Without a Doubt

This sermon was preached on October 14th, 2012. It is based on two texts, Mark 10:17-31 and Hebrews 4:12-16. It's the first time I've really talked about Hannah in a sermon, and she took it very gracefully. She was a total champ. It's also the first time I've returned to preach on a text that I've preached before (I did a first-person perspective sermon on this in seminary), and I found that I saw the text in a completely different way. That's a relief for me, because goodness knows what would happen if I discovered that after going through the lectionary once I didn't have anything else to say.
 

Without a Doubt

At this point in the book of Mark, Jesus is beginning the next stage in his journey towards Jerusalem. And while he’s getting ready, a young man runs up to him, and kneels down before him. Now this rich young man is the kind of guy who has it all figured out.

First of all, he’s rich (we learn that from Luke’s version of this story). Not only does that make life a little easier, at the time it was widely regarded as evidence of your piety, that you had earned God’s blessings. He’s also well-educated and well-bred. He knows the laws and has kept them since childhood. In other words, he is exactly what you’d think of when you think of a righteous and successful man. He is on the board of several important industry organizations, runs three fundraisers a year for the Make-a-Wish foundation, all while expanding his small business and cooking sumptuous and healthy dinners every night for his family. He comes to Jesus, and he kneels down in a great show of piety, and he says, “Good teacher {never hurts to lay it on a little thick} What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I think we know the answer he was looking for: “What, you? With the number of charity golf tournaments you’ve played in, your salvation is assured!” He has heard that there is a new holy man on the block, and has come to seek his approval, he is looking for confirmation of his goodness. It’s strange how you can have everything and still be looking for something, and perhaps stranger still how often we go off looking for the wrong thing.

It’s easy to find ourselves in this position. To get caught up in our own righteousness, making sure that no good deed goes unseen by our neigbors. To talk about all the good things we’ve done instead of listening for the good things God is calling us to do. We all do it, those of us who regularly attend church perhaps worst of all. And Jesus looks at the young man, loves him, and says something the man did not want to hear, “You lack one thing: go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The young man is shocked. He has nothing to say, and he walks away grieving. Jesus has seen right through him. Instead of his praising him, Jesus challenges him to store up his treasure in heaven instead of seeking the adoration of people on earth. His grief tells us everything. He has been exposed, his real motives are laid out for everyone to see.

The book of Hebrews tells us that this is what the word of God does. It is sharper than a two-edged sword. It pierces us, and our real motives and intentions are laid bare before the Lord.  When the author talks about the word of God, he isn’t just talking about the scriptures, but the real, living word of God that still calls to us today. A couple of years ago the UCC denomination launched an ad campaign, with bulletin boards, print ads and commercials, that said, “God is still speaking.” Its easy for us to forget that revelation did not end with the book of Revelation and that the word of God has not been silenced, but still speaks to us today, if we are willing to hear it.

The problem, of course, is that the Word of God is often hard for us to hear. Even when we do manage to hear that still, small voice over the noise of all the loud, shouting ones, we don’t always get the word that we want to hear. We walk away grieving, like the rich man, for we don’t receive the comfort and approval that we were hoping for. Instead, we are exposed for what we truly are. We are hoping for comforting truths, but the truth is rarely comfortable. As Georges Bernanos wrote, “Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards.”[1]

True to this pattern, our passage from Hebrews does not leave us naked and pierced, but delivers good news. Christ has promised to intercede on our behalf, like the high priest who offered sacrifices on the behalf of the people. But Christ is no ordinary priest. He went through everything that we go through, all of the trials and temptations, the pain and misery of human life, and yet he remained perfect. His pedigree is impeccable, no fault can be found with him for he took on our weakness, but remained perfect. And he has chosen to clothe us in his perfection, because he loves us.

This is hard to believe. I mean, really believe. We can talk about God’s love being unconditional, because this is what we’ve always been taught, but it’s hard to shake the idea that we’ve earned it by being good. It’s hard to avoid thinking that we deserve God’s love. The danger here is that if we begin to believe that we can earn God’s love by being good, we might also believe that we can lose it by not being good enough. And that is a lie and a scandal to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

I remember when it finally clicked for me: Hannah and I were chatting on the computer. This was back in the day when you had to walk all the way across the house to talk to  your girlfriend, you couldn’t just pull a cell phone out of your pocket. We had been dating a while, and we’d reached the point in our relationship where you can no longer get away with always presenting your best self, and you have to acknowledge your flaws and failures, and mine were beginning to show a little bit too clearly. I was embarrassed and uncomfortable, exposed that way. But she told me, “I love you absolutely. With all of your weirdness and wounds, and without any doubts.” I can’t tell you how high I was in that moment. I realized that I was far too late to hide my failures. She knew them. And she loved me anyway. And I remember staring at the computer screen, and realizing for the first time, this is what it means that God loves me unconditionally. That before God, all my selfishness and sin is right out in the open. And I’m loved anyway. Grace. I never got it, until that moment.

When the rich young man came before Jesus, Jesus saw right through him. His real self, was laid bare before Jesus eyes. Let me tell you again what Mark says about this moment “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Jesus sees us and he understands and he loves us anyway. He knows our weaknesses because he took them on when he took on flesh. And he gave up his life that we might be forgiven. Because of that we can approach God’s throne with boldness, without being afraid that we aren’t good enough, without trying to hide who we are or put our best foot forward. The ransom has already been paid. God’s promise has already been made. We are loved with all our weirdness and our wounds, and without a doubt.

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[1] Bernanos, George. The Diary of a Country Priest. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1983. p. 54

Wrestling with God

This is my sermon from October 7th, 2012. It's on my favorite Bible story (and the namesake for this blog! See that post here). The story is Jacob wrestling with God at Peniel, and it's found in Genesis 32:22-31.
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Wrestling with God

In our story for today, Esau has come out to meet Jacob, and Jacob is afraid. Jacob has not done right by Esau. He bought Esau’s birthright for a bowl of soup, and stole his blessing with sheepskin on his arms. He took everything that was Esau’s through manipulation and trickery, and the last he saw Esau, Esau was angry and trying to kill him. Years had passed, and now Esau was coming out to meet him, and had with him 400 men, the makings of an army. Jacob feared for his life.

