Day 251 - Fire and Baptism

A sermon delivered at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN

OT Reading: Jeremiah 23: 23-29

NT Reading: Luke 12:-56

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰ I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”

These two powerful sentences are packed with meaning and positive emotion that go to the core of Good News, but they are often are negatively as if Jesus is saying He came to consume the sinner with fire rather than purify with God’s grace.

In the nine chapters, between the end of Chapter 9 to the middle of 19, Luke recounts the final journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. It begins in Luke 9:51, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Jesus has finished his ministry in Galilee and left on the long trek to Jerusalem where he knows his crucifixion awaits. His face is set; his focus is on the cross. Jesus must have shouted these words to the crowd. What does he mean when he says with the emotional intensity, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled?”

He uses the entire time in this journey through Samaria and Judea to convey his teachings to the people he meets along the way. He teaches about prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, his mission teachings, the importance of being watchful and settling debts with your accusers, the parables of the mustard seed, the narrow door, the cost of discipleship, the lost sheep, the good Samaritan, the rich man and Lazarus, and several miracles and his proclaims woe to the Pharisees.

Now, only a third of the way on the journey, Jesus utters these two sentences, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” He would not be human if the proximity of death did not weigh on him heavily. Every day, he must have awakened to crowds knowing how close is the end…so much to do and so little time.

We so want to read the anger of God in the Old Testament into Jesus, that He will consume and consign the sinner to the fires of perdition as we recall.

It happened in the Reformation and in even in early America. Protestants burned other believers at the stake as punishment for deviating from their understanding of Scripture or for suspicion of being evil witches. In the Spanish Inquisition people were torn limb from limb, or otherwise tortured to death for suspected errant belief. There are certainly instances in  the Old Testament where one sees the Lord threaten the fire of consuming retribution due to the His anger, but gratefully most often the Lord’s fire purifies or promises purification.

It is just not a constructive or fair to Jesus to think He will burn up sinners. We are all sinners; he would have to burn us all up. Jesus came into the world to wipe away, to expunge sin by his forgiveness and atonement. Retribution is not the purpose of Jesus, after all, isn’t the end of his journey the victory over retribution? Retribution and judgment are different things. We are judged by our faith.

So what does Jesus mean, “I came to bring fire to the earth?” He means He is bringing the fire of the Holy Spirit to purify God’s beloved people using the analogy of refining or purifying metal by fire found in the Old Testament. I was a metallurgist (oldest engineering discipline) and it is illuminating to know how the people of the ancient Near East produced copper and silver from ores. Copper, lead and silver occur together as sulfide ores along with their oxides. The sulfur and oxygen must be removed and separating each metal separated to make each metal malleable and valuable.  Ancient metallurgists would add lead to copper ores to dissolve the gold and silver impurities and then blow air through the molten metal to oxidize (burn) the lead away preferentially leaving the pure copper behind. Copper would be melted and charcoal added to burn out the oxygen. Silver ores, and the silver-laden lead slag from refining copper would be burned repeatedly in a purifying fire and more air that preferentially oxidized the lead leaving the refined silver. This process might be repeated several times to increase the metal quality.

In fact, the ideal house of artisans in these times had a courtyard with a large earthen oven with two stoves. One stove was used to purify metal this way, the other to cook bread. To put this expression of Jesus into context, here are most of the Old Testament references to the Lord’s purifying fire:

In Job 28:1-5: “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined. ²Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. ⁵As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire. (ADAM)

Psalms. 12: (5-7): ⁵“Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up,” says the LORD; “I will place them in the safety for which they long.” ⁶The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure (as) silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.

In key passage God describes to Jeremiah how Assyria will ravage Israel:

Jer.6:27-29  “²⁷I have made you (Assyria) a tester and a refiner among my people so that you may know and test their ways.  ²⁸They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron, all of them act corruptly.  ²⁹The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed. ³⁰They are called “rejected silver,” for the LORD has rejected them.”

Daniel 11:35 talks about the end times: “Some of the wise shall fall, so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed, until the time of the end, for there is still an interval until the time appointed.”

Zech. 13:9 talks about the remnant of Israel that the Lord saves: “And I will put this third into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”

Malachi 3:2-3 is a well-known verse: “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.”

