call the “Lord’s prayer” has been re-written, “Our Father and Mother”, even as “Father, Son, Holy Spirit” is retained (twice only) for die-hard traditionalists.

But the one God we are to adore knows that if our hearts go after Him and after some other deity then we shan’t have Him and we shall fragment ourselves utterly. Apart from the folly of our self-fragmentation, He insists on being acknowledged for who He is: the One alongside whom there is no other God, even as the Hebrew language reminds us that the word for “idols” is the word for “nothings”. He is a jealous God, knowing that adding another deity will affect the marvel and richness of our life in Him exactly as adding another party affects the marvel and richness of marriage: it terminates it.

 

V: — What’s at stake in all that has been discussed today? Is only a matter of taste at stake (some people like old-fashioned hymns while others don’t)? Is only a matter of poetical or musical sophistication at stake? What’s at stake here is a matter of life or death, for what’s at stake here is nothing less than our salvation.

As soon as we understand what’s at stake here — everything — we understand the intransigence of our foreparents in matters of faith. Jude insists that we are to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3) Why must we contend for it? Because the faith once for all delivered to the saints is under attack. It is assaulted from without the church and undermined from within the church. The assault from without isn’t unimportant; nevertheless, the undermining from within is far more dangerous. Unless we contend for, fight for, the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the truth of Jesus Christ will be cease to be known.

Peter cautions his readers against false teachers. Peter tells us that false teachers “secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them.” (2 Peter 2:1)

Paul accosts the Christians in Galatia who are already flirting with gospel-denial, “…there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ….Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 1:7; 3:1)

Jude, Peter and Paul aren’t horrified because an alternative religious opinion is being made known; they aren’t heartsick because disinformation is being disseminated; they react as they do inasmuch as they know that where the gospel is diluted, denied, compromised, or trifled with, the saving deed and the saving invitation of God can’t be known. Where the gospel is sabotaged through “destructive heresies”, the salvation of God is withheld from men and women whose only hope is the gospel.

We must be sure we understand something crucial. We don’t contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints because we are quarrelsome people who relish controversy. We don’t contend because we are ill-tempered people are annoyed with anyone who disagrees with us. We don’t contend because we are doctrinal hair-splitters who wish to make conceptual mountains out of molehills. We contend, as apostles and prophets contended before us, because we can’t endure seeing neighbours whom we love denied access to that truth which saves.

Then contend we shall. But of course we can contend properly only if we are discerning. For this reason John writes, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1) Will our discerning, our testing, and our contending prevail, or are we going to be defeated? We shall prevail, for “faith is the victory that overcomes the world.” (1 John 5:4) Once again the apostle John writes, “…you are of God, and have overcome them [the false prophets]; for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

                                       

                                                                     Victor Shepherd

February 1997

 

Why Sing?

Ephesians 5: 18-20

 

I: — Why do we sing hymns at every service of worship? Why do we sing hymns at all? To ask this question is to find ourselves asking another question, “Why sing?” But if “Why sing?”, then also “Why make music? Why dance? Why paint? Why write poetry?”

Let’s begin with the last question. Why write poetry? Wouldn’t prose do as well? No, it would not. Poetry has what prose will never have. There is a density to poetry, a compression, a compactness which prose lacks. There is an immediacy to poetry, an intensity, a passion which prose will never have. Because of the vivid imagery in poetry there is a concreteness to poetry compared to which prose is very abstract. You must have noticed that children do not think abstractly; children think concretely. So do primitive peoples. That’s why poetry comes naturally to children and primitive peoples. Only developed societies use abstract prose. Poetry, like music and dancing, is rooted so deep in the human psyche that it could not be deeper.

Poetry plus music gives us song. We sing inasmuch as our psychic constitution impels us to sing.

And why do we sing hymns? Because God himself has reached into the very deepest depths of our heart. God, after all, is our creator. He has fashioned us in his own image. Luke tells us that all humankind has been made to “feel after” God. In addition, in Jesus Christ God has come upon us, poured himself over us, pressed himself upon us, overwhelmed us and soaked us. Every time he thinks of this St.Paul is startled afresh: “He loved me, and gave himself, for me“. St.John says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead.” Jeremiah exclaims, “The word of the Lord is like fire in my mouth.” The psalmist cries, “The Lord…delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant!” Mary, mother of Jesus, shouts, “My spirit rejoices in God my saviour”.

Something this profound can find expression only in a vehicle which is deeper than deep. The vehicle is poetry and music together. It is no wonder that we sing.

As the gospel informs us we learn the depth of God’s mercy, the extent of God’s patience, the scope of God’s wisdom. All of this stamps itself upon us as Jesus Christ stamps himself upon us. Not surprisingly, then, our hymns come to have a precise content, a rich substance, a specific theme and thrust. Our hymns articulate more exactly that truth of God which has seized us and now sustains us. It is surely obvious now why we sing hymns, and why we shall always sing them.

II: — What kinds of hymns should we sing? Hymns are divided roughly into two kinds: objective and subjective. Objective hymns sing about God, even sing to God. Subjective hymns sing about us. An objective hymn is “Glory be to God the Father, Glory be to God the Son”. A subjective hymn, “O that will be Glory for me”. Many hymns fall in between, embodying elements of both.

Remember, objective hymns sing about God, his person, his truth, his way with us. Subjective hymns sing about us, our moods, our feelings, our aspirations, our response. Now think about this. The New Testament is of one mind that on Calvary’s cross something was done for us, done on our behalf, done, ultimately, by God himself. What was done for us was done in order that something might also be done in us. The order is important. Scripture always moves from the objective to the subjective, from God to us. St.Peter says compactly, “Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness”. Ultimately God did something for us in order that God might consequently do something in us.

If I were to ask you to name the best hymn in the English language concerning the cross, which hymn would you select? Many would select, “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”. But have you ever noticed that this hymn really isn’t about the cross at all. It says nothing about the atonement. It is about the way our attitudes change when we survey the cross. When we. behold the cross we pour contempt on our pride; we count our richest gain but loss; we cease our boasting. These are all appropriate changes of attitude, to be sure. Nevertheless, the hymn is not about what was done for us on Good Friday. The best hymn about what God has effected through the cross, in my opinion, is a Christmas carol: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” Listen to some of the lines:

“Pleased as Man with man to dwell” (an affirmation of the incarnation, the presupposition of the atonement)
“God and sinners reconciled”
“Born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth”
“Light and life to all he brings”.

Let’s sing a stanza or two of each kind of hymn, objective and subjective, to illustrate the difference. The objective hymn is “All hail the power of Jesus’ name”. Note how the music supports the theme of the hymn. The sustained notes stand out just because they are sustained; they support the theme, Crown him Lord of all”. The subjective hymn is “O brother man, fold to thy heart they brother.”

III: — Let me say that there is a place for both kinds of hymns. At the same time we must be careful to retain a proper balance and emphasis. The emphasis has to be on the objective hymn; the balance is that we bracket a subjective hymn by having objective hymns on either side of it. We sang a subjective hymn immediately prior to the sermon today: “Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand.” It is unquestionably subjective: “My sinful self, my only shame, my glory all, the cross.” Yet we began the service with an objective hymn and we shall end with one, as we always do.

Let me tell you of my experience a year or two ago. I was flown to Winnipeg to deliver the annual academic lectures at a bible college. I had never had anything to do with the place; I had never had anything to do with any bible college, and didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived I discovered that the students were not interested in academic lectures at all. Following the lectures I was asked to preach at a chapel service. For the service I selected hymns such as “A safe stronghold our God is still” and “Now thank we all our God”. The students would not sing. They stared at the hymnbook and uttered not a sound. The worship-leader, eager to save the day, jumped in and added half-a-dozen highly subjective ditties of minimal substance and maximal sentiment. Whereupon the students sang with gusto. Do those students think that their consciousness, their feelings are the measure of truth? Do they really want to sing about themselves to the exclusion of singing about God? Do they have more confidence in their own (supposed) piety than they have in the gospel? Do they think their faith is stronger than the Word and grace of God which engendered their faith? I was appalled.

Let me repeat. We should sing subjective hymns, for reasons we shall bring forward in a moment. Yet proper emphasis and balance must be maintained. After all, the gospel did not originate with us; the gospel is the self-disclosure and the self-bestowal of God.

To say that there is a place for subjective hymns is not to say that there is a place for mindless sentimentality. Years ago a hit-parade song had one line repeated endlessly: “All you need is lu-uv, doodely doodely doo”. There is a church equivalent: a ditty which consists principally of one line, and says very little. For instance, “Jesus is my friend/Jesus is my friend/Jesus is my friend/ My very own friend.” In terms of substance it doesn’t come close to the great hymns of the church. It says nothing about who Jesus Christ is, what he does, or what he calls forth from us. It is virtually mindless.

There are subjective hymns, however, which are much better than this; subjective hymns which profoundly gather up and articulate our fears, our guilt, our loneliness, as well as our exhilaration and exclamation — all in the light of the goodness and patience, the truth and triumph of God. These hymns we should sing, and sing every week. For we should be honest about ourselves and give expression to what is going on in our hearts, especially in view of the storms within and the storms without.

Think for a minute about bereavement. While it is not healthy for the bereaved person to be weeping all the time, it is equally unhealthy if the bereaved person never weeps. The person who has suffered enormous loss and yet never has a bad day thereafter is unconsciously denying her grief. What is denied is actually buried, soon festers and eventually causes greater emotional discomfort, distortion and even disability. Hymns which permit us, even encourage us, to express our suffering and sorrow in the light of God’s care are health-giving; they are the vehicle of our outcry to God as we hold up our burden to him.

If a thousand and one stresses are beginning to unravel us it is good to sing, “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto me and rest.'”

When we are newly-acquainted with the bottomless depths of our depravity and we are stunned at how vast a work of restoration remains to be done in us, we shall be glad to sing, “Sin and want we come confessing, Thou canst save and thou canst heal.” When we are feeling abandoned (and who hasn’t felt abandoned) it is good to sing, “O love that wilt not let me go”. When we are so wounded that we are beyond even shedding tears we shall sing, as our foreparents did, “Come ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish”.

In all of this we must never lose sight of one glorious truth: how we feel is no indication of where we are. Believing people are “in Christ”, to use Paul’s favourite expression. Our Lord cherishes and secures us even if we feel we are only minutes away from extinction. We are in Christ, and he will ever bind us securely to him.

A splendid hymn which gathers all of this together is “Jesus, lover of my soul”. Before we sing it I want to say a word about the tune to which the lyrics are set. One tune is in a minor key, the other in a major key. Music in a minor key moves us toward introspection, reflection. Minor-key music is haunting, evocative. Not sentimental in the sense of maudlin, but certainly sober, pensive. I like to sing in minor keys now and then, since there is a place for singing soberly, pensively. At the same time, I am especially pleased when Robin Dalgleish resolves the last chord of a minor-key hymn so that we conclude on a major-key note; our mood then shifts from pensive introspection to affirmation. Let’s sing, “Jesus, lover of my soul”, the first two stanzas in a minor key, the latter two stanzas in a major key.

IV: — You must have noticed that we begin and end every service of worship in Streetsville with objective hymns. When we sing a subjective hymn it is always in the middle. (Remember what I said about emphasis and balance!) Have you ever noticed how the written gospels begin and end? Matthew and Luke begin with the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, Messiah, Saviour and Lord; they end with a narrative of the resurrection. Mark begins with a comment on Christ’s public ministry, and ends with his appearance to startled women. John begins with the foundational Word, with the insistence that the entire creation was made through this Word which became flesh. John ends with the risen one commissioning Peter to feed the flock of God. The written gospels neither begin nor end with people looking in upon themselves, fishing around inside themselves for who knows what. They begin and end with with a ringing declaration of the purpose of God in Christ and the fulfilment of that purpose. Shouldn’t this be the way we begin and end a service of worship?

Look at Paul’s letters. They begin with the apostle’s saying, “Grace and peace”. They end with the very same affirmation. Grace is the faithfulness of God whereby God keeps his promise to be our God and not give up on us. Grace points to God’s mercy-riddled steadfastness. Peace, shalom, is God’s end-time restoration of the creation when everything which contradicts the love of God and the truth of God, everything which harasses God’s people, will be dispelled forever. Every epistle begins and ends with the pronouncement of grace and peace.

What happens in the middle of the epistle? Highly disturbing stuff. In Corinth one parishioner was committing incest and appeared not to be the slightest bit upset about it. Some women in the congregation were dressing like streetwalkers and speaking out with comparable brazenness. Some charismatics were trying to turn the service of worship into an emotional exhibition.

In Galatia some church-members were bent on circumcising everything in sight, thinking that in order to be a Christian you first had to become a Jew. Paul was so angry about this that he boiled over and wrote, “If you are so knife-happy why don’t you go all the way and castrate yourselves?” In Colosse some church folk had decided to go in for asceticism: bizarre diets and silly self-denials, none of which was going to help their discipleship at all.

Nevertheless, at the conclusion of every epistle Paul speaks of grace, and only of grace. In other words, regardless of what silliness is going on in congregational life, however painful the truth he has to tell, however ridiculously some people have skewed the gospel, he concludes it all by commending his people to the faithfulness of their God who has promised never to fail them or forsake them. Isn’t this how we should conclude our service of worship?

V: — This morning it remains for us to hear how we are to sing. We are to sing with the same exuberance, ardour and unselfconsciousness that intoxicated people sing with at a party. Paul noted how many of the townspeople in the city of Ephesus became drunk regularly. He told the Christians in Ephesus that they shouldn’t be filled with fire-water; they should be filled with the Spirit (capital “S”!), “singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”

Centuries earlier still the psalmist had cried, “Sing praises to God, sing praises.” Isaac Watts, perhaps the best hymnwriter in the English-speaking world, said, “Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God.”

F I N I S

                                                                          Victor A. Shepherd

October 1993

 

You asked for a sermon on What Did Paul Really Say About Women?

Ephesians 5: 21-33   Galatians 3:28

 

1] Last year 120 women in Canada were murdered by their husbands (or ex-husbands, lovers or “live-ins”). One-third of these slain women had been raped or strangled or sodomized. Wife-abuse is dreadful I hear of it often; women who have had to leave home on account of the beatings they have endured from their “spouse”. Recently I have heard the stories of women from the more effusive, more demonstrative Christian denominations whose husbands abuse them and then throw Ephesians 5 at them: “Wives, be subject to your husbands…”. Scripture is brought forward to legitimate the shabbiest treatment of a human being who is supposed to be one’s dearest.

Even where there isn’t abuse, the verse from Ephesians is still cited as legitimating the superiority of husband over wife (and by extension, usually, the superiority of male over female). It is assumed now that the husband is boss over his wife; he is chief, master, sovereign, while she in turn is subject, servant, even serf. In any case, he is the ruler and she is the ruled. By extension it is assumed that males ought to be company presidents and females office clerks; males prime ministers and females backbenchers.

When women justly rise up against this they lay much of the blame for it at the feet of St.Paul. Feminists hate him. He is the nasty fellow responsible for any and all notions of inferiority visited upon women.

 

2] Before we deal with the apostle this morning we should glance briefly at the history of the treatment of women. As a matter of fact the treatment accorded women has not been uniformly bad. At different periods of history some societies have been matriarchal; that is, those societies were ruled by women. On the other hand, any society under Arab rule has rendered women shockingly inferior. During the golden age of feudalism (in the middleages) women could own real estate and could serve as lord of the manor. Nevertheless during the 17th century the status of women declined; and during the 19th century it declined abysmally.

In his letter to the church in Galatia (which letter is traditionally known as the charter of Christian liberty) Paul states without qualification that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. Regardless of how any society or any subgroup in a society treats women, in Christ men and women stand on level ground. In Christ there is neither male domination nor female subservience. When the apostle exclaims, “In Christ there is neither male nor female” he is not saying that sexual differentiation has been blurred (men are still men, women still women, and vivez la difference!); he is insisting that in Christ any notion of gender superiority is groundless, false, iniquitous.

The truth is, Paul has been blamed for the social enslavement of women when few people have done as much for their liberation.

 

3] If you doubt this you need only consider the mindset of ancient Greece. Socrates maintained that being born a woman is divine punishment, since a woman is halfway between a man and an animal. To be sure, Socrates did say that a woman could serve in the armed forces — after all, he argued, a female dog is as useful to a shepherd as a male dog.

Aristotle noticed that a swarm of bees is led by one bee in particular; it has to be a king bee, since males are by nature more fit to command than are females. Aristotle maintained that men show their courage by giving orders, while women show their courage by following orders.

In ancient Athens women took no part in public affairs, never appeared with men at meals, never appeared with men on social occasions.

The Greek Stoic philosophers who came after Socrates and Aristotle maintained that women are but a distraction and a temptation.

Things were better in ancient Sparta. In fact at one point Sparta’s women owned two-thirds of the nation’s land. Things were better too in ancient Egypt. But Sparta and Egypt never did influence the world as Athens did.

In the Roman era (following the Greek era) a woman was permitted to accompany her husband socially but was still regarded as humanly inferior.

In Jewish circles it was little better. While the Hebrew bible depicted many women as heroes (Deborah, Ruth, Rahab) rabbinic teaching (that is, the teaching of the rabbis in contrast to the teaching of scripture) generally devalued women. It was regarded improper for a man to speak to a woman in public, even if she were his wife. If a married woman spoke to a man on the street, said the rabbis, her husband could divorce her on the grounds that her conversation was incipient adultery.

 

4] How revolutionary Jesus was! Every day he spoke with women in public. They spoke with him. He included women (both married and single) in his band of disciples. They traipsed around with him and supported him. Scandalous behaviour! He permitted a woman (in public, no less) to wipe his feet with her hair, when a woman whose hair wasn’t tied up was looked upon as a seductress.

Paul certainly knew the gospel accounts of Jesus. Paul certainly knew how revolutionary Jesus had been, and just as certainly he endorsed it. Paul mentions female believers by name — itself part of the Jesus revolution. He speaks of Syntyche and Euodia, two women in the congregation in Philippi “who struggled beside me (not under me!) in the gospel.” These women were on a par with the apostle himself in his ministry. Paul speaks of Prisca and Aquila as “fellowworkers in Jesus Christ.” Prisca and Aquila were a married couple. Two things leap out at us here. One, Paul mentions the woman’s name, Prisca, ahead of her husband’s. (How often do people today refer to the Shepherds as “Maureen and Victor” — in that order?) Two, he addresses her as Prisca, not as Priscilla, Priscilla being a diminutive which, like any diminutive, suggests that someone is not quite grown up. At the conclusion of his Roman letter Paul mentions several church leaders by name, among whom are eight women.

As all of you know, one qualification for being an apostle was to have been an eye-witness of the resurrection of Jesus. Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection. (By the way, in view of this how anyone could question women’s ordination to the ministry is beyond me.) Women regularly preached and prayed aloud in early Christian worship. Women regularly exercised leadership in the earliest church. The revolution which Jesus launched Paul did not stifle. He practiced what he preached. In Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female.

 

5] It is time for us to examine the text which has been misread so widely and which has been the occasion of so much suffering.

(i) The first thing we must notice is really profound: in Ephesians 5 verse 21 precedes verse 22! The instruction to husbands and wives is preceded by the instruction to everyone, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” THIS IS FOUNDATIONAL. Before any puffed-up husband reminds his wife that she is supposed to subject herself to him, he needs to be told that he too is supposed to subject himself to her. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”; this is the foundational statement which controls everything that follows. Mutual subordination, mutual subjection, mutual self-denial is what the gospel requires of every Christian.

Males who think they can use the text as a pretext for abusing their wives or coercing women must understand one thing: “be subject to” does not mean “obey” (see below). Paul never says that a wife is to obey her husband.

(ii) Second point. When Paul says that the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, domineering males conclude that since Christ is sole, sovereign lord of the church, therefore the husband is sole, sovereign lord of his wife. Not so! Nevertheless, Paul certainly maintains that there is a similarity between Christ’s being head of the church and the husband’s being head of his wife. There is an aspect to Christ’s headship which is the model for the husband’s headship. It’s clear, isn’t it, that our understanding of this passage hinges on our understanding of the meaning of “head” and the meaning of the verb “subject”.

In everyday English “head” can mean literally that part of my body which is attached to my neck, or it can mean figuratively chief, boss, director, commander, controller, ruler, governor. The head-waiter is the fellow who bosses the other waiters. The head of the Royal Bank is the chief of the bank whose word has to be obeyed.

The Greek word Paul uses for head is KEPHALE. It literally means that part of the body which is attached to the neck. But KEPHALE never means, even figuratively, chief or ruler or boss. The Greek word which means chief or ruler or boss is ARCHON — and Paul never says that the husband is the ARCHON, ruler or boss, of his wife. Never! He says, figuratively, that the husband is the KEPHALE of his wife.

Then what is the figurative meaning of KEPHALE? Figuratively, KEPHALE means source of being, origin of being; it does NOT mean someone of superior rank. Jesus Christ is head of the church in that he is the source of the church’s being, the origin of the church’s existence. When Paul says that the husband is head of the wife he has in mind the second creation saga in Genesis 2. There the man or husband is spoken of as the source or origin of the woman’s existence. (In the first creation saga man and woman are created together. In the second, however, woman is made from man (from his rib). Man is the source of woman’s life. (Paul refers to the second creation saga elsewhere in his epistles.)) His point here is that she “comes” from him, NOT that the husband is the wife’s boss or commander or ruler.

The older testament was first written in Hebrew, later translated into Greek for the benefit of Jews who didn’t know Hebrew (most of them). Paul knows Hebrew (he was trained by Rabbi Gamaliel); yet Paul always quotes the o.t. in Greek, there being little point in quoting it in a language his readers could not understand (Hebrew).

Now the Hebrew word for head is ROSH. Where head (ROSH) has the force of chief, ruler, boss, commander, etc., the Greek o.t. uses ARCHON. Where ROSH has the force of “source of life” or even “example” (a meaning found in military contexts) it customarily uses KEPHALE. Paul speaks of the husband as the KEPHALE of his wife, never as the ARCHON of his wife.

The predominant theme of Ephesians is the unity of Christ and his people. (It is not to be denied that Christ is ruler or sovereign over the church. But this is not the theme of the epistle.) This predominant theme — unity — forms the context of the passage under discussion. Paul emphasizes this unity between husband and wife and between Christ and the church by quoting Genesis 2:24 (“Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh”) in Ephesians 5:31-32: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. This is a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the church.”

KEPHPALE, “head”, is also used figuratively in military contexts to speak of the front-line soldier who is first in line of fire: the shock-troop in World War I who was first over the top, absorbing enemy fire, the G.I. in World War II who was first on the Normandy beach on D-Day. Today we would say the point man. During the unpleasantness on the Oka reserve two summers ago an officer of the Canadian Army walked deliberately, purposefully, toward the native barricades telling his armed foes that he and his men were moving down the road, barricades or not. The officer who was out in front incurred the greatest risk. In fact he was defenceless. He was the head soldier. It is precisely in this sense that Paul uses the military analogy of head, KEPHALE. All of us know that Paul was exceedingly fond of military metaphors. He loved to compare the Christian life to soldiering.

The husband is head of his wife, then, in the sense that he is like that soldier who incurs the greatest vulnerability, the greatest risk, who is most self-forgetful — all for the sake of others. The husband is head of his wife in that he renounces all concern for safety and self-protection for the sake of his wife. (The husband is head of his wife in that he is willing to “take in on the chin” for her.) Note what Paul says in verse 23: “For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, his body, and is its saviour.” To be sure, Jesus Christ is both Saviour and Lord. But the one aspect of Jesus Christ to which Paul refers in this discussion is Christ’s saviourhood. As saviour, Jesus renounced all security, safety, self-protection. For the sake of his people, the church, he incurred extraordinary vulnerability. This is what the husband must do for his wife. Remember, the husband is head of his wife not in the sense of ARCHON, ruler, chief, boss, but in the sense of KEPHALE, the soldier who will incur extraordinary risk for the sake of those to whom he has pledged himself.

(iii) What about the word “subject”? What does it mean? It does not mean “obey”. The Greek verb “to obey” is HUPAKOUO. Paul uses it frequently. He maintains for instance, that children are to obey their parents. BUT NOWHERE DOES PAUL SAY THAT A WIFE IS TO OBEY HER HUSBAND. The verb “be subject to” is HUPOTASSO. It means to give of oneself, even to give of oneself sacrificially. It means to renounce oneself, deny oneself, surrender one’s rights for the sake of someone else. But it does not mean to lie down in front of a brute and say, “Step on me”. Christians recognize that other people — all sorts of other people — have a claim on us. Our spouses therefore have a claim on us too. To be subject to someone is to recognize that that person has a claim on us. The Christian wife recognizes that her husband has a claim on her. He is a needy person; she has resources for helping him. He should be able to count on her help. She must be willing to deny herself for the sake of her needy husband. But this never means “You have licence to abuse me”.

The verb “be subject to” (HUPOTASSO) also has a military background. Imagine a platoon of soldiers moving through enemy territory. Every soldier in the platoon has been trained for a task which is essential to the wellbeing of the entire platoon. If one soldier hangs back, then the entire platoon is endangered. A soldier who did this and then tried to excuse himself on the grounds that he was trying to protect himself, that it wasn’t in his interests to expose himself to risk, that his first concern was to guarantee his own survival — such a soldier would be reminded quickly that it was his responsibility to subject himself to his platoon-mates. He should suspend his self-interest for the sake of his mates who need him. He should support them, do whatever he can to help them, demonstrate his allegiance to them.

The wife is to subject herself to her husband not in the sense of being docile or wimpish or self-deprecating, but rather by recognizing his claim upon her — just as the church subjects itself to Christ and demonstrates its allegiance to him. The wife is to support her husband, do whatever she can to help him, not let him down. And she does this willingly and gladly. But it’s not a matter of gritting one’s teeth and submitting oneself to a brute. No wife is called to submit to a brute. Glad self-renunciation has nothing to do with docile self-victimization.

We must be sure to notice that not only does Paul urge wives to subject themselves to their husbands; he also urges husbands to love their wives. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The word Paul uses for love, AGAPAO, means self-bestowal, self-giving, at whatever cost. It is the word used in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave…(himself)…”. The husband who loves his wife to the point of giving himself up for her is precisely the husband who is not going to brutalize his wife or insist that she remain under his thumb.

 

6] I want to remind you again that it is not to be denied that Jesus Christ is sovereign over the church, its sole ruler and lord. But this truth is not the theme of the Ephesian letter. The theme here is the unity of Christ and his people. The theme of the passage we are discussing today is the unity of husband and wife. Paul underscores the theme of unity by quoting Genesis 2:24: “‘…a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church…”. “The two shall become one.” There is no suggestion of hierarchy in the Genesis passage Paul quotes; here; neither is there any suggestion of hierarchy in the Ephesian passage Paul himself writes.

 

7] I am aware that you asked for a sermon on what Paul really said about women, not merely what he said about wives. There are other texts therefore which we shall have to examine (for instance, the issue of hats and hair-styles). But this will have to wait for another day.

 

8] The apostle’s last word to us today is the first line of the passage we have been examining: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Husband and wife alike recognize the other’s claim in the other’s need, and want only to help at whatever cost.

                                                                 

                                                                       Victor A. Shepherd                                         

January 1993

 

 

You asked for a sermon on The Armour of God

Ephesians 6:10-20

 

I: — “Rational animal”, said Aristotle. Human beings are rational animals. Aristotle maintained that our rationality distinguishes us from pigs and goats and horses.

From a biblical perspective, however, we are not distinguished as rational animals (after all, apes have a measure of rationality) but rather as spirit-animals. We’re animals to be sure, for according to the ancient creation sagas the animals and we human beings were created on the same “day”. We differ from them however, in that we are the only animal-creatures whom God addresses. Not the only creatures whom God loves, but the only creatures to whom God speaks. God speaks to us, and his speaking to us enables us to respond; even more, his speaking to us moves us to respond. When God speaks to us he expects a response from us. We are response-able, and because we are response-able we are also response-ible; responsible to God, accountable to God. In all of this what distinguishes us from the animals is spirit. Human beings are primarily creatures of spirit.

 

II: — To say that we are primarily creatures of spirit is to say that we live, ultimately, in a world of spirit. Which is to say in turn that conflicts in our world are ultimately spiritual conflicts. Most profoundly, our world is not the scene of competing economic forces (although there certainly are competing economic forces.) Ultimately the world is not the venue of contradictory ethical theories, ultimately not the theatre of clamouring historical movements. The world is finally the scene of spiritual conflict, intense spiritual conflict: a conflict, in fact, which claims victims every day.

Those who do not grasp this are fools, scripture tells us. They are already victims in the conflict and don’t know it. If you and I are going to survive spiritual warfare, thrive amidst it, even triumph in it, then we must understand what Paul means when he says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood”. Listen to J.B. Phillips — “For our fight is not against any physical enemy; it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil.” Next the apostle tells us that we have to stand. He repeats himself: stand! He means several things. “Stand up to the powers; defy them.” He also means, “Withstand them; don’t succumb!” He even means, “Stand up and be counted; let everyone know where you stand.”

If we don’t see the need to stand in this three-fold sense then we are naive; we are unwitting victims of “the unseen power that controls this dark world.”

The apostle insists that the entire cosmos is shot through with evil. No institution is spared. “Organizations and powers that are spiritual”, is how he puts it; these organizations and powers are influenced by “the unseen power that controls this dark world”.

In other words, not just economics or history or politics but spirit; spirit lies behind Wal-Mart, the University of Toronto, Credit Valley Hospital, the new government of Indonesia, the Canada Council. Spirit (good or bad or both) lies behind the Ku Klux Klan, but also behind the Afro-American organizations which oppose it; behind the Mafia, to be sure, but also behind the Canadian Red Cross; behind the National Hockey League and the National Ballet and the Canadian Medical Association.

It sounds vast: the entire cosmos seethes with spirit. But not only is it vast; it is also pinpointedly individual, microcosmically personal. Spiritual conflict occurs in individuals every bit as much as in organizations and institutions.

Think of the Ford Motor Company when individuals in the Ford family did everything they could to prevent autoworkers from organizing. Harry Bennett, a tough guy from the U.S. Navy, was the liaison person between the Ford Motor Company and the underworld. The Ford family hired Bennett for more than running errands and delivering cars, however. Bennett was hired to beat up anyone who tried to organize the autoworkers. Walter Reuther, the first president of the United Autoworkers, together with his brother, was beaten so badly that they had to be hospitalized for six months.

When Ralph Nader let it be known that General Motors automobiles were structurally unsafe and GM wasn’t going to do anything about it, GM executives had Nader tailed by private detectives night and day, hoping to catch him in an indiscretion for which they could blackmail him and destroy him.

Do you think that education is spiritually neutral? The ministry of education’s outlook, the curriculum it develops and assigns to school, the societal and individual ends toward which it moulds student; there’s nothing neutral about this. Foundational to any ministry of education is what it deems to be the educational good. The ministry of education is an aspect of the provincial government. The government has been elected by the people and wants to be re-elected. At the same time it is subject to immense pressures from assorted lobby-groups. What finally surfaces in our children’s classrooms is a compromise that accommodates, in varying proportions, the mindset of the electorate, the notions of educational theorists, the specific interests of lobby-groups, and the drift of a society that is drifting farther and farther from its Christian roots. None of this is spiritually neural.

Yet lest we think that only “organizations and powers” are involved we must look to ourselves. What about us? It is to you and to me that the apostle speaks concerning “the devil’s craftiness”. Of course we can be tempted, even seduced, at our point of greatest weakness. I need elaborate no further, since temptation or seduction at our point of weakness we usually recognize quite readily. But we are in equal danger of being tempted or seduced craftily at our point of greatest strength. At our weak point we are in danger of falling flat on our face. (Not much demonic craftiness is needed to bring us down.) At our strong point we are in danger of becoming self-important and therefore self-deluded, vain, contemptuous of others and defiant of God; in short, spiritually blind. The evil one can get us where we are weak and where we are strong, and get us with equal ease. Which is to say we can be got ridiculously easily. We are much more vulnerable than we think we are.

 

III: — Then the only thing to do is to put on the whole armour of God

[1] The first item, says Paul is the belt of truth. The belt which the Roman soldier wore was a wide piece of thick leather. It protected his lower abdomen and prevented him from being disembowelled.

Truth is the truth of the gospel; the substance of the gospel. It is the substance of the gospel which gives us substance, something in our belly. Without such substance we shall always lack stomach for spiritual conflict.

The Hebrew bible (which Paul knew backwards) speaks of both the truth of God and “truth in our inward parts”. What else are our inward parts except guts, the very thing which the leather belt protects? The substance of the gospel, truth, lends us substance; and this in turn fortifies us.

[2] The second piece of armour is the breastplate of righteousness (righteousness in this context being the integrity possessed of the person rightly related to our Lord.) The breastplate protected the soldier’s heart. According to biblical metaphor our heart is the control centre for willing, feeling, and discerning. Integrity or righteousness protects our personal control centre. Not the integrity of self-made moral achievement; the integrity, rather, which comes through having Jesus Christ, the righteous one, ruling within us.

When I was a child I relished playing with my gyrotop. When the gyrotop was spinning ever so quickly I could place it on a taut string or a needlepoint and it would stand upright. Regardless of how the string was moved around; regardless of the motion of the string or needle and their quickly changing angles, the top remained upright. Its orientation never changed.

A gyrotop is only a toy. A gyrocompass, on the other hand, is for real. In World War II all submarines were equipped with a gyrocompass. It too spun at startling speed: thousands of revolutions per second. When the submarine was submerged, without radio contact or celestial navigation, the gyrocompass kept it on course. If the submarine was depth-charged and knocked about violently, the gyrocompass reset the course automatically. Without it the submarine would be lost. One hundred men cramped in a steel tube 300 feet down — and everything depending on a small item which maintained constant orientation however violent the turbulence.

Righteousness, integrity — Paul compares it to the breastplate which protected the soldier’s heart. Righteousness, or integrity, protects the control-centre of every Christian.

[3] Shoes, the third item in the Christian’s armour. Did it ever occur to you that the best-trained foot-soldier is only as good as his shoes? What good is a foot-soldier whose feet hurt so much he can’t walk?

Roman soldiers were known for their endurance, their long marches. One of Caesar’s most effective tactics was to keep his men marching when everyone else thought his men would be hunkered down, soaking blistered feet in a basin. But the feet of Caesar’s soldiers didn’t blister; neither did the men become unduly fatigued. Their footwear was better than that. Roman soldiers wore sandals, lightweight sandals made of rawhide. The shoes were light, flexible, resilient. Don’t we need shoes like that: light, flexible, resilient?

“How long do you think you can keep going?” I am asked this question by dispirited pastors and amazed United Church members every day. “Are you in it for the long haul?” I can answer all such questions are three words: light, flexible, resilient.

The shoes, which the Christian wears, are “the gospel of peace”. By “peace” Paul doesn’t mean primarily “peace in my heart”. He means shalom, the kingdom of God, God’s end-time resolution of cosmic conflict when the evil one, now defeated, is finally destroyed and will no longer afflicts God’s creation. The gospel promises this and even now anticipates it. Because I believe the promise, and because my feet are shod with the gospel (which is to say, I’ve already tasted the end-time resolution), I can keep going for as long as breath remains in me. Light, flexible, resilient.

[4] The shield of faith. It quenches fiery darts, says the apostle. One day some enemies of Rome dipped arrows in pitch, set the pitch on fire, and then shot the flaming arrows at Roman soldiers who were still 100 metres away. The arrows stuck fast in the wood and leather shield the soldier carried, and ignited it. As soon as the soldier dropped his burning shield, the next volley of arrows killed him. The solution was simple. Soak the shield in water before the battle. The flaming arrows hissed out, and the Roman line advanced.

Every soldier carried his shield on his left arm. It protected 2/3 of his body, plus 1/3 of the body of the fellow on his left. In other words, every soldier was responsible for affording a measure of protection to his colleague.

“Be sure you take faith as your shield”, Paul insists. We must take faith as our shield, not only because faith extinguishes the flaming missiles by which we are assaulted, but also because each person’s faith affords a measure of protection to others in the congregation. If I don’t take the shield of faith, you will be uncommonly exposed to the evil one’s assault on account of my negligence. In this congregation we owe each other as much protection as we can give each other. After all, we are not isolated strugglers; we are a congregation, a community, a fellowship.

[5] The helmet of salvation. The helmet protects the head. A soldier’s head is vulnerable. In modern infantry engagements 90% of fatal wounds are head wounds. A soldier is more likely to perish through head wounds than through any other kind of injury. The head is crucial.

It is the head which thinks. And it’s important to think. Jesus insists that we love God with our mind. And when Jesus heals the disturbed fellow who runs around in the graveyard mutilating himself, the townspeople find the fellow in his right mind. Paul tells the Christians in Rome that they must not be conformed to the mindset of the world around them; they must be transformed by the renewal of their mind. J.B.Phillips again: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed.” Either our thinking is renewed at the hand of God or we are stuck in that mindset which blindly keeps on rationalizing the delusions and depravities of a world which contradicts the truth of God every day.

Peter urges us to “gird up our minds”. The usual expression is gird up one’s loins. In ancient Palestine people wore calf-length robes. If they had to do something vigorous, they picked up the back of their robe, brought it forward between their legs, and tucked it into their belt. People girded their loins when they were about to do one of three things: work, run, or fight. To gird up our minds means that we must think vigorously; and our thinking has to tell us whether we are to work, flee, or resist. It takes wisdom to survive, even triumph, in the midst of spiritual conflict. Wisdom means knowing when it is appropriate, even needful, to work, flee or resist.