There are two versions of this story within the text. In one, Jacob splits his family into two groups, so that if Esau’s army attacks one, the other might flee and escape. In the other, he sends his family ahead of him, perhaps hoping that it will soften Esau’s heart, or that Esau might pass them by to get to him. In both, Jacob is left on the other side of the river Jabbok from his family, spending the night alone and afraid. Somehow, during the night, he finds himself wrestling with a stranger. They wrestle all night. When the stranger saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he strikes him on the hip. Jacob is wounded, but he refused to let go. They at it like this until daybreak, when the stranger demands that Jacob let him go, because dawn is coming. But Jacob will not go. “I will not let you go, unless you bless me,” he says.

Then the stranger gives Jacob a new name, Israel, which means, “God strives,” or “one who strives with God.” Jacob asks the strangers name, but the volleys back with another question, “Why is it that you ask my name?” and then blesses him. Once more, Jacob has received a blessing through his own striving.

When the man leaves, Jacob realizes that this being with which he wrestled, was no man, but God. He renames the place Peni-el, the face of God, for, he says, “I have seen God face to face; and yet my life is preserved.” He walks away from the encounter blessed, but with a limp.

This is my favorite story in the Bible. I love it. If you’ve seen my sermon blog, or twitter handle, or a number of other online identities I hold, you know. I use atthejabbok as my name online a lot. And the reason I love this story so much is that I think it is emblematic of what it means for us to be the people of God.

Jacob is a foundational figure for the people of Israel. The twelve tribes of Israel take their names from Jacob’s sons and see Jacob as their common ancestor. It is through him that they find their unity and identity. And this story is where Jacob finds his identity. Jacob, whose name previously meant “heel” but had connotations of supplanting and trickery, is given a new name, Israel, which means, “one who strives with God.” Jacob works with God in a different way from the one we’re often taught. He bargains. He negotiates. He demands. He begs. He struggles to believe. He acts with confidence in God’s blessing. His new name Israel is apt, for Jacob has spent his whole life wrestling with God.  I think one of the reasons I like this so much is that my faith has been defined by this wrestling. For belief, for understanding, for strength, courage, and confidence that I am loved.

This isn’t just a story about Jacob, it is an origin story for the people of God. This is the first time that the word Israel appears in the Bible. The name that comes to refer to the community of God comes from this story of wrestling with God. And the fact that Israel traces its roots to this story tells us that to be the community of Israel is to wrestle with God. And since we are the heirs of Jacob, the nation of Israel, we too are called to wrestle with God. We’re not called into the faith of easy answers or cheap grace, we’re called to be a part of a community that struggles with what it means to be the people of God.

Communities are messy places, full of disagreement and difficulty, but communities are also the places where God's grace is most evident, in forgiveness, in collaboration, and in sharing with one other in suffering and celebration. Being a part of a community of faith pushes us to great heights and pulls us into closeness with God.

We’re called into a faith that seeks interaction with the divine, one that will transform us into new people. Like the faith of the father in our passage from Mark, who cries out to Jesus “I believe! Help my unbelief!” God calls us into a dynamic, challenging relationship that requires much more than just obedience. It calls for us to struggle with our beliefs and with each other, to question and challenge what we are told, and strive to follow God wherever God leads us. And it is in the wrestling that we find ourselves face to face with God.

But wrestling with God is not a safe activity. We cannot expect to come out of it in the same shape that we came in. We might note that Jacob is a different person after his encounter at the Jabbok River.  He makes peace with his brother Esau, seeks reconciliation with his neighbors, and condemns his sons when they are deceitful and violent. He moves from a person who struggles against other people to one who struggles with God, concerned not with his own gain but God’s will. For us too, participation in God’s community involves transformation. To wrestle with God is to allow ourselves to be marked as God’s. It calls us into the very dangerous work of loving those who barely love themselves. It calls us to reach out in support, even when we might be wounded in return. It calls us to be peacemakers, even when others might see us as weak. Wrestling with God involves opening ourselves up enough to become vulnerable to the piercing words of God’s truth. In other words, when you put yourself in real, honest relationship with God, do not expect to walk away without a limp.

But Jacob, in spite of his wounds, refuses to let go. Jacob is not the type to give up because he didn’t get the answer he wanted. Even when he’s hurt and cannot win, he will not let go. There are times in our lives when wrestling with God seems to be more than we can bear. When it’s easier to keep holding onto the faith of our childhood rather than braving the tough questions that adult life brings. When we find ourselves living a life so isolated that we cannot imagine what good a relationship with God could bring. But in Jacob we see that, as the Psalmist says, “Joy comes in the morning.” Jacob holds on tightly in this moment when he is at his most vulnerable, afraid of losing his family. Alone and set upon by a stranger, he hangs on through the darkest hours of the night, and is rewarded at dawn with God’s blessing for his perseverance.

All too often we Christians come to faith looking for solutions and easy answers, for comfort without obligation, or justification for our behavior. We don’t come to wrestle with God, but to use God, to manipulate things to our advantage. But this story implies that being God’s people means more than some otherworldly reward and punishment system. When Jacob wrestles with God he finds himself pulled into a challenging relationship, wounded but transformed, and finally and most significantly, blessed. He looks back on that night with newfound wisdom, the realization that he has seen God face to face. When we come to God with openness, seeking relationship, not justification for our actions, we too will find ourselves transformed and blessed. Transformed, because you cannot open your heart to God without being led to a deeper and more fulfilling understanding of what it means to be God’s. Blessed, because if you hold on through the night you will receive God’s favor and grace.

If we open ourselves to God and engage deeply with the questions on our hearts and the worries on our minds, dispensing of the platitudes so common in faith and searching for a deep and fulfilling relationship with God made flesh, Christ, that even though now we see only in a mirror dimly, we shall come to see God face to face. And when we do, we cannot expect to walk away from the encounter anything but transformed, and we should remember, to never let go without a blessing.

Think Little

This was the sermon for September 23rd, 2012. It's on Mark 9:30-37. Hope that you enjoy what it has to say.

Think Little

I watch a lot of college football, and since I watch a lot of football, I end up watching a lot of commercials. It sort of comes with the territory. And this early in the season, every time, I watch it thinking: “Wow, this is the commercial that I will be seeing over and over again for the next six months.” So I try (sometimes) to find ways to appreciate some of the commercials that I’m going to have to watch every Saturday until January.

One particular commercial, is for a little chicken sandwich, and it’s set in an office. The boss walks in with a big announcement. “Little news everyone!!!” he says, “The little wigs down at corporate are coming in, so I want everyone to think little!!” It goes on like this, wherever you’d expect him to say big, again he says little. “You want to be a little shot?” he asks. “Step it up!”

The text we have this week, Jesus is telling us to think little. That doesn’t mean think as little as possible. One of the great thing about the Presbyterian Church is that it has always encouraged thinking. We encourage people to think, to ask questions, and to always seek to learn more. That’s why there are so many Presbyterian colleges and universities.