But our purification is his baptism on the Cross. Imagine the constant turmoil of misery on his journey. People of all sorts beset Jesus, the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the lame and cripple, the hypocrites and pompous authorities. Jesus has said the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head while his end weighs heavily on his mind. It is inescapable that the humanity of Jesus is telling the crowd he is ready for our purification to begin. He is ready for his baptism on the cross when the Kingdom of God fully breaks into the world, taking it like a storm. This is a lament or maybe a proclamation that says, “People get ready! Let’s get this thing started.”

And Jesus continues, “⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

This is where people get the idea we are to actively persecute evil But is Jesus encouraging us to foment discord, violence and strife to the world? The answer is NO! That flies in the face of his compassion (Luke 6:20), “Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’” Jesus is saying is that the actions of the purified who believe will reveal their faith, and they will be tested and excluded by the world, not by the Lord. The voice of the Old Testament leaps out of these words of Jesus to the unfaithful in the crowd:

Jer. 9:4-9, 16,25-26  ⁴Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer. ⁵and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. ⁶Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They refuse to know me, says the LORD. ⁷Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: I will now refine and test them, for what else can I do with my sinful people? ¹⁶I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them (the unrighteous). ²⁵The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will attend to all those who are circumcised only in the foreskin. ²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaven temples who live in the desert. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

The Lord is not bringing a fire to consume us and scatter us as he did to the Jews with Assyria. The fire of the Holy Spirit will bring us together under his wing with reconciled hearts.

Listen to Isaiah 48:9-10 where God’s anger turned towards compassion of his covenant: “⁹For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, so that I may not cut you off. ¹⁰See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.”

Jesus is saying let our hearts reveal our faith that I have purified you and given you God’s grace. However, this faith has consequences for us. The faithful will not let an angry heart betray an outwardly visible but false piety, rather they live according to a loving, faithful heart. This trial of fire we face is not retribution but the consequence that separates the faithful from the unfaithful.

 The baptism that Jesus sees for himself in this passage is the cross. The baptism we face is the criticism and contempt of the world and perhaps even of our own families for standing true to our faith in God. This is the meaning of the warning purification or justification by the Holy Spirit calls us to be our true selves, set apart.

And then Jesus warns the crowds, ⁵⁴…“When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

In other words, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is at hand. If you can look at the sky and see that it is going to rain or be scorching hot, woe to you if you cannot read the times and see what I am doing and hear what I say.

recap: Jesus has spoken to the people from his human heart. He is painfully aware and probably fearful of his future but his perfect righteousness knows what must be done and his perfect love desires its completion for the sake of all humanity. Jesus is says, “Let it begin now! Woe to you who cannot see the time is here.”

I remind you of the words of John the Baptist in Luke 3:16: John answered and said to them all, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals ; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

So now we can see that Jesus tells us, “We are all impure and marked by sin. The gift of God’s grace will purify us, and leave the wheat and silver. In God’s refining fire only the chaff and lead burn. He will refine the faithful leaving them fire-polished for the world to see. But my friends, while you are justified to rejoice in this good gift, know that your heart will reveal your faith. Then, your faith will mark you and make you beloved and reviled by the world. Those who revile you for my sake should use their eyes to read the time as they can read the sky.  If the world loves you, you ought to think twice and look at the sky.

And if we read just 3 verses further in Luke, Jesus says, “⁵⁸Thus, when you go with your accuser before a magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle the case, or you may be dragged before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you in prison.  ⁵⁹I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is at hand. Be watchful and do not wait for judgment to come to you unexpected to reveal the quality of your faith, reveal your faith now by your actions.

Day 244 - The Father's Good Pleasure

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 1:7-17

New Testament Reading: Luke 12:32-48

We often read OT history of judgment into our Christian present and future as a warning of our impending punishment by an angry God. This presents some problems. (1)We have to explain how fear of punishment can make our behavior good enough to save us when the whole of the OT shows we cannot. (2)We have to explain why faith in God’s acceptance is not good enough. (3) We have to try to explain how a vengeful God of the OT became the loving, forgiving God of the NT.

Isaiah is famous for its condemnation of unfaithfulness by an angry God and its promise of salvation by the Suffering Servant. Historically Isaiah is about a time ~2700-2400 years ago. It is certainly true that Isaiah recounts the Lord’s displeasure with the spiritual failure of Israel and Judah. This whole puzzle of the vengeful God of the OT and loving God of the NT seesaws on of Isaiah.

