Day 1721 - Growing One Person at a Time

A sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN on August 27, 2017

First Reading: Matthew 16:13-18

Second Reading: Romans 12: 1-8

What does “Growing one person at a time” mean to you? I chose this title to be so ambiguous as to have two meanings to complement the events we celebrate today, the reception of a new member and the baptism of a member.

“Growing one person at a time” can mean we grow in number as a congregation by one person at a time as they join us. Or it can mean the spiritual strength of our congregation grows according to the spiritual growth of each individual person in our midst. This is the way the congregation grows, we add members (usually) one person at a time, we promise through baptism to support their growth as Christians strengthening them and each person in the congregation empowers or harms it, and one self, as they grow spiritually or turn from growth.

Nurturing our members is a collective exercise, but ultimately nurturing our members is a personally beneficial, individual exercise and responsibility.  Each one of us is obligated to spiritual growth. This is what Paul encourages us to do in the Romans passage, understand and use our gifts with humility in order to grow spiritually.

As Paul says, we each have gifts to share. Some od us have the gift of an unflagging sense of responsibility for our building and our programs.  Others have a compassion for our young people that never seems to lessen.  Others have a compassion for the congregation that motivates them  quietly without recognition or reward to send out notes and cards to those who have been away for a while or are ill. Others have a humility that puts high priority on being a reconciling presence with others. Others have musical talent that helps us sing praises that raise our spirits and thank the Lord.  Others are always there to help in whatever way is needed, setting a table, being a great cook, welcoming visitors, sweeping the carpet. You name it and we probably have someone who is good at it.

Paul says we need a few “attitude” adjustments for all our gifts to be used effectively to attract people to our congregation (to grow by one person) and to retain them (growing one person at a time).

For many years I avoided using Paul’s letters because I have experienced so many preachers and fellow Christians use them as a club, beating up church members for various “sins.” But if you read Paul carefully and understand what he was trying to do, you get a better and more compassionate perspective about his words.

The irony of beating someone up over their “sins”, ought to be obvious to you.  The very act of “beating someone up over a “sin” (even yourself) reveals one of the worse sins we can have, an ego that makes you think you are better than the other person and not a sinner yourself. Or, it can be one of the worst mistakes we can make, not forgiving our self when theLord has already done so.

Paul knew human nature because he understood himself. He had a bad temper (Read 2 Corinthians 11-13.). He knew that the small congregations he helped form were fragile and subject to all the destructive lack of harmony one might see in a family. He also realized human nature is fairly predictable.

The most damaging flaw a person can have is a large ego or a lack of humility. Sometimes that ego or lack of humility is a defensive reaction to a self-perceived weakness, insecurity or threat. Sometimes it is just a consequence of being stubborn. Regardless, it prevents us from seeing in our self the same issues we see in others.

I would guess that every person reading this post at one time or another has had someone say something or do something that hurt your feelings or did not give you the respect you feel you deserve by your own measure. Paul describes that as thinking too highly of oneself.

I would also guess every one of us has had something said about them, or a friend or family member that hurt their feelings, or made them mad. I’m sure it happens is the schools our young people attend.

Self-defense, defense of family, is a natural human reaction. That too can be a matter of thinking too highly of oneself.

I would also guess that at one time or another many of us have thought, “I can do that better than the person actually doing it, or they are not doing it the way I would do it,” and felt the urge to correct them by showing them how you would do it. That too is thinking too highly of oneself.

But Paul is not beating us up for it but making a profound point. Ego-fueled behavior blinds us to the reality that we are not strangers to each other but all brothers and sisters in this congregation. We each have a personal obligation to support each other using the best of our various abilities.

We ought to accept it as a given that sooner or later we are going to hurt someone by what we say or do, or vice versa. We will all do it, it is only a matter of time.

If we let our ego get the best of us and as Paul says, think too highly of our self, we will not find a path to forgiveness, apology and understanding, and we will risk damaging the stability of our congregation. The ability to forgive, and to apologize is a divine gift. Use it. To quote Paul, think about this with sober judgment.

Today in particular Paul’s advice is quite valuable and important. We celebrate both sides of “Growing one person at a time.”

We receive a new member joining our congregation today. She has told me many reasons she is doing it, and two of them are that she was invited by one person to visit, and that she found us to be a warm, friendly and accepting congregation of people. So today she becomes one more person in our growth as a congregation.

Paul’s advice is also valuable and important to the other side of “Growing one person at a time.” Today we are celebrating the baptism of a young woman in Piney River after our service. She will become our newest member.

When we baptize someone, we ask questions of both the congregation and the person being baptized, or their parents if they are infants. I will ask this young woman if Jesus is her Lord and Savior and if she will do everything on her part to grow in faith and help us grow as a congregation. I will ask the congregation if they will love and support her and help her grow into the best Christian she can by modeling Paul’s advice.