What Jesus is telling us is that if we want to follow him, we can’t be thinking about how to make ourselves bigger. We have to humble ourselves and choose to make others bigger in our lives instead. In other words, if you want to be big, think little. This reversal is one of the major themes of the Gospel. Where you’d expect weakness, there is power. Where you’d expect power, there is weakness. God lifts David over Goliath. Hebrew slaves over their Egyptian masters. And, in the greatest example, the Almighty comes down, not in strength, but in human vulnerability, and lays himself down that we may know the way to true greatness. This is what Jesus has been explaining to the disciples as they made their way to Capernaum.

The disciples, on the other hand, are thinking big. When Jesus tells them that the son of Man will be betrayed, die, and be raised, they are afraid to ask what he means. No one wants to look small by admitting that they don’t understand. Instead, they remain silent. And as soon as Jesus has turned his back on them, they begin to argue over who is the greatest.

In today’s success driven world we’re always thinking, a little bit, about our own greatness. Wondering what other people think of us. Measuring ourselves against our neighbors, coworkers and friends. We drive by our neighbor’s house, and we wonder, “Is their house bigger than ours? I bet their electricity bill is through the roof.” We go to a funeral and we think, “What will they say about me?” When someone says that their grandchild has learned his ABC’s in record time, we find a way to casually slip into the conversation that our granddaughter was walking way before the age the experts say is normal.

And in the midst of all this posturing and positioning, all these comparisons to see who fits where in the pecking order, Jesus asks his disciples, “What were you arguing about on the way?” and the disciples are caught up short. They are silent once again, this time because they are ashamed.

This is a question that pulls me up short as well. I try not to be too much of a worrier. The lesson in my family has always been, if it’s something you can do something about, do your best, and don’t leave anything behind. But there’s no use worrying about things you don’t have any control over. So when it comes to the afterlife, I decided a long time ago that I was going to give myself up to God, and do my best to be who God wants me to be, and to love like God wants me to love, and if I do my best, worrying won’t do me any good. But even so, I worry, that when Christ comes in glory, and I stand before him, he will ask me, “What were you arguing about on the way?” Why did you spend so much time fighting when you could have been feeding my sheep? Why did you spend so much time trying to look impressive and strong when I came down to earth in weakness and vulnerability?  And I too, will remain silent. And I too, will be ashamed.

Now we should spend a little extra time on this phrase, “on the way” because Mark is not just talking about where they were going right then, but about where we are all going. “The Way” was one of the earliest phrases used to describe Christianity, and “on the way” is Mark’s shorthand for choosing to follow Jesus. It’s repeated several times in this section of his gospel. To follow Jesus is to be on the way. Not, as the disciples think, on the way to greatness, but on the way to Jerusalem. Jesus has a different way from the ways of the world, from the rat race, the competition for status and respect, the desire to be the biggest, the greatest, and the smartest. Jesus wants us to think little.

“Who ever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus said. And then he takes a child in his arms. And he says that “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Now we like to interpret this using our modern eyes, and in our modern eyes, children are just absolutely precious. They are adorable, and they say the darndest things, and we think that there is wisdom in their innocence and simplicity. We celebrate the idea of looking at things with a child’s eyes. But if we were to put on our first century glasses, we would see something different.

It’s not that people in the ancient world hated children, it’s just that they were, well, sort of useless. A liability at best. They would eventually, when they grew up, become adults in the household, and share in its support and in its improvement, but until then, they were just another mouth to feed. There was a good chance that they would contract an illness and die. The care of children was largely pushed onto that other marginalized group that Jesus cared about, women, and they were largely held from view, lest they do something embarrassing.

So if we leave our first century glasses on, but put our eyes back onto our society, we’re forced to wonder, who fits that description now? Who are the people in our world who are considered liabilities, who don’t matter, who have little value, and are best kept out of view lest they do something embarrassing. I can think of a few groups of people who might fit these qualifications, a few who we might be able to welcome just as Jesus welcomes this little child.

Millard Fuller was a remarkably successful businessman. He started a marketing firm with a friend while he was still in college at Auburn, and by age 29, he was a millionaire. He and his wife owned nice cars, a huge house, and lots of land. They had just about anything that money could buy.

Except . . . well, they weren’t happy. They looked around at everything they had, and they thought that there just must be something more to life than what they were getting.

One of their friends suggested that they turn to God, and so they tried reading the Bible and praying with other Christians, and eventually were led to a place called Koinonia Farms, where people were trying to find practical ways to apply Christ’s teachings.

They heard from these Christians that there was more to life than what success could bring, and they became determined to find out what it was. They decided to give away their wealth. They sold their cars, their house, the land, the cattle, everything. And they gave it all away. For the next five years, they worked in missions. At Koinonia they worked to set up low-cost housing for people in Georgia. Later, they took this program to Zaire, and built a hundred low-cost units to house people there. Eventually, they decided that God was calling them to implement this vision here in the United States. They started Habitat for Humanity, which has at this point built more than half a million houses on five continents which house more than 1.75 million people.

Millard was a remarkable innovator, and with his success at a young age, he likely could have built one of the world’s greatest fortunes, but instead, he chose a different path. Instead of choosing to build himself up, Millard and his wife chose to lift others up. They chose to make themselves servants, and in doing so, they finally found the fulfillment and happiness that they had sought.

In spite of the worldly vision that we can lift ourselves up into greatness, into bigness, and then we will be happy, Jesus offers us another way. He says if you want to be first, you must put yourself last. If you want to be big, think little. If you want the King of Kings in your life, you must make yourself the servant of servants. You must welcome the lowly and the insignificant and the worthless in His name, and in doing so you will be welcoming Him into your heart. In lifting others up over yourself you will find much more joy than all of the greatness in the world can give you. As Rev. James Freeman Clarke says, “See you do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.”

The way is neither easy nor safe. It calls us to give ourselves up for others, and not just those who would do the same for us, but for those who have nothing to give in return. But though we might lose everything, even our lives, we have the world to gain. If we just put our trust in God and think little, something big will come our way.

Mamaw's Prayer

This was my sermon from September 30th. The sermon is on James 5:13-20. I've used a story from my family that's pretty important to me and to my faith. (Trigger warning: this story references an electrical accident and makes brief mention of suicide. Here's an escape route.)