The Lord chose Israel as a special people and led them out of slavery in Egypt. He gave them a land and permission to destroy the original inhabitants and seize their belongings. He promised them everything good in the land and said in so many words, “If you keep the faith it all is yours. You will know you are faithful when your lives reflect my commandments.” Unfortunately Israel and Judah walked away from the promise and every obligation of the covenant. That covenant said simply, provide worthy worship of the Lord and let your respect of his creation and every person in it be governed by the same goodness.

The angry Lord through Isaiah said that he would use the gentile nations, Assyria, Babylon and Persia to scatter this nation of God’s chosen people to the corners of the world and destroy their land because of their failure. So he did.

The Lord condemns their religious practices and false piety (Is 1:7-14), “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation -I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.”

Yes, historically Isaiah is about a God angry at his chosen ones. But we can view it another way. Israel and Judah showed the failure of all humanity to be holy. Spiritually Isaiah is about the persistence of the pride of humanity across historical time. The Lord indicts Israel through Isaiah but the words strike painfully close to home. We are as human today as Israel was then.

 In the context of our world today, God’s anger revealed in Isaiah 1:7-17 ought to make everyone think about their worship. For many people today, our religious celebrations have degenerated into hardly anything more than commercial gift-giving exercises of Christmas and Easter, and social activities.

We build great monuments to God and Christ, like the $700,000 steel crosses erected by a church out on Rt. 153, or the massive church on I-75 at Northside Drive as you enter Atlanta. I understand the pastor had his name carved in a boulder out front. We erect expensive signs illuminated by computer-controlled light emitting diodes advertising family swim day, youth basketball leagues and catchy quotes from the Bible or sermon titles (I’m guilty of that).

I am sure most of these folks are well meaning. They want to proclaim Jesus to the world…but I wonder how well the money is spent. To me, we always walk a fine line between building monuments to wealth and commitments to piety.

Piety is a personal thing. How many of us come to worship inside our sanctuaries and just go through the motions? Do we sing hymns but not heed the words? I am not sure much has changed in 2700 years.

The fact Isaiah seems a parallel to us suggests the OT is more about the timeless reality of faith, and the connection of humanity to a compassionate God that we do not merit.  After all, God condemned Israel in Isaiah and then offered a path to rigteousness in Is 1:16-17, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

These words should sound vaguely familiar to our OT and NT ears. These are the activities of the Suffering Servant restated in Is 61:1-2 and quoted by Jesus verbatim in his first declaration in the synagogue as he began his ministry. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The catch is, we cannot make ourselves clean, do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, and all the rest, only the Lord can.

It is hard, but if we avoid thinking God’s judgment of the OT is vengeful, but if the Lord, angry though he is, has in mind an unfolding plan from the beginning to the end for a creation, it begins to make sense. In the beginning, the Lord said creation is good and God does not forsake a covenant. God reinforced it to Abraham, and again to the Hebrews who escaped Egypt by fleeing into the desert.

The Lord knew at the outset that even his chosen people would sink to these depths. According to scripture that did displease him. He used gentile Assyria as the rod against his own people to devastate their land and scatter the inhabitants. He then used Babylon and Persia (modern day Iran) to finish the job and take the elite into captivity and destroy his temple.

As he promised, a remnant survived to return to Jerusalem.  The remnant had hardly rebuilt the temple when they lapsed in to their old ways of corrupt worship right up to the appearance of Jesus. Yet, the Lord’s covenant made at the outset of creation, “It is good” remains in force and was promised again in Isaiah. Jesus Christ is the gift that fulfills the covenant and brings us into grace in spite of ourselves.

Let us walk through Luke (12:32-48) to understand how an angry God can remain compassionate not vengeful.  Luke 12:32 says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” This is the natural consequence of the promise of the Suffering Servant, the year of the Lord’s favor.  If you do nothing else, please keep Luke’s verse in mind throughout your day. The Lord gives us his kingdom as his good pleasure as promised. It should humble us. When you hear God’s anger in Isaiah remember this blessing fulfills his promise.

Luke 12:34 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What else can that be but a personal question, “Where are our priorities?” (Is1:7-17)

Verses 35-38 say that we are blessed if we properly locate our priorities. Jesus uses the analogy of the gracious master who comes home late at night, tired and ready to retire after a long celebration of a wedding, only to find his housekeepers awake and waiting for him. Overjoyed, he tells them to go in and sit down. We can imagine he is tired, probably had more than enough to eat and drink yet he bathes, puts on clean clothes and returns, gathers the food and serves his housekeepers. Blessed are the slaves who become the master and the master who becomes the slave.