Did you get that? “Love and help her grow into the best Christian she can become.” How do we do that?

We ensure that she sees the humility in each of us that Paul talks about, don’t think too highly of yourself. In that way, we provide a model of Christian living that we can say comfortably, “Copy my behavior, I’m a Christian.”

When we do that, guess what?? Not only do we provide a living example for her, we also discover we are growing our own spirituality.

So today each of us will demonstrate both meanings of the sermon title, growing one person at a time and nurturing one person at a time, accepting both as opportunities for our own spiritual growth.

Paul said, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” 

You may wonder why I did not touch upon the first three verses of Romans 12. It is because if we are to be a living sacrifice acceptable to God, if we are not to be conformed to the world, or Facebook or the Internet, but be transformed as Christians, it will be a result of striving not to think too highly of our self but to use our gifts wisely and constantly for God’s glory.

Amen

Day 1714 - Sing With a Full Voice

A sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, August 20, 2017

Rev. 3:14-4:1, 5:1-13  

For the last several weeks we have explored the relationship between Christian faith and Christian action, and the negative pressure of our culture that discourages us from its practice.  It is a difficult message, so it pays to step back on occasion and get a good perspective on the most valuable tings and celebrate them, lest we take lose sight of them in our worry about everything happening around us.

To do this, we are going to explore primarily Revelation 5:1-13 by an imagining exercise of singing with a loud voice of our thankfulness for our greatest gift, redemption in the face of our unworthiness.  Imagination is perhaps the most powerful mental capability we have.

If Isaac Newton had never imagined how an apple falls to the ground or why thing keep moving unless you push on them , we wouldn’t have the scientific discoveries of the laws of motion.(This isn’t exactly true, several “natural philosophers had similar imaginative ideas, but Newton started the ball rolling.)  If Einstein has not wondered if we can measure the speed of an object moving in empty space with nothing around to use as a reference point, we would not have the magnificent beauty of his theories that explain so much of the mysteries of the universe.

If artists and musicians had not imagined words and ideas to express the joy and sadness they felt we would never have the powerful and beautiful music, or paintings and sculpture that evoke those human emotions and the situations that cause them. If the prophets and writers of scripture lacked inspired imagination to capture the magnificence and drama of our relationship to God we would not have books like Ezekiel and the Revelation of John and Paul’s epistles. Without the imagination of musicians whose own feelings and experiences are evoked by scripture and set to music, the world would be a poorer and less appreciative of the deep, soul-touching message of scripture.

A great example is the way Rev. 5:1-13 inspired George Handel’s imagination to create the chorus, “Worthy Is the Lamb,” in his cantata, the Messiah.  Handel imagined and created an audible image of scripture.

Let’s imagine we are in the scene of John’s revelation as he experienced it standing before God. You have been asleep and suddenly find yourself standing before a great door opening up into the expansive throne room of God.  A loud voice that seems to come from everywhere, from the air, the ground, even the walls of the room itself speaks you, “Come and I will show you what must take place after this.”

A great wind sweeps you into a room where you see a great throne glowing as if encased in fiery gemstones, and encircled by a bright rainbow. Lightning flashes and deafening claps of thunder shake the room. You see 24 smaller thrones on both sides of the throne, each with a person dressed in while with a crown of gold. Somehow you know these are the elders of the Church. Before and behind the throne are magnificent but terrifying, otherworldly creatures. They look like a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle but have wings and many eyes. (I have a paisley tie whose pattern reminds me of those eyes.) The creatures sing a refrain over and over in a tremendous voice that overpowers even the thunder in the room, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.” After each refrain, the elders in the 24 thrones fall to the ground before the large throne worshipping the One who lives forever and ever, saying, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive power and glory and honor for you have created all things by your will and blown the breath of life into us.”

Fear petrifies you. Surely you are dead!

You realize there is a great scroll rolled up and sealed with seven seals in the right hand of the One sitting on the great throne. An angel beside the throne thunders a question that resounds to the depths of the Earth and heights of heaven, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open this scroll that tell of the life now and to come?” A deafening silence falls in heaven and over the face of the earth because no one can say, “I am worthy to open this scroll, to look inside and read the words of God.”

This tragedy for all humanity overwhelms you. We are lost because there is no one worthy to open the scroll read its proclamation for all, not even one of the angels. You fall to your knees weeping bitterly. In the midst of your sobbing, one of the elders says, “Take heart and weep no more, the Lion of Judah, of the Root of David, is victorious and He alone can open and read this scroll.”

Let’s pause and think about the liturgical structure of our service. These verses may cause you to think about the confession and assurance of pardon in our service. A first-time visitor may not realize that the first element of a service is when we turn our hearts and minds to God. Our first act is a praise of God in the call to worship and our confession is the second part of worship. The words of this passage, “Take heart and weep no more, the Lion of Judah, of the Root of David, is victorious and He alone can open and read this scroll,” is a kind of call to worship/praise, and the question, ““Who is worthy to break the seals and open this scroll that tell of the life now and to come?” and subsequent deafening silence, is a confessional statement.