Mamaw’s Prayer

When my mother was about six, my granddad was in a terrible electrical accident. He was an electrician, and while working on a telephone pole, was electrocuted. He had burns all over his body, especially his chest and arms. When they brought him to the hospital, and the doctors told my grandmother there was no hope. They flat out refused to treat him, because they said he was a waste of effort,  a lost cause. Now my grandmother was a teacher, and the daughter of a preacher. She believed fervently in the power of prayer, and she certainly needed it then. She had three children, two young boys and my mom, the youngest, a little girl. She got down on her knees, and this was her prayer, “Lord, please don’t leave me alone here. Keep him alive, to help me raise the children.”

In our reading from the book of James, James writes to us about prayer. His advice is to give everything to God. Listen to his words to us:

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. (James 5:13-15)

He tells us that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective, and uses the example of Elijah, whose prayers shut the heavens for three and a half years, and then opened them again, delivering rain to a parched land. James encourages us to confess our sins and ask forgiveness, that our prayers, whatever they might be, would be answered.

James’ words echo other stories in the scriptures about answered prayers. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that everyone who asks receives and everyone who searches finds (Matthew 7:8). In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7). And stories of answered prayers abound. The Hebrew slaves cried out to God for deliverance, and God lifted up Moses to lead them to the Promised Land. Hannah was barren, and prayed for many years for a child of her own. God blessed her with Samuel, who grew up to be a great prophet and judge of Israel. When Nathan confronted David about his adultery with Bathsheba he falls to his knees to beg forgiveness, and it is granted.

The reader would be forgiven for thinking that the intent of this passage is to tell us that if we are good people, God will do whatever we say. But anyone who has lived in the real world for any period of time has seen too much to take it at face value. Tragedy falls on believers and unbelievers alike, and some prayers remain unanswered. There are men and women who feel called to be parents, but their prayers for a child are never answered. There are children who pray each day that they might find enough to eat, but as often as not lay their heads to rest with nothing in their bellies. This is acknowledged even in the scriptures. The author of Ecclesiastes acknowledges this reality when he writes “there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil doing.”

            And though the scriptures often record answered prayers, they also tell us of prayers that were not answered.  The Psalms include both “I love the Lord, who heard my cry,” and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Elijah, who is given as an example of answered prayer, goes off into the woods, and says, “O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors,” but the Lord has other plans. Even Jesus offers up prayers that go unanswered. On the final night of his life, he prays in the garden of Gethsemane, “Father, he says, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.” Even though Jesus is the epitome of human perfect, and none were more righteous than he, but he too, experienced the disappointment of unanswered prayer.

            But let’s push a little further, and ask: what would happen if God really did answer every prayer? If God did answer every prayer, it would be a perversion of what we proclaim when we say that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our Lord. For if God answered every prayer, our prayers would no longer be petitions, but commands. God would not be our Lord and master, but a genie, who we could use to get what we want. God is not Santa Claus, who gives every good boy and girl exactly what they want, he is the Creator and Lord of all. As much as we would like it, God is not under our control, or tame. God is a wild, relentless power, who speaks to us out of the whirlwind, saying, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4)

Some would say that God answers all our prayers, if only we pray the right way. They declare that if our motives are pure and good, and we have repented of our sin and are in right relationship with God, and our timing is correct, and our request is consistent with what God wants, then our prayers will be answered in good time. Now these are all excellent spiritual disciplines and true, especially that last part, that if our request is consistent with what God wants it will be granted. But saying it this way implies once again that we can control whether our prayers are answered, if only we pray just right. Also, it implies that prayers that go unanswered are somehow wrong, and forgets prayer’s value for helping us express grief and pain, learn and grow, and experience closeness with God.

James doesn’t limit the value of prayer to the answers we receive, but tells us that no matter what our situation is, we should cling to and glorify God within it. In life and in death, in sickness, and in health, we belong to God, who has taken us as his own, enfolded us into his sheepfold, and called us by name.

James then uses the phrase, “The prayer of faith.” Now in today’s Christianity, heavily influenced by Luther’s “salvation by faith alone” we often conflate faith with belief. But the book of James has emphasized that faith does not exist outside of our actions, outside of our behavior. In this sense, faith is less about belief, and more about trust. To have faith in something is to believe that something is true, whether or not that belief is ever tested. But to trust is to act on your belief, to put yourself in the position of being dependent. 

So when James talks about the prayer of faith, he is not telling us that if we just ask the right way, or really and truly believe it in our hearts, then our answer is guaranteed. James is talking about trust in God. The prayer of faith is an act of trust that God will fulfill God’s promises and God’s will revealed in scripture.  The prayer of faith declares, as Jesus did, “not what I want, but what you want.” James tells us not to trust in our own hopes and dreams, but to put our trust that God’s will for us is right, though we may not understand it. As Philip Yancey puts it, “ I have learned that faith is trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” To pray in faith is to acknowledge an utter dependence on God’s will, even though to do so might lead to results we don’t understand, because we know that what God wants is best.

Now I don’t know what my grandmother was thinking when she offered up her prayer in that hospital. When she said, “Lord, let him live, to help me raise the children.” I cannot say is she spoke with the confidence of one who is assured of success, or with the nagging doubts that can plague us, or even without hope at all. But what I do know is that when her family experienced tragedy, she clung to God as tightly as she could. 

Eventually they found a doctor who was willing to operate.  The family held their breaths. Finally, after hours of waiting, they were given the news. He had lost more than 20 feet of intestines and both of his arms, but somehow he had survived

Papaw lived twelve more years. He learned to use prosthetic arms. My mom says he got so good with those hooks that he could pick up a piece of cigarette ash. Recently I stumbled across a bunch of old pictures, and saw a couple of him holding two smallmouth bass he’d caught. He loved to go fishing, Mom tells me. While Mamaw taught, making money for the family, he stayed home and took care of the children. I guess he was a stay at home dad way before it was cool.

When my mother was eighteen, Papaw died. He died of depression by way of his own hand. Suicide is no easy thing for a family to go through. The loss is painful, and it is made more so because your anger is pointed in the same direction. They come together in a tornado of emotion that seeks to consume you. But in the midst of that suffering and pain, the family remembered Mamaw’s prayer. God kept him alive until all the children were raised. And they clung all the more tightly to God.

The scriptures don’t tell us that God will give us everything we want, or give us a clear set of steps to guarantee getting our way in the world.  What they do tell us, is that God loves us, and promises to be with us through everything that we do. And that the God we have, is a God worth putting our trust in.