Someone who is not a Christian reading this passage probably thinks this is the most outrageous thing imaginable. Can you imagine your boss humbling himself to you after a long trip, just because you were alert and waiting for him?

The next two verses (39,40) read, “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” As I explained to the children Jesus extends this earlier story saying we need to be prepared all the time for this invitation to an unexpected feast.

As we read on, Peter asks whether Jesus is talking about disciples, pupils, or both. Luke 12:47-48 reads, “That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.” Jesus answered that the responsibility for readiness, or proper behavior and stewardship, is on everyone, but the person who knows this has a heavier responsibility than those who may not know it. If you are not ready for any reason you are going to incur some consequence but watch out if you know what to do and don’t do it.

The last part of v48 clarifies our obligation. “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” Our faith equips us to walk righteously and proclaim the good News according to our abilities. Our every ability is a gift from God. Whether a general or private, a teacher or pupil, a cook or dishwasher, we are responsible for our part of God’s house.  Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In other words, be prepared, the kingdom of God at hand.

This sermon has struggled to make the point that we cannot read scripture linearly as time history without overlooking the significance of God’s plan. It is as true today as in Isaiah’s time; God and the nature of humanity is time-less. You may recall a few weeks ago we talked about Paul’s sense of history as past, present and future. Everything that has and will happened already is already in God’s mind.

If we keep that in mind as we carefully read the OT, we can restate the covenant with Israel like this, “Because I am a compassionate God, I have created the whole world and humanity as a good thing. The body of humanity, your body, comes from its earth and your knowledge and life comes from God. I have chosen you specially to reveal my goodness. If you have faith in me you will be holy like me and reveal my commandments in your behavior as the signs of your own holiness. My commandments are not rules for living. You don’t get any reward for following them. They are the measure of your holy life. If you cannot reveal my commandments in your life… you cannot be holy.”

Paul who never read the Gospels, understood this painfully. He laments that our God-given knowledge is the undoing of our humanity in Romans 7:18-19.  Paul said, I know what is right. Yet I do what is wrong because I am not God. This is the key!

If we read the NT scriptures carefully we realize that the covenant with the Hebrews is more than God’s special relationship with a select people. I suggest this covenant as revealed in Jesus goes something like this, “My chosen people are a part of the world of all humanity. All your bodies come from the earth and your knowledge comes from me. If you use the knowledge I have given you, you will measure yourself and show that you cannot demonstrate my holiness even under the threat of your downfall. Yet I am a steadfast and compassionate. I love all created humanity and this world from which I chose you. I shall restore everyone to my kingdom that admits and proclaims only I can do this thing. I am the Lord.  I make you holy by my choosing and neither your Godly knowledge or your God-given body can do it for you.”

This is undeserved gift of grace waiting for the taking. I hope it is your treasure because where your treasure is; there your heart will be also. As you enjoy the wait for that treasure, ask yourself two questions, “Who has given the most and who has received the most?”  Then remember from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.  AMEN 

Day 237 - Righteous Hospitality

A Sermon delivered at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN           August 4, 2013

Readings:
Genesis15:1-6
Romans14:1, 10-13; 15:1-2

On our previous two Sundays we explored Paul’s description of Christian righteousness in his letter to the Romans. We can use holiness, holy, and maybe religious as synonyms for righteous. But we need to appreciate Paul’s point that it is not something you earn, it is something you do. It is something you reveal naturally as a consequence of your faith. Paul states the absolute requirement for redemption in 10:9-11:

 “because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame. For one who believes (this) with the heart …is so justified, and one who confesses with the mouth is saved.”

Righteousness is a changed mindset that governs our behavior and reveals our Christian faith. Paul uses Abraham’s experience in Genesis 15 as the ultimate example of a righteous person. Abram believed God’s promise of children in spite of his and his wife’s advanced age and was reckoned righteous by his faith. If you only get one message from all Paul’s letters about this, that is what it ought to be, “Our actions reveal our Christian faith.”

We often quote passages from Paul that support our view of holy behavior. We use Paul’s indictment of things like greed, envy, adultery, promiscuity, and so forth to measure or judge the religious quality of others. But Paul’s main point is not to condemn these vices as sins (though they may be sins), Paul is waking us up to the fact that letting anything get in the way of Christian behavior is a sin. It diverts us from a focus on God and others. The sin is not the action. The sin is the state of mind that lets something other than Christian behavior preoccupy us. Anything that diverts us from that focus on holiness is a problem.

