Sermon of August 2, 1998

Transcription

1 Sermon of August 2, 1998 Rev. Mark Trotter First United Methodist Church of San Diego (619) Fax (619) Colossians 3:1-14 Luke 12:13-21 "THE SIN OF BEING LESS" There is a story about a woman who rode the same bus to work every morning. One day an old man got on the bus. He was shabbily dressed, obviously down and out. She thought about what she could do to express Christian love to this poor man. How could she reach out and help him? She got up, took a dollar out of her purse, went over to the man, pressed the dollar into the palm of his hand, and said, "Never despair. Just remember, never despair." The next day the woman was on the bus again. The man got on at the same stop, and came back to where the woman was sitting. He took eight dollars out of his pocket and pressed into her hand. She said, "What is the meaning of this?" He said, "Never Despair won the first race at Del Mar." 1 1/7

2 With the racing season on at Del Mar, I thought it would be appropriate to tell that story. But it also gets us into the epistle lesson this morning from Paul's letter to the Colossians. It was located in what is today Turkey, but in those days a part of Greek culture. If there is one word that describes that world, the world that Paul addressed his letter to, that word is "despair." It was the Greek world that invented the idea of tragedy, the idea that our lives are controlled by fate, by some cold and indifferent power that has no concern about our feelings or aspirations. It is also in that Greek world that Ecclesiastes was written. Ecclesiastes is in the Old Testament, part of the Hebrew scripture, but it is really Greek literature. In the Book of Ecclesiastes is the famous line, "For every time there is a season." Pete Seeger took that and made a song out of it. The Byrds, some of you will remember, made a record of it. It was so popular, it was sung in church youth camps back in those days. The irony of it is that the words that precede those words in Ecclesiastes are the most despairing words ever written, "Vanity, all is vanity." Which means, life is essentially meaningless. It has no meaning. It's all vain. The word that describes that world most accurately is the word, "despair." And it was Paul's job to preach to that world. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was given that commission by the Church fathers in Jerusalem. He asked if he could go to the Greeks and preach the good news about what God has done in Jesus Christ, to the people about whom it could be said the most common mood of their life was a life of despair. In the first century they believed that their lives were controlled by a number of forces, but especially by supernatural powers, alien powers in the heavens. We still have a remnant of that thinking in the astrology columns in newspapers, which I assume people consult today out of curiosity, or innocent amusement. Though the other day I read that Robert Citron, the Controller of Orange County, who got into trouble investing pension funds in high risk instruments and lost millions of dollars, consulted an astrologer before making those investments. He assumed that the ups and downs of the stock market are tied in some way to the rise and the fall of the sun and the moon. When I read that, I thought it was terribly superstitious and irresponsible. But then it occurred to me, it is probably as successful as any other method of choosing stocks. Today it is the exception if somebody believes that our lives are controlled by alien supernatural powers, but in Paul's day, in Greek cities such as Colossae, it was the rule. That is why when Paul writes to the Colossians, he begins the letter by telling them that to be a Christian means you believe that Christ is the one who rules the universe, not the sun, or the moon, or the stars. They are part of the creation. They are harmless. So you have nothing to worry about. You have no reason to despair. He begins the Colossian letter with these beautiful words (which was our text a couple of weeks ago), affirming to them that it is Christ who is the ruler of the universe. He is the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 2/7