God's Favorites

I'm posting a lot this week because I'm trying to catch up a little bit with my sermons. I got to the point where I was more than a month behind in posting recent sermons, and so now I'm working so that I'll be caught up (maybe even to posting sermons the week they're preached!) sometime before November. This is the sermon I preached on September 9th, on James 2:1-17. James has a harsh word about churches playing favorites that hits me a little bit harder than I'd like to admit.
 

God’s Favorites

A friend of mine in New York City wanted to celebrate the anniversary of their engagement during Restaurant Week, when many expensive restaurants offer a low-price three course meal that more people can afford. The restaurant where they got engaged was one of these fancy restaurants with special deals that week, but the deal didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that she wanted to recreate a special meal with the person she loved. So she called the maitre’d in advance and made a reservation and asked for the exact table which they had sat at. And they told her on the phone that would be no problem. They went to the restaurant and explained their reservation. The host looked at this young couple, sized them up, and said, “That table isn’t available, we’ll have to seat you somewhere else.” They were put over in a corner, by the bathrooms, where their server almost never noticed them, and people constantly bumped into them as they walked by.

            Many of us have had experiences like this, ones in which we are judged simply by the way we appear to others. Maybe you went straight from the fields to the city for a meeting, and people didn’t listen to what you had to say. Maybe you went to look at a car, and were treated with condescension and disregard, but when you came back with your husband, suddenly you were a VIP customer. Maybe you have never experienced this, but only because you never left the house without being dressed to the nines to make sure that no one could ignore you.

            In the book of James, we learn that in James’s community this sort of stereotyping was common. If a person wearing nice clothes and gold rings walked through the door, the welcoming committee was right there. They made them feel at home, and ensured them a good seat at the banquet, and a good portion of the main course in case their wasn’t enough to go around. A poorly-dressed person, on the other hand, made little impression. Sit here, stand over there, just try not to be in the way. The people in James’ community came together to proclaim that in Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, but in their actions they proclaimed that the social hierarchies of the world were well in order. Now this isn’t hard to understand. No matter how we try to create a community that reflects the kingdom of God, the world always slips in.  The social and cultural mores around gatherings were hard to ignore for first and second-century Christians.

            Most of the early church worship services were shaped around meals, in banquet halls or in the homes of wealthier members of the community. At this kind of meal in the Greco-Roman world, people were seated on large sofas along the walls of the room in order of precedence, with the highest status person on just to the left of the door, all along until they ran out of room and lesser people sat on the floor at people’s feet. Remember in Luke when Jesus said that you should sit yourself in the lowest place, that the host come and say, “Friend, move up to a better place,” and so you would be honored in front of everyone? It was this system of dinner place ranking that James was talking about. If you managed to get a spot close to someone important, you would be seen as their friend or associate, and your status would improve as well. Sort of like high school, where if you can manage to hang out with the popular kids, people will assume that you are popular too.

            So everyone wanted to hang out with the well-dressed visitors, not to mention the fact that Christian house-churches were dependent on their largesse to host events. These were people that were too important to ignore. This sort of behavior was common at nearly every social organization of the Greco-Roman world. People of high status were treated with great partiality because their patronage could bestow significant benefits on those whom they favored. 

            However, Christian churches were radically different from any other organization at the time. In many ways, they were an experiment. An experiment in radical openness. Unlike other religious groups at the time (or other non-religious groups, for that matter), membership was not limited to a certain social-class or life-sphere. Instead, Christians deliberately chose to include everyone, men and women, slaves and free, Jews and Greeks, rich and poor. They were a community apart from the others, and they welcomed everyone.

They held themselves up as an example of inclusion, but James holds up the mirror that they see what their form of inclusion looks like. James shows them that their so-called inclusion really was just the same social stratification with a new coat of paint.

Now we are still a radical experiment in inclusion. And if James were here today I imagine he would hold the mirror up to us too, and we would see that we fall short as well. Martin Luther King famously said that eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the “most segregated hour in America,” and I suspect that statement is still true today. But even more so, churches tend to be stratified based on income, educational attainment, and even age. Now much of that has to do with the fact that neighborhoods tend to be divided along the same lines, but have you ever thought better of inviting someone to church because you were worried they wouldn’t fit in, or that people might think differently of you if you brought them?

 If we hold up the mirror to ourselves, we’ll realize that we’re much more likely to fight tooth and nail to bring in a couple with two young children (and a chance to boost our Sunday School numbers) than that old widower who has recently lost his way.

And sometimes we spend so much time worrying about the people who aren’t here, we forget the ones who are. There was an old suburban church that was rapidly being encroached upon by immigrant neighborhoods, and it had become the default church of a few immigrant families, whose children all came to church often because there was nothing better to do at home. It turned into a great ministry, as the suburban members of this church helped them learn how to navigate life in the U.S., how to get healthcare, get into college, and have access to a better future than their parents.

The youth group, which had always been strong, was now full of low-income teenagers with lots of free time and very little knowledge of God or the U.S. During one late-night talk on one of the retreats, one of the suburban kids lamented the fact that many of his friends had stopped coming to youth group. “It’s just, nobody comes anymore, and it’s sad because there used to be so many of us,” he said, completely unaware that this trip had broken records in attendance. And one of the younger boys, trying so hard to fit in, said in his accented English, “yeah, I wish somebody was here.”

What James tells us is that we are called not to play favorites because each one of us is God’s favorite. God is dying (quite literally), to love each and every one of us, especially the poor and unlovable. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the son takes his share of the family land early and blows it all in a few binges in the city. When he returns home in disgrace he is not shunned or ashamed, but a feast is thrown for him. Every single one of us, rich or poor, sinner or saint, is given grace. Take note: You are God’s favorite. He delights in spending time with you, in lavishing you with blessings, in lifting you up in joy.

But now here is the hard part. In spite of our very human tendency to share our love with those we feel deserve it, Jesus calls us to a much higher level of love. Loving only those who love us back is easy, he tells us. Even sinners do that. (See Luke 6:32-36) But love even your enemies, those who have done nothing to earn or deserve your love, and your reward will be great. “Be merciful, he said, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).  We are called to treat everyone we meet, as God’s favorite. As someone who gets special dispensation when they do something wrong. As someone who deserves extra love and appreciation for being who they are. As someone important enough to be made welcome.

“Mercy triumphs over judgment,” James tells us. As Christians we claim God’s grace, God’s mercy, supercedes the judgment we deserve. Through Christ’s resurrection we are rescued from the punishments we deserve, and freed from the bondage of sin. We are no longer judged by our appearance, by our sex, our heritage, our career, or even our own accomplishments, but we are judged under the law of liberty, the law of grace, in which Christ, through his sacrifice made us righteous in the eyes of God. “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty,” say the book of James. According to the mercy which we have been given, let us pour out mercy upon those whom God loves, especially those who suffer in want and need, who are forgotten and lonely, burdened and oppressed, sick and weak, sinful and ashamed.

