Torn For Unity

Ephesians 4: 1-6    Genesis 15: 7—21

 

 

          Ephesians is one of that group we refer to as the prison letters because it was written by Paul while in prison in Rome. In it he presents or re-introduces several themes, from election to grace by faith to redemption to reconciliation, to name a few. Today’s passage concentrates on reconciliation of all people to a new creation in one body, the church. Paul talks to his beloved church plant in Ephesus about unity. He tells them to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit. Notice that Paul asks them to maintain the unity of the Spirit. He doesn’t ask them to create unity because it is already there. He wants them to preserve what has already been established by God through the Holy Spirit.

          Paul talks a lot about ones. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. That’s a lot of ones. What Paul is trying for is to get these members of the new Christian community to enter into relationships with one another. And he wants them to do it in a certain way. He wants them to be humble. He wants them to be gentle. He wants them to be patient. He even wants them to bear with one another in love. These are the building blocks of unity in the church. While the word is never used, the concept of a Trinitarian God is clear: one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father. As there is unity in the Godhead of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, so does Paul exhort the church to experience and maintain that unity in itself.  

          So Paul is lifting up the themes of redemption and restoration through God’s grace and the saving act of Christ. These themes are not new. There are echoes of them from the beginning. The story of God is a story of mission…God’s mission to create, redeem and restore his people and all his creation, and that story is told across the pages and books of the Bible.

          Look, for example, at an old story from Genesis. In the fifteenth chapter, we read of a story that at first seems strange to us.

God is giving Abram, the nomad, the promise of land. Abram wants to believe but is having trouble buying in. He asks God how he can know as truth what God speaks. God says to Abram: Go get me these three animals and birds. Abram does as he is told and then cut them in half, except for the birds. He set the halves opposite one another so as to create a path. It is late in the day and Abram falls asleep. God shows him his future in his sleep, as well as the future of his people. Then, and here is the strange part, the presence of God passes between the pieces in the form of a smoking firepot with a blazing torch. Because of the promise made and the passing of God’s presence through these cut pieces of animals, this became known as “cutting a covenant.”

          So what is the significance of this strange ritual? God is saying to Abram that if he (God) ever goes back on his promise, then may what happened to those animals also happen to God. Bible scholars call this a self-maledictory oath. In plain English, it is a promise to bring bad things on oneself if he breaks his word or covenant. God makes promises to Abram that will affect all God’s people, and God says: I will keep my word or tear myself to pieces. He wants to unify Abram with him in a lasting covenant. This is the word given by God the Father.

          Two thousand years later, God the Son hung on a cross. He looked up to the heavens and cried out: “My God! My God! Why have we been ripped asunder?” Think about that. We were the ones that failed. God never broke covenant with us. It was, and still is, the other way around. But God loved us too much to accept the outcome which had been covenanted. So the love and unity that exist among Father, Son and Holy Spirit were broken. God did that for us. He loved us enough to break the peace of his own union as the Trinity rather than make us pay a debt we could not pay. Father, Son and Holy Spirit were torn asunder so that we might be united with them.         

          When Paul writes to the churches in Ephesus, this is the unity he is talking about. God in the Trinity has bought us with a price. We are redeemed because not only did he keep his part of that old covenant cut between him and Abraham; he kept our part of it too. Then he birthed us anew as his bride. We are the church, the gathering of God’s people. We are celebrated as individuals and wedded to one body. We belong to one family and that family is built by God himself.

          The unity of which Paul speaks is a unity not just between you and God or me and God, though that is certainly of great value. It is much more than that.  God keeps covenant with his people. God stays on his mission. God even tore himself apart to unify his church. God acted from love to give us the opportunity for restoration. It is God’s grace that does the heavy lifting. We just have to believe, and a significant part of the way we act out that belief is in community. As Tim Lane puts it, “Paul constantly applies the message of grace to individuals, but individuals who are in fellowship with one another.”

          For Jesus, church is as big as it gets down here. Jesus called it his bride. He died for it. He was torn from God for it. He ordained his disciples to go out and build his church. He trusted them with the whole future of the church and they came through for him. Though they were separated as they went about doing kingdom work, they were united in the idea of ecclesia, the gathering of the people of God. And they committed their lives to that effort. They knew what Paul teaches here. You can come to God alone, but you can’t do God alone. God was meant to be done in community. The Church, the bride of Christ needs you and you need it. And when you act in love to your fellow members, the body does not hurt; it thrives.

          He was torn for our unity. Let us honor that by being unified in this great priesthood of believers. We have kingdom work to do. Let’s do it together!