3 It is a marvelous, beautiful prose, affirming Christ is Lord. In the Revelation to John, it affirms the same by saying, "There is a new heaven and a new earth." Christ is the Lord of the heavens now, so live accordingly. Don't live as though you are trapped in the life that you have to live now. Don't live as if the position of the heavens determines your progress in this life. Don't live as if you are merely the victim of circumstances over which you have no control. Christ is the "first-born of all creation, in whom and through whom all things are created," so if you are trapped, the chances are it is your own doing. According to the proclamation of the Resurrection, there is not only a new heaven, there is also a new humanity. These are outrageous claims for the power that is available now. The Resurrection not only changed the heavens by Jesus' ascension, the Resurrection can change you. That is the boldest claim of the Gospel. "If you have been raised with Christ, there is a new creation." You are a new creation. "The old has passed away, behold, the new has come." Resurrection is not just something that happens to you when you die and go to heaven. It will happen to you then, because Christ is Lord over death itself. But the preaching that the apostles delivered to that world of despair in the first century is that resurrection is something that happens to you now so that you can start living now. That is the point of the famous Lazarus story in the Gospel of John. Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead. But the point of the story is not that he was resurrected into heaven. Lazarus was resurrected into new life right here. Lazarus had a new start in life. He could begin living for the first time. If you have been raised with Christ, Paul says, then start living now the life you are capable of. Evidently the problem in Colossae was they just weren't doing it. They probably couldn't believe it. They were living the kind of life that they lived when they thought they were in bondage to supernatural powers. They kept doing those things that messed up their lives. Paul lists them: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is also idolatry. The classical way of listing the sins is to put them in two categories: the sins of the flesh and the sins of the spirit. Those are called the sins of the flesh. He is saying to the Colossians, you are now supposed to rise above these things. You rise above these things because you have been raised in Christ. So choose the things that are above. The point is, you can live a life better than the one you are living now. You are not trapped. The gospel to the Greek world was, you have a choice about the life you live. A man went to the doctor for a physical exam. After the exam the doctor said, "You are in terrible shape. If you don't change your lifestyle, you are going to die." The man said, "Well, Doc, what should I do?" The doctor said, "The best thing you can do is stop drinking, stop carousing, stop staying out all night long." "What's the next best thing I can do." 3/7

4 We are not trapped, not since Christ. We are able to make choices about the kind of life we are going to live. Just in case the sins of the flesh are not your thing, he also mentions what are called the sins of the spirit: anger, wrath, malice, slander, gossip, abusive language, and lying. In the Bible, the sins of the spirit are just as tenacious and destructive of human life as are the sins of the flesh. He mentions enough sins in this passage to include everyone. But if it didn't touch you, Paul has other lists. There is probably something in one of them that will touch your life. But Paul is addressing this list to the Colossians. "Why do you keep doing the things that are the symptoms of bondage?" That is what he is saying to them. If you are raised with Christ, you are now a new creation. Live that way. Bury the old self. Seek the things that are above. Then he names the things that are above. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forgiveness, and above all else love, which binds all things together in perfect harmony. Now that is also a selective list. In other letters Paul lists other qualities of the Christian life. This list is tailored for the Colossians. You read that, and you get the impression that they are having a church fight of some sort. They don't like each other. There is some issue that has divided them. So his list includes: compassion, kindness, lowliness, patience, forgiveness. The qualities that will bring about reconciliation between you and people that you are estranged from. And especially love. He mentions that. Especially love, "which binds all things together in perfect harmony." But there are other qualities of the Christian life that he could have mentioned, like honesty, integrity, faithfulness, courage, and self-sacrifice. "If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above." If you have been raised with Christ, make those qualities the goal of your life. You can do that now. You can choose to live that way. I want to suggest that if you don't, then it is a sin. "Sin" is most often described as "pride." That is the way classical theologians have described it. But ironically, that is the way the Greeks described sin. They called it "hubris." "Hubris" means "pride." Hubris means trying to be like God, trying to be something more than who you really are as a human being. Hubris is trying to break out of the human limitation. The theologians read the story of Adam and Eve as if Adam and Eve were Prometheus, that tragic Greek figure who was punished for stealing the fire from heaven. They said Adam and Eve taking the apple from the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was like Prometheus because the knowledge of good and evil belongs to God. So sin is trying to be like God, to know what God knows. Trying to break out of human limitations. Trying to be more than who you really are. That is the classical understanding of sin. It is certainly a sin to play God. But my experience has been that not a whole lot of people are tempted to be more than they are. Most people are tempted to be less than they are. It is a sin if you refuse to use the gifts that God has given you, if out of fear or timidity you are less than your real self. It is a sin to refuse to meet the challenge that life places in front of you with the 4/7