There’s a story in Rebecca Pippert’s, Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World, [1]about a young man Bill, who was a little bit of a hippie. He didn’t worry too much about his appearance, and he went barefoot wherever he went, even through the rain and the snow. He’d become a Christian while in college, going to the campus ministry there. Now there was a middle class church close to campus that wanted to reach out to students, but didn’t really know how, and Bill decided one day that he would go over to that church to worship. And so he walked into the church in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and started looking for a place to sit. So he walked barefoot down the center aisle, looking for a place to sit. Only the place was rather full, so when he got to the front, he still couldn’t find a place to go. So he just plopped down right on the carpet. This might have fit in at a college fellowship, but his behavior was totally unusual at a church congregation.

People didn’t know what to do. Then slowly, one of the ushers, an older gentleman, began to walk down the aisle towards the man. Some folks were a little relieved that he was going to do something about him. Others preemptively forgave him for what he was going to do, thinking, you can’t really blame an old many for being a little rigid about decorum. The church went silent, all eyes focused on him, waiting to see what would happen between this old man and this hippie college kid. When he got down to the front, he leaned down, and with no little amount of effort, sat himself down on the carpet right beside Bill. He went and met Bill right where he was.

According to the grace which we have been given by the one who came down to earth to save us let us go out into the world to forgive, to love, and to serve, and to treat every single person we encounter as one of God’s favorites, just like us.

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[1] Pippert, Rebecca. Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World; Evangelism as a Way of Life. Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. p. 260.

Does of the Word - Moment of Truth Edition

James is quickly becoming one of my favorite books of the Bible, in spite of Luther's insistence that it was an "epistle of straw." My September 2nd sermon talks about being "Doers of the Word" and echoes Jame's famous and controversial statement that "faith without works is dead." The text for that day was James 1:17-27. I hope you like it.

Doers of the Word

In an old box in my closet, I have the world’s best skipping stone. I found down at the lake when I was about twelve, and took it home with me. It’s a slate grey stone about the size of a sand dollar. It’s perfectly round, except for a little notch where my index finger fits so that it can really put a lot of spin on it. It’s slightly concave, shaped sort of like a plate, so that when it strikes the water it’s edge will always be upturned a little bit to give it good lift as it bounces across the water. I can usually get 6 or 7 skips even with an imperfect rock, so I imagine that with this perfect skipping stone, I might be able to skip it clear across a lake, if the wind was right. But of course I don’t know that. It’s so perfect I’ve never been willing to throw it. And until I do, it will be nothing but a plain old rock. A skipping stone isn’t worth much of anything unless you do something with it.

Faith is the same. It isn’t worth much of anything unless you do something with it. We are great at talking about the Bible, but not nearly as good at doing it.

And the book of James has some harsh words for those who talk a good game but don’t put that faith into action. He says that they are merely deceiving themselves. That they are like a person who looks at himself or herself in the mirror, and then immediately turns and forgets what they are like. This seems like a ridiculous thing, that you could look in a mirror and then immediately forget what you look like, but when it comes to our actions its far more common than you think.

I was watching stuff on Youtube the other day, and I stumbled upon a strange game show, called Moment of Truth. Before the show, the contestant takes a lie detector test on a series of sensitive questions, and then for the show, they are asked these questions again, this time in front of friends and family (and of course a live audience and millions watching at home), and then they win money each time they tell the truth, and lose if they are caught in a lie. And there was this one girl, I think this clip came from one of the most extreme episodes, and she had just been awful to people that loved her, and now she was being forced to face it.

“Do you ever take your wedding ring off to pretend that you’re single?” the host asks. 

“Yes.”

“Have you ever slept with another man since you’ve been married?

“Yes.”

“If your ex-boyfriend asked you to get back with him today, would you leave your husband?”

 “Yes.” With each successive “yes” it was just a little bit more heartbreaking to see her struggle with the way she’d treated people she cared about. She took a hard look in the mirror, and she was obviously ashamed of what she saw. And then they asked another question that caught me off guard.

“In spite of all this, do you believe that you are a good person?”  And she stopped and thought for a second. And she said, “You know, I have to be honest. Yes.”(I can't seem to find the original clip I watched. A summation of her answers can be found here, but be warned it is still very painful to watch).

Now my first thought when I watched this clip was, “How could she think she is a good person, after all that she’d done?” And I thought in my head, “I thank you, God, that I am not like this woman. I prayed just like the Pharisee in Luke, who thanks God that he is not the tax collector, who tore his garments in shame and truly understood what God’s forgiveness meant.

But as I’ve thought more about it, I’ve realized that I have looked in the mirror and forgotten what I saw more times than I’d like to admit. Every Sunday we have a prayer of corporate confession, and then a period of silence, and I do my best during that time to look in the mirror at my own sinfulness, and confess it honestly and in repentance I ask for forgiveness promising to do better next time. And when I think back to what I prayed this week, and what I prayed last week, I realize that it’s almost always the same sins that continue to trip me up.

            O God, I was lazy this week, and gave you less than my best. O, God someone hurt me, and instead of turning the other cheek I lashed out in anger and hurt someone else. O Lord, there was someone who needed me this week, and I did not go to them. Every Sunday I look in the mirror during that time of silence, but come Monday I have completely forgotten what I look like. I don’t think I’m the only one with this problem. I bet if we were to write down our confessions each Sunday for a year we would discover that over and over again, we are confessing and committing the same sins.            

            It’s not just us as individuals that have this problem, but our whole church, it’s our whole faith has come down hard with do-nothing syndrome and recurring talk-itis. There have been studies in the past few years, of young adults, on what they think of the church. Probably you have heard that the church is not doing well in this demographic. When asked to describe Christianity today, 84% of unchurched young adults said that “judgmental” seemed to fit very well. 79% of them said that “hypocritical” would also be a good term to describe Christianity. Among young Christians the response was better, but not terribly so. More than half of them believe that the church is “judgmental” and “hypocritical” came in at 49%.  Jesus said “by their fruits you shall know them.” These are our fruits.

            So at least for me, James’ message to us today hits home quite hard. It is a hard truth. A call to arms. A challenge. But in the midst of this hard truth there is good news. James tells us to welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save souls.  Did you hear that?  The implanted word. God’s word has not just been told to us, it has been planted within us. It has been written on our hearts. Listen to the words of Jeremiah:“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

And it gets better than that. Because James tells us that if we do put our faith into action, if we do let the word penetrate us and flow out from us, then we will be blessed. “those who look into the perfect law, that law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.”