Defining the Job and Then Doing It

Mark 1: 21-39

 

 

          I had a meeting this week with a lay pastor friend of mine. We got caught up on each other’s ministries and families and then we spent awhile talking about spiritual formation. Sometimes, he acts as my spiritual advisor. As we are both more “doers” than “talkers,” it was hard to get a conversation going about things that are internal, but we finally got around to it. I had done an exercise in which I was asked to name those things I long to let go of in order to become more open to God’s activity in my life. I named the same three things I’ve been trying to let go of for years. My old friend laughed. Then he said something pretty perceptive. He said, “That’s just what the labels are. If you get rid of them, then what? If you’re not very careful, you will just replace them with new labels. Your problem is that you’re a workaholic. That’s what you need to let go of or tame. He laughed again. “At least now, you’re working for God,” he said.

          I was down at the church this week. It was Wednesday afternoon and I still had nothing for a sermon. I spent hours trying to just hear God or gain an idea. Everything I tried was coming up blanks. I stepped outside the church to call my wife. She was just as bad. She had spent the previous evening dealing with a hit parade of petty problems and went to bed with a cluttered and worried mind. She had spent the whole evening doing “good” but somewhat petty projects that left her tired and lacking meaning. So we complained to each other about how busy we were.

          Jesus suffered from some of the same burdens of business and multi-tasking that we do. The problem surfaces in the very first chapter of Mark’s gospel. Jesus is starting his earthly ministry. He gathers his team. He begins to teach, giving his first recorded lesson in the synagogue in Capernaum. He rebukes an unclean spirit in a man and does it in such a way that he is speaking not with hope or invoking the power of another, but rather is speaking with the authority that can come from only one source. The unclean spirit departs and Jesus’ fame begins.

          Jesus left the synagogue and went to Peter’s house, where he commanded a fever to leave Peter’s mother in law. She was healed instantly. You can imagine what happened next, after two apparent healings back to back. Before the day was over, or rather when the day was over, the town and the region were glutted with people coming to see the miracle man. Remember this was the Sabbath, but Sabbath ended at sundown. So then, the people could bring their sick friends to the house of Peter without breaking the Mosaic Law. Jesus said nothing of who he was, made no claim, but it didn’t matter. He healed people. He cast out demons. Mark tells us that the whole town was at the door of Peter’s house that evening.

          At some point, the day ended and the door to Peter’s house finally closed. The next morning, Jesus rose early, very early. It was still dark outside. He left by himself and went to a desolate place where he could be alone. He needed to have a talk with his spiritual advisor. He needed to pray.

          This is not the only record in Mark of such action by Jesus. He did it again after feeding the five thousand. Mark tells us that “…he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray” [6:46].  The night of his arrest, after what was to become known as the Last Supper, Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. Although he took Peter, James and John with him, he went off by himself. [14: 32-41]. It is clear in the gospel accounts that Jesus regularly sought the counsel of God through prayer.

            Of course, on the morning after that first healing, Peter and the others searched for him. Eventually they found Jesus and told him that everyone was looking for him. Jesus didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t even bother to say no to their request to return. What he did say was “Let us go on to the next town.”

          What in the world! People were waiting in line to meet Jesus and he told his disciples that they were leaving. And they left. They went to the next town. No matter that people wanted to meet him, touch him. He left. He was not being cruel. He just knew his job and he set out to do it.

          My pastor friend was telling me in his own way to know my job. If it is being a lawyer, that’s fine. If it’s dealing with real estate, that’s fine. But if it isn’t, then why is that stuff taking up so much room on my plate of life? And if it is removed, with what will I replace it? What is my real job and can I focus on it? My wife was up to her ears in civic projects and dealing with the petty details of life, but is that really her job?

          As we read this passage in Mark, it should not escape our notice that even this early in his ministry, Jesus had choices to make. From the beginning, Jesus came into conflict with Satan. The man possessed with demons was shouting at Jesus, but he was only an instrument. He was under Satan’s control. Satan was shouting at Jesus. Satan was not new to him. He had already encountered Satan in the temptation in the desert before he began his ministry. What should be significant to us is that Satan is always around. Today, he is much more shrewd than in the first century. We seldom confront demons bodily, though it does happen. But there is no lack of evil wandering around. Satan has learned the art of misdirection. He can exercise his power over us in the very chores and deeds we do in the name of goodness.

          Jesus said to his disciples: “Let’s go on to the next town, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” The disciples didn’t understand. They were too new and they didn’t have the gospels to read. We do. We can see that Jesus came for more than healing. Healing was a way to get attention so that he could tell his message. Healing was a good thing to do, but it was not the main event. The people’s immediate needs clouded their ability to hear the truth that Jesus offered. “…that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” What does Jesus mean? He says: “this is why I came out.” Is he referring to coming out of town? Or is he referring to coming out of hiding and getting on with his ministry? I suspect that both ways might apply.