[6] Lastly, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. The sword, be it noted, is an offensive weapon. The sword of the Spirit (God’s Spirit) is the only offensive weapon the Christian has. Furthermore, it must be noted again that this offensive weapon which God empowers is the word of God or the gospel. The only offensive weapon you and I have and therefore can wield is the gospel.

To say that we wield the gospel is simply to say that the Christian community does not huddle in a corner, a pathetic in-group doing its best to protect itself in a bleak world. To wield the gospel means that we announce and embody the truth of God and the redemption of God and the undeflectability of God at all times and in all places. When Paul wrote the Ephesian letter he was in prison. He didn’t like being in prison, but he also knew that the gospel can be announced and embodied in any setting, and a prison setting is as good as any other.

When, earlier in our century, the Soviet government rounded up thousands of Christians and packed them off to Siberia, these people didn’t exactly laugh. But once in Siberia, hardships and all, they joked with each other that the Russian government, vehemently atheist, had finally funded a Christian mission to the Russian north. The gospel-witness which those cheerful Christians bore there has borne fruit beyond anything anyone could have imagined.

When Paul was imprisoned in Rome the Christian community there was tiny. Five house-churches — 75 Christians? — in a city of one million. Yet Paul had wanted to get to Rome for years just because Rome was the seat of influence throughout the civilized world. At last he got to Rome. His accommodation wasn’t exactly what he had had in mind. But at least he was in Rome. And there he would wield the sword of the Spirit, the gospel, the only offensive weapon the Christian has.

How fruitfully did he wield the gospel? We have just spent 20 minutes being fortified for our struggle by the letter he wrote from prison. How much more fruitful could he be?

Seventy-five Christians in a city of one million. But no self-pity, no poor-meism. Merely a conviction that the armour God provides for God’s people in their spiritual conflicts God’s people must put on. And having put on defensive armour, God’s people must go on the offensive with the sword of the gospel, which sword will win greater victories than any Roman army ever imagined.

 

                                                                                         Victor Shepherd
June, 1998     

Discipleship: Not Warfare Only, But Warfare Always

    Ephesians 6:10-20      1 Timothy 6:12      2 Timothy 4:7

 

The Roman soldier was the most hated person in first century Palestine. He personified everything Jewish people hated about the occupation and its detestable army. Not only had Jewish people been deprived of political self-determination, they had to be reminded of it every time the uniformed soldier marched by. In addition, they couldn’t do a thing about the arbitrary power the soldier wielded. The soldier could compel an Israelite to do anything at all. If a soldier barked, “Carry my pack!”, you put down your bag of groceries as fast as you could; you said, “Yes, sir”, and you carried his pack for as long and as far as he told you. Otherwise he might just tickle your tonsils with his sword. What grated most on Jewish people, however, was the Roman disregard of everything Jewish people held sacred, such as the temple in Jerusalem. Only the high priest entered the holy of holies, the innermost room of the temple, and even the high priest did so only once per year, on the day of atonement. General Pompey, however, had tramped around in it in his muddy boots, then had walked back outside with a smirk and had announced that he hadn’t seen a thing in the unadorned cubby-hole, never mind the God that Jews were always talking about. He had made no secret of the fact that as far as he was concerned the holy of holies was of no more significance than an outhouse. Roman soldiers were loathed.

Nevertheless, whenever Jesus spoke of them in the course of his earthly ministry he spoke well of them. A Roman officer said to him, “I am an officer; when I speak people jump. You have authority too; I know you have. My servant is sick unto death; if you but speak the word your word will free him and he will be healed”. Jesus looked around at the crowd of spectators who were disgusted that he would even speak to a soldier and said to them, “I haven’t found anything approaching this fellow’s faith among the lot of you, and you think you are God’s favourites!”

Needless to say no Jew, and therefore no Jewish Christian, would ever have wanted to join the Roman army. But no gentile Christian could. All Roman soldiers had to promise unconditional loyalty to the emperor, and no Christian could agree to this. Isn’t it startling, then, that since soldiering was alien to both Jewish Christians and gentile Christians, the apostles used pictures from soldiering to speak of Christian discipleship! Paul especially compared following Jesus to military existence over and over. Plainly he admired much about the men whom everyone else despised; plainly he saw many aspects of soldiering which the Christian must take to heart.

Today we are going to look at one or two such aspects, examine the military metaphors, in order that our discipleship might be made more resilient and of greater service to our Lord.

 

I: — The first point is simple: the soldier is trained to fight. A soldier may do other things, will do other things (such as help civilians in times of natural disaster, or search for lost children); but these tasks are ancillary to the one task for which the soldier is trained preeminently: fighting. In the same way discipleship isn’t fighting only (there are other things we do); nevertheless, discipleship is fighting always. Faith never ceases having to fight.

Faith — yours and mine — has to be contended for every day. To be sure faith is God’s gift; we can never bestow it upon ourselves. At the same time that it is God’s gift, however, faith is that for which we must struggle and contend every day. Every day faith is assaulted, and therefore every day I must resolve afresh that this day I am going to think, believe, do as a servant and soldier of Jesus Christ. Not to fight for faith every day is to succumb to despair; not to contend for faith is to fall into hopelessness; it is to surrender to the world’s way of thinking, believing, doing; it is to “go with the flow”, drift downstream, finally drift on out where the lost are drowned.

This isn’t to say that each day brings an intensity to the struggle that couldn’t be more intense. There are days like that, to be sure, as well as days — many more them — which are much less intense. But there are no days when the Christian can coast. If we are unconvinced that we must fight for faith then we should look at our Lord himself. First in the wilderness, where he is tested to the breaking point: is he going to deceive the people with bread and circuses and guarantee himself a popularity and a following he will never have by holding up the way of the cross? is there a pain-free shortcut to the kingdom of God? is obedience to his Father no more demanding than a snooze in a rocking chair? Then see our Lord again in Gethsemane: sweat pours off his forehead as though he had received a fifty-stitch gash. Then see him on the cross. He quotes Psalm 22. It begins, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As he hangs he is still fighting for faith. You see, he knew what he was doing when he cited Psalm 22 as his affirmation of faith, for verse 24 of the psalm declares, “God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and God has not hid his face from the afflicted one, but God has heard when the afflicted one cried to God“. Our Lord’s confidence in his Father is undiminished at the last; but what a struggle to get to the last!

Henry Farmer, a British philosopher whom I read in my undergraduate days, was preaching in an English church during World War II. He was preaching on God’s love for us. A Polish fellow who had escaped to England when Poland was overrun waited behind to see Farmer after the service. “Like you, I know what it is to be loved by God”, the Polish man said, “unlike you, however, I know what it is to struggle for it when the blood of one’s dearest friends is running in the gutter on a cold winter’s morning”.

I have sat with tragedy-racked people whose tragedy should have rendered faith forever impossible, according to the psychologists. Yet they hung on, groped for a while, floundered a while longer, began to claw their way out of the emotional rubble which seemed to be suffocating them, and persisted until they could finally say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”.

Paul writes to Timothy, a younger minister, “Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called; seize this life!” Note carefully: the apostle does not say, “Fight a good fight” — this would mean, “Give it a good go, my boy, and do your best”. “Fight the good fight of faith”. Faith is the fight which we shall always have to wage in a world of unbelief, which world forever wants to render us blind, impotent unbelievers ourselves.

Faith, you see, is not only that which we must fight for; faith is also that which we must fight from. The faith we fight for is the standpoint we then fight from as we contend with everything which hammers us day-by-day. Christians, possessed by the One who is ultimate reality, engage a world of falsehood and illusion. Clinging to the righteousness of Christ, we are immersed in the world’s morass of sin, both subtle and shabby. Desiring no other leader than the one who has made us his through his costliest mercy, we journey with him in a world where he is either not recognized or not esteemed but in any case rarely espoused. Now either we fight in this environment and thrive, or we capitulate and disappear.

Frequently I remind you people of the misunderstandings which surround Jesus (the misunderstanding, for instance, he was always and everywhere “nice”; nothing could be farther from the truth). Another misunderstanding is that the Prince of Peace wants peace at any price. This notion, of course, is patently ridiculous since peace-at-any-price types never get crucified, since they never offend anyone. From the day his public ministry began Jesus was immersed in conflict without letup, as the sketchiest reading of the written gospels will disclose.

Yet because the misunderstanding persists — “Jesus calls us away from conflict” — conflict is the one thing that UCC members fear above all else. We fear conflict more than we fear heresy, more than we fear blasphemy, more than we fear falsehood, more than we fear illogical gibberish, more than we fear outright denial of our Lord. We fear conflict so much, and so dread a fight (not understanding, of course, that faith is a fight) that we will submerge convictions concerning holiness, righteousness and godliness. Congregational capitulation on matters which congregations oppose in their hearts proves this.

The earliest Christian confession, and the most elemental Christian confession, is “Jesus is Lord”. But you will look in vain for it in any official UCC publication. It is now deemed offensive (for many reasons) to say “Jesus is Lord”. The earliest Christians knew better than we just how offensive it was — for they were willing to die for it. I have watched lay-representatives from different congregations march off to presbytery determined to speak up on behalf of the congregations which have commissioned them. They are ten minutes into the presbytery meeting when a presbytery leader (usually clergy) suggests that their outlook is narrow, bigoted, uninformed, cruel, anti-Christian. Either the lay-representative asserts himself or he caves in. If he asserts himself he has a fight on his hands; but all his life he has been told that Christians don’t fight; therefore he caves in — and unrighteousness has triumphed again. If the fifty largest congregations had contended the way this congregation did in 1988 and in 1990 the face on the denomination would be entirely different. Yes, I am aware that the person who is always looking for a fight is sick; I am aware too that the person who is always fleeing a fight is faithless. Before our Lord brings peace he brings conflict. His own ministry demonstrates this.

“Fight the good fight of faith”, Paul tells the younger man, “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called; seize it!” We fight for faith and we fight from it. We fight for faith as we are assaulted by unbelief and are tempted to despair; we fight from faith as we follow our Lord as he invades a rebellious world.

 

II: — Since Christians cannot avoid life-long fighting we plainly need life-long armour. Paul explores the military metaphor once again (this time in his letter to the congregation in Ephesus) as he speaks of “the whole armour of God”. We need the whole armour of God, all of it, if ever we are going to do what he insists all Christians must do; namely, “withstand in the evil day”. (We should note in passing that since the day (ie, the present time) is evil, and since Christians neither capitulate to evil nor compromise with it, therefore conflict is both unavoidable for Christians and unending.)   In other words to be a Christian in the midst of “this present darkness”(Eph.6:12) be means that our Lord has not co-opted us for a “work bee”; he has conscripted us for warfare. Nothing less than the whole armour is needed.

The first item of armour which the apostle mentions is truth. We are to gird our loins with truth. In first century Palestine men wore an ankle-length garment. When a man “girded his loins” he reached back between his legs, pulled the back of his garment up between his legs and tucked it into his belt. He did this whenever he was about to work, run or fight. Battle dress for the Roman soldier on the other hand (and Paul is thinking here of soldiers particularly) didn’t include an ankle-length garment. Strictly speaking that which girded the soldier’s loins wasn’t part of his armour; it was his underwear which he wore beneath his armour. (Now precisely the nature of the underwear which the soldier wore as loin-girder I shall leave to your imagination, since I am known for my delicacy and refinement. Suffice it to say, however, that no male athlete is ever found without it.) The loin-girder which the Christian is always to be clothed in, says Paul, is truth. Truth is the Christian’s underwear: not flaunted, not flashy, but essential support for those who have to fight.

When the apostle speaks of truth he has two meanings in mind: truth in the sense of truthfulness (transparency, straightforwardness), as well as truth in the sense of the verities of the faith, the substance of the faith, doctrine. The Christian’s loins are to be girded with truth in both senses. We are possessed of the truth of faith, and we are transparent in attesting it before others.

In the ancient world the loins were regarded as the seat of strength and the seat of reproduction. It is only as the Christian is equipped with truth in both senses that the Christian herself remains strong in the evil day and that her witness gives birth to new Christians who do not fail to thrive in an inhospitable environment. Remember: before the Roman soldier put on a single piece of armour he put on his underwear, he girded his loins. The apostle insists that the most elemental aspect, the most basic aspect of the Christian’s preparedness is a grasp of the truth and a truthfulness which is transparent to it.

 

We haven’t time to probe every aspect of Roman armour outlined in Ephesians 6. Still, we shouldn’t leave this topic without looking at the single most important defensive item (the shield) and the single most important offensive weapon (the sword).

“Take the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one”; all the flaming arrows. The worst military defeat a Roman army suffered occurred when enemy archers ignited their pitch-dipped arrows and fired one volley into the air, like modern-day mortar fire. These arrows rained down on the Roman troops as they held their shields above their heads. Whereupon the enemy archers fired a second volley straight ahead. The Roman soldiers could not protect themselves against attack from two directions at once. In addition, whatever flaming arrows they managed to block with their wooden shield promptly set their shield on fire and they had to drop it. Now they were completely defenceless and were slaughtered.

From how many directions is the Christian assaulted at once? And how many different flaming arrows are there? There is false guilt, imposed by a world which mocks Christians for being less than perfect. There is the self-accusation which lingers from an upbringing which thought that magnifying a supposed sense of sin would magnify a sense of God’s mercy, only to find that the latter never got magnified. There is the temptation which can fall on any one of us at any time and leave us weak-kneed, so vivid and visceral can temptation be. There is disillusionment as other Christians let us down; discouragement as we let ourselves down, bewilderment as we wonder how many more attacks we can sustain from how many more directions. Faith, says the apostle, and faith alone, faith in our victorious Lord will ever keep us from going down. We shall neither be burned up slowly by the flaming arrows nor be left bleeding to death quickly. The shield was the soldier’s most important piece of defensive armour. The shield of faith finally defends Christ’s people against everything which tends to sunder them from him.

The only offensive weapon Paul mentions is the sword; “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”, is how he speaks of it. The Christian individually and Christians collectively must ever wield the gospel only. The church of Jesus Christ must never coerce; the only offensive weapon we have is the Word of God (the gospel) in the power of the Spirit. And if the advance of the gospel seems turtle-like and the power of the Spirit largely ineffective, too bad! The church has always behaved its worst when it forgot this and coerced people. It has coerced them militarily, coerced them economically, coerced them psychologically. Today I hear it lamented that in a secular era the church has no clout. No clout? Whoever said we were supposed to have clout? We are called to crossbearing, not to clout-clobbering. After all, it is the crucified one who reminds disciples that no servant is above her master. Because the church is no longer in a position to coerce in any way Christ’s people will have to learn what it is once again to have nothing more in our hand than Spirit-infused-gospel.

In any case the Christian whose underwear is truth, whose defence is faith, and whose only offensive weapon is the gospel is equipped for anything which may befall him in the evil day.

 

III: — If you are growing weary of a sermon which explores the metaphor of fighting, be weary no longer: relief is on the way, for no soldier fights for ever. The day comes when fighting is over. It comes sooner for some soldiers than for others, but one thing is certain: we shan’t have to fight eternally. When Paul knew that the Roman government had had enough of him, knew it was going to execute him, knew he couldn’t delay it any longer, he said simply, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” His fighting days were over; he knew it, and he was glad of it.

How glad? He wrote to Timothy, a young minister, “The time of my departure has come”. Departure. ANALUSIS. A common Greek word. In everyday speech ANALUSIS was the word for unhitching a draft horse from the wagon it had hauled throughout the heat of the day; no more toil to be endured, no more strain, just rest.

It was also the word for loosening the ropes of a tent. The apostle who had journeyed across Asia Minor and Europe was striking camp again, with one journey only in front of him, and nothing at all arduous or threatening about this one.

It was also the word for unfastening the mooring ropes of a ship as the ship began its voyage home.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; the time of my departure has come.” Departure. ANALUSIS. Rest from fatiguing work, folding one’s tent for the final journey, slipping one’s moorings for the voyage home.

 

In a day when soldiers were loathed and soldiering was despised the apostles followed our Lord in finding in soldiers and soldiering a rich picture of Christian discipleship. We must fight the good fight of faith, fight for faith and fight from faith, every day. We must be equipped with the whole armour of God, since we have to withstand in the evil day. Truth, faith and gospel are as much armour as we shall ever need. And then there comes the day when we shan’t need any armour at all, for this time the soldier has gone home.

 

                                                                                                   Victor A. Shepherd

November, 1992

What is a Christian ?

            Ephesians 6:21-24        Isaiah 49: 13-18     Luke 7:36-50

 

Why do people ask “What is a Christian?” They ask because they aren’t sure, and they aren’t sure because there’s confusion as to how a Christian is to be defined. I watched an Irish clergyman on a TV program insist that IRA terrorists couldn’t be Christians because of their habit of “knee-capping” people they deem undesirable and their fondness for terror and torture. Ten minutes later the same clergyman said that baptism was all that was needed to make someone Christian, and anyone who had been baptized was by that fact a Christian indisputably. The Irish clergyman seemed to have lost sight of the fact that all the IRA terrorists had been baptized.

Josef Stalin engineered the deaths of sixty million of his own people. Stalin was baptized. (At one point he was even a seminary student.) How many communist leaders of the Russian Revolution hadn’t baptized? Virtually none. Obviously we can’t define Christians as those who’ve been baptized.

Then perhaps a Christian is someone who believes the right things about Jesus. As we all know, however, it’s possible to believe the right things – that is, stuff one’s mind with the correct mental furniture – and never become a disciple, never do the truth in John’s magnificent phrase. Our Lord himself said to such people, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ (they believed the right things) yet never do what I tell you?”

Then perhaps a Christian is someone who has undergone an especially vivid experience of some kind, a religious experience. The problem here is that there’s no end to “religious experiences,” many of them so very bizarre that we are repelled as soon as we hear of them. Just as not all the spirits are holy, so not all human experiences are helpful. Besides, psychological vividness is never the measure of truth.

A minute ago I said that people wonder just who is a Christian, or what is a Christian, inasmuch confusion abounds here. Really, there’s no need for confusion. The earliest Christians weren’t confused at all.

I: — They knew that Christians are those who love Jesus as Lord. Not everyone who met Jesus in his earthly ministry loved him. Some hissed at him: “He has a demon.” Some despised him: “He’s illegitimate.” Some discounted him: “He’s only a carpenter’s son.” Most ignored him: “Has anything noteworthy ever come out of Nazareth ?” And then there were those who loved him. At first they warmed to him the way we warm to anyone who is winsome and engaging. Then they came to love him the way we come to love those whom we know to love us. The woman who poured out her livelihood upon his dusty feet and wiped them dry with her hair; Jesus said she loved much – like Mary Magdalene, whose life he had turned completely around. Fishermen, captured by Christ, abandoned themselves to him.

But it didn’t stop there. They came to love Jesus not as an equal; they came to love him not just because another human being had loved them; they came to love him as the very presence and power of God. They adored him. Love and adoration suffused each other only to surge out over him. Their love was adoring and their adoration was loving. In other words, they loved him in a way that was different from the way they loved everyone else. For he alone was Lord.

This point is crucial. Everywhere in life you and I love those whom we don’t adore and aren’t supposed to adore. There is only one whom we are to love and adore alike: this one the earliest Christians recognized in the Nazarene whom they knew to be the Son of God Incarnate.

When I was very young (eight or ten years old) I didn’t understand why Christians would suffer martyrdom rather than deny the one they loved. I didn’t understand this because I hadn’t yet grasped the fact that people today genuinely do love Jesus. To be sure I could grasp the fact that people believed this or that about him. I could understand that people deemed him to be truth. But love him? I still remember the day it all fell into place for me. I was reading of the treatment regularly accorded missionaries in Japan . (For centuries Japan has been a difficult, dangerous field for missionaries.) I read that the “trial by fire” for these missionaries was simple: the face of Jesus was painted onto the floor. Then the missionary was told he could spare himself death if he walked on the painted face. As a child I had said to myself, “Why didn’t they walk on it? Jesus would understand. He would understand that there’s no point in dying needlessly. Walk on the portrait – and live to preach the gospel a thousand times more.” One day, however, it all fell into place. One day I grasped why those who genuinely love don’t betray the one they love. I understood why Jesuit missionaries went to their death rather than let down him who had never let them down. Would I denounce and disown my wife to spare myself? For Christians, Jesus Christ is alive and well and living among us. Denounce and disown him out of the crassest self-interest? The day I understood I never looked back. And that day I understood something more: I understood precisely what Paul meant in Ephesians 6: 24 when he speaks of “those who love our Lord with love undying.” I understood why the one and only question Jesus put to Peter on Easter morning was simply, “Peter, do you love me?”

 

II: — In the second place Christians are those who trust Jesus as Saviour. It’s crucial that we understand why. To say we trust Jesus as Saviour is to say that we trust the provision he is for sinners. The apostle John writes pithily, “God…sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1st John 4: 10 NRSV) To say that God gave his Son as atoning sacrifice for us is to say that God himself has made for us sinners that effectual provision we could never make for ourselves. Something has been done for us. God acted to rescue us from real peril in light of our inability to rescue ourselves.

If we have difficulty understanding what the word “salvation” means in scripture we should think in terms of “salvage,” a salvage operation. A ship on the high seas, overwhelmed by raging storm, is foundering. It sends out a distress call. At this point two things can happen. It can continue taking on water until it disappears into the watery void never to be seen again. Or a salvage tug can leave the safety of a snug harbour and search out the foundering ship. Needless to say the storm that caused the ship to founder is the same storm that the salvage vessel must head into. The rescue operation at sea can happen only in the midst of that turbulence which has already claimed one victim.

The earliest Christians knew that in the cross Jesus had set aside his own safety, had immersed himself in our predicament, had drunk down the death we deserve – and all of this in order to salvage us. It was a rescue mission. Rescue from what? From the judgement of the just judge. Our Lord didn’t do all this at incomprehensible cost to himself in order to make us feel better or supply us with information we lacked. He did it to spare us real loss, final loss, amidst a peril that couldn’t be more perilous. We must never think anything else. Our Lord went to the cross to do for what us what we could never do for ourselves and apart from which our situation as sinners was hopeless before the Holy One.

One reason Charles Wesley is the finest hymn writer in the English language is simply that Charles Wesley sings more frequently about the cross than about anything else, and sings more profoundly about the cross than anyone else.

Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears.

The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears.

Before the throne my surety stands; my name is written on his hands.

 

“My name is written on his hands” is a reference to the prophet Isaiah who anticipated the atonement the Son of God would make on behalf of us all. Centuries before the cross on Golgotha Isaiah discerned the cross on the heart of God. Speaking for God, Isaiah wrote “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:16) When I was a little fellow I had this truth seared on my heart by a ditty that has stuck in my noodle:

My name from the palms of his hands

Eternity cannot erase;

Impressed on his heart it remains

In marks of indelible grace.

 

The provision God has made for me as sinner is the only provision there can ever be. It is sufficient. And I can only trust it as I entrust myself to him who has fashioned it.

We must understand how love for our Lord and trust in our Lord flow back and forth through each other. If we merely loved him we’d start to tell ourselves that the quality of our love is what saves us and we don’t need to have provision made for us. If, on the other hand, we merely trusted him for what he’s done for us we’d be where I am with my dentist: I trust the man utterly since I’m confident of his expertise, even though I don’t like him – he’s obnoxious. Our trust in Jesus Christ prevents our love for him from becoming presumptuous, while our love for him prevents our trust from becoming cold.

 

III: — There’s more. Christians are those who obey Jesus as Master, or at least those who aspire to obey him.

Now whatever Christian obedience means it doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly become “do-gooders.” “Do-gooders” – everyone’s flesh creeps as soon as the word is uttered – are those who dart around like a water spider, exuding superior wisdom and virtue, setting the world right where the rest of us are too benighted to see what needs to be done, the whole attitude crowned in a self-righteousness that reeks.

Obedience to Jesus as master has nothing to do with this picture. In the first place our motivation isn’t the accumulation of credit or public congratulation or self-produced superiority. The motivation of our obedience is simply our gratitude to the one who has rescued us, as well as our love for the same one who has loved us since we were conceived and will love us beyond our dying.

There are two forms of Christian obedience. The first is resistance to temptation.   The first form of obedience entails our discernment of temptation – temptation of any sort, seduction into sin of any description – and our resolve not to let it alight upon us but rather to repudiate it for what it is: sin-around-the-corner, disgrace before God at the least if not disgrace before others. In resisting temptation we are to renounce the world’s preoccupation with “selfism:” self-realization, self-fulfilment, self-you-name-it. After all, we understand what the world of unbelief doesn’t understand; namely, no one ever found herself by looking for herself (by definition she doesn’t know what to look for.) No one ever became happier through hoarding.

The second form of Christian obedience is self-forgetful service of the suffering neighbour. In view of the atrocious suffering all around us I’m always amazed at people who tell me they’re bored. I think I was last bored about 1953 when I was nine years old and the summer holidays seemed too long. Bored? The only people who are bored are those who haven’t yet apprehended the neighbour’s anguish or who don’t care to do anything about it.

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote a pithy theological tract, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” and followed it in 1520 with another one for which he is far better known, “The Freedom of the Christian.” In the second tract, “The Freedom of the Christian,” Luther insisted that because the Christian’s master is Christ alone the Christian is servant of no one. Yet because the Christian’s master is Christ alone the Christian is servant of everyone – since Christ came only to serve, didn’t he? In “The Freedom of the Christian” Luther insisted that the Christian lives in the neighbour by serving the neighbour in love. What does it mean to serve the neighbour in love? First we must share our material abundance with the neighbour’s material need. Then we must share the neighbour’s suffering by our closeness to her in her suffering, therein, of course, coming to suffer ourselves. In his 1519 tract, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” Luther mentioned a third way we serve the neighbour in love: we share the neighbour’s disgrace. We don’t flee the needy neighbour who is now extraordinarily needy just because he’s disgraced himself and has been ostracized for it. For the person who has disgraced himself now needs us as he’s never needed us.

When we serve the neighbour’s material neediness, said Luther, it costs us very little since we are meeting his material scarcity with our material abundance. When we share the neighbour’s suffering it costs us more since proximity to suffering entails suffering. When we share the neighbour’s disgrace it costs us everything since we are now known publicly by the same disgrace.

But wasn’t our Lord “numbered among the transgressors” when he wasn’t one? Then obedience to him means that we too must serve the neighbour whose shame is notorious.

 

IV: — Lastly Christians are those who affirm each other in Christ, and confirm each other in Christ’s way. “Affirmation:” it sounds cold, doesn’t it. “Confirmation:” it sounds mechanical, doesn’t it. A “confirmation” is what the machine in the airport spits out concerning our flight reservation. Affirmation and confirmation are moved beyond mechanical iciness when they are wrapped in affection. Only as we are possessed of genuine affection for each other do we profoundly affirm one other in Christ and confirm one another in his way.

For a long time now I’ve thought that people generally are wounded, some more than others, but virtually everyone somewhere. People are also scarred. Are they crippled as well? Do our scarred-over wounds also cripple us? I think it largely depends on the affection by which we are surrounded and in which we are bathed. Affection, huge dollops of affection, prevents wounds from crippling.

Luke tells us that Paul came upon some Christians in Lystra who were being harassed. In addition to the wounds and scars that everyone acquires in life, they were clobbered again just because they were Christians. Luke tells us that Paul strengthened these beleaguered people as he exhorted them to continue in the faith and reminded them that it is through many tribulations that we enter the kingdom of God. Tribulations: difficulties, disappointments, frustrations, opposition – these don’t cease. Yet in the face of them all we must continue in the faith. We can continue, however, only as we are bathed in affection by fellow-believers who are fellow-strugglers with us and whose encouragement is effective just because it’s so very warm.

I relish the old, old story about Moses and his tired arms. As the Israelites staggered through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land they were beset with everything that would discourage anyone, not the least of which was lethal enemies. One day they were contending with the Amalekites. As long as Moses held up his arms (for Jewish people the arm is the symbol of strength) his people prevailed. But his arms grew weary. His people were in danger of being wiped out. Two men – his brother Aaron and his friend Hur – held up his arms until the enemy was routed.

We too are on our way to the Promised Land. But we aren’t there yet. When we are assaulted, whether from without or within, we need those who are contending alongside us to hold us up. Which is to say, we are always to affirm one another in Christ and confirm one another in the way of Christ, always and everywhere steeping all of this in all the affection we can find in us.

 

What then is a Christian? Christians are those who love Jesus Christ as Lord,

trust him as Saviour,

obey him as Master,

and encourage one another in him and in his way

 

as our love for each other mirrors the love of him who loves us without measure, without condition, without end.

                                                                                              Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                   

January 2005

Shorter Books of the Bible: Philippians

Philippians 1:1 -4:3 

 

(i.e., the entire epistle)

Encouragement.  It’s the predominant theme of the apostle Paul’s letter to the congregation in the city of Philippi . Encouragement.  I need to be encouraged, and so do you, because every day brings upon us much that can discourage us.  It’s not difficult to become frustrated, set back on our heels, and finally disheartened. Everyone needs encouragement.

In the year 64, from a prison in Rome , Paul wrote his warm letter to Philippian church.  It’s the warmest letter we have from him.  It’s not a systematic treatise (such as the much longer epistle to the five congregations in Rome ) that lays bare the totality of Paul’s understanding of the gospel, progressing from point to point to point.  The missive to Philippi is a personal letter, and he wrote it the way you and I write personal letters: we jot down whatever comes to mind, in any order at all, higgledy-piggledy. Higgledy-piggledy letters are always the warmest, aren’t they?  Paul had loved these people ever since he established the congregation in Philippi twelve years earlier.   The city had originally been named after Philip, father of Alexander the Great. The church there was the first congregation Paul had planted in Europe .   Now he’s detected that the people need encouragement, and he’s determined to supply it.

But of course real encouragement can’t be something unsubstantial, such as frothy well-wishing. Real encouragement has to have a foundation.  The foundation of their encouragement, Paul insists, is that the Christians of Philippi are God’s commonwealth or God’s colony.  “Remember”, he says, “our commonwealth (meaning theirs and his), our citizenship is in heaven, above.  We are God’s colony in Philippi .”

It was the custom of Rome to settle outlying areas of the Roman Empire by sending out retired soldiers, with their families, into the territories far from Rome . Since a soldier’s career is never long, these retired soldiers were still moderately young and energetic. They were transplanted in groups of 300. Together with their wives and children they formed a sizeable colony.  Regardless of how far from Rome they were settled, they always remembered that they were citizens of Rome . However far from Rome they might have to live, they insisted on wearing Roman dress; they spoke the Roman language; they lived by Roman law and custom.  Above all, they were sustained by resources sent from the great city itself. They were Rome ’s colony in an alien environment, and they were never to forget whose they were, therefore who they were, and whom they could count on.  “In the same way”, exclaims the apostle, “you Christians in Philippi are God’s colony. Your citizenship lies elsewhere.  Remember whose you are. Then you’ll remember who you are. And you’ll remember what resources you can draw on.”  This is bedrock. And this is the foundation of his encouragement.

 

I: — They need encouragement, first of all, in order to be content amidst life’s uncertainties. “I know what it is to have plenty”, he writes, “and I know what it is to have little. I have learned to be content with whatever I have.  I can do all things – I have the strength to face all conditions – through him, Jesus Christ, who strengthens me.”

At any time you and I may have to be content with less. We need encouragement to understand and accept this.         Canada ’s standard of living peaked in 1972.  It has declined every year since then.  To be sure, it hasn’t declined dramatically; but it has never re-gained its peak of 1972. Perhaps this point isn’t as telling for me as it is for my children, since they will never know the economic privilege that I have known.

Privilege? I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  Far from it. Nonetheless, in terms of what economists call “real wealth”, each generation of Canadians, ever since Confederation in 1867, has been twice as wealthy as the preceding generation. I am twice as wealthy as my parents; they were twice as wealthy as their parents, and so on. But this pattern has ended: the next generation isn’t going to be twice as wealthy as the present generation.  The gravy train appears to have congealed.

Young people entering the labour force today aren’t paid a bonus of thousands of dollars to start just because they have a university degree. When Maureen wanted to begin teaching school in 1966 she had to be interviewed. Was the interview rigorous?  It lasted twenty seconds. “Sign here” said the Board of Education official as he shoved the contract under her nose.

When I was a young adult it was understood that every self-respecting Canadian was on the road to owning her own home. People who didn’t “own their own home” were thought to be short-sighted or shiftless.  Nobody talks this way now, as owning a house becomes increasingly difficult for Canadians.

For decades 20% of Canada ’s Gross Domestic Product came from the sale of non-renewable resources in the ground (such as copper, nickel, oil.)  I’m in favour of selling non-renewable resources.  Leaving copper or oil in the ground is useless; therefore let’s extract it and sell it. That is, sell it once, since it’s non-renewable.  In other words, 20% of the income we all enjoyed we never produced.

Is all of this discouraging?   “Listen”, says our friend from of old, “I’ve known economic privilege. I don’t have it now. But neither do I complain about not having it.  I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me”, in J.B. Phillips’ fine translation.

Several years ago I walked into a fellow-minister’s home and found nailed to the wall a line I shall never forget: “The more you have to live for, the less you need to live on.” A huge witness the Christian community can make to the wider society is just this: “There’s more to live for.”

So far in this sermon we’ve talked about scarcity and abundance, the “more” and the “less”, in terms of economics. But we shouldn’t restrict it to economics.  There are many matters in life that aren’t matters of economics, yet which still have to do with the “more” or the “less”. I have in mind something as commonplace as friends or acquaintances.         Is it better to move in an orbit of many acquaintances, be a hail-fellow-well-met, even the life of the party? Or is it better to have two friends with whom we could entrust anything and who would never fail us or forsake us?  The more we have to live for (our Lord, his truth, his kingdom, his promises), the less we need to live on (more-or-less superficial acquaintances who may stimulate us or flatter us but would never go to the floor for us).

We are God’s colony, Paul reminds his readers; our citizenship is in heaven; we live here on earth always remembering whose we are and therefore who we are and what we can count on from the eternal city whose outpost we are.

 

II: — Paul encourages his readers in Philippi yet again; this time he encourages them to resist mind-pollution, and therefore to resist heart-pollution.  “Whatever is true”, he says, “whatever is honourable, just, pure; whatever is lovely and gracious – think about these things.  Hold them up.” When he says “Think about these things” he doesn’t mean “Ponder them now and then; reflect on them once in a while; mull them over when nothing else is occupying your mind.”
“Think about these things”: he means “Hold them up; hold them up in your mind; soak your imagination in them. Whatever is true, honourable, just, gracious, lovely: steep yourselves in all this until it’s fixed in your mind and heart and bloodstream.”  It so happens that whatever is fixed in mind and heart and bloodstream will effervesce in us for the rest of our lives.  When we wake up, when we fall asleep, when our minds are relaxed, unguarded; when we’ve “let down” at the end of the day or haven’t yet “geared up” at the start of the day; when we are all alone by ourselves, when we come to lie week after week as we wait to die; what’s going to flood into our minds and soak our hearts? – precisely what we’ve hung up in our minds for years.

Everyone agrees that reason is part of the definition of the human.  In other words, reason is essential to being human.  Where we are frequently one-sided, however, is our restricting reason to reasoning.  We assume that reasoning is thinking deductively or inductively.  One instance of deductive thinking is logic: “All humans are mortal; Socrates is human; therefore Socrates is mortal.”  Inductive thinking is what we do when we experiment scientifically. Having performed many experiments and made many observations, we conclude that water consists of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

The mistake we make is assuming that deductive thinking and inductive thinking are all there is to thinking, all there is to reason.  Too frequently we forget that there’s yet another kind of thinking: pictorial thinking, imagistic thinking, everything that fills up our imaginations. At the level of scientific thinking a child opens an encyclopaedia and reads “Horse: an herbivorous quadruped that runs on one toe.”  Perfectly true. But at the level of the imagination (where children live) the child thinks “Black Stallion”. And then there swims into the child’s mind a wonderful assortment of images around Black Stallion: adventure, danger, affection, strength, loyalty.

Years later the child, now an adult, hears at one level of reason such expressions as “immigrant”, “New Canadian”, “refugee”. At another level of reason, this time the level of imagination, he’s flooded with – with what? — “DP”? “Hunkie”  “Wop?” “Paki?” “Slant-Eye?” All of these images are negative; they foster contempt and hatred; these images are purely destructive.

Let’s be honest: adults, not merely children – we adults live in our imaginations far more than we live in deductive or inductive reasoning. Then what are the images that swim through our heads night and day?  What are the images that we foster in each other and nourish in ourselves? Paul knows that we live chiefly in our imaginations.  For this reason he urges, “Whatever is true (always a good place to start); whatever is just; whatever is noble, kind, gracious – hold these up. Soak your imagination in them. Because these images are going to effervesce night and day, always bubbling up from your unconscious mind to your conscious, then back down to your unconscious where they shape you when you aren’t even aware of it.”  The apostle is profound here: abstract ideas don’t govern our mind; images govern our mind.

Then when we hear the word “true”, what concrete image comes to mind instantly? When I hear the word “godly” the image that comes to me automatically is Ronald Ward and I sitting in his living room. Ronald Ward was professor of New Testament at the University of Toronto (1952-1963), and he was the most transparently godly, unaffectedly godly, believably godly person that I have ever met.  I think of the man every day.  In his natural, credible, transparent, uncontrived manner he said to me (among many other things), “Victor, if we genuinely fear God, we shall never have to be afraid of him.”