            I was talking with one of my friends in the ministry, and he reminded me of an old and classic image of sin: Bondage. Sin traps us, tempts us, so that we feel like we don’t have control over our actions. When James talks about the rank growth of wickedness, I think about barnacles that can slowly grow around a ship’s rudder if it isn’t used for a while and freeze it in place. We can get stuck on that wrong course. Paul talks about sin keeping us in bondage. “For I do not do the good I want,” he says,  “but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

            And so here is the good news. God’s law is the law of liberty. It is the law of freedom from sin, freedom from desires that ensnare us, wounds that limit us, from patterns of misbehavior that trap us. God’s law, forgiveness, grace, frees us from the bondage of sin and gives us a new path to walk. One in which God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path and we no longer go astray.

            When I was in my third year of Seminary I worked at this church up in the Bronx, and up there they had this practice, where once a month after the sermon they would put up a microphone in the front of the table and invite people to come up and give their testimony to what God has been doing in their lives. You wouldn’t believe how encouraging for your faith to hear people come up one after another and say, “My prayers have been answered.” We Presbyterians like to divide our worship up into Proclamation and Response, and since it came after the sermon it was technically response. But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a better proclamation in my life.

            And on one particular Sunday, a woman stood up and said, “I have been holding on to anger for most of my life. More than a decade ago, someone hurt me, and they hurt me very bad. And I was so hurt I would sit and think about how much I was hurt, and how badly I wanted to hurt him so that he could feel what I felt. And it drained me. It was exhausting. I held on so tight to my anger, and my anger held on tight to me, it pulled on my other relationships, it dragged me into depression time and time again. And today I heard God speaking to me and realized that I have let myself be captive to my anger, and that I want to be captive no longer, I want to be free. As we were praying after the sermon I bowed my head and I said, “I forgive you”. And it is the best feeling I have ever felt. I am free. If any of you have done something wrong to me here in church, I forgive you too. Whatever it is, whatever it was, as of today, I have forgotten it. I will be a slave to my anger no longer.

            And all of us sinners sat around wondering what it was that someone had done to hurt her so bad she held on to it for ten years, and wondering if it was us who had wronged her in church, but not her. She was free. She never had to worry about it again.

            So James tells us, if we will look into the law of liberty, and persevere, in turning to God, in accepting the word which God has written on our hearts, in being not just hearers but doers of the word, we will be blessed. We will be blessed with true freedom, no longer captive to sin. We will be blessed with true wealth, storing up our treasures not here on earth but in the kingdom that lasts forever. We will be blessed with true faith, faith that is manifest in our lives, and that bears good fruit.

             

            Now in order that you might bear good fruit, I invite you to think this week, perhaps even jot down real quick, about one place where God is using you to be quick to listen, slow to anger, or slow to speak. Where you can be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer of the word, where your faith can be made manifest in your life. For if you do you will find yourself blessed in the doing, blessed beyond measure.

Let us bow our heads in prayer.

            God most high, we know that every good thing, every perfect gift comes from you.  And we thank you for the gift of Your word, which you have written on our hearts to free us from the bondage of sin. Make us quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, and guide us to act out our faith in righteousness and love. Open our ears that we hear Your word and lift up our hands to Your will that we find perfect freedom and perfect love in Your arms and bear good fruit in Your name. This we pray in the name of Your Son, who is the true vine, who lived and died that we might have eternal life.

The Armor of God

Sermon on Ephesians 6:10-20, which talks about putting on the armor of God. I talk about how taking up our cross daily takes some serious protection.

The Armor of God

            The past few summers, it seems that you can’t go a week without running into another superhero movie. In the past decade or so we’ve had 3 Batmans, 4 Spidermans, 2 Iron Man, 2 Hulks, A Superman (and another one on the way), the Avengers (and separate movies for most of the characters within it), and more others than I could count without taking off my shoes. And superhero movies are all about the struggle between Good and Evil.

Our passage in Ephesians is about the exact same thing, but it holds a much more realistic understanding of evil than superhero movies. See superheroes have supervillains, who are often grotesque exaggerations of evil, and their flaws are written all over their often ugly faces. But the reality of evil, as Ephesians explains, is that our battle is not with some flesh and blood enemy, easily identified and easily vanquished, but with spiritual forces, systems of oppression, the real influence of evil in our world.

So what are the forces of evil in this world?  Evil is selfishness, the belief that our own self-interest is the highest end in life. Evil is indifference and apathy, the force that allows us to stand quietly while our brothers and sisters experience mistreatment, brutality, and misery. Evil is the need to satisfy our own pride so much that we’d rather shake a finger in judgment at another and preserve our righteousness than extend a hand in love and support. Evil is the impulse to lash out when we’ve been hurt, when we just want someone else to feel our pain. And sometimes, evil is just regular garden-variety cruelty, when people say something cruel and cutting just because they can. In short, evil is that which calls us away from God, to lead lives of self-indulgence, ignorance and hate.

It may sound easy, Christians who seek to turn themselves towards God will live embattled lives. As Jesus warned us, in order to follow him we must take up our cross daily. Turning the other cheek, praying for our enemies, forgiving endlessly, caring about the forgotten, giving ourselves empty are difficult and frustrating. They go against the grain of our society and our own instincts. If you seek to do this in your life, you will find yourself tripped up, by other people, by peer pressure, by temptation to fulfill your own desires first. Quit being so good, people will say. It makes the rest of us look bad. To take up our cross daily is to go into battle. Not a battle against flesh and blood enemies, but against something much larger and much more sinister, the forces of evil trying to pull us down.

Now, it would be foolish to go into battle alone and unprotected. So the author of Ephesians tells us what we need to withstand the onslaught of the powers of doom. He has repurposed the image of the Roman soldier, something that nearly everyone in the ancient Mediterranean world would be familiar with. But Instead of armor and weaponry for fighting battles against enemies of blood and flesh, we are given suits of armor to fight evil not through the sheer force of our might, but by remaining wholly and utterly dependent on God.