5 grace that God gives you, saying, "I can't do it. I'm not strong enough." It is a sin to despair. "This has happened to me, and there is nothing I can do about it." Now I want to be sensitive to the fact that there are people who are so deep in bondage of one kind or another that they cannot walk out of that bondage alone. But they can still do something. They can still reach out to somebody else. This church has a New Life Center with counselors to take the hand of those who reach out for professional pastoral counseling. There is such a thing as the sin of arrogance. But there is also the sin of despair, saying, "I can't do it," or "I'm not important. I just don't amount to very much. I'll never change. It is no use." "If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above." If you have been raised with Christ, put to death in you all things that are unworthy of being a child of God. If you have been raised with Christ, clothe yourself, Paul says to the Colossians, in this new self. That is the way he puts it. You have a new self now. It is like a new set of clothes. Put it on. Feel how good it is to walk around with a new self. Just try it on, then get the courage to live that way. Now get this. Paul says this new self is being renewed according to the image of the Creator. What that means is that the new self is the image of God within you. That is ingenious. It says your new self has been there all the time. We are all created with the image of God. You may not have known that because nobody told you that. Or you may not have known that because people don't treat you that way. Or you may not have known that because you've got all this clutter in your life that buries God's image in you. But the image is still there. What happens when you are resurrected with Christ; that is to say, when you finally get the gospel message of what Christ has done for you, is that person you were created to be, that true self inside of you, is resurrected. That is what being raised with Christ means. You become your true self. Deep down everybody bears that image. You never lose it. You can bury it. You can neglect it. You can forget it. But it is always there, waiting to be resurrected. Do you know why you get downcast, depressed, feeling miserable? It is because you bear the image of God. You are made for things that are so much greater. That is the human plight. Do you ever know a cow to get depressed? Do you ever know a cat to get depressed? I have said before, "Have you ever known a dog to get depressed?" Somebody comes around, and says, "You don't know my dog!" If a dog gets depressed, he'll get over it. Probably just by licking your face. That is enough for him to get over his depression. But it is not that easy for you. The reason human beings get depressed, or feel guilty, is because they are created for greatness and for joy and for dignity, and they know that they do not have that kind of life now. They may not know what it is that is missing, they just know something is missing. They know that they can be better than they are now. They know that they can be more than they are now. They know that they can be different than they are now. They just don't know how to do it. Pascal said that the image of God in us is the source of both human grandeur and human misery. It is a source of human grandeur because it encourages us to choose the things that are above. But if we don't, that image of God in us will be the source of our misery, because it will remind us that there is something missing in our life. What Christ has done in his resurrection is show that nothing can stop you now from becoming who you are supposed to be. You are a 5/7

6 child of God, so go live that way. Fred Craddock talks about going home to Tennessee, up in the Smoky Mountains where he was born. He sat in a restaurant in a little town on his way home. The owner of the restaurant was the waiter, the cook, and the greeter. He came around to Fred Craddock's table and introduced himself. He asked, "What is your name? What do you do?" Fred Craddock admitted that he was a preacher. So the man pulled up a chair, turned it around backwards, straddled it, and started to tell his life story. That happens to preachers. He said he was born just a few miles from here, in a little town up the road in the mountains, to a mother who wasn't married, in the days when that was a terrible scandal. There was a label on a child that they carried like a leper's bell. When he went to school the other children would say that name above all other names that he hated to hear. When he went downtown he could hear the businessmen whisper. His mother wanted him to go to Sunday School. He went once and he was told that he was a bad influence, so he never went back. One day a new preacher came to that town. The boy decided he would go to hear him, along with everyone else. When the service was over, the preacher was at the door greeting people. The little boy tried to sneak around behind him so that he wouldn't be seen. The preacher saw him, asked, "Who are you? Whose boy are you?" The boy immediately thought, "He's found out about me." Before he could answer the preacher said, "Wait a minute. I know who you are. I can see the family resemblance. You're a child of God." Then he put his hands on the boy's shoulders, and said, "Son, you have quite an inheritance. Go out and claim it." "If you have been resurrected with Christ, seek the things that are above." 1 Thanks to Brian Bauknight Help us to be masters of ourselves, that we might be servants of others, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Click here to send your comments via to Rev. Mark Trotter. If you find these sermons of benefit, please let us know. Printed or audio tape copies of all sermons are available by subscription. Your is welcome. Your browser must support mailto. Click here to send to the church staff. NEWS * SERMON * MUSIC * KIDS * YOUTH * COUNSELING * MAIL * HOME 6/7

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