“Whatever is just, whatever is fair – think about it”, says the apostle, “Hold it up in your imagination.” Fair?  One day when I was 23 years old I was discussing the World War II with my father. I began to speak disdainfully of German history, German people, German military personnel. My father didn’t rebuke me or argue with me.         Instead he told me a story, a story about Winston Churchill.  When General Erwin Rommel’s forces were hammering the British Eighth Army in North Africa, hammering the Brits so badly that the Brits were on the point of going under, a British member of parliament rose in the House of Commons and spoke contemptuously of the German general, Rommel. Churchill took it for as long as he could, then he leapt to his feet and shouted, “I will not permit you to speak such villainies about so fine a soldier”.  That’s all my father said.  He had hung up in my mind, my imagination, a picture I shall never be without. “Whatever is fair.

Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is commendable, Paul says, “Think on it”.  He means “Catch the vision of it.”  Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch woman who survived Ravensbruck, the forced labour camp (death camp too); years afterward Corrie told a story about her sister, Betsie, who didn’t survive.  One day the two sisters were unloading boxcars when a guard, angry at the low productivity of Betsie (who was very ill), cut her with his whip. Upon seeing her sister struck and seeing her sister bleed, Corrie was enraged.  Betsie put her hand over the wound and cried, “Don’t look at it Corrie; don’t look at it. Look at Jesus.”

“Whatever is….”  You fill it in. Think about it. Catch the vision of it. Fill your imagination with it.  Because as it is with our imagination, so it is with us.

 

III: — The last point we’re going to note from Paul’s letter to the Philippian congregation has to do with humility.         Whereas the other congregations Paul wrote had horrific problems within them, the congregation in Philippi had no such problems. Paul was always joyful when he had this congregation in mind.  He wrote, “Do one thing to make my joy (my joy in you) complete: humble yourselves with the same humility wherewith Christ Jesus humbled himself in order that he might serve.  For although he was in the form of God…he chose to take the form of a servant.”

We must be sure to understand what humility is not.  Humility isn’t self-belittlement.  Self-belittlement is the pathetic overflow of low self-esteem.  Jesus didn’t lack self-esteem.

Humility isn’t pretending we lack the gifts we know we have and everyone else knows we have.  Such pretending is phoney. Jesus never pretended he wasn’t the world’s sole Saviour and Lord.

Then what is humility?  It’s self-forgetfulness; self-forgetfulness in the work Christ has given us to do on behalf of his people.  Humility is self-forgetfulness in the service of a purpose bigger and nobler than our ego and its clamouring.

As in any congregation there were tensions in the congregation in Philippi . Luke tells us in Acts that a woman named Lydia belonged to the congregation. Lydia was an extremely wealthy businesswoman.  A slave girl belonged as well.  In first-century society a slave girl wouldn’t have been regarded as a human being, merely as a useful tool that had to be fed.  Lydia and the slave girl would have brought very different social histories to the congregation.

This particular slave girl, we are told, spoke Greek. Another person in the congregation was a Roman jail-keeper, and he spoke Latin.  We can feel the tension as these three people sat side-by-side in church and whispered to each other, “There’s much about you I don’t understand. I don’t come from your social set. I don’t live in your financial world.         And I have little facility in your language.”

And then there were Euodia and Syntyche, two women who had had a tiff at a church meeting.  The tiff had spilled over and now was upsetting more than merely the two of them. Paul urges the two women to “agree in the Lord” – which is to say, he encourages them to humble themselves, forget themselves as once more they are taken up into the kingdom pursuits of Christ’s people.

“Remember”, says the apostle, “We are God’s colony. We belong to a different country and possess a different citizenship.  Then let’s be different. Let’s be like our Lord.” Different in what respect? “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

And what will be the result of such unselfconscious humility? In the first place, our arrogant, obnoxious self-importance will be curbed.  In the second place, our fellow-believers will be edified.  In the third place – let’s let Paul tell us himself: “You will shine like stars…in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” It is Christ-modelled, Christ-inspired humility that corrects us, helps the congregation, and scintillates in a world that boasts of its corruption.

 

Paul wrote his warm letter to the Philippian congregation when he was in prison awaiting execution. He knew he had only weeks to live. Still, he was preoccupied with his friends in Christ, the joy they have brought him (in this one letter Paul speaks of joy more frequently than he does anywhere else), and the encouragement he has wanted to impart to them.

Then may you and I find in the apostle’s word encouragement too, for we need

encouragement to find contentment in our Lord at all times and amidst all circumstances;

encouragement to steep our thinking, our imaginations, in what is true and just and gracious and noble;

encouragement to forget ourselves in humble service on behalf of Christ’s people.

 

                                                                                              Victor Shepherd
October 2005

 

“Sharing, Sharing, Sharing”

Philippians 1:5

Hebrews 2:14        1 Corinthians 1:9              2 Corinthians 8:23

 

The five year old beavers must surely outnumber all other groups in the Boy Scout Organization, even outnumber all other groups taken together. The beavers are the little fellows who tell us they belong to their beaver colony. They wear the brown hats edged in blue with a beaver tail hanging down the back.

I am sobered every time I hear the beavers reaffirm their promise and motto. Their promise is, “I promise to love God and help take care of the world”.  Imagine: only five years old, and already taking care of the world. Their motto is simple: “Sharing, sharing, sharing.”  Here is something every beaver can do: share, share in the life of the colony, share with others, share out the knowledge and skill gained in the colony, just share, always sharing, sharing, sharing.

Sharing is a most important biblical notion as well.  There is a group of New Testament words that has to do with sharing. The noun-form is usually translated “fellow” (e.g., fellowship, fellow-worker, fellow-prisoner, etc.); the verb-form is usually translated by “share” (e.g., to share in something, have a share in something, give a share in something, etc.) The person who does all of this we could speak of, in fractured English, as a “sharer-in-er”

Today, on “Presbyterians Sharing” Sunday, we are going to look at this word group that we might be nourished, like the five year old beavers in their colony, for our life and work in the household and family of God.

 

I: — The book of Hebrews reminds us that we “share flesh and blood”.  We are all creatures, not deities; we are earth-beings of flesh, not gods of pure spirit. We share a finite human nature; we share fragility, vulnerability to fragmentation. In the words of the psalmist, we are frail creatures of dust.  We are mortal.

Be sure to underline the last word, “mortal”.  We are fellow-mortals. We are all subject to death. Death, however is not a bizarre twist, a sudden reversal that appears out of nowhere at the end of life. Death is not the jarring conclusion of a life that has unfolded death-free. On the contrary, what we call “death” is simply the final work of the power of death, which power has been at work in everyone’s life at all times.

Because the power of death is operative in the world at all times and in our individual lives as well, there is always a brokenness about us; there is always something fractured about us, somewhere.  And since fractures hurt, all of us are always hurting somewhere.

Not everyone admits this. Some people boast of “having it all together”.  Many others know they don’t “have it all together”, and therefore try extra hard to seem to “have it all together”.

You must have noticed that everyone else’s job seems easy.  (And of course the better a job is done, the easier the job seems to an outsider.) Everyone else’s life seems easy (at least easier than ours); everyone else seems to be so much more free of complications and contradictions and anguish.  We are left lamenting or fuming, “Why don’t I have it all together?”

Either we own that we “share flesh and blood” or we deny it.  If we deny it unconsciously then we are unconsciously driven in such a way that sooner or later we collapse.  If we deny it consciously then we consciously drive ourselves to “get it all together” or appear to, with the result that we render ourselves compulsive or artificial.

Why don’t we avoid all this and own one truth about us: we share flesh and blood? We are ordinary folk, as ordinary as everyone else.  However distinguished we may be in terms of social standing, intellectual ability, or vocational achievement; however distinguished we may be, we never transcend our sharing in flesh and blood.         We are finite, fragile creatures, already fractured here and there, already in a measure of pain, already riddled by the power of death on its way to a conquest that no one can deny in any case.  We are ordinary folk in a world of ordinary folk.  Why don’t we simply admit this?

In a Christmas sermon several years ago I spoke of the Incarnation as an affirmation of ordinariness, a God-ordained ordinariness that we should be pleased to own for ourselves: after all, what’s good enough for our Lord should be good enough for us.  At the door of the church following the sermon a woman looked at me with disdain and disappointment in equal measure as she remarked, “Shepherd, I never thought I’d see the day when you defended mediocrity.”

I hadn’t defended mediocrity; I never shall, for mediocrity is sin. Ordinariness, however, is entirely different. To own our ordinariness is to admit without dissembling that we all share flesh and blood. There is no one who “has it made”, no one who knows no brokenness, no one who isn’t in pain, no one in whom death isn’t operative right now.         All of us are suffering more than we are letting on.

 

II: — Yet as Christians we share ever so much more than flesh and blood.  In the second place we share in the life of our risen Lord.  Paul exclaims, “God has called us into fellowship with his Son”. To say we are called into fellowship with Jesus Christ is to say we are the beneficiaries of his victory now and shall be eternally.  Our sharing in the victorious life of our Lord is the warrant, the only genuine reason, for everything we do in church life.

We keep the organ tuned. Because we are aesthetically sophisticated and an out-of-tune organ would grate on our musical sensitivities? We keep our organ tuned for one reason: an off-key musical instrument impedes us in our praising God for giving himself to us in his Son.  God has called us into fellowship with his Son.  We have responded to God’s call, and we want to move closer to that Son who is our elder brother.  We want no impediment to our praise of God week-by-week.  This alone is why we keep the organ tuned and pay the hydro bills.

As long as we own our shared fellowship with Jesus Christ as the foundation of our congregation; as long as this is the core, the focus, the goal, the glue of our life together; as long as this is the motivation and the dynamic of our life together, we can cheerfully welcome all sorts of diversities and differences in congregational and denominational life.

We modern Christians assume that while there is much diversity in congregational life today (not to mention the proliferation of denominations throughout Christendom), things were simpler in the earliest days of the church when individuals and congregations and groups of congregations were carbon copies of each other.

Not so. Individuals like Paul and Peter were not carbon copies of each other.  On one occasion at least Paul said of Peter, “He’s dead wrong and I told him so to his face.” The congregation in Philippi and the congregation in Corinth were not carbon copies of each other; they differed enormously.

In the earliest days of the church there were three major groupings of Christians: Palestinian Jewish Christians, Greek Jewish Christians, Greek Gentile Christians.

The Palestinian Jewish Christians lived in Jerusalem and surroundings. Certainly they acknowledged Jesus to be Saviour and Lord (else they wouldn’t have been Christians at all). At the same time they continued to observe Torah in all its details.  They even took their lamb or dove to the temple at Passover and placed their hand on it in identification with it as the temple priest sacrificed it. They felt that any Gentile who became a Christian ought to be circumcised and observe Torah. After all, since Jesus was a Jew, shouldn’t all his followers be or become Jews as a condition of becoming a Christian?  James was a Palestinian Jewish Christian.

Greek Jewish Christians were Christians of Jewish parentage who lived outside Palestine in the wider world. They lived in Rome , Philippi, Ephesus , even North Africa . Christians though they were, they were also determined to remain Jews — at the same time as they never felt that Gentiles had to become Jews in order to become Christians. They tended to be more affluent, more exposed to the wider world than their Jewish Christian cousins in Palestine . They tended to be merchants and traders and artisans rather than peasants and fisherfolk like the Jewish Christians in Palestine . Paul was a Greek Jewish Christian.

Greek Gentile Christians (people like you and me) were just that: Gentiles with no Jewish background at all, folk who lived anywhere except in Palestine . They didn’t know a yarmulke from a yo-yo. But they knew enough to know that they weren’t going to be circumcised and didn’t want to observe every last jot and tittle of Torah. Why shouldn’t a Gentile Christian eat bacon?  Why not ham and eggs and milk and lobster, all at the same meal and all off the same plate? Gentile Christians, however, seemed to have enormous difficulty staying on the rails morally. They had to be reminded constantly that while they didn’t have to observe every last item in the Torah they were committed to obeying Jesus Christ.  Eating lobster didn’t excuse them from the Ten Commandments.  The fact that their wine didn’t have to be kosher never meant that they could drink any quantity of wine at all.  Titus was a Greek Gentile Christian.

What is the point of this lengthy history lesson?  All three groups, however different, knew they had been called into fellowship with Jesus Christ. All three shared equally in the life of the risen Son of God.

Yes, there were enormous differences among them.  Nonetheless, when the poorest of them, the Palestinian Jewish Christians in Jerusalem , were faced with famine, the others, better-off financially, made enormous financial sacrifice to help the poorest.

A worldly-wise, affluent Gentile Christian living in the capital of the Empire ( Rome ) was as much removed in every respect from a Palestinian Jewish Christian as we today are removed ethnically, educationally, culturally from black Seventh Day Adventist Christians living in sub-Sahara Africa . Still, at the end of the day we all know that we share two huge commonalities: a vulnerability to suffering, and the invitation to live in the company of Jesus Christ.

 

III: — Yet we share even more. Paul thanks the Christians in Philippi for their “partnership in the gospel”.  He looks upon the congregation as a symphony orchestra.  He never thinks of himself as the star soloist, everyone else in the congregation merely a spectator.  Everyone has a part. In some sense the apostles are the first violins of the orchestra; still, no orchestra consists of first violins only. Music is made only as everyone shares in the effort of music-making.  An orchestra that doesn’t have piccolos and bassoons and triangles doesn’t make the music it is meant to.  To the extent that it doesn’t it is both ineffective and unattractive. There is certainly a place, necessarily a place, for piccolos and bassoons and triangles. The apostle thanks the Christians in Philippi for their “partnership in the gospel”.

By “partnership in the gospel” Paul means that all Christians share in the proclamation of the gospel; all Christians share in the Christian mission. The gospel isn’t simply food for you and me to consume.  It is also food for our children, for newcomers to our congregation, for people not yet in our congregation but on their way here and therefore known only to God, for people on the other side of the world who need feeding as much as we.  All of us are partners in thrusting the gospel outwards; all of us are essential to the Christian mission.

Some people mistakenly think they aren’t.  Some people think they are consumers only, not because they want to be consumers only, but because they feel they aren’t gifted like Mr. or Ms. So-and-so. To say this, however, is to say that because not all of us are first violins there is no place in the orchestra for piccolo or triangle.  Not so.

As I reflected on our shared partnership in the gospel I thought of the congregation and the denomination in terms of a football team.  There are players on a football team who look like what comes to mind when we hear “football player”.  They are built like gorillas and eat who knows what for breakfast. They even have names like football players. When I was eight or ten years old and the Montreal Alouettes were winning Grey cups their fullback was Pat Abruzzi.  Bruiser Abruzzi . Brute Abruzzi . Bonebreaker Abruzzi . He ran like a tank.  A real football player.

And then on every football team there is a player who doesn’t meet the stereotype at all. He is 5’6” tall and weighs 145 pounds.  He wears less padding than anyone else.  At the end of a game played on the muddiest field his uniform is still white. He is the field-goal kicker. He kicks the ball through the uprights, over the crossbar, and scores three points for his team. Furthermore, he kicks a three-point field-goal only when his team can’t score a seven-point touchdown. Is he important?   Whenever a football team wins the game with only seconds left on the clock, who wins it for the team? The field-goal kicker.

In church-life there are people who don’t speak well in public, can’t dazzle the congregation at announcement time, can’t draft the motion that gets the board past an impasse.  Are they essential? Not everyone in the orchestra plays first violin.  Yet without everyone who doesn’t play first violin there wouldn’t be an orchestra at all. Football teams will go to the ends of the earth to get that one fellow — the field-goal kicker — who looks like anything but a football player.

Remember: the person or the congregation who appears least able to supply what someone else needs is the person or congregation we can’t do without.

Paul thanks the believers in Philippi for their partnership in the gospel.  He knows that we all share in the outward thrust of the gospel; we all share in the church’s mission.

 

IV: — We share one thing more. We are “fellow servants” of the congregation.  Paul speaks of Titus as his “partner and fellow worker in the service” of the church in Corinth .

“Service”. It has to do with servanthood. “Service”.  It reeks of inferiority. My grandmother used to tell me she was “in service” before she married.  She worked as a resident servant in the home of her social superiors. She had to wait on them, wait for them.

“Service”. Even in our era it sounds demeaning. “Service personnel please use the back door.”  Service personnel can’t even enter the building through the front door, just because they have dirt on their overalls, which dirt they acquired, of course, by doing the bidding of those who can use the front door.

But Jesus washed feet, didn’t he.  More than that, he said that we ought not to think ourselves above him; we too must wash feet — and do it gladly, willingly, ungrudgingly. Paul named himself and Titus servants of the congregation in Corinth . He and Titus shared the footwashing detail.

Let’s change the metaphor. Let’s think of compost. Leaves, twigs, grass-cuttings, kitchen scraps, even bovine manure (you know what the popular expression is); all of this finds its way into the compost heap. In a few months something valuable is going to appear at the bottom of the heap.  At least something valuable will appear if one more thing is present: warmth. Compost piles need warmth. If the pile chills, the process shuts down.

What we have to contribute to church life and community life both here and anywhere at all in the world may not appear much.  All of us are busy, all of us are tired, all of us have 101 commitments. Therefore it appears that we have little to offer Christ’s people here and elsewhere except a few scraps and scrapings and even a bit of bovine manure. We should offer it anyway. As we do, and as we surround it all with our warmth, humus appears sooner than we think.

“Humus”. It sounds like “humility”. “Humus” also happens to be the Latin word for earth.  Our humility, our shared servanthood, reinforces our earthliness, our ordinariness.

 

And so we come full circle. All of us in this congregation share a fragility on account of our mortality. All of us also share the risen life of him who has conquered death.  We share a partnership in the proclamation of the gospel and the church’s mission. And we share the humble of servanthood of him who washed feet — as well as hands and hearts — and without whose washing we wouldn’t be a congregation at all.

 

“Sharing, sharing, sharing”. The five year old beavers have much to tell us.  In as much as we are always sharing it will become plain that we do love God. In loving God, and in sharing, sharing, sharing, we shall even help take care of the world.

                                                                                                     Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

September 2006

 

Humility: The Antidote to Pride

  Humility: The Antidote to Pride

          Micah 6:6-8                 1 Peter 5:1-6      Philippians 2:5-13        John 13:1-5

 

I: — Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century philosopher, despised Christianity.  “A slave-mentality”, he labelled it.         The worst feature of Christianity’s slave-mentality, said Nietzsche, is that Christians think there is something virtuous about their own enslavement, and therefore they seek it and languish in it.  They think there is something virtuous about self-belittlement and the psychological crippling that goes with it.  Nietzsche despised Christianity just because he felt it undermined self-confidence; it promoted psychological feebleness; and it regarded all of this as honourable.

Was Nietzsche correct in his assessment?  Yes, at least to some extent.  (Remember now, we are not talking about the gospel or about Jesus Christ; we are talking about “Christianity”, the religious expression that Nietzsche saw every day.)  Psychotherapists tell me, for instance, that as a physically or psychologically abused woman (if she’s physically abused she’s certainly psychologically abused as well) loses self-confidence, her self-confidence erodes to the point where she no longer has enough self-confidence to leave the man who is tormenting her.  At this point she is trapped by her diminished ego-strength.  As her self-confidence continues to erode she sinks deeper into the swamp of immobility. Psychotherapists tell me it takes six months to eighteen months of intense therapy to bring an abused woman back to the point where she has enough self-confidence to escape the man who is assaulting her.

Is “Christianity” (so-called) responsible for this?  Yes, very often. Haven’t women been told it is their “Christian” duty to be submissive?

Nietzsche maintained that “Christianity” fostered passivity in people. It fostered capitulation, conformity, resignation.  It turned backbone into wishbone or worse.  It undercut protest, resilience, assertiveness; it replaced these with docility, apathy, sheepishness.

Was Nietzsche correct in his assessment?  Yes, very often. But we must be sure to note that it is a distorted “Christianity” that has done this, never the gospel itself.  The gospel (which is to say, Jesus Christ himself) never fosters self-belittlement, self-denigration, self-contempt; never. To be sure, the gospel does insist that we humble ourselves under God. But to humble ourselves under God is not to wallow in self-contempt.  It isn’t always to be putting ourselves down; it isn’t chronically to think ourselves inferior.

Yet this confusion is made all the time.  I understand how the confusion can arise.  Many people have been raised in homes where childhood difficulties, especially the fears and distresses and hurts of childhood, were not taken seriously.  It was assumed that adults have the right to feel insecure, but not children. Adults, after all, find themselves wounded at the hands of life.  Children, however, are never insecure or wounded.  It was assumed that the child’s pain doesn’t hurt; the child’s bewilderment isn’t upsetting; the child’s question isn’t important; the child’s opinion doesn’t count.  What else can the child conclude except that her grief or confusion or unnamed need doesn’t matter? that she doesn’t matter? The grooves that are etched in the tender psyches of little people are etched very deeply and are exceedingly difficult to eradicate.

Other people have been raised in a home where neighbours and relatives and colleagues were belittled regularly.  The atmosphere was one of contempt and the imagined superiority that underlies contempt. After they had heard everyone else put down for 20 years, their unconscious mindset became one of self-putdown. How could it be anything else? Why would they ever think themselves an exception?

The humility that the gospel urges upon us has nothing to do with a self-deprecation that leaves someone with zero self-esteem.  The humility that the gospel urges upon us has nothing to do with Nietzsche’s slave-mentality, fostering self-contempt and sheepishness as it does, all the while regarding these as virtuous.

 

Before we specify where gospel-humility differs from poor self-image and flattened self-esteem we should identify the signs of poor self-image and flattened self-esteem.

One sign is self-advertisement.  Self-advertisement is a cover-up.  It covers up deep-seated anxiety at being overlooked, at not being deemed important.

Another sign is sarcasm. The habitually sarcastic person speaks as she does in order to portray herself as superior; she portrays herself as superior lest others find her inferior.

Another sign is bullying. Inside every bully there is a frightened, shaking, little creature.  Yes, the bully is always a nuisance and frequently dangerous; yes, the bully has indulged his childishness for years in getting his own way. As difficult as it is to put up with the bully, however, he remains pathetic.  His insecurity is glaring. His trembling knees are pitiable. After all, his bullying covers up the greatest fear of his life: losing, losing any conflict, losing any struggle; and above all, losing face.  For him, losing even an argument amounts to annihilation.

All of these signs cloak or disguise a self-esteem that has largely crumbled, a self-image that is not only damaged but distressing and destructive to the person who is sarcastic or a bully or a ceaseless self-advertiser.

 

II: — Then what is the nature of the humility the gospel requires of us?  Where do we find it? What will it do for us and others?

Peter writes (1st Peter 5:6), “Humble yourselves under God, and in due time he will exalt you.”  The key is humbling ourselves under God. Simply to humble ourselves (or to try to) will result either in our belittling ourselves or bragging of ourselves (for now we are proud of the fact that we are humbler than most). The only self-humbling that is safe is to humble ourselves under God. For in humbling ourselves under God we shall always remember, with the psalmist, that God is for us. God is always for us. Because he is always for us, our humbling ourselves under him can be only positive. Not only is it always safe to humble ourselves under God, it is more than safe; it is salutary.         It can only prosper us.

 

Under God I recall that human beings and animals were made on the same “day” (Genesis 1:24 -31). Plainly, the animals are our “cousins”. (Not our brothers and sisters, to be sure, but certainly our cousins.)  I am humbled whenever I reflect on the fact that medical experiments with animals (who are themselves creatures of God) benefit human beings because — and only because — we and the animals have so much in common. (The digestive tract of the alligator, organ for organ, is virtually identical with ours. And is there any aspect of animal psychology that doesn’t have immediate relevance to us humans?) Under God I cannot pretend that animals haven’t suffered much through experimentation in order to spare me suffering.  Under God I cannot pretend that I don’t need them to survive (even as I know that they don’t need me to survive).

Yet under God I am exalted, for God has made us humans unique; God has made us “little less than God himself”, says the psalmist.  While God loves all his creatures, God addresses, speaks to, human beings only. Note this: God loves us and the animals, but he speaks to us, and equips us to speak to him in return; more than merely equip us to speak to him in return, he expects us to. He makes us able to respond, response-able, and because response-able, response-ible, responsible. Under God we are crowned inalienably with glory and honour.  What’s more, under God and in Christ, I am the person whom God identifies with his only begotten and beloved Son.  Which is to say, whenever God looks upon that Son with whom he is ever pleased, he sees me too; he can’t help seeing me in the same light, since I stand with Christ the Son by faith.

 

In the second place under God I am humbled to know myself a sinner. When all the allowances have been made for my upbringing, my present social environment, the victimizations I have suffered, the emotional deprivations visited upon me, the genes I inherited from my parents (my gosh, I do sound hard done-by, don’t I?); when all allowances have been made for the warps in me for which I am not entirely accountable, there yet remains that “I”, that “me”, which scripture speaks of as “the man of sin”. There is a perversity in me, a bias to ungodliness as irrational as it is deep-seated, for which no one else and nothing else can be blamed.  The more I search my heart the more aware I am of the subtleties and the subterfuges of the man of sin.

Yet under God I am exalted, for in Christ I am a pardoned sinner whom God cherishes. In Christ I am identified with the One whom the New Testament knows to be without sin. Have you ever noticed that while the Apostles’ Creed affirms the fact of sin, it does so only left-handedly, only in passing?  The Apostles’ Creed states, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty… I believe in his only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord…” and so on. Nowhere does the Creed say, “I believe in sin.” It says, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” The Creed invites us to admit we are sinners only at the same time that it insists, with much louder voice, that we are forgiven sinners. Yes, under God I am humbled to admit (to have to admit) that the designation, “man of sin” fits me; but I am exalted, exhilarated too, that since I am “in Christ” the designation, “man of righteousness” is the final truth about me, the characteristic truth about me, the “real me” despite all appearances, all contradictions.  I shall always be eager to humble myself under God since God exalts me eternally.

In the third place under God I am humbled to hear Jesus tell the disciples that at the end of the day they must say of themselves, “We are but unprofitable servants”. If James and Bartholomew, Andrew and Alphaeus must say this of themselves, I am not about to tell my Lord that I, on the contrary, am an enormously profitable servant and he is remarkably fortunate to have me on his team.

Unprofitable servants that we are, however, it is precisely unprofitable servants whom God exalts; as God exalts us he renders us profitable for his kingdom. It is unprofitable servants alone whom God can use. Whatever use would God have for servants who boasted that the kingdom couldn’t survive without them? We must never think that there was a “golden age” in the church when all was rosy and the church consisted only of “profitable” servants.  There was never a golden age.  The New Testament epistles were written to address the elements in the church that were anything but gold.  While the problems in Corinth differed from the problems in Galatia, and both of these differed from the problems in Thessalonica, at the end of the day the apostle Paul reminds Christians everywhere — even in the most troubled congregations — that they and they alone are the body of Christ; it is their work and witness that lend visibility to the rule of Christ throughout the world; they are the only manifestation of him whose triumph over the deadly powers they extol.

 

It is plain that to humble ourselves under God is never to be humbled only; to humble ourselves under God is always also to be exalted, just because God exalts the humble. Simply to humble ourselves might sink us into the slave-mentality that Nietzsche rightly deplored; but to humble ourselves under God will never sink us into such a mentality; to humble ourselves under God will always find us exalted — and therefore fit, ready, eager to be as active in the world as God himself is active in the world.

 

III: — I trust no one here today now confuses humility under God with self-belittlement or self-denigration.  To humble ourselves under God, rather, is to have a sober, realistic, yet positive understanding of ourselves.  Sober because our self-assessment is no longer emotionally inflamed, driven by emotional need or emotional distortion. Realistic because in Christ we have the freedom to acknowledge any and all negativities about us without thereby crippling ourselves or collapsing ourselves. Positive because in Christ we know that God is for us; God has made us the pinnacle of his creation, has soaked us in a pardon that discloses our guilt only to drown it, and has promised to use us on behalf of that kingdom which can never be shaken.

All of this adds up to enormous freedom; namely, freedom from self-preoccupation. After all, humility, free and cheerful in equal measure, is simply self-forgetfulness. We must always remember, on the other hand, that self-contempt (so often confused with humility) is still a preoccupation with oneself, and therefore a form of selfism. A false and destructive so-called “humility” remains no more than complicated self-preoccupation. Genuine humility, on the other hand, is always self-forgetfulness.

We see such self-forgetfulness over and over in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ruler of the universe, he subjected himself to Roman authority.  Saviour of the world, he went to the Synagogue every week and listened to a preacher who didn’t have much to tell him. As sensitive to pain as any of us, he pleaded for mercy for those who were nailing him to the cross. The result of all this? “God has highly exalted him”, says Paul, “and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.” (Philippians 2:9)

 

Nietzsche may have been right concerning what he called “Christianity”, the religious expression of people who, at best, only half-understood the gospel. But concerning the gospel itself; concerning the surge of Jesus Christ within his people; concerning this Nietzsche was utterly wrong.  The humility that the gospel requires of us does not sink us into a slave-mentality; it does not make a virtue of self-victimization; it does not encourage passivity and sheepishness and apathy.

The humility the gospel requires of us is but the other side of our exaltation at God’s hand; which exaltation elevates us as sons and daughters of God, servants whose kingdom-service is unfailingly profitable, self-forgetful people whom God is going to remember and cherish eternally.

 

                                                                                                   Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             April 2006

 

 

 

Profile of a Parishioner

                                                                                                     Philippians 2:25-30

 

[1]   How much do you know about Epaphroditus? What does his name mean? Let’s look at his name: Epa-phroditus. It is very close to “Aphrodite”, isn’t it. It was meant to be close. The man’s parents gave him a name which was the masculine equivalent of the feminine name of the pagan goddess. The parents belonged to the cult which burgeoned around her. In the ancient world Aphrodite represented deified sex. The cult around her — the world has never been without those who deify sex — gathered up the devotees. These sex-worshippers had built a temple which perched on a hill, 1800 feet above the city of Corinth . One thousand priestesses were attached to the temple. These priestesses were clergywomen whose job-description included religious prostitution. To join oneself to a temple-prostitute rendered the worshipper at-one with the spirit of Aphrodite herself. At night the temple prostitutes descended the hill and plied their trade in the streets of Corinth . In this way sex-worshippers could bow to Aphrodite without the bother of an 1800-foot climb. The sin-blinded sordidness of it all was beyond description.

Epaphroditus came from a home sunk in such sordidness. Yet his parents had thought so highly of it all that they had named their son after it. They had pointed their son toward the lifestyle that they pursued themselves.

But then it happened: the miracle of grace — deliverance — as the gospel was declared and Epaphroditus heard with ear and heart. A Christian now, with a life-style that repudiated everything his foolish, sin-blinded parents had thought desirable for him, he found himself a parishioner in the congregation of Philippi . The people there cherished him.

When the apostle Paul, the much-loved, much-esteemed friend of the Philippian Church , was imprisoned in Rome whom did the Philippian congregation send to Rome , with a gift, to look out for the older man? They sent the young Christian they trusted, Epaphroditus.

Epaphroditus was exceedingly brave. He was, after all, friend and personal attendant to a notorious fellow who was awaiting trial on a capital offence. Eddie Greenspan wasn’t on hand to defend the apostle, and therefore when the full weight of the Roman Empire fell on Paul it would surely crush as well the younger man now labelled an accomplice. Epaphroditus couldn’t have been braver.

Then Epaphroditus fell ill; so sick that he was regarded as good as dead. As he struggled back to health Paul thought the younger man should return to his home congregation in Philippi . In the first place Paul didn’t want to endanger the young man any more. In the second place he knew that the congregation in Philippi was aware of Epaphroditus’s illness and wanted to see for themselves that he was well again. In the third place Epaphroditus himself had had his fill of Rome , the Big Apple, and wanted to go back to the smaller city and the congregation that loved him. In the fourth place Paul wanted to get a letter (really, a short theological treatise) to the congregation in Philippi , and having Epaphroditus deliver it would guarantee its safe delivery. The decision was made: Epaphroditus would return to Philippi .

Now while the Christian fellowship in Philippi was rich and warm and without major problems Paul knew that nonetheless there would be two or three “snarky” people in it who were suspicious gossipers with curdled sentiments. The two or three snarky people would gossip that Epaphroditus was a coward and a quitter, and was returning to Philippi only because he had “chickened out” of supporting Paul in Rome . Paul knew he had to state unambiguously that Epaphroditus was neither a coward nor a quitter if only to silence the sour gossipers. For this reason Paul underlines to the congregation that Epaphroditus has been a brother, a fellow-worker, a fellow-soldier, and a minister to his need.

 

[2(i)] Brother. The Greek word for “brother”, adelphos, literally means “from the same womb”. Brothers (sisters) come from the same womb, the same source, the same origin. “Think as highly of Epaphroditus as you think of me”, Paul wrote the congregation, “because he and I are possessed of the same spiritual genes”.

When people became Christians in the first century often their families turned on them and disowned them. The day Epaphroditus embraced Jesus Christ in faith his family wrote him off as a religious extremist who was disloyal to the family and its traditions.

Throughout our Lord’s earthly ministry his family had not understood him either. One day they came to take him home, hoping to end the embarrassment he was causing the family. “Your mother and your siblings are waiting outside for you”, he was told as he spoke. “My mother?”, Jesus had said, “my brothers? my sisters? Who are they? Here is my family. Whoever hears me and heeds me; whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother”. Mark cherished this incident and included it in his written gospel just because he wanted to lend comfort to the readers of his gospel, thirty years later, who had been disowned by their families the day they announced their love of Jesus and their loyalty to him. These people had found a new family, a greater family, in the fellowship of Christians who now clung in faith to the elder brother of them all.

Epaphroditus was brother to Paul as Paul was brother to him. The bond that bound them together was stronger than any other tie anywhere else in life. Furthermore, the last thing Paul, the most widely-known of the apostles, wanted to do was suggest that because Epaphroditus had conveyed Paul’s letter to Philippi Epaphroditus was a mere errand-boy, mere flunkie, mere mule. He is brother to the apostle, from the same spiritual womb because born of the same Spirit of God. “Be sure to look upon him as you look upon me”, Paul says to those who might be prone to look upon Epaphroditus as inferior.

Brother. My friend Reginald Miller, now retired in Chatham, N.B.; Miller spent six years as a common sailor on a British warship in World War II. You have to know the traditions of the Royal Navy to appreciate the unbreakable, unbendable line that divides officers from sailors. Yet there was one exception, Miller used to tell me; the exception was the fellowship of shipboard Christians — officers and sailors — when they were ashore. Naval rank meant nothing as iron fast traditions melted before the warmth of the gospel.

In the days of the early church slaves were slaves while free persons were free. There was nothing a microscopic church could do to overturn the empire’s legislation. But within the Christian fellowship slaves frequently taught free people the rudiments of the gospel-faith and encouraged them in it.

The highest wall, the insurmountable wall above all walls, was the wall between Jewish people and everyone else. Yet even this wall, Paul states in his letter to the congregation in Ephesus , Jesus Christ has crumbled. Therefore Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian reach out and embrace each other precisely where the insurmountable wall used to be. Those who think the wall to be standing yet, whether Jewish or Gentile, perpetuate the standoff. Let’s not forget that Paul was a Jew whose moral rigour had been faultless; Epaphroditus was a Gentile who had learned promiscuity before he had learned the alphabet. “He’s my brother, you should all know”, the apostle reminds those who need to be reminded. The apostle claims no superiority at all but rather insists on both an equality and a oneness with the younger man, since Epaphroditus is possessed of the same faith and loves the same Lord. Brother.

 

[2(ii)] Fellow-worker. What kind of fellow-worker? Fellow-tentmaker? (Paul, we know earned his living as a tentmaker.) No. We don’t know what Epaphroditus did for a living. When Paul speaks of Epaphroditus as “fellow-worker” he is thinking of work as Jesus had used the word when he said, “My father is working still, and I am working.” Here our Lord means that energy, passion, activity which magnify the kingdom of God . On one occasion Jesus came upon crowds who were spiritually clueless; they meandered, groped, stumbled, could only land themselves in spiritual disaster. Then the master turned to his disciples, “See? The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” There are hordes who are hungry for the bread of life, even as there are too few who care to feed them. The crowds stumble blindly; therefore we need more who can take them by the hand and bring them to the sight-giver himself. In other words the work which Epaphroditus has done so well as to have Paul name him “fellow-worker” is the kingdom-work of introducing people to Jesus Christ, nurturing the growth of faith, instructing them in the way of faith, confirming them amidst the trials of faith.

This is not to say that the ministry of Epaphroditus was identical in all respects to that of Paul. Paul always wanted to announce the gospel where it had never been heard before. There is no evidence that Epaphroditus thought this to be his calling. We don’t know what the young man did in his kingdom-work. He would certainly have prayed. He may have been like Barnabas, whose name, “Son of Comfort”, tells us what he was about. Perhaps he had unusual discernment as to what God’s plans were for this person or that or for one of the five house-churches in Rome . Perhaps he was so transparent to the light of the gospel that he shone like a lighthouse, telling life’s storm-tossed that there is refuge in the risen one. One aspect of his kingdom-work, obviously, was the help he rendered Paul during the latter’s imprisonment. He is never named an apostle; nevertheless the prince of apostles doesn’t hesitate to call him “fellow-worker”.

Every last person in any congregation has a unique ministry. Theirs isn’t mine and mine isn’t theirs, but theirs and mine have the same weight and are essential to each other. One Sunday morning, a few years ago, an ordinary Sunday morning when I was expecting nothing extraordinary, two things happened to me that I shall never forget. Following the service a woman older than I, a relative newcomer to the congregation, looked me in the eye with that look which renders two people so transparent to each other that they have X-ray vision into each other’s heart. She said a few simple words which, like most simple words, were incalculably weighty: “Victor, I prayed for you this morning; I pray for you every day”. Fellow-worker! Minutes later a woman whose love for our Lord makes mine look anaemic spoke to me at coffee-hour. She handed me an envelope and said, “Put this toward your next book.” Unknown to her only that week I had agreed to enter a joint publishing venture in reprinting my book of devotions, Ponder And Pray. Her gift was a substantial contribution toward the cost of reprinting the book. For in the envelope were five $100-bills. Fellow-worker.

