Three Simple Rules Rev. Jessie Colwell October 14, 2018

Transcription

1 I have always been a rule follower and found comfort in following rules. These helpful guidelines shape the way that we live and keep ourselves and others safe. My son Dean however, does not have the same love for rules as I do. He is a risk taker and loves to push the limits. Sometimes it can be hard for us to follow the rules. We know that our God is a God of commandments. In the Old Testament we see the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 given to the Israelites: 1) You shall have no other gods before me. 2) You shall not have idols. 3) You shall not take the Lord s name in vain. 4) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy 5) Honor your father and your mother. 6) You shall not murder. 7) You shall not commit adultery. 8) You shall not steal. 9) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 10) You shall not covet anything your neighbor has. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in Mark 12 he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This was Jesus summary of the 10 commandments. Now these seem like cut and dry rules for our lives and yet sometimes it is difficult to understand what is really looks like to embody our faith. In the Gospel lesson for today we find a wealthy man asking this same question: what does looks like to embody his faith? He knew about the 10 commandments and had been following them, but he was asking beyond those rules, what was Christ requiring of him? So it led me to ask the question what are three things we can ask ourselves each day to make sure we are embodying God s commandments through our faith. 1

2 Two Sundays ago we completed The Wesley Challenge as we reviewed John Wesley s 21 questions. Today we will focus on Wesley s Three Simple Rules as we seek to understand how to continue to embody our faith. The three rules are: 1) Do no harm. 2) Do good. 3) Stay in love with God. These are three rules we can live our lives by each and every day that will help us remember Christ s golden rule: to love God and to love our neighbors. Let s start with the first rule: Do no harm. Did you know as we speak there is a conference happening in San Antonio, Texas entitled Do No Harm. i This Conference is all about the prevention of sexual misconduct in the church. This is a matter that The United Methodist Church takes very seriously and all our leaders are trained to prevent this from happening. I give you this example because doing no harm is not something that just happens, doing no harm takes prevention, foresight, and great intention. In Rueben Job s Book Three Simple Rules he says, To do no harm is a proactive response to all that is evil all that is damaging and destructive to humankind and God s good creation, and therefore ultimately destructive to us. ii So how can we be proactive about practicing our faith? I think one way we can do this is by being intentional, just as the wealthy man in our scripture was intentional by asking what must [he] do to inherit eternal life? Faith in Christ is not just about one action, it is about all our actions and the profound affect they have on the lives of others. We are intentional about doing no harm when we realize what is at stake. When we do harm to others either intentionally or unintentionally we may cause them to falter in their faith. Think about it, aren t some of our deepest wounds things that loved ones have done to us, said to us, or neglected to do for us. These are the things that make us question our faith and we may find ourselves like the Psalmist in Psalm 22 asking: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We never want to be part of taking someone away from God, that is why our actions and words always matter. That is why we have to always think before we speak and do our best not to harm others. 2

3 The second rule is do good. As we see in the gospel lesson from Mark 10, doing good may seem like a tall order. When the young man called Jesus good teacher Jesus said that he was not good, only God was good. So if only God is good all the time like we so often state, how in the world can we be good all the time? Well we are human and not perfect, but we can always strive to do good. I think a lot of Christians would say that they are good people. Through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives through their faith in Jesus Christ they are inclined to do good and help people. We earnestly want to do good, especially for the people that we love. The rubber meets the road when we hear this commandment from Jesus: But I say to you love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you (Luke 6:27-28). We are called to do good to all people. Our friends, our enemies, those who do not do good to us. This is the embodiment of the radical love of God enacted through our faith. Doing good isn t just following the 10 commandments, as the young man in scripture stated he had, it is a way of life and also requires us to be proactive in our faith. How can we always be prepared to do good? To be able to respond to God s call of goodness to the world, we have to notice the people God is calling us to serve and take action. Rueben Job says, I do not need to wait to be asked to do some good deed or provide some needed help. I do not need to wait until circumstances cry out for aid to relieve suffering or correct some horrible injustice. I can decide that my way of living will come down on the side of doing good to all in every circumstance in every way I can. iii People are watching us friends. The number one reason that people do not come to church anymore is that they do not think it is relevant to their life. They think Christians are hypocrites who do not practice their faith 24/7 but who only come to church on Sunday mornings. Now, this is a lot of pressure on us isn t it? Just as in doing no harm we wish to turn no person away from God or the church, in earnestly trying to do good, we must always be aware of what our action or inaction say about our faith. We are not perfect, sometimes we don t know what to say, sometimes we miss opportunities to help people in great need, but what we can do is be prepared to notice and be prepared to help, even when it is inconvenient to us, even when it 3