The confession is the answer to the angel seeking the one worthy to open the scroll. We acknowledge that we are not worthy, it is opened only by the grace and love of God. After the Confession I often ask, “Who is in a position to condemn us?” Only Christ, but he lived among us and died to defeat death for us. He is worthy to open the scroll.

Are we unworthy? At the risk of being accused of tossing fire and brimstone, if you doubt we are unworthy, you only have to understand that the bible captures the relationship between Humanity and God. Every human story in the Bible is an allegory, a symbol, of our own lives. Brother kills brother as Cain did Abel. We betray even our own families, as Jacob bargained his older brother Esau out of his birthright, and later tricked his father to give him Esau’s blessing of authority and inheritance. We complain bitterly against God because we see the negative not the blessings, as the hungry Israelites in the desert did to Moses after being freed from slavery under the Egyptians. “Why did we follow you out of Egypt? Where is this God? We would have been better off back in Egypt in slavery, at least our bellies were full!”

Some betray closest friends just as Judas did. Others cling to our coins scattered among our dollars rather than buy a breakfast for a hungry woman on the street. Some refuse service to a person because of the color of their skin, or the religion they practice. The Nazi’s sent millions to gas chambers in the name of country.  Of the tragic weekend of August 12 in Charlottesville, VA, some spoke in admiration of those who did that evil.

Some experience evil and seemingly arbitrary calamities as on Job, on us, our families and our work. We question God. “Why does he let these things happen?”

Poor Job was a blameless Gentile who God said was more righteous than his own chosen people, yet God allowed Satan to victimize him in a wager about faith. For no other reason than a bet, his family was killed, his crops and husbandry destroyed and he was stricken by sores and illness. He cried out to the one who sits on that Throne, “Why me? I have done no wrong. Every part of my life was righteous and honored you. Why have you let evil prevail against me?” His laments were so loud and bitter his own wife said, Why don’t you just curse God and go ahead and die?”

In all this Job never relented in his faith even though he never got a better answer from God than, “I AM who I Am. On creation day I made the seas to stop at dry land. I made you a little less than God and gave you dominion over all else. My ways are not your ways. Gird up your loins like the mighty man that you are and contend with me. I will repay you, twofold, and that is what God did, true to his word.

Why do bad things will happen to us that we don’t deserve? Maybe I can’t give you a satisfactory answer other than the answer lies in freedom not to do good or evil but to choose to trust God or not.

In the beginning, God looked over his creation and said, “It is very good.” In spite of that, as Paul said, no matter how hard we try to do the good thing, we do the bad thing. That freedom to trust God is a confidence completely embodied in Revelation 5:1-13.

When you are down and out feeling God has abandoned you to the evil of the world, remember your freedom is to cling to faith that the God who placed us here among all the temptations, evil and calamities, gave us a promise of a home where we all will be part of the chorus praising God forever…

We left our imagining exercise bitterly weeping over the silence that answered the question, “Who is worthy to open the scroll of the life that was, is and shall be, to unseal the proclamation of our own redemption and that there is a home? But every Sunday, almost reflexively, we voice the answer in our Confession and assurance of pardon.

The good news is written on that scroll with seven seals. God redeemed us by living in this world as a Job did, suffering every evil the world could offer when his wave of the hand could dismiss all the danger. He was criticized, called a drunkard, associated with the wrong kind of people, crowds tried to stone him, and then they killed him like a lamb, but in the most horrible way they could create by nailing him to a cross.

While weeping bitterly, an elder said to John, “Take heart and weep no more, the Lion of Judah, is victorious and He alone can open and read this scroll.”

Then like John, we see a Lamb beside the Throne. It appeared to be slain, yet was standing alive surrounded by these terrifying animal creatures. The Lamb reached out and took the scroll from the hand of God.

Yes, the lamb that was slain is the only one in heaven and on earth who is worthy to open the scroll and redeem us. That Lamb of David’s lineage defeated the evil and meanness of the world so we can find our way home.

Then, every creature in heaven fell to their knees with face to the ground. You glance up towards the Throne and there are a multitude of angels, thousands among thousands, myriads among myriads, a bazillion, uncountable number of angels who began singing at maximum voice, “Worthy is theLamb that was slain, who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom andstrength and honor and glory and praise. Who has delivered us to God, to God byhis power.”

Handel imagined a song of thanksgiving deserving to be sung by choirs of angels and humanity so loudly in full voice that it shakes the very pillars of heaven! Get a copy and play it with the volume turned high. How else can we celebrate the blessing and thanksgiving of humanity to God?  “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain who has redeemed us by his blood.  Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto him that sittith on the throne forever and ever. Glory to God in the highest.”

Now, does that deserve an amen?