 

[2(iii)] Fellow-soldier. Soldiering implies conflict. The gospel invariably collides with a fallen world. Jesus was immersed in conflict every day. When John Wesley was a spiritually inert clergyman he knew no conflict. Once his heart was “strangely warmed” (24th May, 1738) and he quietly apprehended the truth of the gospel he was knee-deep in conflict for the next fifty-three years of his life: conflict with bishops, with magistrates, with mobs, with lazy ministers, with theological opponents, with distillers, with bankers who wouldn’t lend his people money for small business start-up. The kingdom of God collides with the very world it is meant to redeem. The only way the Christian can avoid conflict is to cease to be a Christian. Surely no one here prefers Judas to Jesus!

It’s plain that to be a fellow-worker is always to be a fellow-soldier, since kingdom-work will always entail kingdom-conflict. And like soldiering anywhere, kingdom-soldiering entails not only conflict but hardship, suffering, even sacrifice.

Think for a minute of the horrors of the twentieth century, just concluded, beginning with the slaughter of the Armenians in the second decade, the executions of Lenin and Stalin, and so on right up to the ethnic cleansing in Croatia and the rape of 20,000 women. These conflicts that are frighteningly visible — conflicts of class, nation, race, economics, culture — are but a partial manifestation of invisible spiritual conflict that seethes ceaselessly and courses ubiquitously. And then lest we distance ourselves cavalierly from all this we should recall the word of Solzhenitsyn, Russian thinker and writer: the spiritual conflict that bedevils nations finally passes through every last individual human heart.

A world whose distinguishing feature is conflict does not welcome the gospel. When the gospel is held up those who hold it up are immersed in conflict immediately. What do they do next? Capitulate? Compromise? Deny him whose gospel it is? Or do they take their share of the hardship, suffering and sacrifice that are the lot of any soldier, as Paul reminded another young man, Timothy?

Paul commended Epaphroditus to the Philippian congregation as his “fellow-soldier”. Epaphroditus was anything but a shirker.

 

[2(iv)] Lastly the apostle insists that Epaphroditus has been a “minister to my need”. What was Paul’s particular neediness that the younger man met? We are not told. Perhaps he brought Paul food that was better than the wretched stuff fed to prisoners on death row. Unquestionably Epaphroditus met Paul’s need for companionship, alleviated his loneliness, brought news of the triumph of the gospel as the gospel flooded more widely among unbelievers and penetrated more deeply within believers.

I think too that one reason Paul doesn’t tell us what his particular need is is that he doesn’t want us to know. We each have that need which we do not advertise not because we are ashamed of it but because it is so private, so personal, so deep in us, so close to our heart that only our soul-mates can meet it and therefore only our soul-mates are permitted to see it. I know whereof I speak. And in the providence of God I have been given those who know me so intimately and love me so dearly that they meet that need which others do not know of and never will. Paul didn’t tell the Philippian congregation that every last Christian in Rome ministered to his need; he said that Epaphroditus did. You and I are ministers to the need of fellow-Christians. Then every day we must thank God for those who give us privileged access to them, even as we thank God for those whom we give privileged access to us.

 

[3] Paul rejoiced in the person Epaphroditus had become by the grace of God. No longer in the orbit of Aphrodite and all that the goddess-cult represented, Epaphroditus knew a new lord and cherished a new lifestyle. Paul loved the younger man and wanted to make sure that the congregation in Philippi kept on loving him too. “Brother, fellow-worker, fellow-soldier, minister to my need.” What is this but a description of our sisters and brothers in Christ? Which is to say, the profile of a parishioner in Rome or Philippi or King Township, the profile of a parishioner anywhere, that man or woman you and I have been called to serve in the name of Jesus Christ.

 

                                                                                               Victor Shepherd             

April 2003                                                                                  

 

Philippians 2:25-30
Mark 3:31-35
Matthew 9:37
2 Timothy 2:3

What is the Nature of Our Fellowship Here

Philippians 2:25-30

 

[1] I have always admired courage. The courage I admire doesn’t have to be dramatic: a military hero outnumbered twenty-five to one, fighting off enemy commandos when the whole world would think he had no chance at all. The courage I admire can be so undramatic as scarcely to be noticeable: the woman with advanced arthritis who has struggled valiantly for decades to get herself up one flight of stairs, the elderly widower whose grown-up children scorn him yet who thrives amidst rejection and isolation, the psychiatrically wounded person who braves the day despite nameless terrors that no one else can be expected to understand.

Epaphroditus was never a hero in the sense that Paul was deemed a hero. Paul, we know, had been beaten several times, had been shipwrecked, had escaped pursuers on several occasions, and was even in prison when he wrote his brief letter to the congregation in Philippi. Epaphroditus, on the other hand, appeared to be a little-known fellow in a small congregation. Yet when the congregation wanted to support Paul during his imprisonment in Rome, and when the congregation wanted to get a gift to the apostle it loved, it sent Epaphroditus.

Make no mistake. Epaphroditus was exceedingly courageous. He was, after all, friend and personal attendant to a notorious fellow who was awaiting trial on a capital offense. Eddie Greenspan wasn’t on hand to defend the apostle, and therefore when the full weight of the Roman empire fell on Paul it would surely crush as well the younger man now labelled an accomplice. Epaphroditus couldn’t have been more courageous.

Then Epaphroditus fell ill, dreadfully ill. As he struggled back to health Paul thought the younger man should return to the congregation in Philippi. In the first place Paul didn’t want to endanger the young man any more. In the second place he knew that the congregation in Philippi was aware of Epaphroditus’s illness and wanted to see for themselves that he was well again. In the third place Epaphroditus had had his fill of Rome, the “Big Apple”, and wanted to go back to the smaller city and the congregation which loved him. In the fourth place Paul wanted to get a letter (really, a short theological treatise) to the congregation in Philippi, and having Epaphroditus deliver it would guarantee its safe delivery. The decision was made: Epaphroditus would return to Philippi.

Now while the Christian fellowship in Philippi was rich and warm and without major problems Paul knew that nonetheless there would be two or three “snarky” people in it who were suspicious gossipers with curdled sentiments. The two or three snarky people would gossip that Epaphroditus was a coward and a quitter, and was returning to Philippi only because he had “chickened out” of supporting Paul. Paul knew he had to state unambiguously that Epaphroditus was neither a coward nor a quitter if only to silence the sour gossipers who are found in small numbers in any congregation. For this reason Paul underlines to the congregation that Epaphroditus has been a brother, a fellow-worker, a fellow-soldier, and a minister to his need.

 

[2(i)] Brother. The Greek word for “brother”, adelphos, literally means “from the same womb”. Brothers (sisters) come from the same womb, the same source, the same origin. “Think as highly of Epaphroditus as you think of me”, Paul wrote the congregation, “because he and I are possessed of the same spiritual genes”.

When people became Christians in the first century often their families turned on them and disowned them. The day he embraced Jesus Christ in faith the family of Epaphroditus wrote him off as a religious extremist now disloyal to the family and its traditions.

Throughout our Lord’s earthly ministry his family hadn’t understood him either. One day they came to take him home, hoping to end the embarrassment he was causing the family. “Your mother and your siblings are waiting outside for you” he was told as he spoke. “My mother?” Jesus had said, “my brothers? my sisters? Who are they? Here is my family. Whoever hears me and heeds me; whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother”. Mark cherished this incident and included it in his written gospel just because he wanted to lend comfort to the readers of his gospel, thirty years later, who had been disowned by their families the day they announced their love of Jesus and their loyalty to him. These people had found a new family, a greater family, in the fellowship of Christians who now clung in faith to the elder brother of them all.

Epaphroditus was brother to Paul as Paul was brother to him. The bond that bound them together was stronger than any other tie anywhere else in life. Furthermore, the last thing Paul, the most widely-known of the apostles, wanted to do was suggest that because Epaphroditus had conveyed Paul’s letter to Philippi, Epaphroditus was a mere errand-boy, mere flunkie, mere mule. He is brother to the apostle, from the same spiritual womb because born of the same Spirit of God. “Be sure to look upon him as you look upon me”, Paul says to those who might be prone to look upon Epaphroditus as inferior.

Brother. My friend Reginald Miller, now retired in Chatham, N.B.; Miller spent six years as a common sailor on a British warship in World War II. You have to know the traditions of the Royal Navy to appreciate the unbreakable, unbendable line that divides officers from sailors. Yet there was one exception, Miller used to tell me; the exception was the fellowship of shipboard Christians — officers and sailors — when they were ashore. Naval rank meant nothing as ironfast traditions melted before the warmth of the gospel.

In the days of the early church, slaves were unalterably slaves as surely as free persons were free. There was nothing a microscopic church could do to overturn the empire’s legislation. But within the Christian fellowship slaves who were mature Christians frequently taught free people (superior everywhere outside the church) the rudiments of the gospel-faith and encouraged them in it.

The highest wall, the insurmountable wall above all walls, was the wall between Jews and everyone else. Yet even this wall, Paul states in his letter to the congregation in Ephesus, Jesus Christ has crumbled. Therefore Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian reach out and embrace each other precisely where the insurmountable wall used to be. Non-Christians think the wall is still standing and therefore perpetuate the standoff! Let’s not forget that Paul was a Jew whose moral rigour had been relentless; Epaphroditus was a Gentile whose family had trafficked in promiscuity. (Epaphroditus had been named after the goddess Aphrodite.) “He’s my brother, you should all know”, the apostle reminds those who need to be reminded. The apostle claims no superiority at all but rather insists on both an equality and a oneness with the younger man, since Epaphroditus is possessed of the same faith and loves the same Lord. Brother.

 

[2(ii)] Fellow-worker. What kind of fellow-worker? Fellow-tentmaker? (Paul, we know earned his living as a tentmaker.) No. We don’t know what Epaphroditus did for a living. When Paul speaks of Epaphroditus as “fellow-worker” he is thinking of work as Jesus had used the word when he said, “My father is working still, and I am working.” Here our Lord means energy, passion, action devoted to the kingdom of God. On one occasion Jesus came upon crowds who were spiritually clueless; they meandered, groped, stumbled, could only land themselves in spiritual disaster. Then the master turned to his disciples, “See? The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” There are hordes who are hungry for the bread of life, even as there are too few who care to feed them. The crowds stumble blindly; therefore we need more who can take them by the hand and bring them to the sight-giver himself. In other words the work which Epaphroditus has done so well as to have Paul name him “fellow-worker” is the kingdom-work of introducing people to Jesus Christ, nurturing the growth of faith, instructing them in the way of faith, confirming them amidst the trials of faith.

This is not to say that the ministry of Epaphroditus was identical in all respects to that of Paul. Paul always wanted to announce the gospel where it had never been heard before. There is no evidence that Epaphroditus thought this to be his calling. We don’t know what the young man did in his kingdom-work. He would certainly have prayed. He may have been like Barnabas, whose name, “Son of Comfort”, tells us what he was about. Perhaps he had unusual discernment as to what God’s plans were for this person or that or for one of the five house-churches in Rome. Perhaps he was so transparent to the light of the gospel that he shone like a lighthouse, telling life’s storm-tossed that there is refuge in the risen one. One aspect of his kingdom-work, obviously, was the help he rendered Paul during the latter’s imprisonment. He is never named an apostle; nevertheless the prince of apostles doesn’t hesitate to call him “fellow-worker”.

Every last person in every last congregation has a unique ministry. Theirs won’t be ours and ours won’t be theirs, but theirs and ours have the same weight and are essential to each other. We speak incorrectly when we say of someone, “He’s studying at seminary with a view to entering the ministry.” With a view to entering the ministry? What do we think he’s been about up until now? When we speak of someone “entering the ministry” we really mean not that he is now a Christian, not that he is finally rendering a service to the kingdom, but rather that he will shortly earn his living as a paid professional in the employment of the church-institution. Since this is what we mean, this is what we should say. According to scripture it simply isn’t correct to say that the clergy are “in the ministry” while other Christians aren’t. To be a Christian and to have a ministry are one and the same. The particular service each of us renders the kingdom varies from person to be person, to be sure; still, we are all alike ministers and therefore fellow-workers.

 

[2(iii)] Fellow-soldier. Soldiering implies conflict. The gospel invariably collides with a fallen world. Jesus himself was immersed in conflict every day. When John Wesley was a spiritually inert clergyman he knew no conflict. Once he became “lit” (24th May, 1738) and thereafter exalted the truth of the gospel he was knee-deep in conflict for the next fifty-three years of his life: conflict with bishops, with magistrates, with mobs, with lazy ministers, with theological opponents, with distillers, with bankers who wouldn’t lend his people money for small business start-up. The kingdom of God collides with the very world it is meant to redeem. The only way the Christian can avoid conflict is to cease to be a Christian. Surely no one here prefers Judas to Jesus!

It’s plain that to be a fellow-worker is always to be a fellow-soldier, since kingdom-work will always entail kingdom-conflict. And like soldiering anywhere, kingdom-soldiering entails not only conflict but hardship, suffering, even sacrifice.

Think for a minute of the horrors of the twentieth century, beginning with the slaughter of the Armenians in the second decade, the executions of Lenin and Stalin, and so on right up to the ethnic cleansing in Croatia and the slaughter in Rwanda. These conflicts which are frighteningly visible — conflicts of class, nation, race, economics, culture — are but a partial manifestation of invisible spiritual conflict which seethes ceaselessly and courses ubiquitously. And then lest we distance ourselves cavalierly from all this we should recall the word of Solzhenitsyn, Russian thinker and writer: the spiritual conflict which bedevils nations finally passes through every last individual human heart.

A world whose distinguishing feature is conflict doesn’t welcome the gospel. When the gospel is held up those who hold it up are immersed in conflict immediately. What do they do next? Capitulate? Compromise? Deny him whose gospel it is? Or do they take their share of the hardship, suffering and sacrifice which is the lot of any soldier, as Paul reminded another young man, Timothy?

Paul commended Epaphroditus to the Philippian congregation as his “fellow-soldier”. Epaphroditus was anything but a shirker.

 

[2(iv)] Lastly the apostle insists that Epaphroditus has been a “minister to my need”. What was Paul’s particular need which the younger man met? We aren’t told. Perhaps he brought Paul food which was better than the wretched stuff fed to prisoners on death-row. Unquestionably Epaphroditus met Paul’s need for companionship, alleviated his loneliness, brought news of the triumph of the gospel as the gospel flooded more widely among unbelievers and penetrated more deeply within believers.

I think too that one reason Paul doesn’t tell us what his particular need is that he doesn’t want us to know. We each have that need which we don’t advertise not because we are ashamed of it but because it is so private, so personal, so deep in us, so close to our heart that only our soul-mates can meet it and therefore only our soul-mates are permitted to see it. I know whereof I speak. And in the providence of God I have been given those who know me so intimately and love me so dearly that they meet that need which others do not know of and never will. Paul didn’t tell the Philippian congregation that every last Christian in Rome ministered to his need; he said that Epaphroditus did. You and I are ministers to the need of fellow-Christians. Then every day we must thank God for those who give us privileged access to them, as well as for those whom we give privileged access to us.

 

[3] How much weight do you attach to the “fellow” aspect of our “fellowship” here in Streetsville? From time-to-time some people tell me they are enormously disappointed. Others tell me they are startled how much we care for each other. Where we are deficient we should lose no time in intervening so as to re-value the word “fellowship”. For myself, I have known myself cherished in this congregation, upheld, cared for, trusted and simply loved, as I have nowhere else. For here I have found dozens of people of whom I am glad to say, “brother (sister)”, “fellow-worker”, “fellow-soldier”, “minister to my need.”

 

                                                                                                       Victor Shepherd

August 1998

 

A Note On Christian Maturity

Philippians 3:12-16       Ephesians 4:11-1p6        Hebrews 5:11-1

 

When a scrawny, listless, dull-eyed baby is brought to a physician and the physician pronounces, “Failure to thrive”, the parents are in trouble. “Failure to thrive” suggests that the parents are negligent, or abusive, or psychologically unfit, or at the very least too immature to be entrusted with a baby.

For a long time I have thought that congregations should be far more concerned about the spiritual neo-nates among us who may fail to thrive.

The apostles were certainly aware of the challenge. John speaks of the need for birth. Peter adds that milk must be fed the neo-nates if they are to develop. Then Paul tells the Christians in Thessalonica how pleased he is that their “faith is growing abundantly.”

Still, Paul isn’t content to see that some believers at least have moved from birth to infancy and beyond. Why stop with childhood, even adolescence? The goal of his ministry, he insists, is to proclaim Jesus Christ so as to “present every man [woman] mature in Christ.” The apostle knows that infancy in infants is fine, but infancy in a 30-year old is tragic. Infancy in anyone except an infant is infantilism. There is never anything commendable about infantilism. Paul is horrified merely to think of Christians who might fail to thrive. We must grow up!

I: — In the first place it is essential that we mature, says the apostle, or else we shall remain “children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.” When he speaks of “doctrine” in this context he doesn’t mean Christian truths; he means false teaching, ideology, fads and fancies which invariably lead people astray. Those who do not mature as Christians are vulnerable to whatever is blowing in the wind.

Think of the newest therapy from New York. I mention New York City only because two-thirds of the world’s psychoanalysts live in the one city. This fact does not seem to render NYC a better mental environment. And psychoanalysis is only one of 200 recognized schools of therapy. The 201st school is not going to be our salvation. Only the spiritually mature will be able to ensure that whatever is blowing in the wind isn’t going to be their spiritual seduction, even their spiritual destruction.

When I entered seminary sensitivity-training was “all the rage”. I noticed two things about fellow-candidates for the ministry who were the keenest on sensitivity-training, “T” groups, etc. Invariably they disdained the gospel, were ignorant of it, and appeared to lack any experience of it. The “sensitivity” fad had become a substitute for the gospel. In the second place they were consistently the most insensitive people I had met. They shredded others in class or in their “T”group, and were unconcerned that those who had been shredded haemorrhaged emotionally for several days. Imagine someone saying to you, “In this group today we are going to share our most intimate experience. What, Sally, you aren’t going to share your most intimate experience with this group of strangers? You appear to have hang-ups. Don’t you trust us? Have you internalized all your mother’s inhibitions?” Then Sally’s emotional haemorrhage began. The vocabulary had to do with sensitivity; the technique was coercion; the outcome was catastrophe.

After sensitivity-training (by now I was a newly-ordained clergyperson) it was bio-feedback. Then it was small group dynamics. Then third-world political leftism. (Crypto-communism had been newly sainted by the church’s left-wing “loonies”.) Then it was environmentalism. Jesus saves — seals! But what about codfish? The save-a-seal folks who hijacked the church didn’t seem to grasp the fact that one seal eats 22 pounds of cod per day. Why don’t we admit that baby seals were spared because seal pups have a cute face, while baby cod were not spared because they have an ugly face, and are first cousins of reptiles? (Have you ever wanted to cuddle a cod?)

Next it was the new-age movement. The new-age, upholding pantheism as it does — pantheism being the notion that God is the essence of all that is — conveniently lacked any understanding of evil or sin. For the new-agers there can’t be evil or sin, just because God is the essence of everything. No sin! What a bonanza! What a convenient religion for baby-boom yuppies! The moral disasters brought to me through the new-age ideology you would have to hear to believe, but I am not about to tell you.

Next it was the ridiculous extremism of wilder feminism. It isn’t the blood of Jesus that saves; now it’s women’s body-fluids, say the devotees of Sophia. (Before you dismiss this you should know that The United Church’s national office sent 50-plus delegates to the last Sophia conference.)

I am not denying that some of these groups may have had something profound to say; I am not denying that some have had a corrective that needed to be heard; I am not denying that some aspects of these groups may have developed in response to deficiencies in the church’s understanding of the gospel or its embodiment of the gospel. Nevertheless, precisely what is it that is profound? Where is it a corrective? How has there come to be a deficiency in the church’s understanding or embodiment of the gospel? Only the spiritually mature can answer these questions. Only the spiritually mature can resist seduction and victimization. Only the mature can recognize the swirling winds and resist being blown every which way.

Speaking of winds. When our more ancient foreparents began to sail they could sail only in the direction in which the wind was blowing. If the wind was blowing where they didn’t want to go, too bad. Either they took the sail down and drifted or they put the sail up and were blown off course. As our more ancient foreparents became more sophisticated sailors, however, they learned how to sail across the wind, even how to sail against the wind. Regardless of where the wind was blowing now, they could use the wind — any wind — to go where they were supposed to go.

It is a mark of Christian maturity that we can advance, go where we are supposed to be going, regardless of the most contrary winds that are blowing around us. We can sail across some winds (those winds that have something to say to us), while we sail against other winds (those currents that we must repudiate.) Nevertheless, regardless of the winds Christ’s people are surging ahead. Only the mature can do this!

In the passage we are examining in Paul’s letter to the congregation in Ephesus he tells us that we come to “mature manhood” as we come to “knowledge of the Son of God”. Then week-in and week-out we must be resolute in our coming to know Jesus Christ. Otherwise maturity will escape us, and we shall be defenceless against anything and everything that blows around us.

II: — There is another aspect to maturity. “Forgetting what lies behind”, writes Paul to the congregation in Philippi, “and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature be thus minded.”

“Forgetting what lies behind.” The Greek word Paul uses (eplanthanomai) means to forget not merely in the sense of lose awareness of (“I forget where I left my umbrella”). More importantly, the Greek verb means to forget in the sense of no longer care about; have no interest in; can’t be bothered with; have no time for; never want to think of again. What lies behind, says the apostle, we no longer care about, can’t be bothered with, never think of. Why? Because we are preoccupied with what lies ahead. And what lies ahead? “The prize [reward] of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

I don’t know if Paul had any athletic talent. I do know he was fond of athletic images. When he speaks of “straining forward to what lies ahead” he has in mind a sprinter in the last few feet of a race leaning forward into the finish-line tape. The finish is only milliseconds away. The sprinter “lets it all out” and extends himself, leaning forward for the tape. Imagine the runner’s intensity, his concentration, his determination, his absorption. Is the crowd cheering or booing? He doesn’t hear. Is there even a crowd? He doesn’t see. Is it a hot day? He doesn’t feel. Forgetting what lies behind, he is absorbed in what lies ahead, so close to the finish-line he can almost touch it.

Speaking of forgetting what lies behind, in my boyhood days I looked upon the Hebrew story of Lot’s wife as the most stupid narrative I had ever read. She was told not to look back at the city she and her husband were fleeing. She stole a backward glance — and was “zapped” into a pillar of salt! What kind of primitive superstition was this story about? About a whimsical deity, as cruel as he was arbitrary, who lost his temper because someone didn’t conform to a pointless prohibition?

Now that I am old I return to the story constantly. I know now that the prohibition wasn’t pointless. Lot and his wife were fleeing Sodom, a city on which the judgement of God had fallen, as God’s judgement inevitably falls on all of history. Why did Lot’s wife look back? Did she secretly hanker after what Sodom was about, even though what Sodom was about had incurred God’s judgement? Even if she didn’t; even if she didn’t secretly hanker after Sodom’s sin, her looking back meant that she believed more about the past than she did about the future. She thought that the past held more for her than did the future. At the very least she sinned in resisting the summons of God toward the future. God’s people don’t look back longingly just because God himself is the God of the future! God’s people look ahead! The final, full manifestation of the kingdom of God is ahead of us. We are racing towards it! What sprinter ever ran looking backwards?

On Easter morning several women went to the city cemetery to deodorize a corpse. They were greeted with a word that startled them: “He isn’t here. He is risen. He is going before you to Galilee.” What we have to take home today is this: “He isn’t here…. He is going beforeyou.” We persist in looking for Jesus Christ amidst decay and death when the only way we can meet him is to look ahead. He is always before us, never behind us!

Lot’s wife: she looked back and was petrified, frozen, fixed forever in frustration and futility. Who wants to be fixed forever in frustration and futility? Then we shan’t look back, expecting more from the past than we expect from the future.

Being frozen would be bad enough. What’s worse in those who keep on looking back is the metamorphosis they gradually undergo. Those who look back persistently grieve for the past. Regret fills them.

As they continue to look back regret slowly turns into resentment. Somebody, several somebodies, “did them dirt” back then and now they are resentful.

As they continue to look back resentment curdles into rancour. Rancour is through-and-through bitterness, even hatred. Now they are full of pus and poison themselves.

As they continue to look back rancour hardens into retribution. Now they are vindictive, and the poison inside spills outside onto others.

Regret, resentment, rancour, retribution: from nostalgia-grief to a sour heart to a public menace. Lot’s wife was pillared into salt she was a traffic hazard to all who, more mature than she, were bent on moving ahead!

More mature? “One thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I go flat out for the finish-line, just because my Lord and his kingdom await me there”, says the apostle, only to add, “Let those of us who are mature be thus minded.”

III: — Let’s listen as well to the unnamed author of the epistle to the Hebrews. “Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” Solid food is needed to move people to a maturity which equips them to distinguish good from evil.

What is more important than being equipped to distinguish good from evil? What is more difficult? Most people assume it’s easy to distinguish good from evil; they assume that any slovenly sleepyhead can discern evil. Quite the contrary. Evil is subtle; evil is sophisticated; evil is blatant one instant and cleverly disguised the next, all of which keeps us off-balance and prevents simplistic diagnoses. Only the mature who have become mature through ingesting solid food; only the mature are equipped in this regard.

Not only is evil both blatant and subtle, there is no end to the complex interweaving of evil’s endless dimensions. Think, for instance, of those among us who are detained by the criminal justice system. Recently I spoke with a clergyman, an Anglican, who moved from being a parish priest in suburbia to a chaplain in a facility that incarcerates young offenders. These boys (I think they should be called “boys” rather then “men”, not least because the government has deemed them too young for trial in adult courts); these boys have committed horrific crimes. That’s why they are locked up. When my Anglican friend began his work among them he learned something that he hadn’t found in suburbia. These boys had to be taught how and when and why to brush their teeth; none of them had ever owned a toothbrush. More chilling to hear (so dreadful, in fact, as to be almost unendurable), none of the boys he met in the “young offender” prison had grown up in a family where they had had their own bed, a bed to themselves. Not only are these boys evildoers whose evildoing has victimized others; plainly they are victims of evil themselves. Then should they be punished or pitied? Are they to be punished and pitied? The criminal justice system, however crude and imprecise it might be (it is crude and imprecise), is the ready-to-hand instrument that has to be used in the face of a societal emergency. But is the criminal justice system subtle enough subsequently to assist evil-steeped youngsters who are themselves both victims and victimizers?

Then there is the evil which strikes us (some of us) as undeniably evil when others don’t see it to be evil at all. Not so long ago the newspapers told us of the court-decision which permits a pregnant woman to sniff glue and continue sniffing glue regardless of the damage done to her soon-to-be-born child. The court decided that to pronounce against glue-sniffing in this case would infringe a woman’s rights.

Lest we think that stupefying inability to sort out evil from non-evil is found only outside the church let me tell you of something else. I am a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada, and at one time I sat on the Rights and Freedoms Committee of The Writers’ Union of Canada. At one committee meeting we discussed an Alberta politician’s attempt at having a book banned. In the course of the discussion we were acquainted with several attempts in Alberta to have many books banned. A group of Christians there has sought to ban C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on two grounds: it is anti-Christian, and it promotes witchcraft.

It takes genuine maturity to understand what is genuinely evil, how dimensions of evil interpenetrate, and what discerners should do in the midst of it all.

The maturity which enables us to distinguish good from evil is the same maturity which keeps us from being victimized by everything that is “blowing in the wind”. And of course the same maturity will find us looking ahead to that day when discernment will no longer be needed just because the kingdom of this world will have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.

 

No doubt you are thinking that the sermon has ended. It has. I cannot refrain, however from adding a postscript. From time to time throughout my 32-year ministry I am asked to make the sermons shorter, simpler, easier to grasp, less advanced, couched in less mature language. I dare not. Solid food, solid food, is needed if we are ever going to mature.

 

Victor Shepherd     May 2002

1 Peter 2:2
2 Thessalonians 1:3
Ephesians 4:13-15*
Philippians 3:13-15*
Genesis 19:26
Mark 16:6-7
Hebrews 5:13-14*

A Note on “The surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord”

Philippians 3:2-16

 

[1] Why did he put up with it? Listen to the litany of hardship: imprisonment, beatings, stoning, three times shipwrecked, adrift at sea for a day and a half, hunger, thirst, exposure. “He” is the apostle Paul. Why did he put up with it all? Very simply he tells us why in the warmest letter he ever wrote, his letter to the congregation in Philippi : “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” These nine words say it all. If our hearts echo the same nine words; that is, if our experience of our Lord echoes his, then we understand the apostle. If, on the other hand, “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” finds no echo within us, then we must conclude that Paul was either a masochist or a fanatic. He must have been a masochist, putting up with extraordinary affliction because he liked to suffer. Or he must have been a fanatic, and like any wild-eyed fanatic, so very intense, hysterical even, that he was beyond feeling any pain.

But there’s no evidence of derangement in Paul. There’s no evidence he was ever masochistic or hysterical. Then “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” sufficiently explains why he put up with tortuous hardship.

It all began for the apostle when the risen Lord seized him. Paul was seized precisely when he expected nothing of the sort. It wasn’t the case that he had been badly depressed or anxious or confused or conscience-stricken and then had one day found relief in “religion.” He wasn’t looking for something to counterbalance assorted personal deficits that he had dragged along (“baggage” we call it today) since childhood. Neither was he calculating how much better it might for his career if he joined the service club, the historical society and the church. He had been overtaken. As he was overtaken he was overwhelmed. What possessed him now was light-years beyond anything he had expected, anything he had ever wanted, anything he had ever thought possible.

 

[2]   Don’t get me wrong. I’m not belittling in any way those who look to Jesus Christ out of fear or anxiety or guilt or loneliness or bereavement or illness or approaching death. Such is our Lord’s humility that he welcomes those who come to him for any reason. Such is our Lord’s mercy that he accepts those who look to him from any motive, however self-serving. And such should be our delight that we too cherish fellow-believers who have come to him for who knows what reason.

My only point is that Paul didn’t look to our Lord because he felt needy; he wasn’t even looking. He was overtaken. Once overtaken and overwhelmed he found himself possessed of what he hadn’t even known to be available.

I am often asked how the gospel is going to gain a hearing with secular suburbanites, since secular suburbanites already seem to “have it all.” Decades ago preachers zeroed in on what people didn’t have: they didn’t have peace or joy or contentment; many were reminded they didn’t even have morality. But today’s suburbanites appear impervious to the older approach. Today’s suburbanites don’t fret because they fear their lives are empty. Life is so full they are chronically tired. (You must have noticed that exhaustion, not boredom, typifies suburbia.) They don’t flagellate themselves on account of moral failure. Either they feel they have morality enough or they don’t care that they haven’t. They don’t look to the church for help in dealing with emotional difficulties. Emotional difficulties are dealt with by therapists and pharmacists. Then where is the vulnerable spot, the “landing spot,” where the gospel can gain entry? There is no vulnerable spot, apparently, in our friends who “have it all together.” At the same time, it isn’t the preacher’s task to create such a landing spot. After all, the last thing we want to do is foster emotional fragility in those who feel themselves psychologically stable. Nobody told Paul that he wasn’t nearly as well put together as he thought himself to be. (Had he been told this he would have laughed.) Had some well-meaning Christian come alongside him prior to his arrest on the Damascus Road and said, “Brother, you need Jesus,” Paul would have snorted, “I need him about as much as I need a hole in the head.” Then how had the gospel gained a hearing with him? Not through glaring personal defects that a clever preacher could enlarge and exploit. He was overtaken and overwhelmed. What then possessed him he had never anticipated and could never have expected. He was captivated by “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

“Surpassing value” or “surpassing worth” – what is it? Huperechon is a Greek word which means that which is loftier, recognizably better, and more telling, and all these at once. Loftier, recognizably better, more telling. It doesn’t mean that what preceded was bad or worthless; it means that what has come surpasses even what is very good. What has come is simply loftier, recognisably better, more telling.

 

[3] What Paul had inherited was good; what had surrounded him from birth was rich. He was fortunate.

   “Circumcised on the eighth day.”  Unlike converts to Judaism who were circumcised in adulthood upon joining themselves to the congregation, Paul was circumcised in infancy. In other words he was raised by parents who were serious about the spiritual formation of their child.

I grew up in a home that was serious about my spiritual formation. When I was three weeks old my parents promised publicly, in a service of dedication, that they would do anything and everything to encourage me in the way of discipleship. They meant it. For years I saw my parents gladly endure inconvenience and cheerfully make sacrifices for my sake, hoping that it would all bear fruit in me.

   “Of the tribe of Benjamin.” Benjamin was the only patriarch privileged to be born in the Promised Land. The tribe of Benjamin had given Israel its first king, Saul. Jeremiah and Micah, faithful Israelite prophets of gigantic stature, had been Benjaminites. Mordecai, a folk hero in Israel , had belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. To belong to the tribe of Benjamin was to be privileged.

I have always felt myself privileged. When I was eight years old my father had me read the editorial page of the Sunday New York Times newspaper. He had me read it on Monday evening when he bought it in downtown Toronto . Since I was only eight I didn’t understand half the words on the editorial page. And certainly I hadn’t a clue as to what issues the editor was writing about. Still, my father kept me at it. He told me he wanted to improve my facility in English lest I grow up lacking precision in verbal expression.

The sermons in our local church were usually bad, so very bad that my father, always charitable, would only comment on our way home, “At least the text was good.” (Frequently I reminded him that the text was the one thing an inept preacher couldn’t ruin.) As a result my parents would go anywhere in Toronto , dragging along me and my sisters with them, in order to hear better preaching. Since they had no car we had to travel on the TTC, even if it meant two or three streetcars.

“A Hebrew of the Hebrews,” Paul says of himself. He knew Hebrew, the sacred tongue. Most Jewish people of his era didn’t know Hebrew. They were biblically and theologically disadvantaged.

I know the logic of scripture. I am extraordinarily privileged in the theological formation I have received.

 

None of this is to be slighted in any way. All of it is good. It’s far better to have it than to be without it. Paul never pretended anything else. He never said it was insignificant. He does say, however, that it pales compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat: I am everlastingly grateful for the Christian privilege to which I was born. It’s much better to have it than to be without it. Nevertheless, of itself such privilege guarantees nothing. While it points me toward knowing Jesus Christ it can’t generate this. I myself, at some point, must seize the one who of his grace seized me as first he overtook me and overwhelmed me. Every privilege in my background is important. Nonetheless it pales compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

 

[4] A year or two ago I met Dr Helen Huston, a Canadian missionary surgeon who has spent her entire working life in Nepal . Having read much about her, and having read a biography of her, I was eager to see her. I had already read a letter of hers, written earlier still, in which she had spoken of Christians who had been willing to suffer for their faith. Now she was telling me (and others) of fellow-believers in Nepal who were being persecuted. Some are ostracized, some are in prison, hundreds are out of jail only because they have posted bail and must report to the courts every month, many have mortgaged their lands in order to pay their bail. And then Dr Huston’s bottom line: “We must stand in solidarity with them. It is worth everything to know Jesus.”

I wish to draw our attention here to three matters.

The first. Helen Huston went to Nepal right out of medical school as a missionary of The United Church of Canada. As she came home on furlough every six or seven years she noticed a theological erosion in The United Church, which erosion developed into a theological abyss. Finally she distanced herself publicly from the several anti-gospel agendas that the denomination had adopted. Whereupon she was denied access to United Church pulpits. (Missionaries on furlough always itinerate from pulpit to pulpit, don’t they, if only in order to raise awareness of overseas missions and raise financial support as well.) She was also denied access to United Church seminaries, denominational authorities deeming it better that she not address candidates for the ministry. This amounts to denominational harassment.

The second matter. She has known much hardship herself in Nepal , having lived among Christians for whom persecution for their faith is as certain as the sun’s rising in the east.

The third. None of this has daunted her: “It’s worth everything to know Jesus.”

 

[5] In all she has written and done Helen Huston has drawn our attention to something crucial in Paul’s letter to the congregation in Philippi : to know the surpassing value of Jesus Christ is alsoto share in Christ’s sufferings and to know the power of Christ’s resurrection.   Nothing can be more vital and visceral than this. To know Jesus Christ immediately relativises everything that we might otherwise regard as supremely important. In addition, to know Christ is immediately to share in Christ’s anguish as well as to share in Christ’s resurrection. Once we grasp how vital, how visceral, all of this is we shall understand immediately how unsubstantial, how frothy, most other things are by comparison. Remember, “surpassing value” translates a Greek word that means loftier, recognizably better, and more telling – all at once.

We suffer with our Lord’s suffering inasmuch as we immerse ourselves in those situations that cause him to suffer. He suffers wherever the world is broken; he suffers wherever people are flayed; he suffers wherever there is one pained person pained for any reason at all, her fault or somebody else’s. In his parable of the sheep and the goats it’s plain that our Lord suffers in the suffering of the distressed and the victimised whether these people are believers or not. What’s more, it’s plain from scripture that our Lord suffers additionally in the extraordinary sufferings that believers endure inasmuch as they are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

Our Lord’s resurrection, on the other hand, means that he triumphs in all such situations.   You and I suffer as much as anyone else in life simply on account of the human situation. In addition we increase our suffering by deliberately standing with the distressed and victimised of the world. And then we increase our suffering still more by standing up with Christ’s people. And just because we have shared our Lord’s suffering in all this we are going to know his triumph in the midst of it all. We are going to learn how wonderfully effective he has been in situations where we thought he was handcuffed and where others never thought of him at all. It all begins with the surpassing worth of knowing him.