4 requires a sacrifice on our part, even when it requires great surrender to our own will. This was at the heart of Jesus Christ s response in Mark 10 today. Truly following Jesus Christ means we have to surrender. The wealthy man was not able to surrender his wealth and follow Christ. He was unable to heed the call to discipleship. This is what Jesus told the young man he had to do to gain eternal life and follow Christ. For this person, his wealth was getting in the way of him being able to do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. He had to let go of his wealth to be able to truly surrender and give his life to Christ. Surrender is not something that just happens one time. It happens over and over and over again. We all have things on a daily basis that we need to surrender to God. For me, it is my idea of how I want things to go. I am a type A person, I have a good idea of how I want each day to go for the church, for my family, for myself, but as you and I know life gets in the way and things often do not happen as we have hoped, but like we talked about last week, our faith lies in our response. Unlike doing no harm, and doing good, staying in love with God is not so much the proactive part of our faith, but has to do more with God s sustaining grace for our lives. To stay in love with God, we need God s help. We have to actively be seeking God. Jesus Christ is certainly a great example of how we can do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. Hebrews 4: 14-16, tells us: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Christ knew that our lives were hard. He experienced pain and rejection just like us, he even cried out the words of the Psalmist on the cross in Matthew 27:46 when he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Christianity is not easy, sometimes it can be hard to stay in love with God through the difficulties of life. Staying in love with God requires intentional action. John Wesley described staying in love with God as attending upon the ordinances of God such as the practices [that] keep the relationship with God and humans vital, alive, and growing. iv Staying in love with God means we are intentional about being an active part in the body of Christ. 4

5 Staying in love with God means that we go to church as often as we can. It means that we are intentional about studying the Bible, that we are always seeking to know God more and to love God and others more. It means we are intentional about prayer. This is our call as Christians, to always be intentional about the way that we practice our faith. This past week as Nelson had surgery, I was so blessed by the way so many different people cared for him. The doctors did good, they prepared for the surgery, the nurses did no harm, when they correctly administered medicine to him, his friends, family, co-workers, and church family did good when they checked on him and sent him uplifting and supportive messages. Through this experience of me watching the way he was cared for I was invited to stay even more in love with God, with gratitude on my heart that there are so many people in the world who want to sustain life instead of participate in death. Hope is all around us friends. We are not perfect like Christ, but we are called to strive to exemplify the way Christ lived. We do this when we like Christ do no harm, especially to groups of people who are the most vulnerable. We can be like Christ when we do good to all people at all times and all places. We can stay in love with God when we as the body of Christ work together as we grow in our faith. The good news for our lives today is that in the action of surrender, we gain eternal life in Jesus Christ who through our faith in him, makes it possible for us to do no harm, do good, and stay and love with God. I want to close my sermon today with this quote from John Wesley: Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Endnotes i ii Rueben Job. Three Simple Rules. Abingdon Press: Nashville, TN P. 30. iii Ibid. P. 38. iv Ibid. P. 53. Additional Resource: Elizabeth Achtemeier et al. The New Interpreters Bible Commentary. Vol. VIII. Abingdon Press. Nashville, TN P