Paul uses the entire letter to the Romans to make it very easy to understand what being righteous means, because our whole relationship with the entire world depends on it. It is a personal matter for each of us – it reflects the certainty of our faith. Paul states it simply. If we are a Christian, we love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as we love our self. By loving God and being neighborly, or hospitable, we cannot bring dishonor on Christ or us because we ar e emulating God’s holiness. To do otherwise condemns us and offends Christ.

This is why we describe righteousness as having a vertical and horizontal character. In Leviticus 19:2 as a preface to the Commandments, The Lord tells Moses to tell the Israelites “You shall be holy because I AM holy.” Being righteous means being holy as God is holy.   The Lord has demonstrated his grace by sending Jesus to us to demonstrate God’s righteousness to the world. This is what we mean by the vertical part of righteousness.

Jesus is the ideal model of human behavior in the world.  He calls us to walk the way he walked in the world. This is what we mean by horizontal righteousness. It is the way we Christians should walk in the world. Paul’s message is holy behavior is a personal, internal matter of our mind for all of us.

Paul talks about this personal holy behavior as we walk in the world using the context of three relationships, (1) our relationship with the community of the world, (2) our relationship with governmental authority (or politics); and (3) our personal relationship with each other.

The first relationship is between the community and us.  Romans 12:3-21 is captured it and verse 3 summarizes it: “Do not think too highly of yourself.”  Paul reminds us that humility, the slave’s virtue, must be the primary mindset for us. We miss Paul’s point if we think humility is enough. Paul is talking about how we think about our self in relationship to the community.

If we have low self-esteem, God’s message is “You are righteous by your faith and will be an instrument of God.” If you are the opposite and think you are self-important, righteousness reminds you to tome it down because we are all equal in the eyes of God. Paul’s example of the parts of the body is the best example of this. We need each other and delude ourselves to think otherwise.

The second relationship is that between the person and government authority. We all like to use Paul’s quotation, “submit to the authority of the state” when we are on the side of the group in power but we are never very comfortable with it when we are on the other side.  In Paul’s mind, you cannot be holy unless you it in both cases.

Paul leaves a lot of questions not clearly answered. “Should a Christian ever oppose the state?” What about the fact that the government is an institution operated by fallible humans?  We have to sort through holding on to humility and conforming to his words “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God.”  But that first verse of 13:1-10 is a high hurdle. We did ask for human leaders instead of God’s leadership. 

(It reminds me of a fellow I used to work for in a company in my days as an engineer/scientist.  I had a small existing staff that was severely alienated, but could do quite the good job of solving difficult manufacturing problems. Like many engineers, they have an outlook and behave in ways some call "quirky independence." After my decades of work engineering management in research and development it became fairly obvious that a good engineer is productive in proportion the the freedom they have to do their work, including letting them vent a little steam sometimes. You learn to accommodate individuality and not let it become a burr in the saddle. My manager was far more interested in their conformity to his idea of decorum and proper attitude than productivity (he equated conformity and productivity- a bad idea in a technical operation).  One day in a discussion in his office,  he pulled his desk Bible and quoted this passage  from Romans on authority to me, saying that I had one problem, "you do not demand your employees submit to you."  Of course Paul has given us a double edged sword. Perhaps I encouraged my staff to think a little too highly of themselves, or as I intimated to my manager, perhaps I was building them up from the repression of my manager's attitude. So much for not thinking too highly of yourself, and the master being the slave.)

Paul says obedience is expected but we also know Jesus is Lord of all. When one is pressed into the corner where the state threatens our personal obedience to God by forcing us to turn away from of the greatest two commandments that demonstrate holiness; (1) to love God with all our being, and (2) to value and love every person the way value and love ourselves; it is our personal obligation to be loyal to Jesus, Lord of all, and suffer the consequences of our obedience as Christ did himself.  This is a very hard teaching, and one to undertake with a lot of prayer.

But we all could honor these first two parts of righteousness, having a changed mind that understands humility and not thinking too highly of our self is the most precious virtue, and the government is the human part of the rule of God, we might have a much more pleasant political and social environment.