 

[6] I began today by asking us to ponder why Paul put up with it all: the beatings, the shipwrecks, the imprisonments – that is, why he put up with the torment he received at the hands of authorities as well as the pain inflicted through his extraordinary exposure to natural disasters. So far I haven’t mentioned the suffering he endured at the hands of the church: his pain at the congregation in Corinth that promoted party-spirit and bickering, even tolerated incest; his heartbreak at the congregation in Galatia that submerged the gospel in Spirit-less legalism; his dismay at the congregation in Thessalonica, some of whose members, misinterpreting the second coming, had quit their jobs and become bums. My question now is, why did Paul put up with what he did from the church?

He did so for one reason: that surpassing worth which can’t find words to describe what it longs to commend to others. This is the only reason, but this is reason enough. Knowing this, and knowing as well what it is to share Christ’s sufferings and see the efficacy of Christ’s resurrection; this is reason enough.

Ultimately this is the only reason why the church is in business, why I am speaking, why you are listening, why we encourage those among us and invite those not yet among us to praise God for his unspeakable gift, Christ Jesus our Lord.

                                                                                                    Victor Shepherd                                                                                           

August 2004

On Rejoicing . . . . Always

  Philippians 4:4-7    Habakkuk 3:17-18    John 16: 20-22   

 

I:– It’s easy to be happy some of the time; when things are going our way, when the ball is bouncing for us, when our ship is coming in day after day. Yet it is the command of God that we rejoice all the time. If our circumstances are what give us joy, then what happens when our circumstances change, as they always do?

I have used the words “happiness” and “joy” as though they were synonyms, but in fact they are not. Happiness depends on circumstances and therefore is relatively superficial; joy depends on something else and is eversomuch deeper.

The difference is illustrated in the correspondence between Martin Niemoeller, a pastor in the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany, and his wife Else. Niemoeller had been a submarine captain in World War I. When Hitler came to power and molested the church Niemoeller opposed him vigorously, with the result that Niemoeller was imprisoned for eight years. In one of his letters to Else he allays his wife’s anxiety about him by telling her that he is faring better than she fears. His life now resembles the fierce storms he encountered during his submarine days: terrible turbulence on the surface, but unfathomable peace in the depths. A threatened man can “rejoice always” only if there is something so deep in his life that it is beyond anything which circumstances can alter.

We should be realistic and sensible about the distinction between happiness and joy. There are circumstances where no sane person is happy. When people are bereaved we expect them to be sad; when people are in pain we expect them to groan; when people are betrayed we expect them to be shocked. These are normal responses. When responses are not normal (that is, when someone’s emotional response doesn’t square with what is happening in her life) that person is psychiatrically ill.

Not only should we be realistic and sensible, we should also be compassionate. St. Paul instructs us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Our hearts are to be attuned to theirs. We are neither to disregard their sorrow out of insensitivity nor diminish their joy out of envy.

And of course there is one situation where we are never to rejoice. “Love does not rejoice at wrong”, the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 13, “love rejoices in the right”.

 

II: — Let’s look again at the command of God, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” To rejoice in the Lord always — means that we have settled something in the deepest depths of our lives. Think for a minute of John Newton, Anglican clergyman, hymnwriter, counsellor and former slaveship captain. John met Mary Catlett when he was fourteen and she twelve. They loved each other ardently. Newton spent years at sea on merchant ships, warships and slaveships. He saw Mary infrequently. Yet their love for each other was undying. By age thirty-nine Newton had become a beneficiary of the “amazing grace” for which he would be known ever after. He was now finished with the sea and would spend the rest of his long life as a preacher and pastor. He had always assumed that he would predecease his wife, unable as he was to imagine living without her. She, however, died first. Mary was buried on a Wednesday. Four days later, on Sunday, Newton stood up in the pulpit of his church in London. Everyone wondered what text the broken-hearted man would preach on that day. It was from the book of Habakkuk. “Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines… the flock be cut off the from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD, I WILL JOY IN THE GOD OF MY SALVATION” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). “I will rejoice — not in my circumstances (for the time being at least they were dreadful) but in the God of my salvation”.

So far from being exceptional, in the early days of the church Newton’s experience was considered normal. Paul exults in the fruit which the apostles’ preaching brought forth in the people of Thessalonica. “For our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction… you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit”. The cumulative force of Paul’s vocabulary is unmistakable: “gospel”, “power”, “full conviction”. The climax is Spirit-inspired joy which comes to birth and thrives even in the midst of hardship. The gospel is the bedrock of it all.

 

III: — Bedrock suggests foundation. As we probe scripture we learn that the Christmas announcement of the incarnation — gospel-bedrock — is the foundation of all rejoicing. “Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy… for to you is born this day… a saviour.” The people of God rejoice for one reason: we have been given a saviour, the saviour, that saviour apart from whom any human being is undone.

Christmas is nothing less than a “Search and Rescue Mission”. During my teenage years I read everything I could about the Battle of Britain. The exploits of the small number of young men who flew against overwhelming odds thrilled me. The tension mounted in their stories whenever one was shot down and had to parachute into the English Channel. Immediately a Search and Rescue Mission was mobilized to seek the downed flier and find him and recover him lest he be lost to future battles where he would be needed; indeed, lest he be lost. The Search and Rescue Mission had to find him, or else the downed flier would soon be a drowned flier. When at last, in the story I was reading, he was pulled into the recovery vessel my joy was scarcely less than his must have been!

Christmas is important for one reason: the search and rescue mission we need has been mobilized on our behalf. Our joy at the news of the rescuer himself is the measure of our awareness of our need and our gratitude for the gift.

Jesus sends out seventy missioners two by two. They are to speak in his name. They do. The seventy return elated. What spiritual triumphs they have witnessed! Why, they have even expelled evil spirits in the power their Lord has given them! Jesus tames their exuberance as he tells them what should set their joy a-throbbing. “Do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you; rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Obviously there is nothing more important, because nothing more elemental, than having one’s name written in heaven. Assurance that it is is the basis of our joy.

It is no wonder, then, that when Zacchaeus found himself overwhelmed by mercy and freed to abandon his hiding place in the tree he took Jesus home joyfully.

It is no wonder too that when Phillip proclaimed what Luke calls “the good news of Jesus” to the Ethiopian Eunuch the latter fellow “went on his way rejoicing”. Because he was black he was the butt of racist slurs, and because he was a eunuch he was the butt of vulgar taunts. Yet he went on his way rejoicing in spite of it all, for through hearing the good news of the saviour he had met him whose news it is. This is the bedrock reason for rejoicing in any man or woman.

 

IV: — As we rejoice in our salvation we find that other joys are added to us.

(i) For instance, the psalmist writes, “I will rejoice and be glad for thy steadfast love… thou hast taken heed of my adversities”. There is no one whose life is not riddled with adversities. All of us are identical in this regard. Where we differ is in what adversity does to us. Does it grind us down like an emery wheel? Does it make us more bitter than lemon juice? Does it suffocate us in the deadly gases of hopelessness and apathy? Or are our adversities (still unpleasant) occasions when God’s love soaks us with even greater penetration? The more mature Christians become the more we echo Jeremiah’s conviction. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” The philosopher Kierkegaard used to say, “Life has to be lived forwards but it can only be understood backwards.” He’s right. Life can only be understood backwards. But to say this is to say that the longer we look back the more obvious it is that the steadfast love of the Lord has never ceased, and his mercies have never come to an end. Then life can be lived forwards even more enthusiastically! The One whose love gave up his son for me; such love would never withhold from me what I need now. To know this doesn’t mean that we grin stupidly when adversity next settles upon us. It is, however, to rejoice in the sense of which Martin Niemoeller spoke: turbulence on the surface, rejoicing in the depths, for God’s love is as steadfast as his mercies are endless.

(ii) And then there is the writer of Ecclesiastes. “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love.” The same writer urges us, “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart.” In other words, it is our foundational rejoicing in Christ that enables us to rejoice in all the creaturely joys God has given us.

It is a commonplace that those who pursue happiness never find it, since happiness is that by-product which surprises us when we are pursuing something else that takes us out of ourselves. People who expect creaturely joys to yield foundational joy always find creaturely joys a disappointment. Of course! — for the reason just cited.

Everyone knows that human beings tolerate (in the medical sense of tolerate) any pleasure-giving stimulus. As we tolerate something it takes more and more of the same stimulus to give us the same pleasure. At the crudest, it takes more and more cocaine to generate the same “high”. Similarly it takes a bigger and bigger stereo to keep the buff happy. And what boating enthusiast has ever decided he needed a smaller boat? No wonder we have to have more and more to stave off feelings of “ho-hum”, boredom, and disappointment.

Not so with those who rejoice in the depths. For to be possessed of joy in Christ is to be rendered able to “enjoy life with the wife whom we love”, enjoy the simple pleasures of bread and wine. We don’t need ever more intense, more costly and more superficial stimulation to be content. “Because you are Christ’s”, Paul writes, “all things are yours as well.” Indeed, the whole realm of creation is ours richly to enjoy.

(iii) Lastly,”we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” Do you ever wonder how your life will end up? By “end up” I don’t mean wondering whether it’s going to be the nursing home or a premature heart attack or a highway collision. I mean what are we finally going to become humanly. What is our ultimate destiny? To Philippian Christians already rejoicing in their restoration in Christ Paul writes, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” True. But what will the completion be? We are going to share the glory of God. The splendour that surrounds God eternally; the magnificence, majesty and grandeur of God — we are going to be taken up into this and bathed in it so that it spills over us and comes to characterize us. What other destiny could even approach this? No wonder the apostle rejoices in the mere anticipation of it!

My father died at age fifty-nine; one heart attack, no warning whatsoever, two weeks after he had been given a clean bill of health. My father-in-law, on the other hand, was ninety-four years old before his life seeped away in an institution. What about me? Which is more likely to happen to me? I don’t waste two seconds thinking about it. Speculation is pointless. There is point only to reflecting upon and rejoicing in our destiny in Christ: we are going to share the glory of God.

Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, was teaching at the University of Bonn in 1935 when the Gestapo arrived at the classroom door and told him not to bother finishing his paragraph. Barth was going to be deported to his native Switzerland. He had five children, no job, and faced many wartime years of difficulty and discouragement. Yet it was Barth who wrote in his largest work, “The person who hears and takes to heart the biblical message is not only permitted but plainly forbidden to be anything but merry and cheerful.”

The biblical message speaks of our Lord who is at hand, whose presence forestalls anxiety, and who summons us to rejoice always in him. The joy he lends us the world neither gives nor takes away, since he alone causes hearts to sing.

                                                                  

                                                                       Victor A. Shepherd                                         

  June 1994

A Note on Contentment

Philippians 4:11

 

Who is the strongest person in the world?  Physically, it’s the person who can lift 650 pounds.  Constitutionally, it’s the person who is most resistant to disease. Psychologically, it’s the person who can’t be “bent” through brainwashing or torture. But who is strongest personally, humanly, spiritually?  I think I have a surprise for you.         The Greek word that our English bibles translate “contented” literally means to be possessed of unfailing strength, strength that is always adequate. To be contented, profoundly contented, is to be possessed of a strength that is adequate in the face of any assault, any threat, every temptation.  Our contentment is our strength.

Before we discuss more thoroughly what contentment is we should be sure we understand what it isn’t.         Contentment isn’t indifference, even though it can be mistaken for indifference and indifferent people often trade on a reputation for contentment that they don’t deserve.  As a matter of fact indifference usually masks laziness or callousness. There’s nothing commendable about laziness or callousness.  Furthermore, indifference, we must be sure to note, is the antithesis of love. (The opposite of love, we must understand, isn’t hatred; the opposite of love is indifference. People who hate at least take seriously those they hate; the indifferent, on the other hand, take no one seriously and thereby dehumanize everyone.)

Neither is contentment the same as apathy.  Apathy is found in people who have given up on life, quit. Apathy is found in people who have come to regard themselves or their situation as hopeless.

Neither is contentment the same as inertia. Inertia is found most commonly in people who are depressed, and frequently don’t know they are depressed.

In his letter to the congregation in Philippi the apostle Paul insists that he has learned to be content in any situation. No one — not even his worst enemy — could ever accuse him of being lazy, callous, a quitter, indifferent, or inert. Everyone — even his best friend — is appalled at the hardships he’s endured: misunderstanding, slander, imprisonment, shipwreck, beatings.  Still, he tells us he’s content in any and all situations.

And not merely that he is content, but that he’s learned to be content. He’s had to learn. In other words, the contentment he enjoys now he hasn’t always had.  Then how did he get it? He sprinkles many clues throughout his writings, the most telling being his pithy pronouncement, “For me to live is Christ.”(Phil. 1:21) “Christ means life for me.”  It sounds so very simple, yet it means everything: “Christ means ‘life’ — at least for me.”  Here we are peering into his innermost heart and spirit.  It’s almost embarrassing to peer.  We feel like voyeurs, gazing at an intimacy that modesty usually clothes. Yet we have to gaze, for as surely as we know the dictionary meanings of the five single-syllable words — “Christ means life for me” — the dictionary can’t come close to capturing the secret of the apostle’s life and the ground of his contentment.

It’s as though we hear music that moves us profoundly.  We attempt to speak of the event — the music, our response to it, its effect upon us — to someone else.  We fumble and stumble, recognizing that what we’re saying sounds so very simple as to be almost simple-minded or childish even as what we’re saying is supposed to communicate what — yes, that’s the just the problem: what we’re saying is supposed to communicate what will always be ultimately beyond communication.  Finally we give up on our fumbling, stumbling words.  We know that if only the music moved our friend as it’s moved us, words would be superfluous; and if the music didn’t move our friend, words would be inadequate.

So it is with our Lord Jesus Christ.  If your heart resonates with mine, you know that the words we use to speak of our common experience of him are as inadequate as words of the music reporter who speaks of Itzakh Perlman’s violin.  Either words are superfluous or words are inadequate.  In any case, if our pulse quickens when we hear the apostle say, “For me to live is Christ…. I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content,” then we shall also know how and why and where he has learned to be content.

There forever remains a deep-down heart-hunger in humankind.  It isn’t grief; (no one has died.)  It isn’t misery; (there’s no reason to be miserable.)  It isn’t depression; (there’s no need to summon psychiatrist or pharmacist.) It’s the deep-down need to be reconciled to our Maker.  We aren’t going to be content until we come to terms with this truth.

Contentment arises when Christ’s love for us surges over us and our hearts are captured.   Contentment arises when the face of Christ is found to be the face of God smiling upon us and we know that our deep-down heart-hunger has been met even if we couldn’t name the hunger before and can’t describe its satisfaction now. Contentment arises as the one who calls his disciples “friends” befriends us with an intimacy other relationships reflect but never rival.         This intimacy, like intimacy anywhere in life, is ultimately as undeniable as it is indescribable, undeniable and indescribable for the same reason: no language does justice to Christ’s penetration of our innermost heart. Lacking adequate language, we can’t prattle about it; modest and therefore reticent, we don’t want to.

 

I: —           Let me say it again: to be contented, according to scripture, is to be possessed of unfailing strength.         In the first place, contentment is the atmosphere in which faith thrives and character flourishes. Faith and character add up to godliness. “There is great gain in godliness,”, writes the apostle, “for we brought nothing into the world, and we can’t take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” (1st Tim. 6:8)

I have spoken several times at the Toronto Board of Education Christian Teachers’ Association. One fellow I came to know well, a high school chemistry teacher and a Mennonite, ran into me after we hadn’t seen each for a year or two.  “How’s it going?”, I asked, expecting nothing more than the usual shorthand greeting. Instead he began blurting out ever so much that my greeting had never intended to elicit. I noticed too that his self-possession seemed to have deserted him, and he appeared as forlorn as a child lost in a department store.  His story unfolded. A few years ago he had decided to speculate in real estate.  He made money at it. Whereupon he speculated some more. And made more money. And then speculated some more. Lost it all in a sudden reversal? Oh no. On the contrary, he made an even bigger bundle. And the entire matter of speculation became a preoccupation with him, an all-consuming preoccupation. His wife told him he had lost his Mennonite simplicity and down-to-earthness, as well as Christian profundity that is part and parcel of non-simplistic simplicity. In addition, she could no longer recognize the man who came home now night by night; not only could she not recognize him, she became fearful for their marriage in that she began to wonder just what man she was living with. Most tellingly, he had lost every last shred of contentment.  “My head is all messed up,” he wailed to me, “my head is all messed up and I don’t know where my heart is.”  Then we had to depart. When next I heard about him I was told that his marriage was tottering and would likely collapse.

We hear all the time, don’t we, about how great a stress insufficient money is on a marriage; we hear much less frequently that too much money is no less a stress.  And of course we prefer to lose track of how many couples we have seen blown apart when their pursuit of wealth succeeded and they found that their newfound fortune had made them different people, and discovered as well that now they couldn’t live with the person they hadn’t married.

Think about ambition. In one sense there’s an ambition that is entirely appropriate.  We encourage it, especially in our young people.  People should be eager to develop and use whatever talents they have. We should be eager to maximize the qualifications that will permit us to do more satisfying work. There’s another kind of ambition, however, that is frightening.  This kind of ambition is a conscienceless “climb to the top.”  It is driven by a desire to gain superiority, to be a showboat, to dominate others, to strut. It scares me because I have learned that ambitious people in this sense, the conscienceless climbers, are highly dangerous.  For the ambitious person nothing matters except his climb to the top: his friends don’t matter, his colleagues don’t matter, truthfulness and loyalty and kindness and integrity don’t matter.  And if the ambitious person is also insecure, he’s twice as lethal.

“There is great gain in godliness with contentment.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” Contentment is the atmosphere, the only atmosphere, in which faith thrives and character flourishes.

 

II: — Contentment is essential, in the second place, if our human relationships are to prosper and be for others and us that richness in our lives before which everything else pales.  Three thousand years ago in Israel a young man decided to move from his village into the wider world. The text tells us (Judges 17:8) that he intended to live “wherever he could find a place.”  Find a “place?” It doesn’t mean find geographic space: there were open spaces everywhere.  “Find a place” means “find a fit”, live someplace where he belonged, where he was cherished, where his life was enhanced.  The young man came upon an older man, Micah (not the same person as the prophet Micah.) “Stay with me,” said the older man. The young fellow did. We are told that the fellow was “content” to stay with Micah, the result being that he became to Micah “like one of Micah’s own sons.”  In other words, a bond was forged that was as unbreakable as a blood relationship.

As unbreakable as a blood tie?  You must have noticed that among Jewish people there are no in-laws. The person we call “son-in-law” Jewish people call “son.” My mother isn’t Maureen’s mother-in-law; she’s Maureen’s mother – and Maureen has always called her this.

Two hundred years before the incident with Micah, Moses was fleeing for his life when his flight landed him among seven foreign women, Midianites, who were struggling to care for sheep.  These women (they were sisters) told their father Reuel.  Reuel invited Moses into his home for dinner (a most significant gesture in those days, telling everyone that Reuel wasn’t the slightest bit hostile to Moses, a stranger.)  We are told that Moses was content to stay with Reuel.  Reuel gave Moses Zipporah, one of his seven daughters, as wife.  Their first child they named Gershom.  “Ger” is Hebrew for “sojourner”; “shom” is Hebrew for “there, in that place.” “Gershom” means “sojourner in that place.”  Moses told everyone why he had named his son Gershom: “I have become a sojourner in a foreign land.”

A sojourner is a resident alien.  Both words should be emphasized: resident alien.  “Alien” in the sense of “not exactly at home;” “resident” in the sense of “not able to escape, in for the long haul.” Everyone has the feeling of being a sojourner in life.  In light of how the world unfolds, Christians especially know they are sojourners. If it’s true that we are sojourners, resident aliens, not exactly at home in the world yet in it for the long haul, then it’s all the more important that we forge the deepest, strongest bonds with other people and especially fellow-disciples.

Such bonds are possible only amidst profound contentment.  And I have seen friendships without number dry up and blow away as someone ceased to be content. It happens like this. Two people profoundly “meet” each other and sustain each other and nurture each other — until; until one of them finds a higher-paying job; until someone’s youngster is awarded a university admission scholarship; until one of them inherits a substantial sum from a relative; until the wheel of fortune propels one of them into greater social prominence. The person who is now anything but contented, thanks to her newly accursed social inferiority, becomes ever so slightly jealous at first, then, resentful, soon critical, and finally hostile.  At this point the friendship is heading down fast, soon to disappear amidst bitter, envious denunciation.  Only one thing can stop the downward spiral before it even begins: contentment. If we are profoundly content (which is to say, if our contentment arises, as in the case with Paul, because to have Christ is to have everything,) someone else’s apparently good fortune won’t poison us and ruin our dearest relationships.

The young man from the Israelite village, and Moses fleeing out of Egypt ; they profited through enduring human relationships that sustained and nurtured them even though they were sojourners in a strange land.  Since all of us are sojourners in a strange land, long-term aliens who have to reside where we aren’t exactly at home, all or us are going to find ourselves cherished and find ourselves free to cherish others only as we are profoundly content and therefore aren’t susceptible to toxic envy and resentment and hostility.  Contentment is the inner fibre that lends resilience to relationships.

 

III: — Finally, contentment is a qualification for leadership in the church. Leaders are not to be greedy, says the apostle, not greedy for anything, whether fame or recognition or money. It’s easy to understand why contentment is a qualification for leadership in the church. The person who lacks contentment will always use his position to feed his greed and his ambition and his self-advertisement.  Leadership in the church, rather, ought always to reflect the lordship with which Jesus Christ rules us.  He is named “Lord” and is such in truth for one reason only: he has been to hell and back for us.  In his earthly ministry Jesus spoke of self-important people who exhibit no self-renunciation at all.  Instead they “lord it over” others by browbeating them, manipulating them, twisting their arms or pouting petulantly.  Those who “lord it over” others, says Jesus, are the grasping, ambitious, uncontented people who look upon the church as their opportunity to be a big toad in a small pond.  Contrary to this it always remains the case that the genuine leader leads by way of self-renunciation, not self-importance.  The only one big enough to summon followers is the one who is small enough to consider nothing beneath him.  Several years ago I was asked to pray at a Mississauga highschool graduation, and I suspect I was asked, being a United Church clergyman, as the speaker that evening was Dr. Robert McClure, a United Church medical missionary whose reputation was deservedly huge by this time. When McClure had finished addressing the graduating class in the Mississauga highschool a student asked him, “It’s been said that in India , where the class system is blatant and rigid, you always ride the train on a third-class ticket. Why?”  McClure smiled at the student and said, “I ride third-class for two reasons: one, there isn’t a fourth class; two, I have noticed that third-class train travellers arrive just as quickly as first-class travellers.” It takes a small person to be big and a big person to be small. Better put, it takes a profoundly contented person to exercise credible leadership in the church of Jesus Christ , for only the profoundly contented person can be trusted not to use his office for inflating himself.

 

How important is it then? How crucial is it that we learn (yes, it has to be learned) in whatever situation to be content?  Let’s pretend for a minute that we aren’t content; let’s pretend that we are out-and-out malcontents.         The apostle Jude has some startling things to say about us.  He says that malcontents are easy to identify, since malcontents are customarily found in the company of grouchy grumblers, loudmouthed boasters, self-serving flatterers, leering lusters. It sounds so bad I don’t even want to repeat it. (If you think I’m putting words in Jude’s mouth, have a look at one verse alone: Jude 16.)

Let’s conclude positively.  To be content is to be possessed of unfailing strength, according to scripture. For amidst contentment

faith thrives and character flourishes;

intimate relationships are forged that nothing can corrode;

leadership in the church exemplifies the self-renouncing lordship of Jesus himself.

 

We learn such contentment, says the apostle, as our life in Christ becomes dearer to us than all else.

                                                                                            Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             July 2006

“Not that I complain of want; for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.”

The Supremacy of Christ

Colossians 1:15-20

 

I: — “Doesn’t revelation occur today?  Surely revelation is ongoing.”  I hear this all the time.  It’s not so much a question as an assertion, a vehement assertion.  Someone is maintaining that it would be arbitrary to restrict revelation to a First Century figure like Jesus, and spiritually harmful as well. It’s spiritually harmful in that just as God spoke through Abraham, through Moses, the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus of Nazareth, surely the living God continues to speak – through humanism, the Enlightenment, through feminism, the Green Earth movement, and so on.  People who challenge me on this issue insist that unless revelation occurs today God is dead, or at least inert.

Such people I startle by agreeing with them: unless revelation occurs today, God is indeed inert if not dead.

Revelation, according to the logic of scripture, occurs when God-in-person acts upon us and then illumines us concerning the truth and meaning of his action. He delivers his people from slavery through the Red Sea , and then illumines them through his servants, the prophets, as to what it all means and what its consequences are for his people.  He raises his Son from the dead, and then informs the apostles throughout the “Forty Days” what the event of the resurrection means concerning both them and their Lord.

In light of the scriptural understanding of revelation, does revelation occur today? Certainly.  For God still acts and illumines today.  Even tonight don’t we expect him to seize someone here, shake her, startle her, and send her home with new understanding, newly captivated by truth?

Is there a preacher among us who doesn’t expect all this and more to happen next Sunday morning at 11:00 ?

As I said a minute ago, I agree with my interlocutor (regardless of her motivation) that revelation occurs today.

At the same time, I suspect her motivation.  For in putting the matter as she has, she wants to deny the supremacy (and therefore the sufficiency) of Jesus Christ.  She wants to say that Jesus Christ can be superseded.  She wants to say that revelation, in terms of its content, advances beyond Christ. She wants to deny that the God who is sole creator of heaven and earth has rendered himself incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, and done this precisely for the purpose of reconciling and restoring his creation, gone awry through the sin of humankind.

Since there can be no advance beyond God (by definition; to suggest anything else is absurd), and since God has incarnated himself in the Nazarene, then the so-called advance of “on-going revelation” is impossible. When the hymn-writer cries, “What more can he say than to you he has said?”, the only answer possible is “Nothing”.  God can’t ‘say’ anything more than he has said and done in that Nazarene whose life is identical with God’s life.  There’s no advance on the conclusive, definitive act of God.

For this reason Paul doesn’t hesitate to declare that Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God”.  To speak of him as “image” is to say that God’s being and nature are perfectly revealed in him.  Jesus Christ, as the eikon or image of God, mirrors God’s word and work, will and way.

Yet as the image of God, Jesus Christ is more than this; in him God’s word and work, will and way are operative.       In everyday life, “mirror image” is merely a reflection of substance, never substance itself. When you and I look into the mirror we do not see ourselves; we see only a reflection of ourselves.  Strictly speaking, we see only a reflection of ourselves in place of ourselves, instead of ourselves. If we reach out and poke what we see in the mirror, does our face feel pain?  Of course not. Then what we see isn’t ourselves but only a reflection.

How different it is with that image of God which Jesus Christ is.  He isn’t merely a reflection of the Father lacking the Father’s substance; he isn’t a reflection of God that we apprehend instead of apprehending God. As eikon, image, Jesus Christ is God-with-us operative.

In light of this, there can be no advance beyond him.  “Surely revelation is ongoing” – no, it isn’t ongoing if “ongoing” means that our Lord can be superseded.

To think we can advance beyond him is to fall short of him.  To add to him is to subtract from him.  To augment him is to diminish him.  All whom the Incarnate One has seized and brought to faith in him know this. And who better than Thomas Cranmer, author of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer? I used to chuckle at the prayer of consecration for Holy Communion that Cranmer has penned wherein he speaks of Christ’s atoning death: “…who made there, by his one oblation (i.e., sacrifice) of himself once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world….” It seemed unnecessarily redundant. Why did Cranmer have to say the same thing three times over?  I don’t chuckle any longer, since too many people seem to have overlooked the crucial point Cranmer is concerned to make.  Listen to the cumulative force of it all.  “Who offered there, in that place.” Jesus Christ is the venue of sacrifice. Everywhere in the older testament the altar is the venue of sacrifice, the place where God meets with sinful people without having to annihilate them.  (Never let the word “altar” be heard in a Reformed Church except in reference to Christ alone.)  “ Who offered there”; plainly Christ is priest.  “Who offered there himself”: Christ is himself the sacrifice that he offers. Our Lord is simultaneously sacrifice, priest and altar, the place where sinners can meet with God and survive God’s holiness.  Jesus Christ needs no supplementation whatever.       His one oblation of himself once offered – adequately, definitively, conclusively – it cannot be repeated. The newer testament rings with the consensual apostolic recognition and affirmation and confession of Jesus Christ in this regard.  He, he alone, is the image of the invisible God.  In him God-with-us is savingly operative.

 

II: — There’s more to be said.  Anyone who hears the expression “image of God” immediately recalls Genesis 1. Humankind is made in the image of God. Here, of course, “image” assumes a different meaning.  You and I can’t be God operative; can’t be God at all. Still, as made in the image of God we are summoned, in our obedience to God, in our daily “doing”, to be God’s faithful, cheerful, human covenant partner. As his human covenant partner we are created to reflect his faithfulness, patience, integrity, constancy.

Created in the image of God though we are, however, the Fall means we are now hideously deformed. Nothing about us resembles the image in which we were created.  The image is so thoroughly defaced as to be unrecognizable.

To be sure, we haven’t ceased to be human. The Fall has defaced the image.  It hasn’t effaced the image, even though the image that remains is wholly unrecognizable. Because the fallen human remains human we can still think: the structure of reason remains unimpaired. But the integrity of reason is devastated. Now reason – perfectly logical still – serves to excuse sin when sin is conscious and rationalize sin when sin is unconscious.

Sinners haven’t ceased to be human, and therefore we can still love. Regrettably, however, what we should love we now hate; and what we ought to hate (sin) we have come to love.

Sinners haven’t ceased to be human, and therefore we can still will. But will what?  We can will only our disobedience; we can never will ourselves out of our disobedience. The will can still will, but now it never wills, because it cannot will, God’s righteousness.

Sinners were created in the image of God.  We can’t sin this image away.  Yet thanks to our sin, the image is nowhere recognizable in us.  We remain human, even though our humanness is nowhere evident.  Fallen human beings are incapable of informing themselves as to what it is to be human.

“Surely not!” someone objects.  “Surely our humanness is evident everywhere and is described by biologists and social scientists, as well as novelists who probe the human.” Let me say right now that I esteem the work of the life scientists and the social scientists, plus any and all who shed light of any kind on human conundrums.

I teach a course called “Theology of the Human Person”.  Because it’s a course in theology (albeit theological anthropology) and I’m a theologian, students frequently assume I dismiss any non-theological discipline as worthless.  I don’t. Since we humans are embodied, inescapably embodied, I want to know what the biologists are saying. Since we humans are embedded in societies, I listen to the social sciences.  From time to time I startle students with such questions as “What’s the suicide rate in Canada ? What is the socio-economic profile of the convict? What are the three most commonly prescribed anti-depressant medications?” (I want students to know that jokes about Prozac are never funny to the people who need Prozac. And since more people in any one congregation are using Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil or similar anti-depressant than is commonly thought, no such joke should appear in any sermon.) “What’s the average age of onset for bi-polar mood disorder?”  I want the students to know that I deem such knowledge important, especially if the theology student plans on being a pastor.  I remain convinced that the social sciences have much to tell us about the human situation.

As much as the social sciences can do for us, however, they appear clumsy compared to literature. The best social scientist wields a clumsy, blunt instrument compared to the skilful novelist. The able novelist has in her hand a dissecting knife that exposes inherent human complexity as well as self-willed self-contradiction, not to mention fortuitous victimization. What’s more, the able novelist lays bare the manner in which complexity, complication and contradiction are multi-faceted and inter-related.  The result is a profundity and a subtlety that the social sciences can’t approach. Still, life-scientist and social scientist and novelist (or poet) together describe the human situation.

But none of them, nor all of them together, describes the human condition. The human condition is much deeper, and much more perverse, than the human situation.  The human situation is that level or dimension of human existence accessible to human wisdom. The human condition, on the other hand, is known only to God, and thereafter to those whom God’s Spirit renders beneficiaries of the gospel.  The human condition, in other words, pertains to the Fall; it pertains to our sinnership. Human wisdom, however genuinely wise, knows nothing of this.

Since sin is the contradiction of what God created us to be, we must come to know God’s intention for us if we are to understand our predicament as sinners. We were created in the image of God. Jesus Christ is the image of God. Therefore we must look to him if we are to understand ourselves, how perversely we have falsified ourselves, and what our glorious destiny is by God’s appointment. In a word, only Jesus Christ can inform us as to what it is to be a human being.

In Genesis 1 we are told that we were created on the same “day” as the animals. They are our cousins (albeit not our brothers and sisters).  Since God loves all that he has made, he loves the animals as much as he loves us. Then wherein do we differ from them? While God loves them and us, God speaks to us alone.  Having spoken to us, he expects us to speak to him in return; to respond. Because he speaks to us we are response-able, able to respond.       And because we are response-able, we are response-ible; we must respond. Our capacity to answer renders us answerable to him, accountable.  The tragedy, of course, is that as sinners we do respond, and our response isn’t fit to print. “Shut up.  I didn’t ask to hear from you.  Buzz off. Mind your own business. Leave me alone.”

Since God gives us what we want (contrary to what most people think), what we want he ensures we are going to have.  We don’t want intimacy with him?   Then we are going to have estrangement.  We disdain right-relationship with him?   Then we shall remain sunk in unrighteousness.  In the words of Paul’s letter to Ephesus , we are “…strangers to the covenants of promise, have no hope, and are without God in the world.” In case we don’t get the point he amplifies this two chapters later where he speaks of humankind: “[living] in the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.   They have become callous and given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness.”  In less prissy language the apostle is saying that as a sinner I am a person of beclouded wits, ungodly, a numbskull, spiritually insensitive, vicious and a dirty old man. That’s the human condition.

We learn of it not by looking in on ourselves; we learn of it only by looking away from ourselves to Jesus Christ, for he exemplifies before us what it is to be a human being created in the image of God.  We are meant to be the faithful, obedient, righteous, glad, eager, cheerful, human covenant partner of the Holy One of Israel.

Not only does Jesus Christ exhibit all this before us, as image of our humanness he renders all this operative within us as he brings us to faith in him. “He”, says Paul, is the image of the invisible God.”

 

III: — The apostle tells us as well that our Lord is the “first-born of all creation, for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

All things on earth and in heaven? Yes, contrary to what most people think, heaven is part of the creation.       Specifically, heaven is that aspect of the creation that isn’t visible, that remains much more mysterious.  Invisible and mysterious though it might be, it is creaturely and not divine. Heaven, in other words, is the utmost mysterious depth of the visible creation.

When Paul speaks of Christ as “first-born” he isn’t referring to temporal priority (as if Jesus of Nazareth had been born before anything else came to be – an absurdity.)  He’s speaking, rather, of logical priority: Christ is the one by whose agency the whole creation – earth and heaven – was fashioned.

“First-born” means even more.  In the ancient world the first-born in the family inherited everything the head of the family owned. Say that Christ is the “first-born” is to say that he is the sole inheritor of the creation. Not only is he the agent in its coming-to-be, he also has exclusive rights to it. He is the heir of the entire universe. The cosmos is his by right, and rightly he claims what’s his.       He made it and he owns it. Therefore he is nowhere an intruder in it. He is lord of all of it.

From another perspective, as agent Christ is the ground of creation; as “first-born”, he is the goal of creation.       Christ is creation’s ground and goal; he is its “whence” and “whither”. He “book-ends” the creation. He fashioned it in accordance with his purposes, and he remains its hidden truth and meaning. He guarantees the “open secret” of the universe as his possession and himself as its truth; he guarantees that all this, known to believers now but disputed by everyone else, will one day be rendered indisputable.

Many Christians in the ancient city of Colosse , however, thought otherwise. They had become infected with the heresy of gnosticism.  The Gnostics thought themselves to have special knowledge, privileged knowledge. They were “in the know” whereas “ordinary” Christians weren’t. The “knowledge” of which the Gnostics boasted was actually a Platonic corruption of Christian doctrine. Gnosticism maintained that matter was evil, inherently evil.  Because matter was evil, God couldn’t have created it.  Then who had? The demi-urge had. The demi-urge was the agent of creation, even as the demi-urge was considerably less than God.  Since God had nothing to do with matter, God had nothing to do with the human body. And since all human beings are embodied, God had nothing to do with human history.  History can’t be the theatre of God’s revelation.  Then the Incarnation couldn’t have occurred for two reasons: one, Incarnation is an event within history, and God scorns history; two, Incarnation entails embodiment, and God scorns bodiliness.  Since Incarnation is impossible, Jesus of Nazareth can’t be God incarnate; history isn’t important to God; and therefore history isn’t important to Christians. Then what is important to Christians, according to Gnosticism?  Gnosis is. Gnosis is knowledge, privileged information. Christians, according to the Gnostic heresy, are those who have come to understand that God acts on people only in the sphere of the intellect, the mind.  God equips his people with special insight and privileged information – thoroughly imbued with the presuppositions of Plato.  It’s important that Christians have the right information, said the Gnostics; it’s not important that Christians act, act in history, “do the truth”, in John’s splendid phrase. It’s not important, said the Gnostics, that Christians regard history as the theatre of their obedience, since history is never the theatre of God’s revelation. Obedience to God doesn’t entail our doing, according to the Gnostics; obedience to God entails only our thinking (even as their thinking was skewed).