          Jesus withdrew. He prayed. He connected with God. And he moved on. He had a message to deliver. He had a job to do. There is a nice model for us when we are multi-tasking or overloaded and starting to get irritable about all the do-gooding we are up to. Is that the job we are called to do?

          It would have been easier for Jesus to give in to the crowds in Capernaum, throughout Galilee, in Jerusalem. It would have been easier for him to provide the food, to do the healings. But Jesus had a job to do. He knew what it was and he continually set out to do it. Jesus’ job was to tell the gospel, live the gospel, save those who were lost. He never let the other needs of life get in the way of his true calling.

          God has given each of us a job to do. Have you found yours? If you are not finding time to spend with him in prayer and reading the Word, how will you hear him? Even the Son of God had to separate himself from the crowds and the pull of the details of life in order to hear what his heavenly Father had to say. The time you spend each day communing privately with God is the time when you can hear him. It is the time when you can know your place, define your job for the day. Then you can go to the next town, or the next task or the next conversation, even if things remain to be done where you are. Let God define your job…and then set out and do it.

For the Sake of the Gospel

1 Corinthians 9: 16-23

 

 

          Ever feel like you had to do something or else? I’m not talking about something you wanted to do or even something you were required to do. I’m talking about something that if you didn’t do it, would tear you apart. You just had to act. Maybe it was someone betraying a close friend and you just couldn’t stand by and let it go on. You know you were risking a friendship, but the stakes were too high. Whether your friend understood or not, turned on you or not, he or she had to be told. Maybe you had to leave home and go try your wings. Even though you didn’t want to leave, you just couldn’t stay, at least not right now. There would be time for coming back home, but for now, you just had to leave or bust. When you were in love, didn’t it just about kill you not to be able to tell the whole world, especially him or her, how you felt. You had to. It couldn’t be held inside. It had to be told.

          Those who are called to ministry often express feelings like that—as though if they didn’t answer the call, they just wouldn’t be able to go on. And yet, the call of ministry is a double edged sword. Some years ago, I met with my minister and told him that I was seriously thinking of enrolling in seminary. His advice was to argue with God and to do everything in my power to avoid that call, but if I could not get it to go away, then to answer it. Today, I understand more about what he meant.

          Paul says to the Corinthian church: “…necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” Paul has been called to ministry and having heard that call, he can no more say no to it than he can say no to Jesus himself. Paul must follow his call.

          This passage has often been used to talk about the calling to ministry, and also whether it is appropriate to pay ministers or whether they should labor for free. But in a larger sense, it is also about stewardship and its call for each of us as Christians. 1 Peter 2:5 teaches us that as Christians, we are “living stones being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.” Peter is not talking about ministers. He is talking about us.

            So when we read this passage from Paul to the Corinthian Christians, we can see the marks of stewardship imprinted upon it. Listen to these phrases: “I am entrusted with a stewardship…I have made myself a servant to all…I have become all things to all people…I do it all for the sake of the gospel.”  These thoughts are not just the thoughts of a minister. They could be the thoughts of any Christian.

          Listening might be the first ingredient to effective stewardship. I love the story that William Barclay tells about a country doctor in England named Johnson, who possessed the art of leading people to talk on their favorite subjects, and on what they knew best. He had a readiness to throw himself into the interests of other people. He knew the art of listening and he practiced it. As a result, he had a great following. Is that so hard to do? Apparently it is for some. But for Christians, we are called to be a people who listen.

          “I am entrusted with a stewardship,” said Paul. For Paul, that meant taking the gospel to the Gentiles. It meant living all over Asia Minor and being a traveling missionary for much of his life. He was the first and greatest church planter. But stewardship takes many forms. Consider the story of Oseola McCarty, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Forced to quit school in the sixth grade to help take care of her aunt, she never returned. She later became a washerwoman and did that menial job for decades until arthritis forced her to quit at the age of 86. She never owned a car; she walked everywhere she went. Her mother taught her to save money and she opened a bank account before she quit school. She saved something every week, no matter how little she earned washing clothes at fifty cents a load. A year after she retired, she had a meeting with her banker and her attorney, a man for whom she had washed clothes. She had saved $250,000.00. She showed them her estate plan with ten dimes. On dime was to go to the church. Three were to go to relatives. The other six dimes were to go to the University of Southern Mississippi as an endowment to fund a scholarship to help underprivileged African-American kids attend college. The washerwoman funded a $150,000.00 endowment and became the university’s most famous benefactor. She said she had too much money and couldn’t take it with her, so why not help someone else and put the money to work for God. Stewardship can be found anywhere along that spectrum, from giving your life to the planting of churches to saving money for a future gift.