This brings us to the third and perhaps most important part of holiness. I call this interpersonal righteousness or our behavior towards everyone else.  If we welcome people with a mind changed by our faith, we have fulfilled the whole essence of righteousness, hospitality. In our reading in Chapter 14 and 15 Paul explicitly uses Christ as the definition. Paul says in 15:7: “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Paul makes it clear by using Christ’s example that “welcome one another” means “welcome everyone.” There is no way to escape that expectation.

How do we welcome people? Paul’s talk about eating food  or idols has part of the answer. We welcome people by what we do and what we say.

That issue began with his argument with Peter and James, “Can a Christian dine in the home of gentiles at a meal where the meat sacrificed to idols served?” The argument turns on the answer to the question, “Does a Christian need to adhere to the Jewish Law as a prerequisite for being a Christian?” The answer is “no,” you can eat food for idols with your gentile friends.  God said no food is intrinsically bad and a strong Christian can partake of any food, even food that a Christian Jew may refuse. You just cannot harm a weaker person by your behavior.

Jesus reduces the law to its practical effect when he answered the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew15:10-14. Hear these verses: “Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand:  it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’  Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?’  He answered, ‘Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’”

Jesus in his oblique way warns us that our words can cause the downfall of another person and us. Our tongue can be a our own stumbling block. Jesus reserves his harshest criticism of stumbling blocks. He says their words are a millstone tied around their neck.  To be a stumbling block is dishonors the Lord.

Virtually every writer of the New Testament comes back to this matter of the tongue. James reiterates it in James 1:26-27   “If any think they are religious (Paul would say ‘righteous’), and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

Paul had this same idea in mind when he wrote to the Romans as he did in his letters to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Philippians and the Thessalonians.  In his ministry, Paul learned an agonizingly painful thing; when a Christian denigrates or attacks another person, especially another Christian over their belief, that person wounds Christ and is subject to judgment. The tongue that can praise the Lord can also dishonor the Lord.  

Paul knew one thing in particular makes the tongue a dangerous weapon, judgment. Paul said in Romans 14:13, “Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.” and followed in Rom. 15:1-2  “We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor.”

We can put this interpersonal holiness in an understandable context by thinking about what and how you talk about others when you are in the presence of your family and other people. We have all heard the expression, “little pitchers have big ears.” Preparing for this sermon I read a mother’s lament on line,*  She was in an elevator with her young son who was wearing a Mickey Mouse hat. Someone asked him where he got the hat and he replied, “We got it at Disney World but mommy said the only other souvenir we got was my baby sister.” Another painful example occurred last week at the Free Press. 

After his boss had left for the day, the former editorial writer changed the title of his editorial to “Take your plan and shove it, Mr. President” a spiteful and implicitly unstated profanity in bold letters for every person including young people to read and copy. The owners of the paper had placed a quotation from Philippians (4:19) at the bottom of the editorial page that contained his editorial as a public declaration that reflects their understanding of God’s holiness, (Using verses as 'proof-texts' is always risky, therefore, I am adding the preceding verses 8-18 in the link and adding v8,9 below so you can put the quotation into context.):  verse8: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,  if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. verse 9: Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and seen in me, and may the God of peace be with you. And the newspaper quotes verse 19:  “And my God will meet your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”  The former editor seems to reveal his idea of Christian righteousness as 'to proudly disrespect all persons, including the leader of God’s government and God he suggests to the world he represents his and the Philippians sense of holiness.' The paper fired him for it, but the act is done. Regrettably the paper unwittingly and the editorialist intentionally have dishonored God’s holiness and become stumbling blocks to others who might otherwise seek God.

We do not want any one, especially our own children throwing back at us some negative, judgmental comment we have made, or copying our poor behavior as examples of Christian holiness. That makes us a stumbling block, a millstone around our neck liable to be tossed into the sea.  Our tongue is a dangerous weapon, not just when we are aware we are in someone’s presence and can perhaps soften or correct our commentary but especially when we talk and do not know who is listening and being influenced by our words.

It is a hard job to always remember that Jesus despised and hated no one, and hospitality is our test of righteousness. This is the uncomfortable part of holiness, and I hope for all of us including me that hospitality is the thing we work on the most. Holiness requires a wholesale change of mindset. We all must pray constantly for wisdom, patience, forgiveness and resolve to sanctify our mindset by working constantly to build up our righteousness by building up our neighbor’s.

*note:  This url may or may not be an original version, as I found several variations on the story when I went back and searching for the source.