Paul wrote his Colossian letter in order to address the Gnostic heresy that had made inroads in the congregation there.       Paul insists that Christ, and Christ alone (forget the demi-urge) is God’s agent in creation just because Christ is God. Paul insists that as the (visible) image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ is God incarnate. (Just in case the Gnostics are slow to get the point, Paul repeats himself in Colossians 2: “In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.)  Therefore Paul plainly maintains that matter isn’t evil, bodiliness is important, history matters, history is the theatre both of God’s revelation and of the Christian’s activity.  It’s gathered up in one point: Christian obedience isn’t a matter of acquiring abstract notions (wrong notions in any case); Christian obedience is a matter of concrete doing.

Doing what?

 

IV: — Paul gives us a clue where he’s going when he tells us, “In him [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him.”

Exactly what are the principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, authorities?  For centuries many Christians have equated these with angels, now fallen, and therefore demons. To be sure, scripture speaks of the demons, demons whom Christ has to subdue.  Scripture speaks also, however, of the principalities, principalities whom Christ’s cross has reconciled.  (Please note that while the demons are exorcised, the powers are reconciled to Christ.) The demons and the principalities or powers plainly aren’t the same.  The demons are the demons and I shall say no more about them tonight.

The principalities and powers, on the other hand, are very different. Paul speaks of them again in Romans 8. He uses much the same vocabulary in 1st Corinthians 2.  In 1st Corinthians 2 he speaks of “the rulers of this age”. The rulers of this age aren’t individual humans. They are institutions, social entities, identical with the powers.  The rulers of this age, he tells us, “crucified the Lord of glory”.

To be sure, we can name the individuals most immediately involved in the crucifixion: Pilate, Caiaphas, Herod, and so on.  At the same time, these individuals represent, exemplify the force of, those powers that they happen to speak for: Pilate, Roman jurisprudence; Caiaphas, religious institutions; Herod, civil government amidst occupation.

Admittedly, the powers can work evil: they crucified the Lord of glory. But they aren’t inherently evil, since God created them.  The powers (principalities) are the link between God’s love and visible human activity and experience.       The powers are meant to be sinews, the ligatures that keep all the dimensions and aspects of human existence together, and keep it all together in God’s love.

Law, for instance, is meant to do this. Law conserves social order and fosters social intercourse.  Social order and social intercourse are impossible without law.  Therefore law as a power, a principality, has a divinely mandated role as a sinew of God’s love for his creation.

The economic order has a similar role.  While it’s true that we humans don’t live by bread alone, without bread we don’t live at all.  Since God wills our bodily life, God wills the economic order.

Education is a crucial principality.  We can’t love God with our mind as long as we are ignorant.  Therefore the apparatus needed to educate citizens is divinely mandated, and it too is another sinew of God’s love holding his people together.

Think of health care. In view of our Lord’s concern for healing throughout his earthly ministry we had better not say that God is indifferent to human health.  Then no Christian should doubt the importance of the apparatus required to foster human health. And no Christian should doubt the divine mandate of this particular principality and its role as a sinew of God’s love.

 

Christians, however, are aware of the Fall. We know that since the Fall affects the entire creation, the powers are fallen too. As fallen the powers, the authorities, no longer fulfil their mandate unambiguously.

Civil government, for instance, is divinely-mandated to prevent social dissolution and secure justice. However bad the governments might be that we are acquainted with, there is something that would be worse by far: no government at all.  No government at all would guarantee chaos.  Human existence is impossible amidst social chaos.       When threatened with social chaos, people immediately grasp the remedy which is most ready-to-hand: tyranny.  Life under a tyrant may be thoroughly miserable, but at least life under a tyrant is possible. Still, tyranny is tyranny and we rightly loathe it.  And however bad governments might be in Ottawa or Queen’s Park, they are preferable to Saddam Hussein, preferable to Moamar Khadafi, preferable to Josef Stalin or Chairman Mao.

Yet because the principalities and powers are fallen, governments work evil as well. Most important, because government, by definition, has a monopoly on power, the fallen principality of government is always in danger of doing what is unspeakably evil, what is out-and-out murderous.  In fact governments do. And therefore it is always the task of the Christian and the church to recall this principality to its vocation in Christ, through whom and for whom it was made.

Boards of education are mandated to educate, divinely mandated to educate, since God doesn’t wish ignorance to thrive.       Boards of education do educate — to some extent.  I myself have profited immensely from the educational resources of our society. At the same time, boards of education do a great deal besides fulfil their mandate to educate. They provide, for instance, a political stepping-stone for those whose real concern isn’t education at all but rather political self-promotion.  Most important: educators — history tells us over and over — educators, when pressed, turn education into propaganda.  Propaganda is falsehood disseminated for the purpose of achieving a social end. We can never inspect too closely everything that our children bring home from school.  Let’s not forget that in Nazi Germany schoolteachers had the highest proportion of Nazi party-members in their ranks of any social group.

The health care system is mandated to keep people healthy.  It does. A cardiologist brought my mother back from the edge of death, and the hospital harboured her for 75 consecutive days. For this I was billed no more than my income tax. Yet the health care system lends itself to games of political football, and as the football game intensifies less health care is delivered, even as misappropriation, corruption and scandal proliferate.

Because the powers are fallen they don’t accomplish unambiguously that for which they were created. They are now compromised, to say the least, in their acting as links between God’s love and different aspects of the created order. Worse yet, Paul tells us in Galatians 4 that the powers, now in revolt against God, deify themselves.  They claim an allegiance and adulation from humans that God never mandated them to have. Fallen, the sinews of God’s love have perverted themselves into idols, lethal idols.

Not only do the powers revolt against God; in their hostility to God they set themselves against one another.       They savage each other. Education blames business for everything that’s wrong in the society.  Business blames the criminal justice system.  The criminal justice system blames health care.  They slander and falsify each other.       This being the case, why doesn’t the creation spiral down into chaos? Paul tells us why: Christ is supreme – and therefore sufficient for the task of preserving the cosmos. “In Christ”, Paul announces in defiance of powers run amok, “In Christ all things hold together.”  Colossians 1:17 assures us that however fast, however violently, the world spins (metaphorically speaking), it can never fly apart.  “In him all things hold together.” Why doesn’t the creation fly apart (metaphorically speaking)?  Why doesn’t human existence become impossible?  Why don’t the countless competing special-interest groups, each with its “selfist” savagery, fragment the world hopelessly?  Just because in him, in our Lord, all things hold together. What he creates he maintains; what he upholds he causes to cohere.  “Hold together” is a term taken from the Stoic philosophy of the ancient Greeks. But whereas the ancient Greek philosophers said that a philosophical principle upheld the cosmos, Christians knew it to be a person, the living person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He grips the creation with a hand large enough to comprehend the totality of the world.

 

V: — Having declared the supremacy of Christ as creation’s agent and creation’s preserver, Paul declares the supremacy of Christ as the church’s Lord.  “He is the head of the body, the church; he is the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.”

Let us be sure to note that our Lord is head of his own body. Strictly speaking the church is the earthly-historical manifestation of Christ’s glorified body. We are called to be the earthly-historical manifestation of his glorified body, functioning as his hands and feet throughout the world, particularly where there is suffering, ignorance and spiritual destitution.  In all of this he remains head.  Jesus Christ is Lord of the church as surely as he is Lord of the cosmos.   We must never think that he transfuses himself into the church so as to become the essence of the church.  To say the least, he is sinless while the church is not.  Let us always remember that the church is Christ’s body sheerly by grace; of itself the church is a fallen principality as nasty as any other.

When Paul speaks of Christ as head of the body he doesn’t mean what the ancient Stoics meant. The ancient Stoics spoke of a divine power that inheres the universe, thereby divinising the universe. For the past 250 years the Romantic Movement in the West has spouted the same notion of a divine power or essence inhering the universe, with the result, of course, that the universe is divinised.  The New Age movement says as much today.  We must always be aware that if the universe and all its aspects are divinised, then there is nothing in the universe whose essence isn’t God. If there’s nothing whose essence isn’t God, then sin and evil are no more.  Now you understand why the New Age movement and Romanticism are ceaselessly popular: they define sin out of existence.

Having sounded the warning that must be heard we may cheerfully go on to relish the force of Paul’s pronouncement concerning the church, the body of Christ. Christ is present to the church at all times and in all circumstances.  His risen life always and everywhere animates it.  Since the church alone acts in his name and on his behalf, the church does what no other institution, aggregation, group or party can ever do.

Christ ever remains Lord of his people, indisputably.  Still, they are his people unquestionably.  In Romans 8 Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is “the first-born among many brethren”. To be sure, he can be first-born among many brethren only because he is first-born from the dead. Still, because he’s precisely this he is “elder brother” to all of us who once were “dead in trespasses and sins” and who are now, by his mercy, the beneficiaries of his resurrection.

What’s the result of Christ’s being both first-born of all creation and also first-born from the dead?  The result is that he is pre-eminent.  Pre-eminent in the church, yes; but no less pre-eminent in the world (even though the world isn’t aware of it.)  Pre-eminent in the church for the sake of the church’s making known his pre-eminence in the world.

 

VI: — All of which brings me to my last point.  In the last portion our text announces that all things have been reconciled to Christ, just because he has made his peace with all things through the blood of his cross. Since Christ has reconciled all things to himself, therefore the church, Christ’s body, is summoned to announce his victory over the rebellious principalities. Since Christ has reconciled all things to himself, the church is summoned to inform the powers that their effort at contradicting their mandate has been defeated.  The powers have been stripped of their capacity to damage the creation ultimately. Since Christ has made his peace with the cosmos through the blood of the cross, the capacity of the principalities to function as they were meant to function has been restored.

Then the church must rebuke the principalities today; rebuke them and testify to them what their mandate is, how it has been restored, and why their revolt is futile. The church must testify on behalf of Christ to the principalities and hold them to account, correcting them relentlessly.  If we think, for instance, that Egerton Ryerson’s vision for public education now resembles a nightmare in some respects, then we are summoned to call public education to account, to recall it to its vocation, to inform if of its shabbiness where it is shabby and to declare its glorious place in God’s economy.

The Gnostics in Colosse, we saw minutes ago, thought differently.  The Gnostics maintained, erroneously, that history, so far beneath the purity of God, couldn’t be the theatre of God’s activity and therefore couldn’t be the theatre of the church’s obedience.  The Gnostics were wrong. History is the sphere of the church’s obedience.  And since Christ has reconciled all things to himself – thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities – the body of Christ had better not think it knows better than the head and retreat into privatized abstractions where its religious head-games are a substitute for concrete, earthly obedience.

There is no excuse for discouragement or inertia or despair among Christians in this matter. If we lack zeal in rebuking the powers, we haven’t yet discerned their corruption. If we lack confidence in addressing the powers, we are denying that Christ has reconciled them to himself, however much we pretend to believe the gospel.

Earlier in the sermon I mentioned that “heaven” means (at least in many places in scripture) that aspect of the creation we don’t see, the aspect that underlies the creation we do see.  “Heaven and earth”, then, are the entire creation in all its aspects. In Ephesians 3:10 Paul announces the goal of his ministry; his goal is that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”

All of this occurs, of course, just because Jesus Christ, first-born of all creation, first-born from the dead, is supreme now, sufficient, and will be eternally.

                                                                                                      Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          August 2005

 

You asked for a sermon on Power

Colossians 1:11

Ezekiel 36:26     John 1:12       2 Timothy 1:17       

 

It’s like sniffing cocaine, I am told. The taste of power is exhilarating, so exhilarating, in fact, that the power-taster craves more, then more and ever more. A friend who is connected to the powerful in Ottawa tells me that power seduces and addicts more strongly than money. Power-hungry people will give up money, give up a great deal of money, for even a little more power.

All of us have run afoul of someone on a power-trip. We know now what to expect from any power-tripper: arrogance, a need for adulation, contempt for proper procedure, distorted outlook, even childish dreams of omnipotence and invincibility, and of course a craving for even greater power.

When we run afoul of the power-tripper we recognize immediately that his self-interest is swollen hugely; he coerces whenever he can and manipulates whenever he can’t; he is never to be trusted since his only interest is his self-interest.

In the ancient world power was connected to magic. Ancient people believed that the universe was riddled with many different forces or powers, and magic was the means of harnessing, co-opting, exploiting the different forces.

We moderns do not believe in magic in this sense. Nevertheless we do know that there are different concentrations and configurations of power running through industry, the media, politics, volunteer organizations, sport, education, government. Some people are especially eager to exploit these, or especially adept at it, and thereby advance themselves to a position of prominence and power. The person who co-opts whatever power currents he can shares much with the ancient person who pursued magic: ancient and modern alike are consumed with self-promotion and self-enlargement.

Power, remember is like cocaine. Co-opting power is like sniffing cocaine. Both are addictive, and both are lethal.

 

I: — A minute ago I said that ancient people tried to tap into magic. Ancient Israelite people, however, were forbidden to do so. They knew that power for the sake of power is demonic. Instead of exploiting whatever power currents there might be they were to trust God.

Israelite people knew that God is powerful. After all, he fashioned the cosmos out of nothing and sustains it moment-by-moment unaided. And yet it isn’t the creative power of God which is at the forefront of Israelite consciousness; it is God’s redemptive power, his saving power. God’s creative power was a display of stupendous force; but God’s redemptive power is a manifestation of patience, mercy, self-renouncing pardon. God’s redemptive power is a self-giving which will absorb any hurt and withstand any humiliation. Israel knew this throughout its entire history, and came to know it most pointedly in Israel’s greater Son. For it is in the cross supremely that we meet redemptive power.

A question shouts itself at this point: if redemptive power is a self-giving that will absorb any hurt and withstand any humiliation, can it properly be said to be power? Isn’t self-giving, even giving oneself up to death, closer to powerlessness? Is it proper to speak of it as power, or are we simply misusing language? Would it not be more accurate to speak of such self-giving as “earnest appeal” or “attempted persuasion”? “Power”, after all, means that something is accomplished. What does hurt-absorbing self-giving accomplish? Another question, related to the foregoing is put to me over and over: “What is meant by the expression God Almighty or The Almighty?” And unvaryingly I say the same thing: “Be very careful about using the expression at all.” Yes, we all grew up hearing and using the expression. We all grew up assuming “The Almighty” was another way of saying “God”, an accurate way of saying “God” (without appearing sentimentally pietistic.) Scripture, however, scarcely uses the expression at all. Despite the fact that older church folk especially assume it is the most common or most typical description of God in the bible, as a matter of fact it is used only two or three times. Therefore we should be cautious about using the expression ourselves. The expression, “The Almighty”, makes God out to be the giant strongman, mightier than the world’s champion weightlifter, able to do so many “almightynesses” that they couldn’t be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. But such a notion identifies God with sheer power, and sheer power, remember, power for the sake of power, is what scripture means by the devil!

If we are going to speak of the power or might of God we must be clear as to what we mean by power. Power is the capacity to achieve purpose. Then what is God’s purpose, and how does he achieve it? His purpose is to recover for himself a people who love him, obey him, trust him, serve him. His purpose is to salvage from the sea of human self-wreckage a people who live for the praise of his glory. His purpose is to deliver from the bondage and misery and degradation of human depravity (sin) a people who mirror his image, that image in which they were created and which they have marred through spiritual perversity. His purpose is to woo and win a people who know their greatest good to be, just be, his sons and daughters. God’s power is God’s capacity to achieve this purpose. How does God do it? By giving himself up for our sakes, over and over, throughout centuries of humiliating self-renunciation and then supremely in the cross. If we are going to keep the vocabulary of “almighty”, meaning omnipotence, meaning all-powerful, meaning there is no limit to God’s power, then we must always understand all of this in the light of cross and resurrection. The cross means there is no limit to God’s self-giving; the resurrection means there is no limit to the effectiveness of God’s self-giving. To say that God is almighty, all-powerful, is to say there is no limit, no final frustration, to God’s achieving his purpose. And this is so. In other words, God is going to have a people (whether it consists of many or few) whom he has delivered and recovered, a people in whom his image is restored, a people who love him, obey him and live for the praise of his glory.

This has been a rather long answer to the question, “What is meant by the expression, God Almighty?” Still, the answer is crucial, for the notion that God is sheer power would make him no different from the devil.

 

II: — Plainly the single most critical instance of God’s power — the achieving of his purpose — is to render creatures of God children of God. In the prologue to his written gospel John says, “To all who received Jesus, who believed in his name [nature], he gave power to become children of God”. To all who seize him in faith our Lord gives power to become children of God. I frequently hear it said that all human beings should be treated with respect because all human beings are children of God. I certainly agree that all human beings should be treated with respect; God himself, after all, treats us all with respect. I disagree, however, with the assertion that everyone is a child of God. Everyone is a creature of God in virtue of being alive; we are made children of God, however, as by faith we seize the crucified one himself.

John Wesley was thirty-five years old, had been a clergyman for thirteen years, and had agonized over his miserable, year-long missionary stint in Georgia when he finally admitted he had nothing to offer anyone. For over a decade he had recited liturgies, assented to doctrines and conformed to ecclesiastical pronouncements. And then on that never-to-be-forgotten evening of 24th May, 1738, the proud cleric saw that he had been trying to gain God’s favour, had been trying to earn divine compensation, had been trying to out-moralize the most rigorous moralists. As the preface to Luther’s commentary on Romans was read by a Christian of simple faith whose name we shall never know Wesley understood that God had visited him not with a deal to be struck nor with a program to be followed nor with a moralism to be pursued; God in Christ had visited him in mercy with a forgiveness which blotted out his past and drew him into a throbbing relationship. For the first time in his uptight, squeaky-clean life he understood what the prophet Ezekiel had meant when Ezekiel had heard God declare, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; I will take out…the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. The difference between the heart of stone and the heart of flesh is that the latter beats; someone is alive. Wesley wrote in his journal, “Heretofore I had only the faith of a servant [ie, no faith at all]; now, the faith of a son.” To those who receive him our Lord will always give power to become children of God.

“Evangelism” is a word that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. Everyone here knows why. Nonetheless, I am convinced we need to reclaim the word. “Evangel” is simply Greek for “good news”; evangelism is a good news broadcast. Who can be opposed to announcing good news? For a long time I thought that the church-catholic could recover the substance of evangelism while finding a different word, a word with a better press. What I discovered was that what was put forward as evangelism-under-a-different-name wasn’t evangelism at all. It was congregational growth, financial appeals, denominational flag-waving; but the substance of evangelism — namely, a declaration that the power of God renders creatures of God by birth children of God by new birth — this was not heard. I believe now that the substance of evangelism will be recovered only as the word is reclaimed. Evangelism, then, is the church’s persuasive persistence that the power of God can replace the heart of stone with the heart of flesh; that those who are dead before God can be made alive unto him; that those who are now spectators or even detractors can be made disciples who know the master as surely as they know their best friend.

I am always moved at a simple line of one of Charles Wesley’s hymns: “O let me commend my Saviour to you”. Charles Wesley isn’t speaking from the position of a physician who recommends — must recommend — a medical procedure she has never had herself. No physician is expected to have undergone a procedure before she recommends it. (To think anything else is ridiculous.) But the exact opposite is the case the concerning the gospel. Here, the only authentic recommendation there can ever be is that of the believer who has already “tasted and seen that the Lord is good”. “O let me commend my Saviour to you” means “The one of whom I speak has confirmed himself to me as Truth; I have proved his promises and I rejoice in his unfailing love for me and his ironfast hold on me”.

Whenever people speak to me of a career in the church I wince. Of course there can be a career in the institution of the church, just as there can be a career in any institution — if that’s the game they want to play. But there is no making a career of our Lord. There is only a transparent, unself-conscious commendation of the one who is dearer to us than life. “O let me commend my Saviour to you.”

Power is the capacity to achieve purpose. God’s purpose is achieved as he whose self-giving is both limitless and limitlessly effective brings to faith yet another man or woman who is now added to the household and family of God.

 

III: — What happens henceforth to the person whom God’s power has rendered a child of God? Paul reminds Timothy that God has given every child of God a “spirit of power and love and self-control”. He means a power for love and self-control.

Tell me: what kind of person do you admire? Whom do you admire most? For years I admired those who were extraordinarily accomplished, extraordinarily talented. Guy LaFleur racing down the ice, his lion-like mane standing out behind him, unleashing a shot that the goaltender couldn’t see. Artur Rubinstein, at one time my favourite pianist, matter-of-factly telling a reporter that right now, at this moment, he could play twenty different two-hour concerts without a sheet of music in front of him. Paul Ardes, the world’s leading mathematician, sorting out theorems in a few minutes that had left world-class mathematicians baffled for years. And then one day I watched an intellectually challenged youngster struggle for hours to grasp something that the person of normal intelligence grasps in seconds. Suddenly I realized that there was nothing heroic at all about my so-called heroes. LaFleur and Rubinstein and Ardes were simply exercising that talent with which they were born. Their talent had nothing at all to do with character. What they did, and received adulation for doing, was no more difficult for them than walking across the street is for the rest of us.

I asked myself all over: whom do I admire? and why? Admiral Nelson? (According to some he’s the greatest Englishman ever.) Nelson’s naval genius was simply the exercising of the talent with which he was born. Then what about his character? Nelson was an unqualified supporter of the slave trade. When William Wilberforce, battling against immeasurable odds, endeavoured to have the slave trade abolished, Nelson raged, “As long as I can speak and fight I shall resist the damnable doctrines of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies”. Nelson’s vehement opposition to the man who spent his life relieving the torment of black people tells me as much as I need to know. You might be interested in knowing that in addition to his wife Nelson managed to support Lady Jane Hamilton, his long-term mistress. Betrayal, infidelity, adultery — they are no less reprehensible for being committed by someone nationally prominent. Supporting the slave trade is as little an instance of love as philandering is of self-control.

The child of God is promised power for both love and self-control. Love is the integrity of life-facing-out; self-control is the integrity of life-facing-in. Power is needed for both. As our love engages a harsh world we shall find ourselves souring; as our self-control meets with unrelenting temptation we shall find ourselves capitulating. Power is needed if love is to thrive and self-control strengthen. Every child of God, rendered such by the power of God, is promised as well power for love (as we confront turbulence “out there”) and power for self-control (as we discover treachery “in here”).

 

IV: — Lastly, the apostle Paul knows that God supplies his people with “power…for all endurance and patience with joy”. It is the hidden power of God that infuses his people with joy; and joy alone keeps patience patient and endurance enduring. You see, of themselves patience and endurance will tarnish, then corrode, and finally crumble. Of itself patience grows weary as it is tried day after day; patience-grown-weary becomes frustrated and slides into indifference; the last stop is apathy. Apathy may look like patience, but in fact apathy is patience whose nerve has gone dead. Of itself endurance grows weary as it is tried day after day; endurance-grown-weary becomes grim and then resentful. The last stop is bitterness. It is only as God-empowered joy infuses us that we can keep on keeping on and not slump down into apathy and bitterness.

When we are young we tend to think that human problems admit of quick fixes. Gradually we learn that very few human problems are set right overnight. To think that they can be, of course, is to want magic. When I am tempted by magic or frustrated because I can’t have magic I recall any one of those I admire, someone who models that discipleship I should be most grateful to exemplify myself. One such, for me, is the fellow I mentioned a minute ago, William Wilberforce. Wilberforce worked twenty years before he saw the slave-trade abolished; he worked forty-six years before he saw the practice of slavery eliminated in the British Empire. Forty-six! And in it all he never gave up, never gave in, never gave out venomous contempt for opponents and detractors. His endurance never became grim nor his patience apathy.

Kingdom-work of any sort is going to test our patience and our endurance in two months. We shall survive the trial, even glory in it, only as we are possessed of that joy which the power of God alone can supply.

Power, remember, is the capacity to achieve purpose. It is God’s purpose for us that we continue to shine as lights in a dark world, continue to be salt in a decadent world, continue to be the aroma of Christ (says Paul) in a world whose rot simply stinks, continue to be God’s letter (Paul again) to a world which needs a word from the heart of God himself. This is God’s purpose. His power is simply his guarantee that our joy-infused patience and endurance will continue as his purpose is achieved.

All of this, of course, has nothing to do with arrogance, manipulation, contempt for proper procedure, cravings for adulation, out-and-out coercion, as well as an addiction to even more power. All of this has instead to do with becoming a child of God,; it has to do with our outward and inward integrity as a child of God; it has to do with our usefulness as a child of God.

Power is the capacity to achieve purpose. God’s purpose is a people who reflect his glory. His power will see to it that such a people lives now, and will live before him for ever and ever.

 

                                                                                                   Victor Shepherd

February 1998         

 

What Incarnation Means For Me

Colossians 1:19

 

Canada is religiously diverse. Muslims outnumber Presbyterians in Toronto and outnumber us again in Canada as a whole. We used to read about Hindu people in India and elsewhere. But when a trustee from the Toronto Board of Education spoke of Mahatma Gandhi in a manner that offended the Hindu community, we learned quickly that our Hindu fellow-Canadians are more numerous and less visible than we had thought.

Unquestionably we live amidst religious pluralism. In the sea of religious pluralism the Christian conviction concerning the Incarnation sticks out like a sore thumb. If we remain silent about the Incarnation we can always pass ourselves off as vague theists; i.e., people who believe in a deity of some sort, people who believe enough about God to appear religious yet who don’t believe so much as to appear offensive.

Then should Christians downplay the Incarnation, as one professor suggested to me? We can never do this, for the truth; the undeniable, uncompromisable truth of the Incarnation has seized us. At any time, but especially at Christmas, we exult in the truth that the Word was made flesh, that God has come among us by identifying himself with all humanity in the humanness of one man in particular, Jesus of Nazareth. We who have cherished the gospel of the Incarnation for years are like those men and women of old whose elation concerning Jesus caused them to shout in exultation. Detractors didn’t like this. They told Jesus to silence his followers. “Silence them?” said Jesus; “If my followers fell silent the very stones would cry out [in acclaiming the truth.]”

We who cling to our Lord today must cry out too in gratitude for all that God has given us in him and done for us in him. We are never going to be found denying our Lord by denying the Incarnation. We are never going to surrender the particularity of the Incarnation in order to blend into the blandest religion-in-general. Without hesitation we are going to thank God for his coming to us as Incarnate Son in Jesus of Nazareth. Without embarrassment we are going to announce this truth in season and out of season.

Why are we going to do this? What does the Incarnation mean? Why is it crucial to all men and women everywhere even if they disdain it?

 

I: — In the first place the Incarnation means that God loves us in our misery so very much that he is willing to share our misery with us. He loves us enough in our alienation from him as to stop at nothing to fetch us home to him.

But do we need to be fetched home? In his best-loved parable, “the parable of the prodigal son,” as we call it, Jesus uses two pithy, single-syllable words to describe our condition before God. The first word is “lost;” the second, “dead.” Please note that Jesus doesn’t attempt to explain what he’s said in order to defend himself for saying it. Neither does he argue for it in order to persuade us to believe it. He merely states it: “Lost, dead.” He expects us to agree with him.

On another occasion people are gathered around Jesus, listening. They hear him using the strongest language concerning the spiritual condition of humankind. They assume he’s referring to “others,” “others” being inferior sorts whom they don’t like in any case and whom they could readily agree to be spiritually defective. “But what about us?” these hearers ask Jesus, expecting to be exempted. “What about us?” Whereupon our Lord utters two more words: “blind, deaf.” Suddenly enraged, these people fly at him: “Don’t talk to us like that. We are better than that. We have Abraham for our father.” “Abraham?” says Jesus; “You wouldn’t know Abraham if you fell over him. Your father is the devil.”

You and I ought never to deceive ourselves about our sinnership. We ought never to forget it. We should recall it daily, and daily feel better immediately, since to recall our sinnership is to recall the Christmas truth that God loves us enough to condescend to us sinners and number himself among us.

We speak of God’s love presumptuously and therefore shallowly. “Of course God loves. What else can he do? Of course God loves me. Who wouldn’t love me? Of course….” It’s all so very shallow.

We need to ask a profounder question. “How much does God love? How far will he go in loving me? What price will he pay to love me? How much will he suffer to love me?” The truth is, God loves us sinners so much that his love will stop at nothing to reclaim us and rescue us. His love doesn’t go “only so far” and stop there; his love goes as far as it has to go in order to have us home with him again. Plainly it wasn’t sufficient that he love us “from a distance;” plainly he could love us savingly (anything less is useless) only if he condescended and came among us as one of us humans, and humiliated himself by identifying with us sinners.

In my first congregation I came to know an old man, Jim MacCullum, who had served in World War I. One day he and his best friend were moving forward in “No Man’s Land,” the open space between allied and enemy trenches. Enemy fire became so intense that the Canadian troops had to fall back. When Jim got back to his trench he couldn’t find his friend. Whereupon Jim went back out to “No Man’s Land,” into the teeth of murderous fire, searching and calling out until he found his friend. His friend was badly wounded and unless rescued would shortly perish. The wounded man looked at him and said, “Jim, I knew you’d come.”

There’s a moving similarity between the situation of Jim’s friend and our situation before God. In Romans 5 Paul speaks of us as helpless. That’s the similarity. There’s also the profoundest dissimilarity between Jim’s friend and our situation before God. In Romans 5 Paul also speaks of us as enemies of God. Jim’s friend wanted to see Jim as he wanted nothing else. We sinners – blind, deaf, spiritually inert – don’t expect a saviour and don’t want one.

And it is for all such perverse people that God’s love swells and swells until his love has to find embodiment in the Nazarene. At this point God has loved us so very much that his love has humbled him in a manger, humiliated him with a reputation he doesn’t deserve (“sinner”) and tortured him in Gethsemane and cross.

Tell me: people who speak so very glibly about God’s love – how do they know that God loves them at all? We know that God loves us at all only as we see him loving us to the uttermost, only as we see him loving us until his love stops short of nothing in order to reconcile us to himself.

Let’s be sure we understand something crucial: while the Incarnation is essential to our salvation we aren’t saved by it. We are saved by the Incarnate One’s sin-bearing death. Then beyond God’s condescension and humility there’s humiliation as he, the holy one, identifies himself with unholy rebels.  And his humiliation takes him even into a torment wherein he absorbs in himself his just judgement upon us in order that we might be spared it. This is how much God loves us. And only as we see him loving us this much do we have any reason to believe that he loves us at all.

For years now I have pondered the fact that the best Christmas carols sing about the Incarnation for the sake of singing about the atonement, the cross. Think of one of my favourites, “Hark! The Herald Angels sing!” But first let’s listen again to our text: “For in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Incarnation) and through him to reconcile all things…making peace by the blood of his cross (atonement.)” Now listen to the carol: “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

Think of the carol, “As With Gladness.” It says, “So may we with willing feet, ever seek thy mercy-seat.” In ancient Israel the mercy-seat was the gold lid on the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was the place where God met with his people; and the mercy-seat, the gold lid, was the place where costliest sacrifice was offered. Jesus Christ is where God meets with his people; his cross is the mercy-seat. Costliest sacrifice is offered here, which sacrifice bathes us in effectual mercy. And we learn it all from a Christmas carol.

I glory in the Incarnation. I know that God loves me at all just because I first know that his love stops short of nothing in his searching for me and his rescuing me.

 

II: — In the second place I glory in the Incarnation in that Jesus of Nazareth, human with my humanness, has fulfilled on my behalf the covenant obedience that God’s love wants from us humans. God covenants himself to us in that he promises ever to be our God. We in turn covenant ourselves to him in that we promise ever to be his people.

God unfailingly keeps us covenant with us. What he promises he performs. What he pledges he delivers. And we? We promise unfailing obedience to God. We promise exclusive loyalty to God. We promise uninterrupted love to God. We promise truthfulness before him. Whereupon we break all the promises we make. Even the promises we make with the best intentions we break nonetheless. We are covenant violators.

God looks out over his entire human creation, hoping to find promise-keepers. Among six billion people he can’t find one human being who gladly, gratefully, consistently, fulfils humankind’s covenant with God. At this point God is faced with an alternative: write off his human creation on account of its disobedience and rebellion, or fulfil humankind’s covenant himself. He has already fulfilled his covenant in loving us undeflectably. Now he also has to fulfil our covenant with him if our covenant is ever going to be kept. In the Incarnate One of Nazareth God not only fulfils his covenant with us; he also fulfils our covenant with him. In other words, in view of humankind’s disobedience God has to come among us as human and in this way fulfil our covenant himself.

I glory in the Incarnation in that the Incarnate One is the human covenant-keeper to whom I must cling, covenant-breaker that I am. To be sure, I have heard the gospel invitation and responded to it. I am a new creation in Christ and grateful for it. Yet the old man, the old being, still clings to me. When we became new creatures in Christ the old man, old woman, was put to death. But as Luther liked to remind us, the old man or woman won’t die quietly; the corpse keeps twitching. This being the case, it’s plain that in Christ I am a new creature; in myself I remain the old covenant-breaker. Then I must cling to Jesus Christ so that his covenant-keeping comprehends my covenant-breaking.

To be sure, I do love God. But I never love him as much as I’m supposed to. Then I must cling to that Son whose human love for his Father is defective in nothing. To be sure I do trust God. But somehow my trust in God is always being punctured by episodes of distrust when I dispute that he can or will do for me all that he’s promised. To be sure, I do obey God. At least I aspire to obey him; I want to obey him. But actually obey him? In all matters? Without exception? Then I can only cling to that Son whose human obedience to his Father is faultless. To be sure, I am possessed of faith. Yet how faithful is my faith? Faith of the head comes easy to me: I believe all major Christian doctrines and have never doubted any of them. So much for my faith of the head. But what what about the faith, faithfulness, of my heart? My heart is treacherous. Then I must cling to that Son whose human faith in his Father was never compromised.

Let me say it again. God unfailingly keeps his covenant, his promises, to us. Just as surely we violate ours to him. Then we must cling to the Inarnate One in whom God as man has come to keep that human covenant with him which we can’t keep.

In other words, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate One, mediates God to us and at the same time mediates us to God. He is the one and only Mediator – both manward and Godward – whom God has provided us in our great need.

 

III: — Lastly, I glory in the Incarnation since it is the greatest affirmation of life. After all, if human life is so precious to God that he chooses to live our human existence as human himself, then human existence must be rich, wonderful, a treasure. If God so prizes human existence then we must prize it no less. If in living every dimension of our humanness God endorses every dimension, then we must endorse every dimension too.

Life is good. I didn’t say easy. I didn’t say life is trouble-free or confusion-free or pain-free. I said life is good. The Incarnation is the story of God’s coming among us to rescue us inasmuch as he deems our existence worth rescuing. Then human existence, however problem-riddled, remains good.

I feel sorry for the people who have slipped or skidded or otherwise fallen into the rut of not being life-affirming. Frequently they tell me they don’t feel very good because they have had the ’flu six times this year. But no one gets the ’flu six times per year. ’Flu-like symptoms – dragginess, weariness (“psychomotor retardation” is the fancy medical term) – these are the symptoms of low-grade depression. Low-grade depression is usually so very low-grade that it’s not recognized as depression. It’s what people slide into unawares when they don’t have reason enough to be life-affirming.

The Incarnation is reason enough. I love that verse from the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in all his toil.” (2:28) We are to enjoy eating and drinking and working not simply because they keep life going; we are to enjoy these because they are pleasurable, good in themselves.

I’m always impressed with the child’s exuberance. A child is on the tear every waking moment. He doesn’t want to go to bed – even when’s so tired he’s staggering – in case he misses something. Yes, I know; we adults don’t have the child’s physical stamina, and we are aware of the world’s grief in a way the child isn’t. Nonetheless, the child’s exuberance should inflame ours.

One day after church the Shepherds’ lunch-hour table-talk roamed hither and yon from that morning’s sermon to Canada ’s newest submarines to Alice Munro’s most recent collection of short stories to the Argos ’ Grey Cup victory. Maureen looked at me said, “You have a thousand enthusiasms.” Indeed I have. Isn’t this better than a thousand wet blankets? In the Incarnation God affirms everything he pronounces good.

The Word became flesh. The Word was embodied. Then to say “life-affirming” is also to say “body-affirming.” The taste of green apples and blue cheese. The crunch of buried ice fragments in the middle of our ice cream cone. Flannelette sheets on a winter night. Renee Fleming’s soprano voice. Yitzhak Perlman’s violin. Riding a bicycle for hours longer than we thought we could. One day I was walking through the ward of a nursing home where the residents were in the worst condition imaginable. One malodorous, old man was hunched over in his wheel chair, head on his folded arms, seemingly more dead than alive or virtually comatose. I assumed he was asleep or depressed or deranged or all three at once. As I tiptoed past him he sat up, grinned at me and shouted, “Did you bring the sweets?” I could have kissed him.

 

It’s Christmastide. Together we are pondering the foundation of our faith, the Incarnation, God’s coming among us as human in Jesus of Nazareth.

– Because God has visited us in this manner we know how much he loves us: he will do anything, suffer anything, absorb anything, to have us home with him again, reconciled to him forever.

– Because God has visited us in this manner we know that he as human has fulfilled our covenant with him when we couldn’t fulfil it ourselves.

-Because God has visited us in this manner he has affirmed the goodness of our existence, and insists that we affirm it too.

 

Yes, we do live amidst religious pluralism. So did Jesus himself. Yet he remained who he was amidst it and never apologized for being who he was and is. We are unapologetic. For that truth which has seized us we could never deny – and in any case would never want to.

                                                                                            

                                                                                                 Victor Shepherd    

Christmas 2004

What Abundance!