          “I have made myself a servant to all…I have become all things to all people,” says Paul. Paul never compromised his ethics or his theology. But neither did he let his own upbringing or pride or cultural bias get in the way of winning more people over to the gospel.  The word we translate here as servant can also be translated slave. He saw himself as a slave entrusted with the stewardship of the gospel.  He is too good for no one.

          Paul ministered to the Jews. He says that he “became as a  Jew.” At first that makes little sense. He was in fact Jewish. But this passage shows how far Paul had come since that experience on the Damascus Road. He no longer thought of himself purely in that ethnic context. He would use his “Jewishness” to gain the confidence and respect of the Jews, but he was free from the old legal constraints of that religion. Nevertheless, his experiences and knowledge were useful to him in understanding how to reach the Jews.

          Paul ministered to those outside the law. This most probably refers to the Gentiles, as they were outside the Mosaic law of the nation of Israel. He grew up in the Diaspora, the area outside the capital city. He knew what the world was like outside Jerusalem. He says that although he is not lawless, he acts as though he is. Again, he is not compromising his ethics or theology, but rather his approach to how to communicate. His compass is the law of Christ, the requirement of Christian living, working out one’s salvation through faith in Christ and his teachings. He will not scare away a Gentile seeking Christ by spouting Mosaic Law to him. Rather he will listen to where that person is. Then, he can share Jesus and his love for all people.

          Paul ministered to the weak. Here, it would seem that Paul is calling to those who are at this point lost. It is not just the Jews, who know God but not Jesus, or the Gentiles, who come to know Jesus without the Jewish law, but also those within each group who have lost their way, to whom Paul reaches out. He is calling out to those who, like that lost sheep who wandered away from the flock, need a good shepherd to guide them home. If Paul has to go where they are, be who they are, to save them, he will.

            So why does Paul do these things? Why does he meander throughout Macedonia and Greece, calling out to those from all walks of life? He tells us in verse 23. He “does it all for the sake of the gospel.” He experienced God. He believed the Jesus story. He preached Christ crucified.  For Paul, it was never about him. It was always about the gospel, the lifesaving, life sustaining message of salvation offered through belief in Jesus. Paul felt the call of Jesus to tell the gospel story.

          Is there a “takeaway” today, besides the fact that we can clearly admire Paul for all he did?  The takeaway for me is that we should do the things we do for the sake of the gospel. Some of us will do as Paul did. We will go into some sort of ministry for our vocation as well as our calling. Most of us will do other things as we travel the road of life. Ministry is a funny thing. You can do it and never leave your chair in the den. You can be a prayer warrior and God’s army will be the stronger for it.  You can save a dollar or so a week until your savings turns into a university endowment. What you do is between you and God. It’s not about the what. It’s about the whether. Will you? Will you let God use you the way he used Peter and Paul and Oseola McCarty?  God wants us all as his ministers. Will you listen? Will you get your hands dirty with people different from you? Don’t stand at the edges of life. Get involved. Let yourself disappear into the message. And do it all for the sake of the gospel, that you may share with them in its blessings.

Lest I Make My Brother Stumble

1 Corinthians 8: 1-13

 

          In 1 Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul gives his young church members a long lesson on food. He is talking about food that has been offered to idols and then later consumed by men. For a long time, the eating of such meat had been considered sinful. Paul says this is no longer true. He points out that such food is still edible because there are no Gods but one. So idols have no real existence. So, says Paul, it’s okay to eat the meat. But Paul is worried about something much more important than food. Paul is worried about others who came to visit and what they might think.

          Paul reminded his church friends that they had been taught that there was only one God, through whom all things come, including us. They were possessed of this special knowledge. In a world where the worship of many Gods was commonplace, they knew that no other gods existed or held any power over them. But then, Paul pointed out to them that not all possess this knowledge. Now Paul was teaching on a higher level. He wasn’t talking about the food anymore. He was talking about leadership and example and witness.

          We read passages such as this and sometimes scratch our heads. What’s the big deal? Those are the times we need to dig a little deeper to unearth what is there to be mined. We are two thousand years removed from the eating of idol meat. At first blush, we see little relevance to our own situation. But in the days of Paul, it was a big deal. Such practice was not done except by pagans. The meat was thought to be contaminated spiritually. Paul set the record straight by saying that since idols were false, so was the threat of contamination.