           

            First, it tell us to fasten the truth around our waist. Just as a belt secures a soldier’s armor and weaponry to his body so that he does not trip, the truth secures us so that we don’t fall into error. God’s truth is deeper and more real than the shallow falseness that so often masquerades as truth in our world.  The PCUSA constitution states that nothing could be more pernicious or absurd than that which makes no distinction between truth and falsehood. But we often feel pressure to do just that. To say that we cannot make a difference. To believe that we are irredeemable. To think no one cares about us anymore. Under the influence of the world, in the throes of depression or guilt, these things can seem plausible, logical even. Thus we must continually fasten the truth to our waist. Jesus Christ cared for us enough to come down to us, loved us enough to die for even the most sinful of us, and calls us to response by loving each other in the same way. 

            Second, Ephesians describes the breastplate of righteousness. The torso armor of a Roman soldier was called a loricum. It protected the vital organs, while still retaining flexibility. The core of righteousness is in relationships. To be righteous is to be in right relationship with God. This includes relationships with our friends, family, and coworkers, even ourselves; for to love God is to love our neighbors as ourselves, and not despising both. Arming yourself with the breastplate of righteousness involves striving for good, healthy relationships, and avoiding unhealthy, abusive, or demeaning relationships.

            Third, Ephesians describes the shoes. David Cameron, a preacher in Nellysford, VA, has an autistic son. And one of the things his son has realized, he says, is that the shoes that we wear speak volumes for what the day will be like. “Dress shoes mean work,” he says. “Scuffed slip-ons means a casual, more relaxed day around the house.”[1]

So the shoes we wear speak volumes about where we are going. Now Ephesians doesn’t tell us what type or style of shoes to wear, but to wear the shoes that will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Our destination is ultimate peace, the peace that passes all understanding, the kingdom of God. And thus our shoes must be up to the task of getting us there. As it is written in the book of Isaiah, “How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” 

Next, Ephesians tells us to guard ourselves with the shield of faith, that we be able to quench the flaming arrows of the evil one. The Roman shield was called the sputum, and it was often soaked in water before battle, so that flaming arrows would not set it ablaze. Roman legionnaires were deployed in tight ranks, where two-thirds of a man’s shield would cover himself, and the other third would cover the person next to him. Each person was dependent on the shield of his neighbor, and each extended his shield to cover his neighbor. Because there were no gaps in the lines of Roman legions, they were nearly invincible.[2] As we square ourselves to face off against the forces of evil in our world, we need each other to support us and bolster each other in faith. If we are to withstand the onslaught of the forces of evil, then we need each other. Christian community helps us stand strong.

The last piece of armor the author mentions is the helmet of Salvation. Remembering that we are saved is the best defense there is against forces that would lead us astray. When Martin Luther endured temptation, doubts, or depression, he would say, “I am baptized! And I have the promise that God loves me and saves me.” This promise makes all the difference. No matter where we are in our lives, we can’t hear too often that we are loved and saved by God’s grace. As Hollie Holt-Woehl puts it,

“The words "I have called you by name, you are mine" are powerful when your body has forsaken you and your mind is beginning to fail. The words "I will not leave you or forsake you" are powerful when the world around you is changing and people do not want you around. The words "you are my child" are powerful when you have lost family and home.“[3]

This is the helmet of salvation which we wear to protect ourselves, the knowledge that no matter what flaming arrows the principalities and powers of evil in the world launch at us, we are saved. They can wound, but they can not kill, for that is God’s promise to us.

            The final piece of our Christian ensemble is the sword of the Spirit. There is power in the word of God, written down in the Bible and understood through God’s Holy Spirit. It is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. By its words we become fully aware of God and our own insignificance in the face of God’s power, and the incredible promise of God’s redeeming grace.  God’s word is a sword with which we can battle the forces of evil in our world, but I do not think it is meant to be a weapon that we use on each other, as all too often it is. Our battle is not with flesh and blood enemies, whom we are called to love as neighbors, but the rulers, powers and authorities that create and support the darkness that pervades our world.

            Finally, the passage urges us to prayer. “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.” There is much to say about prayer, but let me just say that prayer is the most underutilized tool in the Christian’s arsenal. As Bill Hybels wrote, “Prayer is the key to unlocking God’s prevailing power in your life.”[4] If you are willing to invite God in to be a part of your daily life, you will experience God’s power there, in your home, in your work, in your relationships, wherever you need it most. This continual conversation with God will prepare you for and protect you from all the evil that you may encounter in your life.

            Now you may wonder where it is that you can outfit yourself with the armor of God, that you be ready to withstand the onslaught of temptation.  When I lived in Austin, I used to drive past the Texas National Guard armory all the time. The church is our spiritual armory. Through joining together with others in study and prayer, we are belted tightly with the truth and given shields of faith to lean on. By holding each other accountable and forgiving each other endlessly, we are protected with the breastplate of righteousness. In gathering each week to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, that we are saved by Christ who came down to earth, we put on the helmet of salvation, and go out into the world wearing the shoes that make us ready to proclaim peace. From the people of God we can learn about truth, love, peace, faith, salvation, the Word, and prayer. These qualities can be found in the armory. You can pick them up and use them here.

            Therefore prepare yourself that you stand tall against the forces that try to wear you down with cruelty, temptation, and sin. Put on the armor of God. clothe yourself in Christ, and you be able to withstand all that the world throws at you and stand up in truth  trusting God, walking in the ways of peace, shielded by faith, guided by the Word, and always praying in the Spirit.

            Let us now pray together in the Spirit, that we experience the bounty of God’s grace, and be protected by our dependence on God as our Savior.

Great and powerful God, you made yourself vulnerable, and came down to us as blood and flesh, fully human, that we might know and understand your Way. In dying on the cross you redeemed us with the promise of unending grace and eternal life. Help us as we seek to open ourselves to you, to invite you into our daily lives, to protect ourselves with faith and trust in your Word and your truth. Arm us, O Lord, for the battles that we fight each day as we seek to take up your cross. Give us strength that we may withstand temptation and evil in our own lives, and walk paths of peace, proclaiming the good news of your redeeming love. Amen

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[1] Cameron, David. “August 23, 2009 – Ephesians 6:10-20 – David Cameron: Gleanings from the Text” Join The Feast; An Online Lectionary Resource from Union-PSCE. http://jointhefeast.blogspot.com/2009/07/august-23-2009-ephesians-610-20-david.html

accessed 8/25/2012

[2] Hollie Holt-Woehl, Hollie. “Putting on the Whole Armor of God: Preaching Ephesians 6:10-20 in a Multicultural Congregation” Word & World vol. 29 no. 3 Summer 2009, 292-299

[3] Ibid, 298.

[4] Hybels, Bill; with LaVonne Neff. “Too Busy Not to Pray; Slowing Down to Be With God.” Downders Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998. p. 16.