Colossians 2:7

 

Aren’t you amazed at God’s magnanimity, his generosity, his large-heartedness? Clues to his magnanimity (but only clues) are seen in his handiwork. His creation abounds in examples of munificence. Think of the stars. There are billions of them in our galaxy (even as ours is not the only galaxy). Not only are there are innumerable stars, many of these stars are vastly larger and brighter than the star we know best, our own sun. The largest star is 690,000,000 miles in diameter; it is 800 times larger than our sun, and 1,900 times brighter. (Can you imagine a star 800 times larger than the sun?) And how vast is the star-world? Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. Other galaxies have been located as far away as six billion light years.

The creation is profuse just because the heart of the creator himself overflows ceaselessly. How many kinds of plants are there? And within the plant domain, how many kinds of trees? And within the tree domain, how many kinds of pines? Ninety! There are ninety different kinds of pine tree alone!

And then there is food. When I moved to the Maritimes I was astounded the first time I saw a fishing boat unload its catch. As the gleaming fish spilled out of the hold I felt there couldn’t be another fish left in the North Atlantic. And I was watching one boat only, an inshore-fishery boat at that, unloading only one day’s catch!

As much as we are inundated with fish we have to remember that only 1% of the world’s protein comes from fish. The rest comes chiefly from grain. And right now there is enough grain grown to give every last person 3000 calories per day. (We need only 2300 to survive.) When I was in India I saw tons of food piled at the roadside, in village after village. To be sure, there’s often a problem with food-distribution — since 15,000 people starve to death throughout the world every day — but there’s no lack of food-production. Let us never forget that France is the breadbasket of the European Economic Community, yet the nations of central Africa — where protein-deficiency diseases proliferate — produce more food per capita than France does. Even in its very worst years of famine India has remained a net exporter of food.

Whenever I reflect upon God’s overflowing bountifulness I pause as I think of food; I pause, but I don’t linger. I do linger, however, whenever I think of God’s great-heartedness concerning his Son. The apostle John cries, “It is not by measure that God gives the Spirit!” (John 3:34 RSV) [“God gives the Spirit without limit!” (NIV)] The rabbis in Israel of old used to say that God gave the prophets, gave each prophet, a measure of the Spirit; but only a measure of the Spirit, since no one prophet spoke the entire truth of God. Upon his Son, however, God has poured out the Spirit without limit. The Spirit hasn’t been rationed, a little here, a little there. No rationing, no doling out, no divvying-up; just the Father pouring out everything deep inside him upon the Son, then pointing to the Son while crying to the world, “What more can I say than in him I have said?”

It is not by measure that God has given Christ Jesus the Spirit. To know this is to know that in our Lord there is to be found all the truth of God, the wisdom of God, the passion of God — as well as the patience of God — the will and work and word and way of God. It’s all been poured into him.

If God has poured himself without limit into his Son, then you and I can be blessed without limit only in clinging to the Son. If God has deluged himself upon his Son, then we are going to be soaked in God’s blessings only as we stand so close to our Lord that what has been poured into him without limit spills over onto us as well.

I: — Paul tells the church-folk in Ephesus that the riches of God’s grace are lavished upon us in Christ. Grace is God’s love meeting our sin and therefore taking the form of mercy. (Eph. 1:8) Since God’s mercy meets our sin not once but over and over, undiscouraged and undeflected, God’s mercy takes the form of constancy. God’s constancy remains constant not because God is inflexible or rigid (and therefore brittle); God’s mercy remains constant not because he expects human hearts, now hard, to soften (some will, some won’t); God’s mercy remains constant in the face of our sin just because he has pledged himself to us and he will not break his promise to us even if every last human heart remains cold and stony and sterile. Grace, in a word, is God’s love meeting our sin, expressing itself therefore as mercy, and refusing to abandon us despite our frigid ingratitude and our senseless resistance. To speak of grace at all, in this context, is plainly to speak of the riches of grace. And such riches, says Paul, are lavished upon us, poured out upon us without calculation or qualification or hesitation or condition.

Several years ago in Cook County Jail, Chicago, the prison chaplain visited a prisoner on death row. The convict had only hours to live. Quietly, soberly, gently, sensitively the chaplain acquainted the convict afresh with the truth and simplicity and sufficiency of God’s provision for all humankind, and specifically for this one fellow who would shortly appear before him whom any of us can endure only as we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The convict — angry, frustrated, resentful, envious of those not in his predicament, just blindly livid and senselessly helpless — the convict spat in the chaplain’s face. The chaplain waited several minutes until a measure of emotional control seemed evident and said even more quietly, soberly, sensitively, “Would you like to spit in my face again?”

When the apostle speaks of “the riches of God’s grace” he never means that God is a doormat who can only stand by helplessly while the entire world victimizes him endlessly. When he speaks of the riches of God’s grace, rather, he means that the patience of God and the mercy of God and the constancy of God — the sheer willingness of God to suffer abuse and derision and anguish for us — all of this cannot be fathomed. Two hundred years before the incident in Cook County Jail Charles Wesley spoke for all of this when he wrote in his hymn, “I have long withstood his grace, long provoked him to his face”. Because of our protracted provocation, God’s grace can only be rich, can only be lavished upon us. Little wonder that Paul exclaims, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Rom.5:20) The marvel of God’s grace is that as abhorrent as our sin is to God, it is so very abhorrent to him that he wants it to become abhorrent to us as well; therefore he meets our sin with even more of his grace.

Why does he bother to meet our sin with grace abounding? Because he knows that if only we glimpse how much more he can give us we should want nothing less for ourselves. Jesus insists, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our Lord has come that his people might have life aboundingly, hugely, wholly, grandly, plentifully.

We should note that while Jesus urges “abundance” upon us, he doesn’t tell us in what the abundance consists. He simply says that what he lends his people is to be described as bountiful, copious, plenteous, profusive. Why hasn’t he spelled it out more specifically? I think he hasn’t in order to minimize the risk of counterfeit imitation. If our Lord had said, ‘Abundant’ life consists in a,b,c,d, then people would immediately endeavour to fabricate or imitate a,b,c,d — all of which would render abundant life, so-called, utterly artificial.

People crave reality; they won’t settle ultimately for artificiality, regardless of how useful artificiality may appear in the short run. They crave reality. Surely that which is genuinely profound and truly significant will also be attractive. And surely that which is so very attractive will move more people from scepticism to faith and the possession of abundant life than will a clever argument which leaves them unable to reply but more sceptical than ever.

A minute ago I said that when Jesus speaks of “abundant life” he doesn’t say in what the abundance consists. Nevertheless, from the apostolic testimony as a whole we can put together a composite description. If generosity is a mark of discipleship, then one feature of abundant life is ungrudging, anonymous generosity. If love is too, then another feature is uncalculating concern for others regardless of their merit or their capacity to repay. If forgiveness of injuries and insults, then a marvellous forgivingness and an equally marvellous forgetfulness. If seriousness about prayer is a feature of abundant life, then equally significant is a willingness to forego much before foregoing the time we spend with our face upturned to God’s. Nobody wants to reduce holiness, the holiness marking Christians, to sexual purity. At the same time, wherever the New Testament urges holiness upon Christ’s people the context nearly always pertains to sexual conduct. (This is something the church has simply forgotten today.)

Needless to say, in all of this we shall always know that the abundant life streaming from us arises at all only because of the riches of God’s grace proliferating within us.

II: — In view of all that God pours into us, generates within us and calls forth from us we are to “abound in thanksgiving”. (2 Cor. 4:15; Col.2:6-7) We are to spout — geyser-like — uncontrived, unscheduled outbursts of gratitude to God. Of course there’s a place for scheduled acknowledgements of God’s goodness to us as we offer thanksgivings at set times (including Thanksgiving Sunday). More frequently, however, and more characteristically, unplotted effusions of thanksgiving overflow even the channels of good taste and middle class demeanour.

Despite all the sporting events that can be watched on television, there remains no substitute for seeing them “live”. Saturday night broadcasts into one’s living room and the Maple Leafs “live” at the Air Canada Centre are simply not the same event. One thing that never ceases to thrill me at a live game is the crowd’s spontaneous eruption when the home team scores. A Leaf player “drains one” (as they say in the game), and 19,000 people shout with one voice. There are no signs that suddenly flash, “Applaud now.” There is nothing prearranged to cue the crowd. There is only uncontrived exclamation.

Surely you and I will “abound in thanksgiving” only as we are overcome yet again at God’s astounding munificence and we cannot stifle our exclamation. And on Thanksgiving Sunday in particular, is there anyone whose heart doesn’t tingle at blessings too numerous to count? Then of course we are going to abound in thanksgiving.

III: — To know we have been given so much, to be grateful for having been given so much, is to shout “Amen” instantly when Paul urges us to “abound in every good work.” (2 Cor.9:8b) Anyone who has been blessed profoundly, anyone who gives thanks profusely, will always want to abound in “every good work”.

The older I grow the more I realize how important the ordinary, the undramatic, the “ho-hum” (so-called) is everywhere in life. Often the dramatic is deemed especially important, if only because the dramatic is unusual. An automobile strikes a pedestrian crossing the street; the pedestrian’s leg is severed, and the throbbing artery spouts blood, quickly draining away life — when along comes a fellow in his brand-new Harry Rosen Italian wool suit; without hesitating, he rips up the sleeve of his jacket and twists on the tourniquet — just in time. Good. None of it is to be slighted.

At the same time, 99.9% of life isn’t dramatic. For every dramatic assistance we might render there are a million opportunities for the most undramatic, concrete kindnesses whose blessings to their recipients are priceless. Maureen and I in Brandenburg, Germany, for instance, (one hour off the airplane) trying to find the tourist information bureau (needed for a list of “Zimmer mit Fruehstueck” — Bed & Breakfast); we have made four circuits in our rented car of the downtown maze of a mediaeval city, know by now that we aren’t going to find the tourist information bureau if we make 40 circuits, know too that we don’t know how to stop making circuits; a woman who speaks German only saying, “It’s too complicated for me to describe how to get to the bureau from here; I’ll walk you to it” — and then walking the longest distance out of her way to help two strangers from a foreign country whom she will never see again. The young mother across the aisle from me on the train to Montreal; her baby is only six months old, too young to be left alone; the woman is exceedingly nauseated and needs to get to the washroom before; would I hold her baby until she has returned from the washroom? Of course.

Because the undramatic abounds in life (as the dramatic does not), the apostle is careful to say that we are to abound in every good work.

IV: — There is only one matter left for us to probe. What impels us to do all of this? To be sure we are commanded to abound in thanksgiving, commanded again to abound in every good work. We can always grimace grimly and simply get on with it just because we’ve been ordered to; or we can recall the riches of God’s grace that have been lavished upon us. But to have to recall something is to admit that we are lacking an incentive that is immediate; and to grimace grimly and do onerously what we’ve been told to do is to admit that discipleship is a pain in the neck. Then what impels us to abound precisely where we know we should abound? Paul says we “abound” from the heart as joy — joy! — wells up within us.

When Paul saw that the Christians were going to go hungry in Jerusalem during the famine there he asked the Christians in Macedonia for help. The Macedonian believers were poor, dirt-poor. And yet when the apostle asked them to help people they had never seen they “gave beyond their means.” (2 Cor. 8:3) Not only did they give beyond their means, they begged Paul to grant them the privilege of helping others in dire need.

What impelled them to do it? Paul says simply, “…their abundance of joy overflowed in a wealth of liberality.” (2 Cor. 8:2) It was their joy — not their sense of duty, not the obligations of obedience — just their joy in Christ, their joy at the mercies of God, their joy at the super-abounding grace of God in the face of their abounding sin; it was their abundance of joy that impelled them to give beyond their means, poor as they were, as soon as they heard of those who were poorer still.

Only a superfluity of joy renders us those who are willing to make a real sacrifice for the kingdom; and only a superfluity of joy allows us to see that alongside the wounds of Christ we shouldn’t be speaking of our sacrifice at all.

On Thanksgiving Sunday, 2002, I want such abounding joy in my heart as to attest the mercy of God lavished upon me and lavished upon me endlessly in the face of my all-too-abounding sin and undeniable need. For then abounding thankfulness will stream my lips, even as abounding kindnesses flow from my hands.

                                                         

                                                                       Victor Shepherd   

October 2002

“…abounding in thanksgiving.”

(A word-study in the Greek verb PERISSEUEIN, “to abound”)

 

What Does It Men To Put On The Lord Jesus Christ?

Colossians 3:5-14   Romans 13:14     Ephesians 4:24 

 

 Nakedness renders very few people more handsome. Most people look worse in the bathtub than they do anywhere else. By the time we are 25 years old gravy and gravity have taken their toll. We look better clothed.

Then what shall we wear? Anything at all? Shabby, old clothes? Or “far-out”, ostentatious, unserviceable clothing? Surely we want to wear clothing that suits us. And if we can find clothing that is just perfect for us, we may even say that our clothing “makes” us.

St.Paul was fond of the metaphor of clothing. In his letters to congregations in Rome, Ephesus and Colosse he speaks metaphorically of clothing which should be thrown out, as well as of clothing which should be worn all the time. The apostle knows something we do well to remember: nakedness (metaphorically speaking) is not possible. It is impossible to be unclothed spiritually. He never urges his readers to put on something in order to cover up their spiritual nakedness. Instead he urges them to take off that clothing which always clothes, naturally clothes fallen human beings, and then to put on that clothing which adorns Christians, and adorns them just because they have first put on the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

 

I: — Everyone knows that some clothing is not merely old or frayed or threadbare. Some clothing is much worse than this: it is vermin-ridden. Vermin-ridden clothing is not to be washed or patched or simply set aside. It is to be destroyed. Of course! Vermin have to be killed.

For this reason Paul begins his wardrobe recommendations with the startling phrase, “Put to death…”. “Put to death what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity…” and so on. Degenerate sexual behaviour is inappropriate to Christian discipleship and must be eliminated.

What the apostle had to say in this regard shocked the ancient world. In ancient Greece a man had a wife for human companionship; he had as many mistresses as he wanted for libidinal relief; and he had a young boy for the ultimate in sexual gratification. As the gospel penetrated the ancient world Christian congregations stood out as islands of sexual purity in a sea of corruption.

Do we still stand out today? Several weeks ago the Toronto newspapers published articles on the promiscuity of NHL hockey players. Players were not named, for the most part (although one Maple Leaf named himself unashamedly as one who had been tested for AIDS). A player with the Montreal Canadiens, a fellow who makes no Christian profession at all, remarked, “I always thought it was supposed to be one man and one woman for life.” Does it take a hockey player to remind the present-day church of what it is supposed to uphold? In the ancient world the church stood out as startlingly different; the society surrounding the church had never seen anything like it.

I am asked over and over what I think about “trial marriage”. Invariably I say that “trial marriage” is a logical impossibility; it is as logically impossible as a trial parachute jump. As long as you are standing in the doorway of the airplane, you haven’t jumped at all. Once you have jumped, however, it isn’t a trial; it’s the real thing. A trial parachute jump is logically impossible. So is a trial marriage. If a commitment hasn’t been made it isn’t marriage at all. If a commitment has been made it isn’t a trial. We can be sure of one thing: the mindset which foolishly thinks that there can be “trial marriage” will also think that there can be “trial adultery”. St.Paul, reflecting the conviction of all Christians of the apostolic era, insists that some clothing cannot be helped by spot remover. It must be destroyed. “Put to death what is earthly in you”, is his manner of speaking.

We must be fair and acknowledge that there are additional items of clothing which should be destroyed. “Passion, evil desire, covetousness”, with covetousness underlined, since covetousness amounts to idolatry, he tells us. The Greek word for covetousness is PLEONEXIA. PLEON — more; EXIA, to have. Covetousness is the passionate desire to have more — have more of anything. It is evil in that the passionate desire to have more corrupts us and victimizes others.

To crave greater prestige, greater notoriety, greater visibility is to embrace compromise after compromise until we have thoroughly falsified ourselves, a phoney of the phoneys. To crave more goods is to fall into dishonesty. To crave more power, greater domination, is to become first exploitative then cruel.

Paul sums up the passionate desire to have more — covetousness — as idolatry. Martin Luther used to say, “Our god is that to which we give ourselves; that from which we seek our ultimate satisfaction.” What we pursue, what we actually pursue, what our heart is set on when all the socially acceptable disguises are penetrated, is our god. Because we expect to be rewarded by this deity we secretly, yet surely, give ourselves to it. Such idolatry, insists the apostle, we must swiftly put to death.

He isn’t finished yet. Also to be killed are “anger” and “wrath”. ORGE, anger, is smouldering resentment which nurses a grudge and plots ways to even the score. THUMOS, wrath, in this context refers to a tantrum, the childish rage, childish decompensation, which is no less sinful for being childish. The adult who still has uncontrollable tantrums; the adult whose hatred still smoulders; these people are pitiable. After all, they think they are well-dressed when in fact their shabby clothes are verminous.

Lastly, the apostle speaks of “slander”, “foul talk”, and “lying”. Slander is the ruination of someone else’s reputation. Foul talk is abusive language, assaultive language, of any kind. Lying is deliberate misrepresentation. The slanderer is as lethal as a rattlesnake. The abusive talker is as brutal as a sledgehammer. These people plainly damage others. The liar, on the other hand, while certainly deceiving others, principally damages himself. You see, the liar who lies even in the smallest matters has rendered himself untrustworthy. Once he is known to be untrustworthy no one will say anything of any importance to him; no one will confide in him. All he will hear for as long as he is known as a liar will be nothing but froth. Of course the liar can be forgiven; but the liar can never be trusted. Far more than he victimizes others he victimizes himself.

The apostle never minces words, does he. There is clothing we must not merely shed; we must get rid of it. “Put to death”, he tells us, the impurity which defiles, the craving which corrupts, and the talk which either damages others or renders us untrustworthy.

 

III: — At the beginning of the sermon I said that nakedness (metaphorically) isn’t possible. We jettison the clothing which we must only because we have first put on, already put on, the new clothing which becomes all of us. In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” We do put him on — in faith — so that he becomes ours and we become his. To the Christians in Ephesus Paul writes, “Put on the new nature , created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” To the Christians in Colosse he says, “Put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

It is plain that Christians are those who, in faith, have put on Jesus Christ himself. As we put on him we put on that renewed human nature which he is and which he fits onto us; as all of this happens the image of God, in which we were created but which has become scratched and marred and defaced — this image of God is re-engraved and now stands out unmistakably.

If this is really what has happened (and what more could happen?), what is the result of our having put on Christ?

(i) The first result is startling; the first result is so public, so notorious, so blatant that it can be observed and noted without contradiction even by those who make no profession of faith at all. The first result is that the barriers throughout the world which divide, isolate and alienate human beings from each other are crumbled. “Here there cannot be Greek or Jew”, says Paul, “…nor barbarian, Scythian, slave or free person; but Christ is all and in all.”

The barriers in the ancient world were as ugly as they are today. The Greeks regarded themselves as intellectually superior to everyone else. They were the cultured of the cultured. The Greek language was considered both the most expressive and the most beautiful sounding of any language. Why, compared to the sound of Greek all other languages had a harsh, unmusical, brutish sound: “bar-bar”. Greek people therefore regarded everyone else in the world as a barbarian.

We modern people look upon the study of foreign languages as a mark of the educated person. No one brags of being unilingual. But the ancient Greeks boasted of knowing one language only. They despised the study of foreign languages. They argued that since every language is inferior to their own, and since everyone who speaks an inferior language is inferior to the Greek people themselves, why waste time studying the inferior languages of inferior people? Max Mueller, an internationally acclaimed linguist of the late nineteenth century; Mueller insisted that a desire to learn other languages arose only through the indirect illumination of the gospel of Jesus Christ, arose only when the people who spoke these languages were no longer seen as barbarians but as brothers/sisters.

Just as Greeks thought themselves intellectually superior, Jews thought themselves religiously superior. They regularly spoke of non-Jews as “dogs”. Furthermore, since Jews were God’s chosen people, then all others had to be God’s rejected people, didn’t they?

The Scythians mentioned in our text today are named inasmuch as they were regarded as the lowest form of human life. “More barbarian than the barbarians”, is how the Greeks spoke of them. Scythians were held to be barely human, scarcely human.

Utterly unhuman were slaves. In the ancient world the slave was not considered to be a human being in any sense. Slaves had no rights. They could be beaten, maimed or killed with impunity — any why not, since killing a slave, through overwork, for instance, was no more significant than breaking a garden-rake through overuse. No less a philosopher than Aristotle had said that a slave was a highly efficient tool which unfortunately had to be fed.

And yet in the early days of the church the spiritual leader of the congregation was frequently a slave. Freemen and -women, people whose social class was incomparable to that of a slave; freemen and -women recognized the manifest spiritual depth of the slave who was leading their congregation. They recognized the spiritual authenticity, spiritual authority, the godliness of someone whom the society at large didn’t even regard as human, and deferred to it. Only in a Christian congregation could this phenomenon be seen. It happened nowhere else. It was the single most public consequence of putting on Christ.

One consequence of putting on our Lord, of putting on our new nature in righteousness and holiness, is that the congregation is a living demonstration of the collapse of those barriers which divide, isolate and alienate people from each other.

(ii) A second consequence: in putting on Christ, in putting on that new nature which is being renewed after the image and likeness of God, we become clothed with the character which shines in our Lord himself.

We put on compassion and kindness. Compassion is literally the state of being attuned to someone else’s suffering. It is the exact opposite of what we mean by “do-gooder”. The do-gooder does good, all right, does what he regards as good, but does it all from a safe distance, does it all with his hands but is careful to leave his heart out of it, lest his heart become wrenched, never mind broken. The compassionate person is completely different; the compassionate person’s heart is attuned to someone else’s suffering, even if there is very little that that person can do with her hands. If you were afflicted or tormented yourself, which person would you rather have with you: the do-gooder who can only tinker remotely, or the compassionate person who may only be able to resonate with your pain? Always the latter, for the latter will in the long run be infinitely more helpful and healing than the tinkerer.

We put on kindness as well. Kindness is holding our neighbour’s wellbeing as dear as our own. Such kindness has about it none of the negativities surrounding “do-goodism”. In the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry the word “kind” was used of wine; wine was said to be kind when full-bodied red wine had no sourness about it. Such wine was rich to the palate and delightful, but without any sour aftertaste. The same word is used by our Lord himself when he says, “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is — is what, easy? The English translations say “easy”, but the Greek word is CHRESTOTES, and everywhere else it means kind. An ox-yoke was kind when the yoke fit so well that it didn’t chafe the animal’s neck. When our Lord tells us that his yoke is kind he means that the obedience in which we are bound to him will not irritate us, chafe us, rub us raw.

When we put on Christ, continues Paul, we put on lowliness, meekness and patience. Lowliness is humility, and humility, you have heard me say one hundred times, is simply self-forgetfulness.

Then what about meekness? Meekness is strength exercised through gentleness. All of us have strengths; to be sure, we have weaknesses as well, but all of us have strengths. We can exercise our strengths heavy-handedly, coercively, domineeringly, or we can exercise our strengths gently. When Paul wrote his epistles the word “meek” was used every day to describe the wild horse which was now tamed (and therefore useful) but whose spirit had not been broken.

Patience means we are not going to explode or quit, sulk or sabotage when things don’t get done in congregational life exactly as we should like to see them done.

We put on forgiveness, and forgive each other, moved to do so simply by the astounding forgiveness we have received from our Lord himself.

(iii) The final consequence of putting on Christ: we put on love, with the result, says Paul, that the congregation “is bound together in perfect harmony”. He maintains that a congregation is to resemble a symphony orchestra. An orchestra never consists of one instrument only playing the same note over and over. An orchestra consists of many different instruments sounding many different notes. The full sound of the orchestra is what people want to hear. Whether the full sound is a good sound or an unendurable sound depends on one thing: is the orchestra playing in harmony?

We should be aware of what the metaphor of harmony does not mean for congregational life. It does not mean that the goal of congregational life is uniformity or conformity; and it does not mean that voices which shouldn’t be heard all the time shouldn’t be heard at all. (The sharp crack of the timpani drum and the piercing note of the piccolo are not heard often in an orchestra, but when they need to be heard they should be heard.)

It is love, says the apostle, and love only, which renders congregational harmony as glorious as Mozart’s. For it is such love which renders our life together honouring to God, helpful to us, and attractive to others who may yet become Christ’s people as they too are persuaded to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. For as they do this, they will find, as we have found already, that to put on him is also to put on that human nature which God has appointed for us. And to clothe ourselves in this is to find that clothes do indeed make the man — and the woman as well.

 

F I N I S

                                                                        Victor A. Shepherd                                                                                       

   March 1992

 

Isaac Watts

    Colossians 3:13-17

 

Watts wrote them superbly, yet he wrote eversomuch more than his 697 hymns. A textbook on logic, for instance, that was used for years at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. Not to mention his two books on geometry and astronomy. Upset at the inability of students to handle the English language creditably, he penned The Art of Reading and Writing English. It was followed by his Philosophical Essays (with its appendix, “A brief Scheme of Ontology”, ontology being that branch of philosophy that discusses being), then by Improvement of the Mind (this was actually a “how-to-study” book, and even A Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth. A minister for virtually all of his adult life, Watts also published ten volumes of sermons and scores of theological treatises.

Isaac Watts was born in 1674, the eldest of eight children, six of whom survived. The last quarter of the 17th century was a troubled time in England. Dissenters (those who refused to conform to the established church) were not only denied access to suitable employment and the universities; Dissenters were liable to prosecution and imprisonment for no greater “crime” than persisting in worshipping God according to their conscience. Watts’s father, a Dissenter, was imprisoned one year after he was married. His wife, Watts’s mother, gave birth to Isaac while her husband was in jail. She regularly nursed her infant son on the jail steps in the course of visiting her husband. (When Isaac was nine years old his father was jailed a second time — for six months — for the same offence: refusing to conform to the worship-practices of the established church.)

Young Isaac was plainly precocious. He had learned Latin by age four, Greek at nine, French at eleven, and Hebrew at thirteen. French was not usually studied in English elementary schools during the 1600s, but Watts was raised in Southampton, and Southampton was a city of refuge to hundreds of refugees who were fleeing persecution in France. The youngster thought he should know French so that he could converse with his neighbours.

A physician recognized the boy’s intellectual gifts and offered to finance his education at either Oxford or Cambridge. But regardless of his brilliance Watts would be admitted to either university only if he were willing to renounce Dissent and conform to Anglicanism. He wasn’t willing. (Had his father suffered for nothing?) He would never surrender conviction to expediency. As a result he went to a Dissenting Academy, the post-secondary institution for those barred from the universities. While completing his formal education Watts wrote much poetry, most of it in Latin. Upon leaving the Academy at age 20 he wrote his first hymn, “Behold the Glories of the Lamb” — yet did so only when challenged sharply by his father.

The writing of his first hymn was significant in view of the fact that hymns weren’t sung in English churches. German Lutherans had been singing hymns for over 100 years. Calvinists in Switzerland and France, however, had not. The Calvinists disdained hymns as unscriptural and popish. Calvin had wanted his people to sing only the psalms of scripture. English Protestants of Calvinist parentage had adopted the practice of singing only metrical psalms in worship. The texts of these metrical psalms were poetically crude and frequently ludicrous; for instance,

Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,
Your Master’s praises spout,
Up from the sands ye coddlings peep,
And wag your tails about.

The texts were ludicrous, the mood was ponderous, the tone of the entire service dreary, and one day Watts discovered he couldn’t endure any of it a minute longer. Returning from the service one Sunday morning he complained vehemently to his father about the psalm-singing that put people off worship. “Why don’t you write a hymn suitable for congregational singing?”, his father retorted. In the course of the afternoon Watts did just that, and the congregation sang hymn #1 the same evening.

Yet it must not be thought that Watts disesteemed the psalms. Far from it. So highly did he value them, in fact, that he immediately set about rewriting the metrical versions in a smoother idiom. Compare the metrical version of Psalm 20 with Watts’s version:

In chariots some put confidence,
Some horses trust upon;
But we remember will the name
Of our Lord God alone. (Metrical)

Some trust in horses train’d for war,
And some of chariots make their boasts;
Our surest expectations are
From Thee, the Lord of heav’nly hosts. (Watts)

(As relatively smooth as Watts’s hymn-line was, it would be made even smoother by 18th century poets such as Charles Wesley.)

Not everyone thanked Watts for his efforts. Some of his contemporaries complained that his hymns were “too worldly” for the church. One critic fumed, “Christian congregations have shut out divinely inspired psalms and have taken in Watts’s flights of fancy!” His hymns outraged many people, split congregations (most notably the congregation whose pastor, years earlier, had been John Bunyan, himself the author of an English classic), and got pastors fired. Still, Watts knew what his preeminent gift was and why he had to employ it.

Needless to say we of Streetsville United Church, having been thoroughly exposed to the genius of Charles Wesley, cannot help comparing the hymnwriting of Wesley and Watts.

Wesley’s hymns concern themselves chiefly with God and the individual human heart: their relations, their estrangement, their reconciliation, their union. Watts writes of this too, but with a major difference: the backdrop of God’s intercourse with the human heart is the cosmos in its unspeakable vastness. Watts sees the drama of the incarnation and the cross, the dereliction and the resurrection, as apparently small events that are in fact possessed of cosmic significance. Watts’s universe is simply more immense than anything Wesley imagined. For Watts nature is more prodigious, time more extensive, eternity more awesome. (This is not to say that Wesley is inferior. Indeed no one would rate Watts a better poet. Wesley had more poetic skill than Watts, and more thorough training in the forms of classical poetry. It is simply to say that Watts’s universe was larger.) It is said of Milton that he is the English poet who, above all others, makes the reader aware of the sky. In the same way Watts, with his fondness of astronomy, singularly makes the reader aware of the hugeness of the firmament.

There are technical comparisons as well of the poetry of Watts and Wesley. Wesley preferred a six-line stanza, but when writing a four-line stanza usually rhymed first and third lines as well as second and fourth. Watts preferred a four-line stanza and usually rhymed only the second and fourth lines. As a result Watts’s stanzas tend to read less compactly than Wesley’s. While Wesley combined Anglo-Saxon expressions (they are customarily blunt, one-syllable words like “hit”) with Latin expressions (usually multi-syllable words like “transported” or “ineffable”), Watts wrote page after page of hymns lacking even one word with a Latin derivation (despite the scores of Latin poems that he wrote). Watts evidently preferred to write hymns in words of one syllable.

Watts was a man with limitless appreciation of the passion of God. He himself was possessed of the profoundest experience of God. Listen to him:

Here at the cross, my dying God
I lay my soul beneath thy love.

*

The mount of danger is the place
Where we shall see surprising grace.

*

Turn, turn us, mighty God,
And mould our souls afresh;
Break, sovereign grace, these hearts of stone,
And give us hearts of flesh.

(Note that the last line, “And give us hearts of flesh”, consists of six words of one syllable each.)

Watts was accorded the recognition he deserved. By age 50 he was a national figure, esteemed by Anglicans and Dissenters alike. John Wesley had long acknowledged the genius, discipline and piety of Watts, and when Wesley came to publish his first hymn book, one-third of its hymns were Isaac’s. When John Wesley published his tract, The Doctrine of Original Sin, he incorporated 44 pages of Watts’s earlier work, Ruin and Recovery.

The poetic genius of Watts is evident. Yet since few poets (if any) have made a living from poeticizing, how did Watts manage to survive?

Upon graduating from the Academy Watts eked out a living as tutor to the son of a well-to-do English merchant. He never thought for a moment, however, that this was his vocation. In 1702, when he was 27 years old, he was called to a pastorate in London. The next ten years were spent fruitfully and happily as Watts immersed himself in the relentless round of responsibilities that every pastor must attend to — at the same time as he wrote books, treatises, poems and hymns.

The easygoing ten years were ended abruptly by a major illness from which he never recovered fully. While he was unable to work during his illness he asked the congregation to discontinue his salary. The congregation refused, and instead raised it so that he could pay his medical bills.

The illness incapacitated him for four years. When the worst of it abated he was left frail, fragile, sickly. In addition there was an apparently non-specific psychiatric component to his now-chronic weakness. On the one hand he wasn’t sick enough to die for another 38 years; on the other hand, he wasn’t sickness-free enough to be well. A wealthy benefactor, Thomas Abney, invited him to his home to assist his recovery. He gratefully accepted, and went on to live there for the rest of his life.

Watts preached whenever he could. There were periods when he could preach with little interruption, as well as periods when he was simply deranged and couldn’t function at all.

In 1739, at age 65, Isaac suffered a stroke that left him able to speak but unable to write. A secretary was provided for his dictated poems and hymns.

He died on 25th November, 1748.

Isaac Watts was unusual in many respects. A short man (five feet tall), his frail body was capped with a disproportionately large head. Virtually all portraits of him depict him in a large gown with large folds, an obvious attempt at having him appear less grotesque.

Unusual? How many working pastors write a textbook on logic that is used for decades by the preeminent universities of the English-speaking world?

Unusual? Who among us can write a book on metaphysics that probes ontology, and at the same time write a book of children’s poetry that goes through 95 editions within 100 years of its publication?

Unusual? Who has written hymns that have been translated into dozens of languages from Armenian to Zulu?

Unusual? What modern thinker has published a learned tome on astronomy and also published graded catechisms (one for five-year olds, another for nine-year olds, another for twelve-year olds)?

Watts was unusual: he regularly gave away one-fifth of his income, deploying his tithe locally yet also sending it as far afield as Germany and Georgia to help beleaguered people there.

Yet surely he was most unusual in that the jockey-sized man, ugly as well, handicapped by a thin voice and a history of psychiatric illness, could appear in a pulpit whenever sanity overtook him and draw hundreds who hung on words rising from a heart that hearers knew to be wrapped in the heart of God.

Watts was not unusual in one important respect. Like all Christians he knew that God is to be loved with the mind, and therefore reason must never be discounted in the exercising of faith or the discipline of the Christian life. Yet he knew too that the mystery of God himself, while never irrational, is oceans deeper than reason can fathom. Who among us would say anything else? Then it is proper for us to conclude with a four-line stanza Isaac Watts wrote concerning the fathomless mystery of God.

Where reason fails,
With all her pow’rs,
There faith prevails
And love adores.

                                                                                                      Victor A. Shepherd
October 1994

Isaac Watts
1674-1748

The singing of God’s praise is the part of worship most
clearly related to heaven; but its performance among us
is the worst on earth. (I.W.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791

    Colossians 3:16 

 

I: — A French atheist, proud of his atheism, who heard the seven year old concert pianist in Paris exclaimed, “I have seen a miracle.”  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wasn’t a miracle in the biblical sense of the word; nevertheless, he was a marvel.

Today he couldn’t be exploited and exhibited as he was in his childhood. (After all, today people who are highly unusual physically, for instance, aren’t allowed to be exploited and exhibited in circus side-shows.)  Mozart’s father, however, was less wise and therefore less kind.  The elder Mozart, himself a composer and violinist of no little ability, quickly recognized that his son was extraordinary.  Mozart’s sister, Nannerl (five years older), was gifted too.         Father Mozart sent the two children on a concert tour that lasted three and a half years. Crowds sat agape as the seven year old boy and his twelve year old sister played two-piano duets breathtakingly.  Paris , London , Amsterdam , Geneva , Lausanne , Zurich , Winterthur , Schaffhausen; at last the concert tour was over and the exhausted children were home again.

Mozart was born 27th January 1756 in the city of Salzburg , Austria , and was named Johannes Chrysostomos Wolfgangus Theophilos Mozart.  “Theophilos”, Greek for “lover of God”, was Latinized to “Amadeus”. Thereafter he was known by his last three names, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

His father began instructing him in music theory when he was three. By age four he was playing minuets flawlessly and had composed his first piano concerto.   His father looked at it and remarked that wonderful as it was on paper, it was so difficult that no one would be able to play it.  Whereupon the four year old played it.  When he was eight he was asked to accompany a singer in an Italian aria. He had never heard it before. Still, he improvised each repetition by developing it from the previous stanza.  When the singer had finished, Mozart kept playing the piece, fully scored, ten times over, each time with a different variation.  He would have continued playing in his inner transport and untrammelled spontaneity had not the adults in the room stopped him.

In 1782 Wolfgang married Constanze Weber.  His father vehemently opposed the marriage, vowing he would have nothing to do with her; thereafter he treated Constanze contemptuously if he had reason to deal with her at all.         Wolfgang, for his part, wrote his father, “I am just beginning to live.”   Her life would never be easy. In six of her nine years of marriage she would be pregnant or either recovering. (The longest interval between pregnancies was seventeen months; the shortest (twice), six months.) In 1789 she was bedridden for weeks with fever, severe nausea, and lameness.  The pseudo-medical treatment prescribed for her was to bathe her feet in water in which the entrails of an animal had been boiled.  The child she was carrying died at birth.  Throughout her life she lacked everyday wisdom, homespun “horse sense”. Despite her appalling lack of worldly wisdom and her relentless suffering, Constanze remained unconcerned and uncomplaining.

The young husband and wife were happy.  They were both silly, frivolous, and financially unteachable, apparently a perfect match. They moved twelve times in their nine years of marriage, house-rent being one of the financial items they could never quite manage.

In the social pecking order of eighteenth century Europe musicians were generally disdained, being one step (but only one) above the bricklayer or stonemason or blacksmith; certainly nowhere near the gentry, let alone the nobility. Constanze belonged to the same social class and knew it.  She and Wolfgang never strove to leave it.         Whereas Beethoven was socially ambitious and committed notable social blunders in his zeal for social climbing, Mozart didn’t blunder in that he scorned the game; he never cared a fig for ingratiating himself with social superiors.