          Okay, that’s simple enough, but what does Paul mean in the last few verses of this passage? He says that we have to worry about less knowledgeable brothers with weak consciences who might be influenced by our actions. They might eat the idol meat because they see us do so and get confused because they are not yet strong in the faith. Then, according to Paul, our actions have become responsible for ruining their consciences, and they fall away. In Paul’s words, we have caused our brother to stumble.

          It is customary in many circles for a new father to offer cigars to his male friends upon the birth of his baby. Is smoking healthy or good for us? Of course not. Can cigar smoking be harmful to us? Yes, it can. Do you find it offensive to be offered a cigar by a new father? I don’t. It’s just a custom, a way to acknowledge and celebrate. But what if you offer a cigar to a young man whom you know is trying to quit smoking?

          A couple moms agree to chaperone their daughters and several other teens for a trip to the beach. The moms are accustomed to having a glass of wine at dinner when they are away on vacation. Should they allow themselves this small pleasure while chaperoning their teens?

          Similarly, several men get together once a year for a fishing trip for several days. They are good Christian men, but on their outing, they usually allow themselves the pleasure of sharing a few beers together. Is this wrong? The Bible certainly does not tell us so. It only condemns excessive use of things, But this year, the men have decided to invite their sons, aged from 14-18, to go along. Does that change their custom? Should it?

          Paul says in verse 10: “For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?” Put in more 21^st century language, it might go something like this: If someone more tender in knowledge or faith sees you, a person he or she looks up to, smoking or drinking or participating in some other activity not sinful, but questionable, won’t he or she feel that it’s okay? And it might be okay for you, but what about that person watching you? What about them? What is your testimony to them?

          There is nothing wrong with the activities observed above. There is no sin being committed.  And yet, your conscience tells you to hesitate. Maybe you can’t articulate it very well, but something tells you that this is not the time or place to do this thing. Maybe it’s because you instinctively understand what Paul is getting at in this passage. You don’t want to send the wrong message. You don’t want to cause your brother or sister to stumble.

          There are many times in our walk through this life that we are witnessing. In fact, we are witnessing more than we aren’t. Whenever we are around people, we are witnessing. We are being observed, and particularly if we hold ourselves out to be people of faith, we are being watched. Those who are not believers watch us in hopes that they will see us fail. Those who are young in the faith or seeking to find their faith are watching us to learn from us. What are we teaching? We may be unwilling role models, but role models we are, whether we seek it or not.

          Paul tells us in Romans 14 to never put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. This means a multitude of things. We should not only not set the wrong example or set the right example; we should also not do something confusing or ambiguous. Our actions when witnessing should convey only one thing—that we are “walking in love,” as Paul says. In other words, we are just as concerned at how a certain behavior or activity might be interpreted as we are about how it actually is. Where the uneducated eye is concerned, appearances do count, and perception is just as important as fact. If our brother thinks it is unclean, then we should treat it as though it is unclean until we are sure that he or she can understand and discern as well as we can.

          St. Augustine is quoted on the subject of idolatry in this way: “Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, and using anything that is meant to be worshipped.”  Play that back. If it ought to be used, we should not worship it. If it ought to be worshipped, we should not use it but give it the reverence it deserves. The same is true for how we treat our witness. Are we being attentive to how someone might take what we do? In that moment, we represent God. Once we become Christians, we never again have the luxury of being totally accountable only to ourselves.

          Paul said to the Corinthian church and to us: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.” We might add that even though something is legal, it may not be ethical. For those of us who are supposed to be more mature in our Christian walk, we cannot be content with what is okay or legal. We must reach for that which says of us to those who are watching: God is my Master and I walk in love. I will not be satisfied with what is legal. I want what is righteous and helps my brother find the peace that I have.

          The Corinthian church was not much different from the church of today. Oh, it had much different customs and the society in which it existed was quite different culturally from the society  within which we live today. And yet, look how much we are alike. We still struggle with our desire for independence. We still worship idols. They’re not little icons that sit on some shelf for us to worship, but they are there all the same, from wealth to security to power to so many more personal vanities that we cling to. We still make our brother stumble in our selfishness and greed and inattention. Some things never change.

          Just like the Corinthians, we must rely on our trust in God or we will not only make our brother stumble; we will stumble ourselves. God can sustain that which we can never achieve on our own. We need to realize that we are being watched. We each have a witness. The question is not just whether we use our influence to make our brother stumble or to pick him up. The question goes to our witness. If doing without some sort of practice or pleasure helps clear the path for someone else, how glorious is that witness!

          Let us always frame our knowledge in terms of how it may be useful. Does it come from the love of ourselves—or the love of our brother? “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”