In some respects he never grew up.  Emotional immaturity was as natural to him as musical sophistication. On one occasion he was practising the piano in an auditorium when he suddenly took note of the silence of those who had come to hear him rehearse as they hung on every note. He thought these people entirely too serious, entirely too adulatory; after all, he was only practising. Whereupon he jumped up on the back of a seat and capered around the room from seat-back to seat-back, all the while meowing like a cat.

Despite the people who recognized his gifts, and despite his fondness for partying, Mozart was so very isolated that it hurts even to read of it. Other musicians envied him and shunned him. Salieri, a court-composer of vastly less ability, plotted intrigues to ensure Wolfgang’s non-recognition. As has already been mentioned, his father detested Constanze.  (Later she burned every letter the older man had sent to his son.) Nannerl, his sister, not wishing to alienate her father, took the father’s side and was barely civil to Constanze.

So lonely was Mozart that his heart leapt when he found recognition and affirmation in a bird.  He was passing a pet shop in Salzburg when he heard a bird chirping a few notes from one of his piano sonatas.  Now only recently he had decided to attempt a measure of financial responsibility by writing each expenditure in a notebook, hoping thereby to see exactly where his money was going and get himself and his wife beyond their pecuniary precariousness.  The notebook shows careful entries of small sums for pencils or buttons or food; then a huge entry for the bird.  Mozart had done it again: bankrupted himself unthinkingly, recent resolution thrown to the wind, as he knew he had to have this bird.  Having dutifully jotted the purchase price in his notebook, he wrote down the musical notes he heard the bird chirp, indicating that the bird did not sing a G-sharp and several grace-notes.  Underneath all of this he penned, “Das war schoen” — “That was beautiful.” The bird lived three years. When it died he mourned it as he was to mourn little else.

A talent as rich as his would always ensure isolation.  His music pioneered new harmonies.  His grasp of counterpoint left people gasping.  (Counterpoint is the art of writing two different melodies in the one piece of music.) Whereas many composer/performers wrote a few piano or violin pieces and then took them on the concert tour, playing them over and over to different audiences in different cities, Mozart found that the more he performed the more he was inspired to write. As a result he frequently wrote new sonatas and concertos for each performance on a concert tour. When he did repeat a piano item with orchestral accompaniment, the orchestra, of course, played the music he had scored for it.  Mozart himself, however, played what he had written for himself the first night only; from the second night on he improvised, composing on the spot, nothing written at all, his on-the-spot creation fitting perfectly into the orchestral score.  Each night there was the same orchestral accompaniment but a brand new piano rendition, never heard before, and never to be heard again, since nothing was written and nothing recorded.

Unlike Chopin who had huge hands, Mozart’s hands, like his body, were small. So dextrous were they nonetheless that they caused the most difficult passages to resemble “flowing oil”, in the words of the little man himself.  At the same time, his wonderfully able hands were useless for virtually everything else. At the dinner table his wife customarily cut up his meat, a knife and fork being too difficult for him to coordinate.

On one occasion he asked a fellow-composer if he could look over the latter’s new symphony. The man refused to let Mozart see it. Whereupon our friend went to a concert hall where it was being performed, heard it once, returned home and wrote out every note for every instrument.

Despite his financial disasters and his isolation at the hands of the musical fraternity he never lost his confidence.  In fact he was self-assured in a way that others found off-putting. When the Austrian emperor, no less, remarked that an aria had too many notes in it, Mozart replied (to the emperor), “…there are just as many notes in it as there ought to be.” (Wolfgang, remember, wasn’t a social climber.)

Most composers created music at the point of a pencil, writing and erasing over and over until they got down what they wanted.  Mozart, however, created exclusively in his head; then he wrote it all out once, once only, never erasing a note.  Not surprisingly, he found the writing of music mechanical drudgery and a bore.  When asked about his musical inspiration and his manner of composing he remarked that he had very little to say about it.         “Travelling in a carriage, walking after a good meal, during the night when I can’t sleep; it’s on such occasions that my ideas flow best and flow most abundantly.  Whence and how they come I know not; nor can I force them…. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once.”  As soon as he had heard the full orchestra in his head at once, all that remained to be done, he liked to say, was mere scribbling.

There was no form of music which he didn’t write superbly.  Symphonies, quartets, trios; piano, violin, cello, clarinet and trumpet concertos; operas, church music.  Indeed it was as church musician that he acquired what he had long wanted: a job with a salary and therefore a regular income.  As Master of the Chapel in Salzburg he wrote music for the Sunday services.  He and the archbishop, however, could not get along.  Their relationship worsened until in May, 1780, having had the long-awaited steady job for a year and four months, he was fired.

While our soloist is singing Mozart’s church music today and the congregation several hymn-tunes, relatively little of his church music is sung in Protestant worship. His church music is largely the musical setting for the Roman Catholic mass.  Furthermore, the Protestantism which Mozart was exposed to was exceedingly dilute. The rich gospel of the Reformation, addressed to the entire person, had given way to a dry, cold mental abstraction, little more than an intellectual parlour game employing a religious vocabulary.  It led Mozart to comment that Protestant Christianity was a head-trip that left people unmoved, inert.  Another critical observation was even more telling.         The Lutheran recovery of the biblical truth of justification — namely, that God justifies sinners or puts them in the right with himself as they seize in faith the crucified one whom God has given as provision for sinners — this glorious dimension of the gospel was distorted and diluted until “justification” was nothing more than the thinnest coat of whitewash applied to sin, which sin was deemed only skin-deep and didn’t matter anyway.  For this reason Mozart commented that Protestants rarely understood the core of the Roman mass, “O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world.”

His poverty worsened. In order to earn money he gave piano lessons to the children of aristocrats, virtually all of whom were without musical talent.  One fellow, however, pleaded with him for lessons, and Mozart recognized enormous talent in the youngster; but Mozart’s father was dying and he felt he couldn’t spare the time or the concentration which so promising a pupil needed. He declined to take on this one outstanding student.  The student’s name was Beethoven.

Wolfgang began selling as much as he could part with.  His long, green velvet coat with the flared skirt, plus his red velvet coat (his favourite), even his viola — he sold them all, his viola fetching only a few dollars. Between major compositions he dashed off little ditties, tunes for what had become the new rage in Austria , mechanical music boxes with revolving metal cylinders.  These music boxes sat on a woman’s dresser and tinkled a tune while she brushed her hair. Surprisingly, he was well paid for these. Still, he was so far in debt that he was beyond help.

By now he was not only poor but sick.  His illness worsened rapidly.  In the last year of his life, knowing himself in a race against death (as he often said), he produced a torrent of glorious music.  At the same time, with only months left to him, he performed 20 two-hour piano concerts in four weeks.  Very ill now, he wrote to a friend in England , “I go on writing because composition tires me less than resting.”  A stranger commissioned him to write a Requiem.  He put the finishing touches to his last opera, The Magic Flute, and began work on his final piece of church music.  Sick unto death, he summoned three men who sat with him for several afternoons while he hummed the parts and dictated the score.  When he whispered to Constanze, “I have the taste of death on my tongue”, she summoned a priest.  He died at 1:00 o’clock in the morning, 5th December 1791, aged thirty-five, and was buried in a pauper’s grave, unmarked.

His debts were massive. The emperor sponsored a benefit concert for Constanze, as did his old friend Haydn, and the money gave her a small monthly pension.  Her health improved now, and she lived until she was seventy-nine. Whereupon she was buried in the grave of the man who had afflicted her for years and whose letters she had burned, her husband’s father.

 

Mozart’s life was short. His published works number six hundred and twenty-six.  We shall never know how much more music he wrote which his elbow knocked onto the floor and a broom later swept up.  And of course we shall never hear the music he played but never wrote.

Music-experts regard him as the most gifted composer ever.  Leonard Bernstein, American composer, conductor and pianist, maintains that compared to other outstanding composers Mozart resembles a deity who kissed the earthy briefly and then departed.

This little deity, however, was humble too.  All his life Mozart was especially fond of people below his social station. He loved to play for sick, elderly people in nursing homes.  “The unlearned will appreciate my music without knowing why”, he commented. They did.  They do. And they always will.

 

II: — Why are we honouring Mozart today in a service of worship?  Music isn’t the Word of God. To cherish Mozart’s gift isn’t to relish the gospel.  Then why do we bother with him at Sunday worship?

 

(i)         In the first place, while music is not the gospel it does assist us in our praise of God.  Architecture also assists us in our praise of God.  Sunday by Sunday we worship God in this building.  It cost much to build and it costs much to maintain.  Yet we continue to maintain it and gather within it inasmuch as it facilitates our worship of God. Music does as much.

It always has. Our Hebrew foreparents knew this. They used the flute at weddings and funerals; in other words, the flute was used in services of worship which had to do with the extremes of elevated joy or piercing grief. The tambourine was used in conjunction with dancing, and was always associated with gladness. The trumpet was used to remind the people of God’s summons to spiritual conflict.

We sing here Sunday by Sunday just because singing expresses a devotion, an ardour, a response of the heart so deep that merely spoken words can’t do justice to it. The lyrics of our hymns are poetry. But we don’t stand and recite poetry together week after week; we sing it. Poetry which is sung comes from depths in us that much deeper than poetry which is said.  Music assists us in our praise of God.  This being the case, it’s only fitting that we recognize someone who was musically gifted above all others.

 

(ii)         In the second place Mozart’s music is known for its structure, its order. The order of his music reminds us that our world remains ordered by God’s providence and God’s mercy. To be sure, in the wake of the Fall the world is disordered; not superficially disordered, but profoundly disordered.  Sunday by Sunday you hear me illustrate and analyse the world’s disorder and also hear me point, I trust, to its recovery in Jesus Christ. Disordered as the world is, however, it’s never as disordered as it could be.  It’s never disordered entirely.  If it were, existence would be impossible.

Everyone knows that life is impossible amidst chaos.  A completely chaotic world would be an uninhabitable world.  Scripture insists over and over that humankind’s wickedness imparts an element of chaos into human existence.  Then as one generation’s wickedness is added to another’s, why doesn’t chaos mount until it overtakes us and life becomes impossible? Because God himself, in his goodness and patience and mercy, constantly keeps chaos at bay as he preserves order enough to let us live.

The Hebrew mind always thinks concretely. When it thinks of chaos it envisages water, torrents of water, both coming down from above and welling up from below.  When the two waters meet, chaos overtakes the world and life is impossible. It is the testimony of scripture that God, by his goodness, patience and mercy, holds the “waters” back and preserves order, order enough to let us live and work.

When I hear Mozart’s music, with its marvellous structure, its exquisite order, I know it to be a reflection of that order by which God preserves the world in his mercy.  However fallen the world is, however tarnished, weakened and vicious it might be, it is never this entirely; if the world were this entirely, it would no longer be good. But God created it good and pronounced it good. Its goodness remains even in the wake of the Fall, for otherwise it couldn’t be the theatre of God’s glory.

Mozart’s music embodies an order, intricately worked out, subtle to be sure, yet always balanced and elemental.         His music is a token of that order by which God preserves a world which, if left to itself, could only collapse into chaos.         World? Your life and mine: left to itself, without God’s preservation — it too could only collapse into chaos.

 

(iii)         Lastly, Mozart’s music is to be received with thanksgiving simply because it’s a thing of beauty. Beauty is a gift of God. Not the gift (Jesus Christ, with all that he does for us and in us, is the gift); but a gift nonetheless, and a glorious gift.

Think for a minute of the Lord’s Prayer.  We are commanded to pray for daily bread.  Daily bread is not the bread of life. (Our Lord is this.)  But to say that daily bread isn’t the bread of life isn’t to say that daily bread is unimportant.         Indeed, so important is daily bread that we can’t live without it, and must ask God for it without ceasing.

Just as bread is food for the stomach so music is food for the mind and heart. Music too is a kind of “bread” that humankind needs and for which we are to thank God.

Do you ever think about the cloak which our Lord wore?  It wasn’t a potato sack. It was beautiful, so beautiful that the soldiers who stripped him didn’t throw it aside. Instead they gambled for it, each one wanting to be the lucky fellow to take it home.

Do you recall what Mozart wrote in his notebook about the bird that could chirp a few notes of his music?         “That was beautiful.” How much more beautiful was the gift of the man whose piano-playing resembled “flowing oil” and whose compositions are without peer.

 

At one point Mozart’s father, exasperated with his son, wrote to Wolfgang, “It’s always too much or too little with you, never the middle of the road.” The older man was correct on one thing: for Wolfgang it was never the middle of the road. But he was wrong when he said that with Wolfgang Amadeus it was always either too much or too little. It was certainly never too little. Then was it ever too much? There can’t be too much of Mozart’s gift.

There can’t be too much of the gift; there can’t be too much of the love our Lord poured out upon us at the cross and continues to pour out. There can’t be too much of the love we must pour out upon him and upon one another. Love, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself, is always a spendthrift.

 

                                                                                                         Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    January 2006

 

You asked for a sermon on The Might of the Tongue

 Colossians 4:6

 

1]”Sticksand stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me!” They won’t? Someone else’s tongue can’t hurt us? Ask Captain Dreyfus. Albert Dreyfus was an officer in the French Army at the turn of the century. He was Jewish. The under‑the­-surface antisemitism which is never much beneath the surface broke through. The name Dreyfus was called was “traitor”. There was no foundation for the label; in his case the word was devoid of truth. Dreyfus was accused nonetheless. Then he was tried, shunted aside and shunned for years, then tried again. Eventually he was exonerated. But his exoneration meant little. By now his military career was in ruins, his life a shambles, his family devastated. In addition the “Dreyfus affair”, as it came to be known, unleashed a wave of lethal antisemitism throughout France . Not only did the one word “traitor” destroy him, it traumatized thousands of others as well. It was as if one stone only had been thrown into the water, yet the ripples were as unending as they were countless.

 

 

2] It is plain that a word, once uttered, is not merely a grammatical unit. The spoken word is an event. And in fact the Hebrew language honours this truth, for the Hebrew word DABAR means both “word” and “event”. Our Hebrew foreparents knew that the chief characteristic of God is that he speaks. They knew too that when God speaks something happens. It is not the case that God speaks, and then silence swallows up his word as though it had never been uttered, with the result that nothing significant has occurred. God speaks, we are told, and the universe with its inexhaustible complexity is fashioned out of nothing. God speaks, and the prophets themselves are “voice‑activated”. Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Isaiah; these men are prophets whose entire existence is “voice‑activated” by the Holy One of Israel. Amos acquaints us with the irrefutable ground of his vocation: “The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?

 

Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, utters that Word which he himself is, and Lazarus is quickened from the dead. (We might as well add that the same thing happens every time the gospelis preached.) Jesus sends out his disciples to many different towns. They are to preach in hisname. If their word (his word) is not heeded in this or that town, says the master, “it shall be more tolerableon the day of judgement for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town”. In short, to disdain and dismiss those words which attest Jesus Christ and his kingdom is to guarantee one’s non‑survival in the coming judgement. DABAR: the word is an event.

 

It is difficult for us twentieth century-types to grasp this, because we think that speech and act are entirely distinct. Speaking is speaking and acting is acting. They are as unlike as sunbeams and creamed cheese. We have to work at thinking our way back into a Hebrew understanding where speaking and doing are one. Imagine yourself standing alongside the Grand Canyon ; standing alongside it, but not too close, for suddenly a word is uttered. In that instant the jagged outcroppings of rock are crumbled and the canyon floor is filled in as hills and valleys are levelled. Difficult to grasp? No! After all, we use ultrasound to pulverize kidney stones, don’t we? Our familiarity with ultrasound pulverizing kidney stones helps us understand the psalmist when he writes, “God utters his voice; the earth melts.” Word and event are one: DABAR.

 

3] If we think about this for a moment it’s obvious. One purpose of speech is to disseminate information. If I am told that Paris is the capital city of France or Lake Superior is the coldest of the Great Lakes or the sun is ninety‑two million miles from the earth, then more than speech has occurred: ignorance has been dispelled. That’s the event in this case: ignorance has been dispelled, and the foundation for greater learning has been put in place. More profoundly, another purpose of speech isn’t merely to disseminate information but also to be that vehicle which conveys us ourselves in our self­giving to another person. The words, “I love you”, don’t merely disseminate information; they are the vehicle which conveys the speaker herself in her self‑giving to another person. Word and act are one.

 

A moment’s reflection on the power of dysfunctional speech reminds us terrifyingly of what speech does. Sarcasm, for example. Sarcasm is contemptuous, biting speech whose aim is the opposite of what the words mean. The baseball hitter strikes out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. As he stumbles back to the dugout, head down, a fan shouts, “Well done, all‑star!” The words mean that the batter is a superior player who has just performed outstandingly. What the fan intends to say, however, is the exact opposite: the hitter is an incompetent who belongs in the lowest level of the minor leagues. And it is all said with deliberate intent to wound.

 

The child brings home his report card with a glaring “ID” in arithmetic. His mother can’t help noticing it and comments, “I see that you are another Einstein; my child is a genius!” The meaning the parent intends is the exact opposite of the meaning the words have, and the intent isto hurt the child. The child is hurt, stabbed in fact. My psychiatrist‑friends tell me that sarcasm destroys children, simply destroys them. The child understands the meaning of the words, yet also notes contempt and anger and rejection in the speaker’s voice and on her face; the child is wholly confused by the contradiction and knows at the same time that he has been stabbed in the heart. Sarcasm destroys children. (it doesn’t do much to help adults, either.)

 

Humorous speech is often a form of dysfunctional utterance. The purpose of humour, ostensibly, is to amuse. But often humour is used to ridicule or mock; sometimes humour is used to taunt and taunt and taunt until the taunted person explodes and lashes back. Whereupon the taunter, insisting that the purpose of his humour is never to upset, smirks self ‑righteously, “I always knew that fellow had a bad temper!”

 

Sometimes humour is used to cloak a dagger‑thrust. Person A, with malice in his heart, wants to say something nasty to person B, without exposing himself to retaliation from person B. If A simply spoke nastily, B might turn the tables on him and with superior verbal skill demolish A in a devastating counterthrust. A decides to cloak his dagger‑thrust in humour. If B replies sharply, A takes refuge in his humour saying, “I was only being funny; can’t you take a joke?” On the other hand, if B pretends to “take the joke” and says nothing, he knows that he has been stabbed and can’t do anything about it! When humour is used not to amuse but rather to leave a victim defenceless, speech has been used dysfunctionally; and used dysfunctionally with terrifying power.

 

The crudest, bluntest, baldest form of dysfunctional speech, of course, is the outright lie. A lie, by definition, corresponds to nothing substantive at all; nothing in actuality corresponds to the lie. A lie, therefore, is like a vacuum. A vacuum, by definition, is nothing. Yet a vacuum has immense power. A lie has immense power. The worst feature of a lie isn’t that misrepresentation has occurred (serious though this is); the worst feature of a lie is that the person telling it can no longer be trusted; forgiven, yes, but never trusted. What is lied about may be of little importance; the fact that someone can no longer be trusted couldn’t be more important.

 

The so‑called “white” lie, “white” in that the teller intends no malice but is simply taking an easy way out of a stickysituation; the so‑called white lie has the same end‑result:utter breakdown of trust. Many people have told me white lies thinking they were sparing my feelings. But why spare my feelingsat the price of forfeiting trust? The people we find lying to us we can forgive and engage politely thereafter. But it would be unreasonable to trust them.

 

It is little wonder that the apostle James speaks so severely of the tongue. While the biggest ship or horse can be directed by the smallest rudder or bit ‑‑ any man or woman being able to control the small bit or rudder ‑‑ no man or woman can direct his or her life by controlling the smallest tongue. The tongue, small as it is, escapes human control, with the result that the whole person careens dangerously and disastrously like a rudderless ship or a bitless horse. In only twelve verses James tells us that the tongue is a fire, is a stain which stains the entire body, is a match which ignites huge conflagrations, is itself set on fire from hell, is a restless evil, is as untameable as the wildest animal, is as full of deadly poison as a cobra. James gathers up all his teaching about the tongue by naming it “an unrighteous world”. The tongue is a world. “World”, for James, always means the culture and institutions of the universe organized without God and as such the antithesis of the kingdom of God . Think of it: the sum total of the universe’s culture and institutions, sunk in ungodliness, organized to oppose God’s kingdom ‑‑ all of this concentrated in three inches of flexible tissue. Little wonder that grace is needed; grace and grit. God’s grace is needed if we are to have the capacity and the desire to do something better; our grit, our determination, our resolve are needed if in fact we are going to do something better.

 

4] The men and women upon whom Jesus Christ first stamped himself knew what we must do. First, we must speak the truth. This is simple. I didn’t say easy; to speak the truth in a world of mendacity is never easy. I said simple. Jesus insists that the evil one is a liar and a murderer. This is no surprise; to be a liar is to be a murderer. We have already seen how the liar slays; the liar slays trust, therefore slays relationships, therefore slays people. We saw even earlier in the sermon that the prohibition forbidding the bearing of false witness is found in the prohibitions forbidding theft and adultery and murder. The lie slays. Liars are killers. Since God is one who eternally has life in himself; since God imparts life, sustains life, redeems life, fulfils life, his people must always choose life rather than death. Therefore we speak the truth.

 

It is important that we speak the truth, important as well that we speak. In the church we hear endlessly of the sin of speaking when we shouldn’t, yet we hear nothing of the sin of remaining silent when we should speak. Everything that James says about the tongue’s hyperactivity applies as well to the tongue’s inertia. After all, when the truth is known but not spoken, then falsehood triumphs. I have come home from church‑court meetings sick and heartbroken at the silence of clergy who knew in their hearts what the truth was but who remained silent at critical times. Next day they have phoned me and said, “Victor, we have read the stuff you write; we agree with what you said last night; we are with you all the way.” But silent at the critical moment, so fearful that they phoned me next morning lest they be seen talking to me. Silence, let us remember, is a form of speech. When a false statement is met with silence, the silence is a left-handed way of expressing agreement with the statement, however false.

 

James insists that the tongue is an unrighteous world. It is. Silence is an unrighteous world too. The unrighteous world is the only world the world knows. But Christians do not aspire to ape the world; we aspire to that kingdom which cannot be shaken and which unfailingly contradicts the world. Therefore we speak the truth, giving equal weight to both “truth” and “speak”.

 

In the second place we are to speak the truth in love. “Truth” describes the content of what we say; “love” describes our motive for saying it. Our motive is never to bludgeon (truth can be used as a hammer, all of us know). Our motive is never to mislead (truth can mislead whenever what is said is true but not the whole truth). Since love “builds up”, according to the apostle Paul, our motive in truth‑telling must be edification alone. And if the truth wounds temporarily, it must only be a surgical wound, a last‑resort necessity to promote life.

 

Lastly our truth-telling must “fit the occasion”, says the apostle, “so that it may impart grace to those who hear”. There is always the fitting occasion for saying what we have to say; there is always an appropriate context for saying what we have to say. Only as the truth is spoken and heard in the appropriate context does it impart grace; only here will it reflect the word of the God who comes to save rather than destroy.

 

5] The God who comes to save; the God who comes to bind saved people to himself, inviting them to bind themselves to him; he will always be their God, he promises them, even as he invites them to promise him their lifelong love and loyalty, gratitude and obedience. All of this recalls the covenant. The covenant, biblically, is God’s declaration

 

that he wants a holy people so badly he will give himself, holding nothing back, at whatever cost to him, to free and woo and win a people for himself. That people which he has freed and wooed and won through blood-shed grace; so grateful are they that they abandon themselves to him and henceforth live in eager, cheerful obedience to him, reflecting in all of this his own lifegiving goodness. This is the covenant.

 

In scripture the covenant is celebrated with salt. The offerings which God’s people bring to worship are sprinkled with salt. The incense which is burned in the temple is seasoned with salt. Not surprisingly the Hebrew bible speaks of God’s covenant with his people as “a covenant of salt”. (Numbers 18:19 ; 2nd Chronicles 13:5) When an Israelite baby is newly born it is rubbed with salt, a sign that this child, born into the covenant people, must be nurtured so as to grow up reflecting the lifegiving goodness of God himself.

 

With this much salt before us we can grasp immediately what Paul means when he tells the Christians in Colosse that their speech is to be “gracious, seasoned with salt”. Salty speech is speech which befits the people of the salt-covenant. The speech of God’s covenant people is to embody the lifegiving goodness, death‑defeating goodness, of the God who comes only to save. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt ……

 

Eight hundred years before Paul many people complained to the prophet Elisha that the spring-water in the city of Jericho was rendering the people of Jericho infertile, unfruitful. Elisha poured salt into the spring and declared, “Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; henceforth neither death nor miscarriage shall come forth from it”.

 

According to Elisha’s descendant, Paul, we who are God’s covenant people are to speak in such a way that our speech brings forth not death, not even something which betokens life yet finally emerges dead; our speech is to embody the lifegiving goodness of him who is the world’s only saviour and therefore its only hope.

F I N I S

 

                                                                                         Victor A. Shepherd  

February 1993

 

Exodus 20:16*
Numbers 18:19
2 Kings 2:19-22
2 Chronicles 13:5
Psalm 46:6b
Isaiah 55:1
Jeremiah 1:9
Amos 3:8
Ephesians 4:15
Colossians 4:6*
James 3:1-12 *

“My Ministry Is Dearer To Me Than Life”

1st Thessalonians 1:1- 2:8

 

     John Calvin suffered atrociously.  He was afflicted with chronic tophacceous gout, deposits of calcified material around his joints.  In 1562 he wrote to Theodore Beza, “God keeps me bound by my feet…. it is difficult for me to creep from the bed to the table.  Today I preached. But I had to be carried to the church.”

In addition Calvin suffered terribly from kidney stones.  His physician advised him to ride his horse vigorously in hope of discharging a stone. At the end of the agonizing horseback ride Calvin wrote, “On my return home I was surprised to find that I emitted discoloured blood rather than urine. The following day the calculus had forced its way from the bladder into the urethra.  Hence still more excruciating tortures….the urinary canal was so much lacerated that copious discharges of blood flowed from it.”

Calvin also suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, and at one point coughed up so much blood that he had to be confined to bed for eight months. While he was in bed for the eight months he dictated the 1559 edition of his Institutes and translated it from Latin into French andrevised his commentary on Isaiah.

Calvin also had intestinal parasites.  (He describes in detail the hookworms and tapeworms that he passed, but I shall spare you the details tonight.)

Calvin also suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (also known as spastic colon), with its cramping abdominal pain.  For ten years he could eat only one meal per day.

He endured migraine headaches, often for days on end.

Not least he was afflicted with haemorrhoids.

The immediate cause of his death was probably septicaemia, shock caused by bacteria growing in his bloodstream.

Repeatedly he had to be carried into the pulpit in a chair. Why didn’t he quit? Or if not quit altogether, why didn’t he take it easy on himself?  Why didn’t he take a few more days off and enter upon a life of ease?

Why not? He tells us himself in the dedication to his commentary on 2nd Thessalonians: “My ministry…is dearer to me than life.”

Of course his ministry was dearer to him than life in light of how he understood the ministry.  Consider what he wrote in his Commentary on Galatians: “When the gospel is preached, the blood of Jesus flows”; and in his Commentary on Hebrews: “When the gospel is preached, the blood of Jesus falls on the congregation together with the words.”  It almost sounds like a Protestant version of transubstantiation, the transubstantiation of the ministry.

To be sure, the ministry is more than preaching.  Calvin knew that. At the same time, Calvin knew that every aspect of the pastor’s work – preaching, teaching, visiting, listening, consoling – embodied the logic of that work. And the logic of the work of the ministry was that in every aspect of the gospel-ministry that a pastor exercises the blood of Jesus flows; through every aspect of the ministry that a pastor exercises the blood of Jesus drips salvifically on the congregation that has been entrusted to the pastor.

It’s a singular honour to be a pastor.  I am moved every time I recall the remark of Jean Vianney, an early-nineteenth century Roman Catholic priest from the city of Ars in post-Napoleonic France . “If we really knew what it is to be a pastor”, Vianney said, “we couldn’t endure it.”  What did he mean, “We couldn’t endure it”? I have glimpsed what he means, for in the course of my pastoral work, especially in situations of distress and anguish, grief and pain, I have staggered home stunned at how eager people are to see their minister and what comfort they derive from his presence.  I have slowly learned why they are eager and how they derive comfort: it’s because they are trusting the pastor’s faith to support their own faith when their own faith is assaulted by tragedy or turbulence or sin. They are counting on the pastor’s heart-knowledge of God when a wall has fallen on them and mere head-knowledge isn’t going to help.  They want to lean on the pastor’s assurance, borrow from it (as it were). They are hoping the pastor’s assurance concerning God’s truth and God’s triumph will reassure them that God hasn’t abandoned them despite shocking evidence to the contrary.  They are hoping that the pastor’s confidence will restore their confidence that God will never forsake them even though God seems to have. And therefore while a pastor who appears to be a know-it-all is a nuisance, a pastor who never exudes unselfconscious intimacy with God is useless.

What is it, then, to be a pastor?  It’s to have the conviction of God’s mercy and faithfulness so deep in one’s bloodstream that the suffering person will feel the foundations of her life to be in place once more.  It’s to be so unselfconsciously a conduit of the Spirit that the same “current” will be induced in the person whom mishap has made to feel unplugged. Every high school student knows that if a current is passing through electrical wire and another wire is laid alongside it, the current in the first wire will induce a current in the secondThis is what it means to be a pastor.

Robert Coles is a psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard. In one of his video-taped lectures Coles branches out into a discussion of painting, especially the work of Edward Hopper, an American artist. Coles points out that the people depicted in Hopper’s paintings sit close to each other but never look at each other.  They share the same space geographically but are humanly remote.  Coles points out that it’s easy for people to be proximate to each other physically, to chatter, even to meet conventionally; yet it’s rare — because difficult — for people to communicate intimately, heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit, deep-to-deep.  Coles is correct: such communication is rare because difficult.

But not so difficult and therefore so rare in the ministry. The human intimacy characteristic of pastoral work guarantees that a smaller congregation of even one hundred people is assailed with enough pain and perplexity, enough anguish and anxiety, to give a minister no rest.

Plainly, regardless of what else pastor and people need in the midst of life’s contradictions, above all we need courage.  We always need courage. Few books in scripture speak as much about courage as the book of Hebrews.         It likens the Christian life to a race, a relay race. Those who have run their leg of the race ahead of us (i.e., Christians of an earlier era who have predeceased us) are awaiting us at the finish line. They remained courageous throughout their leg of the relay race.  They remained courageous: that’s why they finished (rather than quit) and are awaiting us at the finish line.  The unknown author of Hebrews cries, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…. Therefore lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.” Because any Christian congregation is surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, wecan lift up our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees.  One task of the pastor is constantly to point the people to the cloud of witnesses.

 

It’s the cloud of witnesses that becomes for us a vehicle of the grace of God. One such witness in the great cloud is John Calvin.  Calvin was a giant among the Protestant Reformers.  Calvin spoke characteristically of the grandeur of God and the majesty of God. No one else seems as awed with God’s sheer Godness.  God, for Calvin, infinitely transcends all that we can say or think of him. And yet when Calvin pens a comment on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian congregation he writes what we don’t expect him to.  Paul has written, “We give thanks to God always for you all”.  In other words, the apostle thanks God for the congregation.  Calvin comments, “Is there anything more worthy of our love than God?” Of course there isn’t. But here comes the surprise. “There is nothing, therefore, which ought to make us seek the friendship of men (and women) more than God’s manifestation of himself among them through the gifts of the Spirit”.   How startling! The Reformer who is awed at the sheer, overwhelming Godness of God maintains that our friends in the congregation mirror God to us.  Our friends in the congregation aren’t friends chiefly because we get along with them or they like us; our friends in the congregation are those whom we are to cherish just because they mirror to us the mercy and patience and truth of God himself.

Calvin was born in 1509 in the town of Noyon , fifty miles outside Paris . At age eleven he went to Paris to begin university studies. His father steered him into law, having noted (his father said) that lawyers never starve. Calvin graduated with a doctorate in legal studies at age twenty-three.  Soon he left behind the technical details of the law for the riches of Renaissance humanism. Then in 1534 the gospel seized him.  He moved to Geneva , Switzerland , and quickly became known for his first major work in theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion.  The first edition had only six chapters; the final edition, eighty. It had grown into a two-thousand page primer for preachers.         Subsequently Calvin became the leading thinker of the Reformation outside German-speaking lands, a prolific writer, and a diligent worker on behalf of the citizens of the city.

Before Calvin died in 1564 he had written commentaries on most books of the bible, including 1st Thessalonians.         I am moved every time I open it, for here Calvin speaks so very warmly of the pastor’s life with the congregation that the pastor serves. In 1st Thessalonians the apostle Paul speaks of the style of his ministry with the congregation in the city. Paul writes, “We were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” Calvin comments on this passage, “A mother, in nursing her child, makes no show of authority and does not stand on any dignity.   This, says Paul, was his attitude, since he willingly refrained from claiming the honour that was due him [i.e., as an apostle], and undertook any kind of duty without being ruffled or making any show.  In the second place, a mother, in rearing her child, reveals a wonderful and extraordinary love…and even gives her own life blood to be drained…. We must remember that those who want to be counted true pastors must entertain the same feelings as Paul — to have higher regard for the church [i.e., the congregation] than for their own life.” When Paul maintains that one mark of an apostle is his willingness to make any sacrifice for the edification of the congregation, Calvin adds, “All pastors are reminded by this of the kind of relationship which ought to exist between them and the church”.

Calvin always knew that a dictatorial, tyrannical pastor is a contradiction in terms. The pastor is to lead the congregation, not hammer it; he is to plead, not whip; he is to model the gospel, not hurl it. When Paul says to the congregation in Thessalonica, “We beseech you”, Calvin adds, “His beseeching them, when he might rightfully command them, is a mark of the courtesy and restraint which pastors should imitate, in order to win their people, if possible, with kindliness, rather than coerce them with force.”  The pastor is always to plead rather than pummel.         Calvin summarizes this issue: “Those who exercise an absolute power that is completely opposed to Christ are far from the order of pastors and overseers”.

To be sure, Calvin speaks of two kinds of pastors who give the ministry a bad name. Class one: “stupid, ignorant men who blurt out their worthless brainwaves from the pulpit”. Class two: “ungodly, irreverent individuals who babble on with their detestable blasphemies”. Any minister who reads Calvin here must search her own heart.         I search mine, and trust that you will never find me blurting out worthless brainwaves or babbling detestable blasphemies.

Calvin had the highest estimation of the ministry.  Such work, he said, is “…the edification of the church, the salvation of souls, the restoration of the world…. The excellence and splendour of this work are beyond value”.         There is no greater privilege than being a pastor.

Realistically Calvin knew that pastoral existence could be difficult, even dangerous. He had seen congregations trample ministers.         When he reflects on the disputes and feuds which make life miserable for a minister he writes something that is, regrettably, true of too many congregations: “So we see daily how pastors are treated with hostility by their churches for some trivial reason, or for no reason at all.” Yet Calvin also knew that no one is cherished as much as a diligent pastor is cherished by a grateful congregation.

One day in May, 1954, Stan Musial, the superb right fielder for the St.Louis Cardinals, hit five home runs in a single game.  A few years later Musial was in the twilight of his baseball career. His legs no longer ran fast; his arm was no longer a cannon; and opposing pitchers with even a mediocre fastball were starting to sneak it past him.  He knew that he could now play only occasionally as a pinch-hitter. “Even if I know I’m going to sit on the bench for most of the game”, he told a sportswriter, “every time I go to the ballpark and put on my uniform I get a thrill”.

I am 64-years old. I am in the twilight of my ministry. Nonetheless, every time I exercise this ministry I get a thrill.  Whether it’s when I step into a pulpit on Sunday morning and see the expectant faces of the congregation, or whether it’s when I’m helping someone to die in peace, or whether it’s when I sit by myself and intercede for those whom God has laid on my heart – whenever I exercise the ministry to which I’ve been called I get a thrill. And as often as I’m thrilled I’m also startled, sobered and awed, for I recall Jean Vianney: “If we really knew what it is to be a pastor, we couldn’t endure it.”

I relish teaching in a seminary, and relish it for several reasons. One reason is that it keeps me probing the work of the giants in theology.  Another reason is that it keeps me acquainted with men and women (younger than I) who are preparing for ordination.  Entirely too often, however, a student remarks that after his first degree in theology he plans to do a second and third degree – i.e., a doctorate – because a doctorate will be the ticket out of the pastorate and into a professorship.  The first degree in theology lets one into the pastorate; the final degree lets one out. The truth is, I heard as much when I was a seminary student myself forty-one years ago. Whenever I hear this I tell students most emphatically that the real Doctores Ecclesiae, teachers of the church, were pastors first.  Luther worked as a pastor every day in addition to teaching, writing, travelling, and wrestling with most vexatious problems in church life; e.g., the predicament of nuns who left the convent in response to the message of the Reformation and then had no means of support. Calvin preached on average every second day. Yet his writings are so massive that his 2000-page Institutes represents only 6.8% of his written output.  In addition he sat with the dying, married the living, visited the sick, sorted out conflicts in the wider church (rural pastors, for instance, complained vociferously that they should be paid the same as urban pastors in Geneva .) He ordered provisions for the city hospital. And he had to endure the humiliation of his sister-in-law’s repeated adulteries.
Why did the real giants of theology persist in shouldering such a hugely variegated pastoral work, doing vastly more than merely the scholarship for which they will never be forgotten? Calvin spoke for them all when he wrote 450 years ago, “My ministry is dearer to me than life.”

                                                                                                           Victor Shepherd                        

June 2008

Dr. Shepherd received The Best Preacher Award by the Centre of Mentorship and Theological Reflection at Tyndale University College & Seminary, June 5, 2008.  Following is the sermon he delivered at that event.